VOL. XXIX NO. 74 2 Sections 24 Pages P18 SATURDAY, MAY 2, 2015 www.manilastandardtoday.com editorial@thestandard.com.ph

A8Time to stoptraffickingof domestics A3

Few strikesrecordedsince 2010

Nepal quakesparks call forbuilding audit

Floyd plansto hit Pacmanearly in bout

B8 A16

VELOSO’S KIN SLAMPNOY CREDIT GRAB

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Labor Day demand. Protesters burned President Benigno Aquino III in effi gy and demanded his resignation during their Labor Day rally in Mendiola, Manila, on Friday. DANNY PATA

Veloso’s family accusesPNoy of credit-grabbing

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By Vito Barcelo and Sandy Araneta

THE family of Mary Jane Veloso, returning from Indonesia Friday, slammed the Aquino administra-tion for grabbing the credit for saving her from exe-cution on drug charges, saying it was an Indonesian workers group that convinced Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo to grant a stay of execution.

Veloso’s mother Celia, father Cesar, sisters Darling and Mar-ites, brother Christopher, and sons Mark Daniel and Mark Dar-ren arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport early Fri-day morning where they were welcomed by members of Mi-grante International and officers from the Foreign Affairs Depart-ment.

The father, Cesar, told report-ers the DFA offered to take them back to Cabanatuan, but they declined and instead proceeded to the Migrante headquarters in Quezon City, where they have stayed since March to campaign to save Mary Jane from execu-tion.

In a press conference, Veloso’s mother thanked the people for their prayers, and singled out an advocate group in Indonesia that helped save the life of her daugh-ter.

Celia, 55, wearing a “Save Mary Jane” shirt, had harsh words for President Benigno Aquino III, who met with Widodo on the sidelines of a summit in Malaysia to appeal for a stay of execution or clemency.

“We’ve returned home to the Philippines for payback... This

is not about money. The gov-ernment owes us because they tricked us,” said Celia in Filipino. “They say they were the reason she was not executed. That is not true.”

In an apparent reference to Aquino, she said: “He is telling the whole world that he helped save my daughter’s life. That is not true. Get ready, we are here to charge you. We will fight you.”

Celia accused the DFA of hid-ing from them from the Indo-nesian media while they were waiting for word about their daughter’s fate.

“We wanted to talk to the media. We wanted to thank the president of Indonesia,” she said.

Celia said it was Anis Hidayah, executive director of Migrant Care Indonesia, who really saved their daughter when she met with Widodo, who asked her about Mary Jane’s case.

It was Hidayah who discussed the details of her case and ap-pealed to Widodo to spare Mary Jane’s life, she added.

The family expressed hope that Indonesia would commute Mary Jane’s death sentence after her recruiter turned herself in to the authorities this week.

Widodo stayed Veloso’s execu-tion after Aquino asked that she be made a witness against a hu-man trafficking ring that duped her into smuggling drugs.

Veloso was caught with 2.6 kilograms of heroin at Yogyakar-ta airport five years ago. She claims the drugs were sewn into her suitcase lining without her knowledge.

Veloso’s sister, Marites Veloso-Laurente, said the Aquino ad-ministration failed to provide her with a capable interpreter during her trial.

“Had the government not been remiss, my sister would not have been in trouble,” she said.

Presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte denied the charge, saying that as early as 2011, Aqui-no asked then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for clem-ency.

Aquino also asked Widodo for clemency and a review of Veloso’s case twice, Valte said.

“The records will bear out the President’s actions very clearly... It is not an issue of who gets cred-it, but more importantly, Mary Jane was able to get a reprieve for her sentence,” she said.

Veloso’s alleged recruiter, Ma. Cristina Sergio, is under police custody after she sought protec-tion citing death threats.

The Justice Department is studying whether a human traf-ficking and fraud complaint against her would merit filing in court.

“We owe it to the Indonesian government to undertake and complete the investigation as soon as possible,” Foreign Affairs

spokesman Charles Jose said this week.

Depending on the outcome of the investigation, Jose said the Philippines may again seek clem-ency for Veloso.

Her sister thanked Widodo for the reprieve as she renewed an appeal for compassion.

“President Widodo, please study my sister’s case very care-fully. Please keep an open mind and heart,” she said.

Marites Veloso said the family last saw Mary Jane at Yogyakarta prison on Thursday.

“There were lots of hugging and laughing. There was no trace of sadness or worry in Mary Jane’s face,” she said.

“We left prison with smiles on our faces because we know that we will see her again soon,” she said.

While Veloso was spared, sev-en other foreign drug convicts and an Indonesian were executed as Widodo defied global anger.

Among those executed were Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring, prompting Canberra to re-call its ambassador from Jakarta.

In Cebu City to celebrate Labor Day, the President said his ad-ministration was not to blame for creating Veloso’s predicament.

“You must remember, she was arrested. If I am not mistaken, April 20, 2010,” said Aquino dur-ing an ambush interview.

Sought for his comment on the claims of Mary Jane’s mother, Aquino said he could not com-ment intelligently on something he did not hear. – With AFP

Back from Indonesia. Members of the group Migrante International welcome back the members of the Veloso family who went to Indonesia to bid farewell to convicted drug smuggler Mary Jane Veloso, but who was saved from execution after the Indonesian government gave her a reprieve. MAnny PAlMero

Two morevictims ofrecruitersurfaceBy rey e. requejo

JUSTICE Secretary Leila de Lima said on Friday more victims of the alleged recruiter of Mary Jane Veloso, the overseas Filipino worker who was given temporary reprieve from death before a fir-ing squad in Indonesia, have come out.

De Lima said two more peo-ple surfaced and claimed they too were victims of the supposed scheme of Ma. Kristina Sergio, who is under police’s protective custody and facing charges of il-legal recruitment, human traf-ficking and estafa by swindling Veloso.

“These two are claiming they were also victimized by the al-leged recruiter (Sergio),” De Lima told reporters.

De Lima declined to give more details regarding the identities or whereabouts of the victims pend-ing verification of the National Bureau of Investigation.

But Justice Secretary stressed that these other cases would be treated separately from that of Veloso’s own complaint against Sergio, her live-in partner Julius Lacanilao who introduced Mary Jane to Sergio, and a man of Af-rican descent identified only as “Ike.”

She said Veloso stands as “wit-ness and complainant” in the criminal complaint filed last week by the NBI against Sergio, Lacanilao and Ike, which the government cited in successfully convincing the Indonesian gov-ernment to suspend her execution on the eleventh hour.

“This NBI complaint only cov-ers the case of Mary Jane. She has personal knowledge on the cir-cumstances and could prove her claim that she’s just a victim, that she was duped into carrying that luggage with illegal drugs there in Indonesia,” De Lima said.

Reports said another woman surfaced in a popular social net-working site claiming that she also encountered Sergio at an airport. She said the recruiter asked her bring a luggage, but she turned down the request. Authorities are already reportedly looking into this fourth case against Sergio.

The Justice department has al-ready issued subpoena on Sergio and Lacanilao, who were directed to appear before Asst. State Pros-ecutor Susan Azarcon at 2 p.m. on May 8 and 14 for preliminary investigation on the charges.

De Lima on Thursday said the government will pursue its appeal for executive clemency from In-donesian President Joko Widodo, in the hopes of commuting the death sentence.

“Executive clemency doesn’t have to be in the form of a total pardon, it can be commutation of the death sentence,” De Lima said.

She said she has ordered pros-ecutors and agents of the Na-tional Bureau of Investigation to study Indonesia’s laws and to see how the mutual legal as-sistance treaty (MLAT) between the two countries might apply in Veloso’s case.

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‘Aquino abandoned workers’

Lawmaker seeks P16k/mo pay By Maricel V. Cruz

A LAWMAKER on Friday pushed for a 16,000-peso national minimum wage, saying that amount would help every family cope with the rising cost of living.

“There is no debate that the minimum wage set by the government is too lit-tle,” Anakpawis Rep. Fern-ando Hicap said.

“Hence it is only right that the wage hike for the Filipino workers should be supported by other sectors of the country.”

Hicap said the minimum

wages set by the Aquino administration through the regional wage boards were too low to support a family of five to six.

He said the highest daily wage for the private sector was P481 in Metro Manila and the lowest was P205 in Southern Tagalog.

In the public sector, he said, the highest was P9,000 per month or a little more than P400 a day for salary grade one in Metro Manila and the lowest was P6,750 for a worker in a lo-cal government unit.

Hicap said the left-leaning

think tank Ibon Founda-tion had set the family liv-ing wage level at P1,086 per day for a family of five to six, while the Philippine Sta-tistics Authority survey on 2012 showed that 6.1 million families were earning less than P7,162 a month.

“As foreign monopo-lies dominate the business sector in the country, the Filipino people would ben-efit if the wages were to be increased as it would some-how lessen their profit that goes out and it would re-main inside the local econ-omy,” Hicap said.

A BIG labor group on Friday accused Presi-dent Benigno Aquino III of abandoning his commitment to uplift the economic condi-tions of millions of Fili-pino workers nation-wide.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) who joined other labor groups in the Labor Day protest at Mendiola, Manila, slammed the President for his failure to respond to the eight-point agenda raised by the groups in 2012.

“President Aquino’s choice to go to Cebu today rather than confront and respond to the frustrations of the workers on this Labor Day is both an abandonment and a form of cowardice,” TUCP spokesper-son Alan Tanjusay said.

Tanjusay said the President’s trip to Cebu was also a sign of the chief executive’s discon-nect with the problems of the workers.

“It is now clear that he is still uninterested and discon-nected with the... problems confronting the workers and besetting the labor sector,” Tanjusay said.

“With only 14 months left before his administration ends, the workers are expect-ing nothing from Aquino and what we are now doing is just waiting for the new presi-dent in 2016 to decide on the groups’ proposals,” he said.

Included in proposal are the streamlining of contrac-tual job scheme, increasing the wages of private employ-ees and government work-ers, lowering the cost of electricity and ensuring the reliability of supply, imple-menting an agro-industrial plan to create stable jobs and al lowing public sector workers to form unions.

– Vito Barcelo

Fewer strikes recorded under PNoy’s watchBy Sandy AranetaCITY OF NAGA, Cebu – Presi-dent Benigno Aquino III said Fri-day there have been fewer strikes under his watch than during any previous administration.

“During the previous admin-istration, there were 259 labor strikes. During the present ad-ministration, since 2010, the sum total of strikes is 12 only,” said Aquino in his speech during the inauguration of a CEMEX ce-ment plant in this city.

In 2013, he said, only one un-ion held a nationwide strike.

This, he said, was proof that Labor Secretary Rosalida Baldoz was doing excellent work.

Aquino also played up the gains of his straight path policy and his administration’s efforts to raise the standard of living for more Filipinos as the nation observed its 113th Labor Day Friday.

The President also said the country has posted an average 6.3 percent growth in its gross domestic product since 2010, the fasttest pace for the economy in

the last 40 years.“Our target is to raise our econ-

omy by 7 to 8 percent this year. Our economic managers told us that if we are able to reach this, it will result in a 6 percent a year average as the fastest economic growth since 1955, or within the past 60 years,” Aquino said. “What does this mean to Juan at Juana dela Cruz?”

He said economic growth would improve investor confi-dence, and the emregence of new businesses wold create new jobs.

At the same time, he said, im-proved tax collections would en-able the government to invest in more infrastructure and to im-prove basic services.

“This is what we call virtu-ous cycle,” Aquino said, noting that he was in Negros Occidental Thursday to launch a rice process-ing center for farmers, and a cyber center to give jobs in the informa-tion technology and business proc-ess outsourcing sector.

The CEMEX plant, he said, meant an investment of P3 bil-lion and brought 800 construc-

tion jobs.He added that the increased

output of cement with the new plant would be important to the country’s infrastructure projects.

During the past weeks, he said, he also went to Isabela for the inauguration of the Lullutan bridge, which has made travel easier, cutting a one-and-a-half hour drive to only five minutes.

“We also came from Tarlac and Bulacan for the inauguration of new classrooms and buildings in schools. In the province of Que-zon, we visited the SLEX Toll Road 4 project, that we also fin-ished,” he said.

Aquino pointed out that the roads, bridges, classrooms, and other infrastructure built in all parts of the country were not by chance.

“We really rushed and fo-cussed on them because these are part of a comprehensive strategy towards a massive development,” said Aquino.

After citing his administra-tion’s track record in reducing the number of strikes, the Presi-

dent called for a quick and peace-ful resolution of a labor dispute at the Kepco Alcon Power Corp., which could result in power out-ages in Mactan and parts of Ne-gros.

“We should be able to resolve (this) in a peaceful manner that is not disruptive. Kepco is a power producer. Power is important for the continued growth of the economy,” said Aquino during an ambush interview.

Aquino said many people, es-pecially in the province of Cebu, will be geatly affected by the power outage if there is a strike in Kepco.

Earlier, Partido Manggagawa (PM) said that Baldoz should not accede to the request of the man-agement of Kepco to assume ju-risdiction of the dispute.

“We call on Secretary Baldoz to give a reprieve to the Kepco unions so that they can exercise their right to strike against low pay and union busting. We hope Secretary Baldoz will remain true to her

Labor Day rally. Thousands of workers from different organizations gathered on Mendiola in Manila to celebrate Labor Day on Friday. Lino SAntoS

new plant. President Benigno Aquino III addresses the workers and families of the 3,433-square-meter, P3-billion APO cement plant during its inauguration on Friday. RALph piezAS

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news

Troops expect ‘Pacquiao truce’

No one can do it better than teachers, poll body insists

By Sara Susanne D. Fabunan and Merical V. Cruz

IN its decision to hold a separate bidding for the machines to be used in next year’s elections, the Commis-sion on Elections assured the public that the Smartmatic-Total Informa-tion Management consortium will not have any undue advantage over other prospective bidders.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez made the as-surance as Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III warned the poll body over plans to negotiate contracts for the repair and refurbishment of 80,000 precinct count op-tical scan (PCOS) machines after the Supreme Court (SC) struck down the deal with Smartmatic.

Jimenez said all potential bidders will have be on equal footing once the poll body opens the bidding for the purchase of 63,000 new Optical Mark Read-er (OMR) machines and the repair deal for 81,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) units.

“I don’t see any advantage for any particular bid-der,” Jimenez said, reacting to fears that the bidding would also favor Smartmatic.

Jimenez said Smartmatic-TIM does not have an “inside track” on the bidding even though the Comelec had already worked with them in the 2010 and 2013 automated elections.

“When we put out the terms of reference every-thing that is needed to ensure their cooperativity will be given to them,” Jimenez said.

“When you talk about (voting machine) inter-op-erability, there are many bidders that will say that they can do it. Plus, it will be put in the terms of reference that the new 63,000 machines should be able to hand-shake with the 23,000 OMR units,” Jimenez explained.

There are ongoing bidding process for the P75,000 worth of 23,000 OMR voting units that are set to be used as supplement to the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines in the forthcoming national and local elections.

So far, the Comelec is still on its post qualifica-tion phase before they formally award the contract to the winning bidder Smartmatic-TIM Inc.

On Thursday, the commission en banc has decided to narrow down its alternative options to automate the 2016 elections by holding a pub-lic bidding for the repair of the old PCOS units or hold a separate bidding for the purchasing of new OMR machines.

By Florante S. Solmerin

THE military and police are confident there will be no battles with any armed group or even clashes with criminal groups when Fili-pino boxing champion and Sarangani Rep. Emannuel “Manny” Pacquiao fights unde-feated American boxer Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday.

Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman and Civil Relations Service chief Brigadier General Joselito Kakilala said AFP chief Gen. Gregorio Pio Cata-pang Jr. has directed all major camp com-manders across the country to offer free live viewing as part of morale-building.

But Kakilala clarified there is no sus-pension of military operations (SOMO) against rebel and terrorist groups.

“No SOMO. We also expect that even the enemy will not miss this chance of watching the people’s champ fight May-weather inside the ring,” he said.

In Camp Aguinaldo, at least 1,000 sol-diers and their dependents are expected to watch the fight at the AFP Grandstand.

The multipurpose hall at the AFP Medical Center in V. Luna in Quezon City is also expected to be crowded with

battle injured soldiers.Catapang said he is confident Pacquiao

will win the bout against the undefeated American boxer.

“I strongly believe that Pacman will win this fight based on the judges’ score-cards. I will pray that he will bring him the glory for God, country and our peo-ple,” he said.

In Maguindanao, Col. Melquiades Fe-liciano, commander of the Army 601st Brigade, said his unit will continuously conduct joint law enforcement opera-tions against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

“Those who were part of the security patrols will be out in the field to per-form their job. Only those who are inside camp can have the opportunity to watch the live viewing here inside my head-quarters in Shariff Aguak town,” he said.

Col. Alan Arrojado, commander of the Joint Task Group Sulu, said his troops will relentlessly pursue the bandits inside their forest lairs despite Pacman’s fight.

“We will not abandon our mandate of protecting the people. On top of our continuous operations against the ter-rorists, my unit has partnered with AF-

PRESCOM and OPAPP to conduct ex-panded medical mission and free concert here on May 2,” he said.

Pacquiao is lieutenant colonel in Ar-my’s Reserve Force.

Pacquiao first entered the Army’s re-serve force in April 27, 2006 as a sergeant and rose through the ranks through mer-itorious promotion. He was appointed to his current rank in 2011 after satisfying the requirements for a commission in the military.

Pacquiao will enter the ring for box-ing’s “fight of the century” with an entire country in his corner as the Philippines grinds to a halt to dementedly cheer on its favorite son against Mayweather.

Streets will be empty on fight day -- Sunday morning local time -- as the im-poverished nation of 100 million cheers its “National Fist” in huge open-air screenings, cinemas, bars and homes.

Pacquiao’s image is ubiquitous, em-blazoned across giant billboards lining major highways and on shirts, dolls and stamps in stores everywhere.

“The world will stop on Sunday. Ev-erybody is excited,” 32-year-old Manila taxi driver Glenn Yago said on Friday.

By Sara Susanne D. Fabunan

THE Commission on Elections rejected on Friday a proposal to scrap the mandatory election service for public teachers, saying the fear of a severe shortage of teachers is belied by the number of mentors who have expressed a desire to serve as election in-spectors in next year’s elections.

“As we have already said, the Comelec needs the public school teachers. We can’t conceive of any other group of people that can do the things our teachers can do,” Ji-menez said in reply to the claim of Teach-ers’ Dignity Coalition that the Comelec may face a shortage of teachers for the polls.

“But of course, we take into consider-ation everything that everyone is saying but for now we maintain that we need the teachers. In our experience, a lot of teach-ers actually want to serve,” he argued.

The Comelec needs at least 240,000 pub-

lic teachers who will serve as a election in-spectors and two other assistants for every polling precinct. Before automated elec-tions, the poll body needed at least 800,000 teachers to serve as inspectors.

In the event the Comelec cannot find teachers who can serve poll duty, private school teachers, civil servants and even competent citizens who are registered vot-ers of the city or municipality can be en-gaged as poll inspectors.

The Comelec will be needing at least one BEI who is an information technology (IT) capable person certified by the Department of Science and Technology.

“Imagine the need for people who are as proven and as responsible as our teachers? I’m sure there are very responsible people around, for the purposes of the Comelec, in the interest of accountability, there is really no one who can do what the teachers can do,” Jimenez admitted.

He refused however to comment on the proposed House Bill No. 5412 also known as the Election Service Reform Act.

“I cannot comment on whether or not that’s correct,” Jimenez said. “We only know what we need and what we need to do. That’s the duty the law imposes upon us, upon them, for now that’s really the only option that we can see,” he added.

Jimenez then assured the teachers that the Comelec will not closes its doors to hear their concerns and needs.

“Hindi naman din sarado yung Comelec doon sa pangangailangan ng mga guro. Kaya nga over the past few years, mara-mi din tayong dinagdag na benepisyo sa kanila,” he noted.

The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition said on Thursday that the 120,000 shortage can of-fer Congress a chance to push for the im-mediate approval of a proposed bill that would scrap the mandatory election ser-

vice for public teachers.The teachers advocate admitted that as

many as 120,000 public teachers who re-fused to render their services to work as BEIs due to their said experience like de-lays in payment for their honoraria and allowances; lack of occupational hazards and injury pay; undue harassment; elec-tion-related violence; and lack of option for teachers to serve or not in the elections.

Chairman of the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms Rep. Fredenil Castro said that his committee has studied the matter carefully and be-lieves it is time to give teachers freedom to choose.

“Our teachers are generally willing to serve but we should allow them to make that decision and not use the powers of the State to impose on them,” Castro said, call-ing on the House of Representatives to join him in pushing for ESRA.

Always our champion. Artist Jordan Mangosan works on a solar painting of boxing champion Manny Pacquio as an expression of support for the pugilist who fight undefeated Floyd Mayweather in the United States on Sunday. DAVID CHAN

All’s fair,Comelecassuresbidders

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Dry spell cuts rice harvestBy Rio N. Araja

THE dry spell brought about by a weak El Niño episode has lowered the production of rice by at least 20 percent, the National Confederation of Irrigators Association said on Saturday.

NCIA president Silvestre Bonto said the dry spell has reduced the annual rice pro-duction of 18.44 million metric tons has gone down to 14.76 million metric tons.

“Of course, there was a reduction of 3.68 million metric tons,” Bonto told The Stan-

dard, adding that the reduction may not be that noticeable because “dry spell has set in after the harvest time.

“But the supply of rice will be enough to meet the requirements of the country,” he said, hoping that rain will come this month in time for the planting season.

NCIA is composed of 1.5 million rice farmers nationwide, said Bonto, who is also one of the board members of the National Irrigation Administration.

Bonto said the farm-gate price of palay has even dipped to P13 to P14 per kilo from P17 to P18 per kilo and some areas in the country, like Cagayan de Oro, is ex-periencing a rice shortage because of high demand, and not due to dry spell.

“A kilo of palay in Cagayan is being sold at P21,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bonto urged President Benig-

no Aquino III to ensure that the agricultural sector is ready of the a single market set to be implemented by the Association of South East Asian Nations at the end of the year.

“Rice farmers are not yet that ready to compete with their Asean counterparts,” he said, urging the government, particularly the Department of Agriculture, to provide farmers with a subsidy of hybrid seeds good for 100 hectares of farm land, four bags of inorganic fertilizer and 10 bags of organic fertilizer for every delivery of 400 sacks of rice to the National Food Authority.

“Such a subsidy will be a big help to en-able us compete globally,” Bonto said.

Meanwhile, the country will continue to experience warm and humid weather due to easterlies, or warm air from the east, as it continues to be the dominant weather sys-tem affecting the country, the Philippine

Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomi-cal Services Administration said.

In an interview, Pagasa weather fore-caster Fernando Cada said the low pressure area hovering in east of Mindanao has al-ready dissipated but the chance of isolated rains are high in the eastern section of the country since it is affected by the easterlies.

He explained that since the easterlies are “warm,” the convective activity brought about by its intense heat triggers the for-mation of localized thunderstorm clouds.

He added that its “rich in moisture” quality also contribute in the formation of thunderstorm clouds.

Cada noted that within the the next two to three days, the country will be storm free as no weather disturbance was seen near the Philippine Area of Respon-sibility (PAR).

Answer Cavitexsuit, SC tells govt

Makati students get cash giftsBy Joel E. Zurbano

MAKATI Mayor Jejomar Er-win Binay gave cash incentives to more than 400 honor gradu-ates in 27 public elementary and 10 high schools in line with the city government’s program to motivate students achieve their goals.

The cash incentives, ranging from P6,000 to P10,000, was given during the Gawad Paran-gal ceremony held at the Uni-versity of Makati Main Theater.

“Dear graduates, constantly reach for excellence, be con-sistent in being excellent. That is the only way you can outdo yourself. That is the only way you conquer mediocrity,” said Binay in a speech.

According to Dr. Dominico Idanan, city schools division su-

perintendent, the valedictorians received P10,000 each, the salu-tatorians P9,000 each, and the first to third honorable men-tions each got P7,000. He saud those in sixth to tenth places were awarded P6,000 each.

In previous years until 2014, the city government of Makati had given cash incentives and other rewards to 195 graduates made up of the top five from each of the public elementary and high schools of the city.

“It is a fitting way to reward our outstanding students for having reciprocated the gen-erous investments of the city government in their education through hard work and persis-tence,” Idanan said.

The incentives, he said, would “encourage them to con-tinue being role models to their

fellow youth.”Idanan said some 40 brand

new laptops were also raffled off among the awardees during the recognition rites, with one laptop allocated per school, ex-cept for F. Benitez Elementary School, Pitogo and Benigno Aquino High School, which were allocated two laptops each since they have two sets of honor graduates—one for their regular school program and the other for their specialized cur-riculum program.

The city government has al-located a total budget of P2.1 billion for its public education programs this 2015 covering preschool to tertiary levels. The city’s education budget this year makes up 17.02 percent of its P12.28-billion total budget for calendar year 2015.

By Rey E. Requejo

THE Supreme Court has or-dered the Department of Trans-portation and Communica-tions (DOTC) to comment on a petition assailing the validity of the P70-billion contract for the Cavite Extension Project signed by the government with the Light Rail Manila Corporation.

In a resolution, the SC also directed LRMC and the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) to answer the petition and the plea for the issuance of a temporary restraining or-der to enjoy the implementa-tion of the contract.

The high court will resolve the plea for the issuance of TRO once the comments of respondents DOTC, LRMC and LRTA have been filed.

Dean Salvador B. Belaro Jr. of the St. Dominic Savio Col-lege of Law in Caloocan City filed the petition seeking to nullify the Cavitex contract, ar-guing that the DOTC and the LRTA were devoid of power to award a franchise to LRMC as it is only Congress which has the authority to do so.

Belaro said the “closed door” negotiations on the project were violative of the

people’s constitutional right to information.

The Cavite Extension Proj-ect refers to the construction and operation of the existing LRT Line 1 to Cavite, by pro-viding trains commencing from the Baclaran end of the existing line, traversing the cit-ies of Paranaque and Las Pinas, and ending in Bacoor, Cavite, including the Satellite Depot at the southern end of the Cavite extension, as well as the con-tinuation of the operation of the existing LRT Line 1.

The petitioner lamented that under the agreement, “the LRTA and the DOTC, as grant-ors, gave the concessionaire LRMC the exclusive right for a period of 32 years, extendible up to 50 years, to, among oth-ers, operate the existing LRT Line 1, the common station to be constructed at the North EDSA end of the existing MRT line, and be entitled to all their income, including commercial revenues from non-rail ser-vices, and the income from future development of the land covered by the project in exchange for the construc-tion of the infrastructure and facilities for extending rail services to Cavite.”

Workers united. Thousands of workers from different federations and labor organizations throw tomatoes at a poster showing President Benigno Aquino III and the words: “Straightened out nothing, tided nothing over” in Filipino. LINO SANTOS

Vehicle donation. Pilipinas Taj Group Inc. managing director George Blay-lock (left) turn over two Tata Ace HT to Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez (second from right) to be used by the congressman’s district office to hasten assistance to the Yolanda stricken areas of Leyte’s first district including Taclo-ban City. Looking on is the congressman’s son Marty Romualdez. VER NOVENO

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news

Philippines resumes fish supply to European Union

Internet shoppers must be wary of red flags

Mid-air glee. A swimmer does a free fall at Maharlika Falls in Barangay San Rafael, Taft, Eastern Samar. MEL CASPE

Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food chairperson Cynthia Vil-lar said this is a welcome development because it would ensure the sustain-ability of the income of our fishermen.

The yellow tag was im-

posed in June last year on the Philippines for its fail-ure to address illegal, un-reported, and unregulated fishing (IUUF). A similar ban had been declared against Belize, Guinea, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka.

Villar said the ban put

By Rey E. Requejo

The Department of Justice of Justice has issued guide-lines for online shopping to protect the public against Internet shopping fraud.

In a 15-page advisory re-leased on Wednesday and available at the department’s Web site (www.doj.gov.ph), the DOJ’s Office of Cyber-crime informs consumers of the proper steps to pro-tect themselves in electronic commerce.

“Consumers should ex-ercise due diligence before purchasing online,” accord-ing to the advisory.

According to the DOJ-OOC, online buyers must “know more about the seller and the product or service and the payment mode. This includes background check and to guard against fly-by-night operators.”

It also reminded the pub-lic “to be careful in sharing personal information and to educate themselves on vari-ous forms of online fraud.”

“Consumers should also know their rights and report online fraud to government authorities,” the advisory stressed.

The DOJ’s cybercrime office also listed “red flags” to enable the public to spot suspicious transactions.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said they issued the advisory to outline remedies for victims of online fraud given the increasing use of online transactions.

“As citizens enjoy the convenience and choice in online shopping platforms, fraud and abuses are hap-pening. These include false advertising and sale of counterfeit goods as forms of deceptive sales practices,” De Lima added.

“existing laws to protect consumers apply with equal force to the internet,” she pointed out.

By Joel E. Zurbano

The Metro Manila Development Au-thority has announced it will open a new route for express Connect Bus system along epifanio de los Santos Avenue.

MMDA chairman Francis Tolen-tino said the operation of the route— Mother Ignacia Street in Quezon City to Ayala Avenue in Makati City—will start next week.

The move came after Tolentino met last week officials of the Department of Transportation and Communication who are planning to expand the cover-age of the express Bus project.

The MMDA initially designated three routes for 50 express Connect buses.

Route 1 takes commuters from Fair-view in Quezon City to Roxas Boule-vard in Pasay City. In between the two

destinations, passengers can get off at Commonwealth, Ortigas, Ayala Ave., and Gil Puyat.

Route 2 takes passengers from Fair-view to Roxas Boulevard but the buses will skip the Ortigas drop-off.

Route 3 buses, on the other hand, travels from Fairview to the Mall of Asia. Passengers taking Route 3 can opt to go down at Commonwealth or Ayala (MRT-3 station) as well.

Tolentino admitted that the people initially got confused on the express Bus because commuters were not fa-miliar with the project. he added there is still a need to determine the viability of the project, particularly the accep-tance and patronage of the commuters.

“We have to prove that the project is viable before we talk about expansion,” the MMDA chief said.

The MMDA started the project’s pilot phase on March 23 up to April 23, and exended it for another month. Under the scheme, 50 passenger buses traverse three routes without stopovers, are exempted from the number coding scheme and are allowed to pass through tunnels along the thoroughfare.

The air-conditioned express buses have a designated color or sticker for identifica-tion. The buses also have Wi-Fi, Global Positioning System (GPS) and Closed Cir-cuit Television (CCTV) cameras.

express Bus is a project of the MMDA in tandem with the Land Transporta-tion Franchising and Regulatory Board and DOTC. The objectives are to short-en the travel time of commuters, lessen the volume of vehicles, and encourage employees to take buses instead of us-ing their vehicles. Good season. A farmer from Isabela carries his

tobacco harvest. REVOLI CORTEZ

By Macon Ramos Araneta

FILIPINO fishermen can now resume sup-plying fish products to Europe following the lifting of the “yellow tag” imposed by the European Union.

to risk the fisheries sector which provides direct and indirect employment to over one million people.

The senator added that the ban was so serious that it could lead to trade sanc-tions against the Philip-pines.

Consequently, the committee amended the 16-year-old Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998, ensuring that the manage-ment of fishery and aquatic resources is anchored on an eco-system based ap-proach.

The committee also said the law against illegal fish-ing was strengthened by the passage of Republic Act 10654 or the Fisheries Reform law, which ensures the traceability of all the catch of Philippine-flagged fishing vessels through a monitoring, control and surveillance system.

On April 21 this year, the eU announced that the Philippines, along with Korea, have succeeded in instituting reforms in its policies to adequately ad-dress illegal fishing.

“We are confident that with this law, we will be able to strike a balance be-tween the requirements for increased production to contribute to food security and the need to conserve and protect our resources for long-term sustainabil-ity,” Villar said.

She also urged the ac-tive participation of all fisheries sector stakehold-ers, civil society, govern-ment, and the academe for the crafting of the law’s implementing rules and regulations.

Express Buses to ply Mother Ignacia-Ayala route

editorial@thestandard.com.ph

s at u r d ay : m ay 2 , 2 0 1 5

news A7

Eastern Visayas businessmen ask for better infrastructure

Comelec ‘buries’

1,279 dead Cabanatuan

voters

“Within the next two to three years we should see the basic infrastructure of our tourist sites to become even better. This is to entice and handle a greater influx of lo-cal and international tourists,” said Oliver Cam, point person for trade, industry and infor-mation and communication technology of the chamber of commerce and industry in Leyte and the region.

Cam, who also acted a con-sultant for the Eastern Visayas Business Recovery Center un-der the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said better support infra-structure should be present to match the massive campaign of the Department of Tour-ism-Region 8 which is bank-ing on the tourism potential of Eastern Visayas.

“More people worldwide

By Ferdie G.Domingo

C A B A N A T U A N CITY—The Commis-sion on Elections has “buried” 1,279 of the 5,000 supposedly dead voters whose exis-tence it uncovered six months ago.

City election officer Leo Navarro said they have already removed the list of the dead vot-ers from those eligible to vote in the 2016 synchronized national and local elections.

The list of deceased voters, first discovered in October last year, included a centenar-ian and 13 nonage-narians (aged 90 and above) who had died between 2012 and 2014.

Navarro said the eldest dead voter to have been struck from the list was 99-year-old Regina Agapito of Barangay Aduas Sur.

“We are now in the process of verifying the list of other dead voters and securing death certificates from relatives in the 89 ba-rangays to help fast-track the cleansing process,” he said.

The purging of the voters’ list is one of two major concerns of the Comelec, which has also embarked on a barangay-based in-formation campaign urging voters to update their records through the biometrics system prescribed by law.

now know exactly where we are and how to get here. Based on what I see, the national government has funded more tourism development projects and programs for the region in the history of Department of Tourism in Eastern Vi-sayas,” Cam said.

Cam however slammed the government for the “very poor pro-active planning of Department of Transporta-tion and Communication in 2014 up to the present in the Tacloban Airport runway re-habilitation.”

The Tacloban City airport is considered the gateway to the region.

“The ongoing runway re-pairs give way for the scrap-ing and asphalting works of the remaining 300 meters

of runway…improving vi-tal airport facilities for the safety of the flying public,” the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said in a statement.

Cam, who has has a ho-tel/ accommodation busi-ness, slammed the effect of the airport repair on the region. “Hotel occupancy rates have actually dropped or decreased by over 30% ever since they re-imposed plane-size limitations back to the turbo-propeller planes last April 14, 2015. We nor-mally have 80-90%+ occu-pancy during summer sea-son but now we just average around 50-60 percent since the restart of the runway re-habilitation,” Cam said in an online interview.

“In particular we still need more local private sector in-vestments in tourism infra-structure, facilities and pro-grams. Local hotel owners are encouraged to network, develop and offer more com-petitive tour packages and plans in partnership with lo-cal tourist-ready communi-ties, tour operators and the Eastern Visayas’s tourism to continue to build up and sus-tain the growth of tourism in the region.”

DOT-Region 8 said that as of April 2015, over three million tourists both lo-cal and foreign have visited the region from from 2013 to 2014, with the latter year generating more tourists. This has generated over P3.3 billion in revenues.

By Ronald O. Reyes

TACLOBAN CITY—Businessmen in Yolan-da-hit Eastern Visayas urge the national government to seriously push its build-back-better programs in devastated areas by reviv-ing tourism through better infrastructure in the region.

Infinity and beyond. Local tourists enjoy a view of Matina Aplaya as they dip into an infinity pool in Davao City. OMAR MANGORSI

Budding ballerinas. Little girls learn ballet at the Turning Pointe School of Dance and Music in Kidapawan City. School director Rosa Cecilia Ortiz-Tagunayon says dancing can be therapy, even for autism. GEONARRI SOLMERANO

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY—The De-partment of the Interior and Local Government has re-leased guidelines to be ob-served by concerned local government units in the con-duct of foreign medical or sur-gical missions by government and private groups in their re-spective areas of jurisdiction.

In an advisory to all DILG Regional Directors, specifically for Regions I, VIII, CAR and NCR, Undersecretary Austere A. Panadero cited no foreign mission worker shall be al-lowed to conduct any form of medical and/or surgical mis-sion in the different localities without securing Special Tem-

porary Permits (STPs) from the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

“Any head of a govern-ment agency or officers of a private firm/institution who will allow foreign health professionals to practice in the country without the said STPs, shall be punished by imprisonment and/or fine under Section 16 of Repub-lic Act (RA) 8981 otherwise known as the PRC Modern-ization Act of 2000,”Under-secretary Panadero stressed.

The DILG official directed all regional directors to cause the immediate and widest dissemination of the health department’s order to all local government units within their

regional jurisdictions.Earlier, the government

has allowed the conduct of foreign surgical and medi-cal missions in the different parts of the archipelago. In fact, one of the programs of the Department of Health is designed to allow and accept foreign humanitarian mis-sions to provide free health care services to underserved communities in the country.

Panadero explained the issuance of the new guide-lines is not to prohibit the numerous conduct of for-eign medical and surgical missions but instead regu-late the same to be in accor-dance with existing health standards in the country.

Foreign health workers must have permits before missions

OPINIONA8

[ EDI TORI A L ]

HASTE AND URGENCY

THE plight of domestic helper Mary Jane Veloso brings to the fore the need for the government to stop its trafficking of house maids. Because the gov-ernment cannot provide enough jobs for its citizens, it embarked on a labor-ex-

port policy to become, actu-ally, the biggest trafficker of domestic helpers. This, de-spite the improvement of the economy--6 percent in the last three years—just behind China, the world’s second-biggest economy.

“Trabaho sa ‘Pinas, hindi sa labas,” said some of the placards carried by the OFW group demonstrating in front of the Indonesian Em-bassy in Makati pleading to spare the life of Veloso.

The country’s labor export

TIME TO STOP GOVERNMENT’S TRAFFICKING OF DOMESTICS

THEY say you can peek into somebody’s mind from the things he chooses to do now and those he chooses to put off for another day.

If this is true, then we get a close look into what things President Aquino holds important from his patterns of action and inaction. Faced with numerous urgent issues competing for his finite attention—and comprehension—the issues that Mr. Aquino does choose to address paint an unmistakable picture of what he values. And what he does not.

For example, almost as soon as Customs Commissioner John Philip Sevilla resigned his post last week, Mr. Aquino’s alter ego, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, announced the appointment of businessman Alberto Lina to take over the bureau.

Purisima of course first showered praises on Sevilla for his performance during his short stint at the bureau. The Ivy League-educated former investment banker, he said, introduced genuine reform by improving the processes at BoC and clamping down on corrupt Customs officials.

There was, however, a time to rest. And Sevilla was about to go that route.In separate interviews, Sevilla said he had been pressured to appoint people to key

positions based on connections rather than on their merit. And he could not just bear that. Lina is not new to Customs. He has held this position before, albeit abbreviatedly,

because he soon joined the Hyatt 10 in demanding the resignation of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. He is also conflicted – he owns (used to own, they insist) a cargo forwarding company, and several others. One of these companies had even been investigated by the bureau years ago.

Of course, these issues hardly matter to an administration that is hell bent on installing a more malleable official at the notorious agency.

In sharp contrast, we keep in mind the President’s glacial pace in appointing heads of other, equally important government institutions. Why, for instance, is there no decision yet on who should lead the Philippine National Police? Commission on Elections? Civil Service Commission?

Take the PNP, for example. Complications arose when Mr. Aquino himself chose his dear friend, suspended police chief Alan Purisima, for a sensitive operation which we now know as Mamasapano. The officer in charge of the Police at that time was deliberately kept out of the loop. Given the already precarious peace and order situation in the country, the deaths of the 44 Special Action Force commandos, and the subsequent drop in institutional morale, it perplexes us why Mr. Aquino would take his sweet time in deciding who should next lead this embattled organization.

The Comelec similarly needs decisive action. One of the last official acts of its just-retired chairman was to approve a P300-million deal, without the benefit of a public bidding, for the refurbishment of the thousands of precinct count optical scan machines to be used for the national and local elections in May next year. But the Supreme Court recently struck down this deal and now the poll agency is working hard to make do with what it can to conduct credible elections nonetheless.

The President has no excuse for not acting with urgency. If he does not realize that he must act as soon as possible, that screams incompetence. If he knows how important these decisions are, but still refuses to make them for one reason on another, that is even more sinister. After all, he has demonstrated that he is perfectly capable of acting fast when he wants to.

BACK CHANNEL

ALEJANDRO DEL ROSARIO

Desperate for money to help their

families, these job seekers are

exploited by local labor recruiters and

lured by foreign syndicates as drug

mules.

policy started in the late six-ties and was conceptualized by the late Labor Secretary Blas Ople. There was noth-ing wrong then because there was a need to send our workers overseas to ease the unemployment pressure that was beginning to build up into a social volcano. The overriding reason now is to prop up the economy through foreign currency remittances of our overseas workers even at the expense of separating families.

But what will happen to the millions of unemployed (9 million,according to the latest March 2015 Social

Weather Stations survey) if we stop deploying domes-tics? The government has plenty of funds for job gen-eration – if only the Aquino administration would stop squandering them on the pork barrel of our congress-men and senators. What we are witnessing instead is a revolving door of evacuat-ing our overseas workers from strife-torn countries and appealing to save the lives of Filipinos on death row.

Our import numbers keep going up when we could be producing many basic com-modities. Because of the nearly moribund manufac-turing and the neglected ag-

A9lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R

S AT U R D AY : M AY 2 , 2 0 1 5

OPINION

A HUGE sigh of relief greeted the news that Indonesia granted Mary Jane Velo-so a reprieve from certain death in the hands of a firing squad last April 28.

We rejoiced. Many praised and thanked God for the “miracle”.

This was followed by posturing and credit-grabbing by those who want to ride on the issue, obviously, for politi-cal mileage. After all, national elections is just a year away.  People and groups argued on who should get credit for the welcome development. As if only one person or group worked for this.

Such maneuverings leave a bad taste in the mouth. It’s a shame that we can-not even transcend selfish political in-terests even for a few hours especially since the problem is far from over.

Mulling things over my first cup of coffee, it struck me that while Mary Jane was given a reprieve, she is still sentenced to face the firing squad. Moreover, eight other lives were tragi-cally lost.

While I am all for the rule of law, I also stand against the death penalty. Studies point out that the death penalty does not deter commission of crimes. It is also a fact that no justice system is perfect. Thus, the system can err. We all believe that Mary Jane is a victim, not a criminal (and I am hoping against hope that we can prove this). Yet, the Indone-sian justice system found her guilty and sentenced her to die.

For the sake of argument, what if another one, or some of the eight who were executed were also innocent? There is no way to bring them back. The death penalty cannot be undone. It is my hope that Indonesia will listen to the calls of the international commu-nity to review, and eventually repeal its death penalty law.

Another thing that struck me as I was reading people’s reactions to the reprieve was how many of us credited God for it. It was as if it was a miracle. We knew fully well of the events lead-ing to the decision, the pressure mount-ed by various groups here and abroad including Indonesia, the efforts of our government led by the President him-self, who reportedly, did not give up up to the last minute, and eventually, the decision taken by Indonesian president Joko Widodo to delay the execution. Nothing was secret here. Yet, many just attributed everything to God.

Following the belief that things hap-pen because of God’s will, was it also God who was behind the trafficking of Mary Jane, her conviction and penal-ties, as well as the execution of the eight other people? In case the death penalty is still carried out, is God to blame for it?

THE SAVING OF MARY

JANE

riculture sectors, we even import (often smuggle) farm products like rice, garlic and onions. Read the fine print of the toothpaste you use—it’s either made in China or Surabaya, Indonesia. The Philip-pines has become merely a dis-tribution hub for mass consumer products and sadly, a major ex-porter of maids.

“Maid from the Philippines,” in-stead of “made in the Philippines” is a common joke.

Our skilled workers leave for abroad in search of better-pay-ing jobs; this contributes to brain drain. More sad and shameful is the sending of thousands of our women to work as domestics in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East where some of them are abused and battered. Sometimes, they come home in a coffin. Yet they keep leaving for even strife-torn areas like Yemen, Syria and Libya where they are lat-

er evacuated and repatriated when caught in the deadly crossfire of warring factions.

The Philippines and Indonesia are the only two Asean countries still sending domestics abroad. President Joko Widodo, who gave a last-minute reprieve to Veloso, said his government will stop the practice because it is a national embarrassment. When will Presi-dent Benigno S.Aquino III follow

Continued on A11

POWER POINT

ELIZABETHANGSIOCO

Continued on A11

A9ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R

T H U R S D AY : A P R I L 3 0 , 2 0 1 5

OPINION

SHE’S ALIVE!

Continued on A11

THE nation is in celebration mode. Who ever thought that one woman would have such a uniting effect on our people? Mary Jane Veloso, for-merly part of the faceless and name-less Filipino diaspora, is now in the hearts and minds of every Filipino. And for good reason. She represents the modern-day Filipino who was forced by economic hardship to seek employment abroad, was apparently duped, made into a drug mule, and has landed in Indonesian death row for it. And to those who have doubts on the power of prayers- think again. For in the final analysis, it could only have been the prayers of the nation that saved her from the firing squad.

But the reprieve is just that—tem-porary. What should make it perma-nent for Mary Jane is to apprehend the people behind the drug syndicate preying on the hardships of others in making them modern-day drug mules. Unless we can prove that Mary Jane’s only fault was to agree to carry that suit case to alleviate her hard-ship, she may find herself back again before the firing squad.

Government should hopefully also learn from this experience. Despite Flor Contemplacion and the other drug mules already put to death in China, government apparently has not learned it lessons.

First, we need to modernize and re-juvenate our consular personnel. Our humble contribution in saving Mary Jane was an Application with prayer for provisional measures, which we hope would be filed with the Inter-national Court of Justice. The ground for it is rather unique—breach of the Vienna Convention on Consular Re-lations. Under this Treaty, the nearest Philippine consular official should have been informed of the arrest and investigation of Veloso at the outset, and not when the case was already in Court. Although seemingly trite, it was this reason that prompted the International Court of Justice to issue provisional measures directing the United States not to proceed with the implementation of the death penalty against Mexican and German nation-als in the case of Mexico and Germa-ny vs. United States, that is referred to as the “Avena” case.

Here, the government should learn that with a diaspora of 11 million Fil-ipinos working overseas, we should have a dynamic and well-funded consular service in every state where there is an OFW. If only because the sweat, blood and tears of our OFWs have kept us economically afloat, we owe it to them that our consuls should have the resources to invoke

protest actions to save the ex-maid, who was to be executed with the members of so-called “Bali Eight” group of hardened drug traffickers. And because Aquino dearly wanted something, anything to shore up his plunging popularity, he went on what even he and his officials be-lieved was the fool’s errand of seek-ing a stay of clemency for her.

And if Maria Kristina Sergio, the Nueva Ecija town mate of Veloso, hadn’t surrendered to the Cabanat-uan City police on the day before

the execution because she feared for her life, the Philippine govern-ment wouldn’t even have any basis for seeking a reprieve. Sergio’s fear that she would be assassinated by Veloso’s family is based more on the Novo Ecijano tradition of seeking justice outside of the legal system than out of any belated attack of conscience – or any action of gov-ernment.

Aquino, much like how he as-cended to the presidency, lucked into a favorable situation. But he’s

due for some good luck, after all, since he’s had nothing but the mis-fortune since the Mamasapano massacre.

He didn’t save Veloso. He just wants us to believe that, which is not the same thing.

* * *I’ve already written about how

Aquino always seems to hold his hand out to an imaginary friend when he joins the obligatory “kapit-

Continued on A10

lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

VIEW FROMMALCOM

ATTY. HARRY ROQUE JR.

A8

[ EDI TORI A L ]

SEVILLA’S GENIE

EMBLEMATIC of the hypocrisy and mismanagement that have become the hallmarks of this administration, the chief of the Bureau of Customs, John Phillip Sevilla, resigned last week with disturbing allegations of political pressure and attempts to turn his agency into a milking cow to raise campaign funds for favored candidates in the 2016 elections.

Sevilla was the third Customs commissioner to leave the agency under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, who has made the fight against corruption the touchstone of his leadership.

Sevilla’s two predecessors had left the bureau amid allegations of corruption, tarnishing Mr. Aquino’s claims of good governance. Sevilla took over in December 2013 with the promise of cleaning up what is widely perceived as the most corrupt agency in the bureaucracy.

That promise came crashing down less than two years later with Sevilla’s resignation.

In announcing his resignation, Sevilla said he was being pressured to appoint certain people to “very sensitive” positions ahead of the 2016 elections, and admitted that he could not finish the job of ending corruption at the bureau.

“I don’t compromise on morality,” the resigning Customs chief said. “The law is clear on what is allowed and [what is] not.”

In its first statement following the resignation, the Palace conspicuously ignored Sevilla’s allegations, and simply announced his replacement, a person from the private sector with extensive interests in several brokerage-related companies. A Palace spokesman assured the public that there would be no conflict of interest, as the new Customs chief, Alberto D. Lina, would divest himself of his interest in his brokerage company—but said nothing of his holdings in at least 10 other corporations.

The announcement did little to engender confidence.

Are we expected to believe that Sevilla’s replacement would truly divest himself of all his lucrative business interests to take a job in the government in an administration with only a year left? Or is his appointment part of efforts that Sevilla resisted to make sure the ruling party stays in power after 2016?

Aquino’s first Customs commissioner, who resigned under a cloud of suspicion when 2,000 container vans vanished from the bureau in 2011, was a close associate of Lina.

Lina was also Customs chief during the previous administration, before he left abruptly as part of the “Hyatt 10” Cabinet members who abandoned the Arroyo government over an election-related scandal in 2005, and who now hold considerable influence in the Aquino administration.

Administration allies in the Senate have been fulsome in their praise for Sevilla, but have shown none of their usual eagerness to launch a congressional investigation into allegations of corruption in the Bureau of Customs, particularly since such a probe might expose “friendly forces” rather than political opponents.

But there can be no doubt that Sevilla must be encouraged—or compelled—to name names and provide a detailed account of what he knows. His failure to do so would be a betrayal of the morality he claims led to his resignation, and the public service he vowed to uphold when he took office at the Bureau of Customs.

In opening his mouth about corruption and influence peddling in the bureau, Mr. Sevilla has let the genie out of the bottle, and no amount of doubletalk from him or his former employers now can put it back in.

ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R

THE REAL THREAT

FIRST, a disclaimer.  One national daily, through an online post, at-tributed to me the statement that the Chief Justice had, in effect, pre-judged the Binay case by her line of questioning at the oral argument.  I made no such statement.  Some-one did call me up however for an interview on the subject. I gave him onIy curt replies though he did attempt, by leading questions, to make me agree with him on this assessment—an enticement I steadfastly resisted.  I made clear: I did not think it was right for me to comment on on-going proceed-ings.  What I did, however, was write a Facebook post on the doc-trine of condonation. Justice Adolf Azcuna was the first to comment: He thought that I had captured the doctrine succinctly.  He agreed with my analysis that the doctrine has its roots in our understanding of popular sovereignty. That note of concurrence, I consider priceless!  The next day, I wrote an extended article for this paper—and earned a lot of flak for it.  I do not mind the criticism, but I am alarmed that the kind I got is symptomatic of a more insidious malady that is lethal to democracy: intolerance for dissent!

There is good reason to ignore

comments on FB posts—many of them betray the pathetic ignorance behind them. But again, they are red flags that invite close scrutiny, if only because, in their sheer irratio-nality, they sound the alarm to the intellectual bankruptcy that makes

it impossible for a genuine democ-racy to long endure.  When Arch-bishop Soc Villegas issued a state-ment on the draft BBL, an almost common comment was: “Bakit nakikiaalam na naman ang sim-bahan dito?”.  Nowhere was there any serious analysis of the argu-ment advanced, no serious exami-nation and rebuttal of the reasons adduced.  Nothing more than an attack on bishops and priests.  The Archbishop, in a personal capacity, discussed the necessity of inclusive-ness, warned against equating peace in Mindanao with the passage of

BBL, underscored the moral right of a State to its integrity.  None of these points of social justice theory and moral theology were addressed by the posted comments.  The bishops were rather reminded that some priests were pedophiles.  They were also told that it was shame-ful for them to have been involved in the Pajero scandal.    It would be less bothersome merely to laugh off such obvious illogicality, but if this is how our countrymen, or a good part of them, reason (or, better, fail to do so!), that demonstration of a dreadful want in thoughtfulness and reasonability should make us fearful of democracy’s future in-deed. When irrationality prevails, anything frightful is possible! 

Tracing in broad strokes the his-tory of the condonation doctrine in this jurisdiction, I pointed out that it has been in our jurisprudence for some time now—carried over from American jurisprudence, and that it actually has roots in our democratic convictions.   I was not advocating the perpetuation of this piece of ju-risprudence. I was however arguing that it was not unreasonable and had in fact been consistently ap-plied by the High Court. The com-ments I got  labeled me a lackey of the Binays, a fraud, a charlatan—pathetic actually, if hilarious, be-cause they were attacks on me, not on my argument.  In stark contrast were the posts of Prof. Jemy Gat-dula of the University of Asia and

We can and ought to raise the bar of

public discourse and set more stringent

standards for exchange in public

spaces.

OPINIONM O N D AY, A P R I L 2 7, 2 0 1 5

PENSÉES

FR. RANHILIOCALLANGAN

AQUINO

Continued on A11sors, for yet another reason entirely. The second Aqui-no has been stuck with the “noynoying” tag, which has led to the widespread belief that he has done nothing of significance after unreason-ably raising expectations that he could deliver everything

from good governance to ba-sic infrastructure as he enters the sixth and last year of his term.

Of course, like other Presi-dents before him, Aquino is fighting the waning of his once-stratospheric popu-larity with everything that he’s got. And like those who went before him, he seems doomed to fail.

Aquino’s reason for resist-ing the decline has to do with ensuring that he stays out of jail when he steps down. This is why he repeatedly declares these days, when he attends even the most insignificant of public functions, that he is not a lame duck and that his power to make his chosen successor win in next year’s

OPINIONA8

[ EDI TORI A L ]

A MORE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE

A9ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R

T H U R S D AY : A P R I L 2 3 , 2 0 1 5

OPINION

INEVITABLE DECLINE

HAS OUR COMMISSION ON HUMAN

RIGHTS MADE A

DIFFERENCE?

Continued on A11

I see no reason why Aquino’s

numbers would improve in the coming days.

LOWDOWN

JOJO A. ROBLES

HANOI, Vietnam—I am in the capital of Vietnam as a resource person in a semi-nar on “National Human Rights Com-missions: Experiences from the Region” sponsored by the Konrad Adenaer Stif-tung. I accepted the invitation because of a long desire to evaluate the affectivity of our own Commission of Human Rights since its establishment through the 1987 Constitution 28 years ago. This invitation finally gave me to the opportunity to final-ly conduct this long-delayed study.

The starting point has to be the very high expectations of the people that the CHR will help promote and protect hu-man rights in the country when they created it in the Constitution itself. Its first head, Chairperson Mary Bautista, should be credited for safeguarding the independence of the constitutional body from political interference. Congress then took the appointment of the Chair and the Commissioners of the Commission should be submitted for conformation to the Commission on Appointments. Rightfully so, the Supreme Court ruled that Chairperson Bautista and her com-missioners were not among those public officers whose appointments needed con-firmation by Congress. This insulated the chair and members of the Commission from political interference.

The Constitution enumerates the pow-ers of the Commission. These include the power to investigate, the power to issue summons, cite in contempt and power to ask assistance from any branch of govern-ment. Here, we have a serious obstacle in the task of evaluating the performance of the Commission. For while the courts and the DOJ whose performance may be mea-sured in terms of case disposal and/ or its conviction rate, the CHR can only investi-gate but has no power to prosecute.

In the case of Carino vs. Commission of Human Rights, the Supreme Court defined the full extent of the Commissions’ inves-tigative powers: “The function of receiving evidence and ascertaining therefrom the facts of a controversy is not a judicial func-tion, properly speaking. To be considered such, the faculty of receiving evidence and making factual conclusions in a controver-sy must be accompanied by the authority of applying the law to those factual conclu-sions to the end that the controversy may be decided or determined authoritatively, finally and definitively, subject to such ap-peals or modes of review as may be pro-vided by law. This function, to repeat, the Commission does not have.”

It is this lack of prosecutorial powers IT’S practically inevitable: All Presidents since 1986 have experienced drops in popularity as the end of their terms approaches. The cur-rent Chief Executive is no ex-ception to this phenomenon.

For instance, the wildly popular Cory Aquino, upon her assumption to the high-est office in the land, could get away with declaring a revolutionary government

to basically do whatever she wanted. Nearing the end of her tumultuous reign, Cory could not even summon up a fraction of the early crowds of supporters that were a hallmark of her rallies when she took on the task of call-ing for the extension of lease of the US military bases in the Philippines – a job that her government miserably failed to accomplish.

Cory’s successors, for various reasons, suffered the same fate. Fidel Ramos was hobbled by the first Asian currency crisis, which wiped out the economic gains that

his term had ushered in.Joseph Estrada, while he

failed to complete his term, quickly turned from a popu-lar populist leader upon his election into a bad parody of himself, until he was ousted for his alleged involvement in the illegal numbers game of jueteng, among other sins. And Gloria Macapagal Ar-royo was helpless to reverse the perception of her term as corruption-riddled, which caused her survey numbers to dip into negative territory.

President Noynoy Aqui-no seems to be suffering the same fate of his predeces-

elections remains undiminished.The reality, as survey after survey

has shown, is that Aquino is just barely keeping his head above the waters of negative acceptability and popularity. And there is nothing that he can do, it seems, to reverse the trend.

It is significant that Malacanang seems to have abandoned the strat-egy of pretending to ignore the re-sults of the surveys which show an irreversible decline in his popular-ity. Where once the palace shrugged

off survey data with dismissive statements about just continuing to do the work of governance, Com-munications Secretary Herminio Coloma now says that “there is significant room for improvement and... [a] need to continually ascer-tain the needs of our people.”

What Aquino seems hell-bent on doing is to continue making public appearances to prove that he is still working, very much in control and the possessor of game-changing en-dorsement powers. If subsequent

surveys show that Aquino’s poll numbers are continuing to plumb new, unfamiliar depths despite his efforts, I expect the campaign to further intensify.

There is no other option for Aquino, really. But history and the “stickiness” of the popular percep-tion that he is a failure as President are against him.

I see no reason why Aquino’s num-bers would improve in the coming

Continued on A10

lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

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VIEW FROMMALCOM

ATTY. HARRY ROQUE JR.

TALK about leaving a legacy upon retirement. Former Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. certainly

left a problem at the agency. Shortly before he stepped down, Brillantes led the commission in approving a P268.8-million deal with Smartmatic for the refurbishment of the 80,000 precinct count optical scan machines it had first acquired from the same company for use in the 2010 elections.

The PCOS machines are supposed to be repaired and upgraded in time for the May 2016 national polls.

The Supreme Court however shot down the deal as contained in Comelec Resolution 9922 and the Extended Warranty Contract Program 1, because the poll agency failed to justify its resort to direct contracting.

Petitioners of the case argued that the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion in approving the deal, which was anomalous and scandalous. They also said the poll body seemed to be rushing to tap Smartmatic for the contract.

The Comelec now is entertaining several options on how to prepare for the elections given the Supreme Court’s decision. It could bid out the refurbish-ment of the 82,000 – it says there is still time because the process is supposed to last only five months.

Another option is to use new machines altogether – 23,000 of them – which are now still in the bidding process. Under this set-up, though, many pre-cincts would share a single machine. The Comelec spokesman has said this would slow down the counting Yet another scheme would entail transport-ing ballots from a group of precincts to a designated voting center. A manual scenario would be when voting is manual with automated transmission of votes. An extreme scenario is having no elections at all, which some doom-sayers have mentioned to spook the people.

The poll body assures us it has enough time to put in place any of these al-ternatives, just as soon as it obtains the final decision of the Supreme Court. This is reassuring for now, given that we have little over the year before citi-zens troop to the polling centers again. We will see, in the next few months, whether Comelec can be as confident as it sounds.

It is easy to get swept up into the election frenzy, which is expected to intensify as October, the deadline for the filing of certificates of candidacy, nears. There is bound to be another circus as the campaign season begins.

Through all this, we should remember that more fundamental than who will get elected is how they will win, or lose. With equal interest and intensity as we watch the national and local races, let us ensure that the manner in which votes are cast, counted and canvassed will truly reflect the people’s will.

China is being singled out. It will not only heighten tension against China but could create a deeply divided Asean that will give rise to justifying the US naval pres-ence in the area.

Conversely, while we preoccupy ourselves in antago-nizing China, it was reported that Malaysia has taken two of the islands previously occupied by us. The un-usual thing is nothing was heard from the Department of Foreign Affairs to deny or confirm said occupation. If true, the action taken by Malaysia of evicting us is an act of war. It is, to some political analysts, more serious than the reclamation being under-taken by China for which they have every right to make improvements of their infrastructure in their occupied island.

In fact, the Philippines’ proposal that Asean ratify the so-called code of conduct for navigation in the China

Sea has made us appear ludicrous. Such is the observa-tion for while we seek to enforce the rules of navigation against China, we are silent on other states that have their naval presence in the area. On the contrary, our support for the unilateral decision to conduct a joint patrol by the US and Japanese navies in the China Sea appears to be at odds with the original position we have

taken. Besides, both the US and Japan are geographi-cally located outside of China Sea area, where threat to their territorial integrity and security would not apply. Likewise, the US and Japan have no claim in the Paracel or in the Spratly, except that their presence is justified by their self-serving claim of keeping that body of water free for navigation. But as some would say, China Sea has been open to navigation since time immemorial, and only after they decided to patrol the area did they start talking of keeping it open to navigation.

Moreover, our endorsement of Washington’s proposal for the US and Japanese navies to jointly patrol the China Sea could only complicate the already-increased tension. Instead of demilitarizing the area, the Philippines is en-couraging the increased presence of other navies which is anachronistic to the proposal of establishing a code of conduct for navigation in the China Sea. We must bear in mind that nobody from among the Asean is prepared to accept the enhanced naval presence of Japan in the area. Even if some would interpret the joint naval patrol as an indirect admission that the US is reeling the cost of fi-nancial burden in stabilizing its empire, that could erase fast the remaining goodwill that the US has established in Southeast Asia. The equation in the balance of power is not alone measured by the support of countries in the area, but borne out of their historical experience with Ja-pan, which to them is totally unacceptable.

rpkapunan@gmail.com

OPINIONS AT U R D AY : M AY 2 , 2 0 1 5

A10

THE Philippines has lately been noisy about China’s recla-mation of one of the islands in the Sprat-lys. In fact, we went as far as accusing

China of aggression. It was a high-profile propaganda blitz to get the world’s public opinion in what Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario dubbed as China’s “bullying.”

The latest of our anti-Chinese bluster was to drag the issue of China’s expansionism to the Asean meet-ing. President Aquino, on April 27 in Kuala Lumpur, stressed the Cold War approach of bolstering regional security in the wake of China’s continued and massive reclamation. But he was promptly rebuffed by Ma-laysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak who said Asean would continue to engage China in a constructive way. He said that it is not to the “Asean interest to confront China, and any attempt to destabilize the region will not benefit China either.”

Surprisingly, it seems only the US is ardently sup-porting our position, and it is not even a member of the Asean nor is geographically situated to justify its claim that China’s activity is a threat to its national security. Rather, we appear to act as proxy that is shamelessly committed into integrating the US’ pivot-to-Asia policy as part of the Asean policy towards China. We ap-pear to be so alone that we could not distinguish what constitutes a threat to our security and what is merely detrimental to our interest.

For our clarification, there are three groups of tiny islands in the China Sea. This clustered group of is-lands stretches from the north in the Sea of Japan to the south of China Sea. The disputed islands in the north are respectively called by the Japanese “Senkaku islands”, to China “Diaoyu” and Taiwan calling it “Tiaoyutai islands”. In the south, we have the Spratly and Paracel group of islands. The Paracel group of is-lands is located west of Vietnam and south of China’s Hainan Island. South of the Paracel group of islands, is the Spratly Islands which is most proximate to us. There are several countries claiming and in fact oc-cupying the islands – the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Brunei. Our legal edge to our claim is that they are well within the exclusive econom-ic zone which is recognized under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas.

Claimants to the Spratly Islands virtually face each other eyeball-to-eyeball. But unlike the Philippines, all have taken the position of live and let live by allowing each to reinforce their physical hold of the islands they occupy. No one has raised an alarm about the Chinese activities or reclamation because all have erected and constructed physical structures in those islands with the difference that China resorted to artificially ex-panding the land area it occupies. They have cleared the area to allow small aircraft to land, built a garri-son for the stationing of their troops, installed radar and communications facilities and made improvements useful for their military and other purposes.

Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Brunei may have their own reasons not to bring the issue before the Asean forum. They see it far more important to their interest in seeking to develop fur-ther their economic ties with China than in making an issue of China’s increased presence in the China Sea. To give preference to that issue could divide and even create tension among the Asean members, with the net effect of endorsing the US’ pivot-to-Asia policy which could make the US presence in the area the only via-ble force that could “stabilize” the re-gion. In effect, to focus on the issue of isolating and containing China could only give justification to the jingoistic drumbeating of Secretary del Rosario.

Noteworthy is the fact that only the Philippines used the word “aggression” in refer-ring to China’s reclamation. Some question our use of the term, for it has no reference to a disputed territory or to an area where the sovereignty of one is disputed. In fact, our position in seeking the ratification of the Asean code of conduct for navigation in the China Sea would have an unproductive consequence, for it seems

OUR CRUSADE TO ISOLATE CHINA

HAS BACKFIRED

GRACE, A DAY AT A TIME

MANY of us were surprised at the turn of events in the case of Mary Jane Veloso last Wednesday. In fact, as The Guardian has pointed out, many Philippine newspapers anticipated events wrongly with distress-ing deadlines, rooted in political and other biases, such as “Death came before Dawn”, Farewell, Mary Jane”, “PNOY is to blame”, “All hopes fade”, and “No delay in execution”. I will not join in criticizing our media. During a morning mass Thursday, I in fact as-sumed that Mary Jane had been executed and then prayed for her and for her family. That we were all happily wrong is certainly something to celebrate and not to fight over as some are doing again in social and traditional media.

I do not know how Mary Jane’s story will end. In the end, Indonesia might still execute her if the new evidence about her being duped and trafficked by a fellow Filipina does not hold up. In the meantime though, the country heaves a collective sigh of relief and takes this gift gratefully. Sometimes, we just have to do that – accept moments of grace, with thanks, one day at a time.

That is certainly what many of our overseas Filipi-no workers (OFWs) do as they toil in different lands. I have seen this in many of the OFWs I teach in the Ateneo School of Government’s Leadership and So-cial Entrepreneurship Program in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Macau. It’s a trait I have seen also in encountering our coun-trymen as someone who has worked abroad, first as a caregiver in Italy in my younger years and then as an international environmental lawyer a decade ago.

One remarkable moment from the events of this week is how the Filipino people – government and citizenry, the whole diaspora – responded as one to the impending execution of Mary Jane. For a country that is so divided, this was a moment of grace.

I am grateful that our government – from the Pres-ident, the Department of Justice, and our diplomats, who took every possible step to avert a tragic outcome for Mary Jane. It would have been easy to just take perfunctory steps in this case and just let the process reach its expected end. After all, it would have been easy to just say – “We have done everything. There is nothing more we can do.”

But above all, I would like to credit those who fought hard and longest, and never giving up, so that Mary Jane would be saved. This includes of course her family, migrant groups like Migrante, and her lawyers. For the latter, regardless of ideological ori-entation, the country must credit the lawyers of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) for their excellent, diligent and steadfast work on this case. I know some of them personally, including some I have taught and I want to tell them how proud and grateful I am of what they had done here. They truly deserve the adjective people’s lawyers and have risen up to the challenge retired Chief Justice Reynato Puno told the

NUPL during its founding congress in 2017: “By call-ing yourselves the ‘people’s lawyer,” you have made a remarkable choice. You decided not to remain in the sidelines. Where human rights are assaulted, you have chosen to sacrifice the comfort of the fence for the dangers of the battlefield. But only those who choose to fight on the battlefield live beyond irrelevance.”

This is a good time also to remember NUPL’s founding chairman, the late lawyer Romy Capulong. Tireless advocate of the poor and oppressed and one of the country’s greatest human rights lawyers, Romy was the lead counsel of Flor Contemplation in 1995. By the side of Romy in that case was NUPL Secretary General lawyer Edre Olalia who clearly has applied lessons from that lost fight in Singapore. As someone who knew Romy well, having served as his campaign assistant in his senatorial campaign in 1987 and as someone who worked in the Integrated Bar of the Philippines Legal Committee he chaired in the ear-ly 1990s, I know that the great mentor Romy was is now beaming with pride with what the NUPL team achieved in this case. I can see him extolling the NUPL team to his fellow human rights lawyers in heaven – Senator Pepe Diokno, Prof. Haydee Yorac and lawyer William Chua, who will surely agree with Romy.

Once, as Olalia recalled in 2012 when Romy passed away, the latter said: “After long years of experience as a people’s lawyer, I can honestly say it has been a treasured journey of self-fulfillment and rewarding achievement. I know it will be the same for all oth-ers who choose to tread this path.” The NUPL lawyers must be understanding clearly their founder’s words during these days.

The story of Mary Jane’s miracle will of course not be complete if we do not mention the remark-able events in Indonesia: in particular, the story of how Migrant Care executive director Anis Hidayah, in tears, made a last-minute appeal to Indonesian President Joko Widodo to spare Mary Jane. The nar-rative that May Jane was a victim of human traffick-ing, as the Guardian has pointed out, is a story that has struck a chord among Indonesians, as many of their countrymen and women are also in death row in other countries in similar circumstances. This is empathy in action, a subject I wrote about in my last column.

In the days ahead, as we are already seeing, we will probably go back again to our bickering ways. On Sunday, during the Pacquiao fight, we will of course be one country and if he wins, the euphoria will last a few more days. One of these days, I do hope that we find a national purpose and leadership that always brings us the best in us. That happened this week in the case of Mary Jane. I thank God for that and accept His grace a day at a time.

Email: Tonylavs@gmail.com Facebook: Tonylavs@gmail.com Twitter: tonylavs

BACK­BENCHER

ROD P.KAPUNAN

EAGLE EYES

DEAN TONYLA VIÑA

lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Brunei

may have their own reasons not to bring the issue before the

Asean forum.

THE CONDONATION DOCTRINE MAY BE WORTH KEEPING

IN 1959, the Supreme Court ruled in Pascual v. Provincial Board that the re-election of a public official excul-pates him of administrative liability for acts committed during his previ-ous term.  The rationale – by re-elect-ing the official concerned, the sov-ereign people want him to continue serving in public office.  This ruling is known as the condonation doctrine.

The doctrine was valid for the re-maining duration of the 1935 Consti-tution, and during the years the 1973 Constitution was in force.  It was up-held on at least two occasions under the 1987 Constitution.  In 1992, the Supreme Court en banc upheld the doctrine in Aguinaldo v. Santos.  It was upheld again in 2008 in Ombuds-man v. Torres.  As of this writing, the doctrine remains valid case law. 

Last week, the doctrine took center stage in the case involving the suspen-sion of Makati City Mayor Jun-Jun Binay, who was first elected mayor in 2010, and who was re-elected in 2013. 

In an administrative case against Binay pending before the Office of the Ombudsman, evidence indicated that the parking building near the Makati City Hall was overpriced, and that Binay had been involved in the anomaly since his first term as mayor.  Accordingly, the Ombudsman issued an order placing Binay under preven-tive suspension for six months while his case was pending.  When Binay learned about this, he sought an in-junction from the Court of Appeals.

Because a large, potentially trou-blesome pro-Binay crowd outside city hall made it impossible to serve the

suspension order on Binay at his of-fice, officials of the Department of the Interior and Local Government post-ed it instead at the city hall entrance.   

Almost after the Ombudsman’s order was brought to city hall, the Court of Appeals issued a temporary restraining order in favor of Binay.  As expected, the Ombudsman brought the case to the Supreme Court, argu-ing that under the law, no court other than the Supreme Court may issue an injunction to restrain an investigation being conducted by the Ombudsman. 

Applying the condonation doc-trine, the administrative case against Binay for acts committed during his first term (2010-2013) had become moot and academic in view of his re-election to a second term (2013-2016).  This was the main argument Binay’s lawyers raised in the Supreme Court.  

It must be emphasized that at the time the administrative case was lodged against Binay, the Ombuds-man knew that the condonation doc-trine was in force, and that Binay was entitled to invoke it as a matter of right.  Why the Ombudsman still went on to pursue the administra-tive case against Binay when it had become moot and academic is a mys-tery. 

At the hearing held in Baguio City, Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Serreno scolded Binay’s law-yers for invoking the doctrine.  This came as a surprise to many, includ-ing retired Supreme Court Justice Vi-cente V. Mendoza, an acknowledged expert in Constitutional Law.  Justice Mendoza told the news media that the scolding which Binay’s lawyers

got from the Chief Justice is uncalled for because the doctrine remains in force today, and lawyers are expected to invoke established doctrine – espe-cially one which has been repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court during the past 55 years.    

Serreno took the view that the doc-trine will wreak havoc on the consti-tutional framework, and will exempt re-elected officials from penalties im-posed by law on erring public officers.  Justice Antonio Carpio remarked that the creation of the Office of the Ombudsman in the 1987 Constitu-tion means that public officials can be held accountable at all times, even af-ter the end of their service.  A number of observers said that the doctrine is outdated and ought to be abandoned by the Supreme Court.  A congress-man even threatened that if the Court does not do so, he would file a bill to kill the doctrine.

For whatever the foregoing views are worth, it appears that abandoning the condonation doctrine may not be a good idea, and may even violate the concept of popular sovereignty.

Under the law, an erring public of-ficer can be charged in either a crimi-nal case or an administrative case.  In a criminal case, the public officer fac-es the possibility of being sentenced to a prison term and being removed from office.  The issue in a criminal case is whether or not the public of-ficer incurred criminal liability.  In an administrative case, the public offi-cer faces the possibility of removal or suspension from office.  The issue in an administrative case is whether or not the public officer is fit to continue

serving the public.  The administra-tive case against Binay must be appre-ciated from the foregoing perspective. 

Thus, when the people of Makati, in their sovereign capacity in matters exclusive to Makati governance, re-elected Binay in 2013, it must be as-sumed, pursuant to the condonation doctrine, that they forgave Binay for whatever administrative liability he may have incurred during his first term as mayor.

To say that it is an outrage for a pub-lic official to avoid penalties through the simple invocation of the condo-nation doctrine is an unwarranted generalization.  If the public official did commit anomalies, then the cor-responding criminal case should be filed against him.  The condonation doctrine does not apply in criminal cases.  This was explicitly stated in the jurisprudence cited earlier in this dis-cussion.  Thus, if a criminal case had been filed against Binay, the people of Makati cannot condone any criminal liability on the part of their mayor.  Besides, a criminal case against the mayor of Makati will be prosecuted in the name of the People of the Phil-ippines, and not in the name of the people of Makati.

It isn’t the fault of Binay that the condonation doctrine exists, and that it happens to be in his favor.  Like-wise, the creation of the Office of the Ombudsman under the 1987 Con-stitution did not render the doctrine obsolete or outdated.  As stated ear-lier, the doctrine was upheld by the Supreme Court at least twice when the 1987 Constitution was already in effect.  

A11ADELLE CHUAE D I T O R

S AT U R D AY : M AY 2 , 2 0 1 5

OPINION

HAIL TO THE CHAIR

VICTOR AVECILLA

lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph

While I fully respect people’s right to practice religion, It just perplexes me how easy it is for many to attribute ev-erything to God’s will without looking at the whole picture.

The truth is, the mission of saving Mary Grace is an unfinished business. To truly save her (and others who may be in her shoes in the future) we, as a country need to do important things.

We need to find out what the Philip-pine Embassy in Indonesia did to assist Mary Jane from the beginning.

Mary Jane was caught in April 2010. Reports say that she was interrogated in Bahasa, a language she did not un-derstand at that time without an inter-preter. Her trial lasted six months and was already sentenced by October of the same year. During her trial, she was given a police-assigned lawyer and her interpreter was a mere student. The first appeal from our government was nearly a year after her conviction.

Where were our representatives in In-donesia at the time of Mare Jane’s trial? What assistance if any, was given dur-ing this period? Is it possible that Mary Jane could have been acquitted if she re-ceived adequate help from our officials?

Granting that 2010 was an election year and our new government was re-organizing then, did this also mean that embassies were unable to act on urgent

matters? When did our national gov-ernment know about Mary Jane’s case and why did it take almost a year to make the appeal?

Indonesian President Widodo report-edly asked why the uproar only hap-pened after he rejected the appeal in January of this year. We must ask the same question. What did our govern-ment do in the five years that Mare Jane was in death row?

Answers to these questions are crucial if we are to prevent similar problems from happening. And if it is proven that our officials in Indonesia neglected their responsibilities to assist a Philip-pine national, they should be held ac-countable.

We should be able to show Indonesia that Mary Jane is innocent and a victim of trafficking.

We cannot afford to bungle the cases against her trafficker and her cohorts in the drug syndicate. We must be very careful especially with technicalities because we do not want the accused to walk because of such.

A lot hinges on our judicial processes. Mary Jane’s life may be dependent on how successful we are in handling this case against those who victimized her.

If we are able to prove our case, then we may be able to show Indonesia that its justice system is not infallible. This might be a step to help its government to be open to review its death penalty.

We need to address the root causes of massive migration of Filipinos for em-ployment.

We have around eleven million Filipi-nos living and/or working abroad. This is about twice the population of small countries like Denmark and Sweden. Such is the magnitude of Filipino mi-gration.

Our OFWs are young. Almost half are between 25 to 34 years and women dominate the age groups 15 to 24 and 25 to 29. One in three OFWs is unskilled including our domestics and construc-tion workers who make up the biggest bulk – 32.7 percent. Service workers like chambermaids, waitresses and waiters come next – 15.5 percent. Pro-fessionals only make up 10.6 percent of our OFWs.

From this profile alone we can already say that we send our people, especially our women, to take on jobs that make them vulnerable to various forms of abuse. This is the kind of labor export policy that we have.

To truly save our Mary Janes now and in the future, we must seriously address the root causes of massive migration—pov-erty and lack of gainful employment and livelihood opportunities. It is only when we are able to do these that we can say that we have freed and saved Mary Jane.

bethagsioco@gmail.com       @bethang-sioco on Twitter     Elizabeth Angsioco on Facebook

his lead?Desperate for money to help their

families, these job seekers are ex-ploited by local labor recruiters and lured by foreign syndicates as drug mules. There are presently 87 Fili-pinos languishing on death row in various countries after being con-victed of drug trafficking. Not too long ago, China executed a group of drug traffickers, including two Filipinos.

Last Wednesday, the Indone-sian government executed by fir-ing squad convicted drug traffickers from Australia, France and Brazil. Veloso was given a reprieve pend-ing the judicial review of her case on the intercession of President Aquino with President Widodo.

The executions by firing squad had diplomatic repercussion on In-donesia’s bilateral relations with the countries of the death convicts. Australia, Brazil and France have re-called their ambassadors to Jakarta. But President Widodo has shown his resolve in following the law to rid his country of the drug menace.

What an admirable leader; how we wish we had one like a Widodo or Lee Kuan Yew.

Time... From A9 The... From A9

A12sports@thestandard.com.ph

sat ur day: may 2 , 2 0 1 5

sports

Jr. NBA fueling young cagers’ dreams

Thai spikers stamp class

By Peter Atencio

THE JrNBA/JrWNBA Pre-sented by Alaska selected the 10 best boys and five best girls basketball players from all over the country who are 10 to 14 years old.

Of those players Sebastian Locsin, Miguel Luigi Santos, Lloyd Raphael Oliva, Robert Alomar Castro and Heart Pagara consider themselves very lucky to be chosen from over 7,000 boys and girls to be members of the JrNBA/JrWNBA All-Star teams.

During the final day of the National Training Camp of the JrNBA/JrWNBA Presented by Alaska last weekend at the SM Mall Asia Music Hall Locsin made an effort to show well he hustled and set screens during the all-star game.

His hard work paid off and he eventu-ally became one of 10 boys who became part of the final selection.

Locsin credited his father Noli Locsin,

a former Philippine Basketball Asso-ciation standout, for teaching the moves that he needed to learn when he was younger.

“Iyung gulang at iyung moves na mag-papaiwas ng bola. Iyun po ang tinuro niya sa akin (My father taught me the physical moves to protect the ball),” said the 13-year-old student at La Salle Greenhills.

Standing 5’5”, Locsin has not yet grown to the height and heft of his father during the elder Locsin’s heyday in the professional league. Locsin believes that will soon change.

“Siguro, in four years, mag-iimprove pa ako hanggang gumaling katulad ng father ko (Perhaps in four years I will improve to become a really good player like my father),” said Locsin.

The four boys and one girl are prod-ucts of the Alaska Basketball Power Camp. According to Alaska Milk VP for Marketing Blen Fernando it’s a tes-tament to the effectiveness of the camp that so many of their campers made it to the final JrNBA/JrWNBA all-star squad.

“The program is meant to help the par-ticipants become the best basketball player

they could be through the rigorous drills designed by our Power Camp Director Jeff Cariaso. But more importantly our camps teach the players the important star values of Sportsmanship, Teamwork, the right Attitude and Respect. The participants not only become better players but better persons and members of our community,” said Fernando.

Being part of the JrNBA has inspired Santos to be a role model to his peers at the Ateneo de Manila University.

“For me, I need to stay fit and healthy. These are the things that the guys will follow,” said Santos, 14, a grade 7 student who was also chosen Alaska Ambassa-dor of Goodwill.

He is upbeat being among the top 10. The 5’11” Santos said the program taught him how to be part of a team and help his teammate get focused with the things that they need to do to win games.

“It’s about helping my teammates get focused on court. It’s all about giving my 100 percent,” said Santos.

The Alaska Basketball Power Camp, according to Santos, developed his skills on team play and the JrNBA program improved it further.

Because of this, Santos feels confident at finding a spot among Ateneo Blue Ea-glets in the coming years.

“I’m not part of the Blue Eaglets var-sity team yet. It’s still far. I’m still trying out. I just need to get focused at the mo-ment,” said Santos.

Oliva, on the other hand, started get-ting serious in the game of basketball only a year ago.

The 13-year-old stands 6’4”. He was encouraged by his uncle John Oliva - who used to play for the Lhuillier Jewel-lers and Mama’s Love in the Philippine Basketball League - to play basketball because of his height.

Last year, his mom Rosemarie re-quested La Salle Greenhills coach Allen Ricardo to help him work on his game. Oliva eagerly heeded Ricardo’s teachings and a year later he has improved enough to make it to the JrNBA/JrWNBA NTC.

“Displina lang po. Lahat tinuro niya (Ricardo) sa akin para gumaling. Kaya sobrang saya ko po nung napili ako sa JrNBA all-star team (Discipline. I was taught everything by Ricardo to become better. I’m very happy to be selected to the JrNBA team),” said Oliva.

SOUTHEAST Asian superpower Thailand made its presence felt early when it clobbered Uzbekistan, 25-14, 25-10, 25-13, on opening day of the 1st Rebisco Asian U23 Women’s Champi-onship powered by PLDT Home and Smart Live More yesterday at the Phil-sports Arena in Pasig City.

Banking on well-timed combina-tion plays and a relentless defense, the Thais were dominant from start to finish to claim the easy victory in the preliminaries of Group D of this tournament, which stakes two tickets to the World U23 Women’s Champi-onship in Ankara, Turkey.

Also pulling off an easy conquest was India, which smothered Macau,

25-10, 25-14, 25-19, in the first match of Group B.

Nirmala fired 15 kills for a total of 17 points, while Muraleedharan Shya-mala Poornima scored 13 points for the Indians, who took advantage of Macau’s poor net defense and lousy receptions.

But still, it was Thailand, which generated most of the attention from a supportive Filipino crowd.

With setter Pornpun Guedpard dictating the tempo and hitter Ajcharaporn Kongyot doing dam-age offensively, the Thais displayed a f lawless performance, enough for the opposing coach to predict that they will easily win the crown.

Robert Alomar Castro (18) tries to keep pace with quick-stepping Joshua Garing (left). The jitterbug guards were the two youngest and shortest players to make the JrNBA All-Star squad named during the National Training Camp last weekend. Left panel shows Luisa Martina De La Paz (26) driving hard to the hoop against defender Luisa Krizelle San Juan (29).

Ten boys and five girls accept the honor of being selected to the JrNBA/JrWNBA All-Star teams during ceremonies at the SM MOA Music Hall last weekend. With them are (from left) Alaska VP for Marketing Blen Fernando, coach Topex Robinson, Alaska Power Camp Director Jeff Cariaso, NBA Philippines Country Manager Carlo Singson, coach Chris Sumner, WNBA legend Ruth Riley and Philadelphia 76ers star player Nerlens Noel.

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sat ur day: may 2 , 2 0 1 5

sports

The Bucksstop here

University of the East, Rizal Tech U spikers clash in finalsLINGAYEN– Holding twice-to-beat advantages in the semifinal round, University of the East and Rizal Technological University didn’t waste any time in stamping their class against their less-expe-rienced opponents to arrange an all-Metro Manila championship duel at the Capitol Beachfront in

the 2015 Pista’y Dayat Beach Vol-leyball tournament here.

RTU volleybelles Jessa Aranda and Jonafer Canete San Pedro bundled out the Lingayen-LGU pair of Joan Marie Fernandez and niece Josephine Caguioa. 21-13, while UE’s Francislyn Cais and Madel Gavarra made short work

of rookies Diane Latayan and Alby Cubilla, 21-12, of Mapua 2 to reach the finals of the tournament orga-nized by former Philippine Sports Commission Commissioner Tisha Abunda, in cooperation with Pan-gasinan Governor Amado Espino and Lingayen 2nd District Rep. Leopoldo Bataoil.

RTU and UE actually had trouble-free rides to the semis af-ter cruising to the semis with a 2-0 and 3-0 slates, respectively after the preliminaries, leaving Mapua 1, Mapua 2 and Pangasinan teams Lingayen-LGU and Labrador to battle it out in the quarterfinals.

In the quarterfinals, Lingay-

en-LGU easily dispatched the Mapua 1 team of Shaira Her-mano and Niella Ramilo, 21-12 to arrange a semis match against LGU-Lingayen, while Mapua 2 posted the same score in oust-ing the Labrador pair of Maikka Baaclo and Jovy May Sison.

Arman Armero

MILWAUKEE—Mike Dunleavy scored a team-high 20 points as the Chicago Bulls cruised to a 120-66 drubbing of the Milwaukee Bucks Thurs-day to reach the second round of the NBA playoffs.

Zaragosa shoots course recordRUPERT Zaragosa shot a course record eight-under-par in the second round, en route to a convincing win in the boys’ 15-17 years division in the Philippine Airlines Junior World Golf Championships qualify-ing tournament recently at the Splen-dido Taal Golf and Country Club in Nasugbu, Batangas.

Zaragosa eclipsed the old mark of 65 set by professional Miguel Tabuena with nine birdies against a bogey from the gold tees and with his other rounds of 71, 70 and 72, posted a 277 to fin-ish 11 strokes ahead of Jelbert Gamo-lo, who had 74-73-68-73-288 in the third leg of the ICTSI-JGFP Summer Tour that selected the country’s bets to the coming Junior World tilt in San Diego, California.

Zaragosa will be flown by national carrier PAL to Los Angeles for free as one of the 12 division champions of the quali-fier also sponsored by the Philippine Golf Foundation, Golf Depot, Martin Lorenzo, Crystal Catx trophies, Delimondo and In-quirer Golf.

Carl Jano Corpus and Jolo Timothy Mag-calayo also snagged free tickets for topping the boys’ 13-14 years and 11-12 years age brackets, respectively.

Corpus claimed a six-stroke win over cousin Aidric Chan, with his 74-70-70-74-288, while Magcalayo defied the odds and routed the field with his 71-72-69-74-286.

Zaragosa and Gamolo led the four quali-fiers in their age group with Ryan Mon-

salve and Wei Wei Gao tak-ing the two other berths.

Corpus and Chan will banner the PH bid in the 13-14

class in San Di-ego, with Wei Yu Gao (297) salvag-

ing the third and last berth.

Magcalayo, mean-while, was joined as boys 11-12 qualifi-ers by Riggs Illes-cas (318), Sean Ra-mos (325) and Josh Jorge (328).

The Bulls easily eliminated the Bucks in game six, beating them so soundly that their 54-point win margin was the third largest in NBA postseason history.

They advance to face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East-ern Conference semi-finals.

The Bulls’ win was just four points shy of the 133-75 shel-lacking Minnesota delivered to St. Louis in 1956. It was also the most lopsided postseason game for both franchises.

In the other playoff contest Thursday, Blake Griffin finished with 26 points, 12 rebounds and six assists, and the Los Angeles Clippers beat the Spurs in San Antonio 102-96 to avoid elimi-nation and force game seven in their first-round Western Con-ference series.

Bulls star Derrick Rose tallied 15 points, seven assists and five re-bounds and was given the fourth quarter off with the game sewn up. Pau Gasol and Jimmy Butler scored 19 and 16 points, respec-tively, and Joakim Noah finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

The Bucks made it a competi-tive series with two straight wins after going down 3-0. But they

trailed from start to finish and showed little fight except to land a few cheap shots that resulted in technical fouls and ejections.

Dunleavy was on the wrong end of a Giannis Antetokounmpo body check late in the second quarter. Chicago was leading by 30 when a frustrated Antetokounmpo ham-mered Dunleavy as he was shoot-ing a three-pointer.

Dunleavy made the shot de-spite being blind-sided. Ante-tokounmpo was ejected and had to watch the rest of the blowout from the locker room.

All 13 players scored for coach Jason Kidd’s team, with Zaza Pa-chulia’s eight points leading the way. Milwaukee turned the ball over 18 times.

An already action-packed North American sports Saturday, featuring the Kentucky Derby and Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao super fight, now gets a Spurs-Clippers winner-take-all contest.

Chris Paul recorded his second straight double-double with 19 points and 15 assists, DeAndre Jordan finished with 15 points and 14 rebounds, and J.J. Redick added 19 points in the win. AFP

McIlroy, Spieth keep perfect starts at WGC

SAN FRANCISCO—World number one Rory McIlroy and Masters champi-on Jordan Spieth maintained their per-fect starts to the WGC-Championship Match Play on Thursday to stay firmly on course for a place in the last 16.

Northern Irishman McIlroy, an easy winner in his opening group game on Wednesday, defeated Brandt Snedeker by two up at San Francisco’s Harding Park to make it two victories out of two in the lucrative $9.25 million event.

The 25-year-old superstar will now face his 2007 Walker Cup rival Billy Horschel on Friday with a place in the knockout rounds on offer.

Horschel joined McIlroy at the top of Group 1 after notching his second win of the tournament, beating Jason Dufner 3&2.

Friday’s game between McIlroy and Horschel will revive memories of their ill-tempered duels in the Walker Cup eight years ago but the two men have

put their animosity behind them and are now on friendly terms.

Second seed Spieth meanwhile trailed early against world number 41 Matt Every but soon turned things around to wrap up a convincing 4&3 win thanks to a red-hot putting display.

Spieth will face England’s Lee West-wood on Friday with the winner go-ing through to the last 16. Westwood squeezed past Finland’s Mikko Ilonen by one up in a nervy encounter that al-most went to sudden death.

Westwood had a short birdie putt to seal victory on the 18th but missed, giv-ing Ilonen the chance to force an extra hole. But Ilonen’s putt to save the match lipped out leaving Westwood a relieved winner.

In other games Thursday, Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee stunned world number five Jim Furyk to keep alive his hopes of qualification for the weekend. AFP

Mapua’s Shaira Hermano dives to keep the ball in play in the 2015 Pista’y Dayat Beach Volleyball in Lingayen, Pangasinan. NANTE AZORES

Zaragosa

A14S AT U R D AY : M AY 2 , 2 0 1 5

SPORTSsports@thestandard.com.ph

Decency and classWHEN the pride of the Philippines, e i g h t - d i v i s i o n world champion Manny Pacquiao steps into the ring

at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas tomorrow, shouldn’t we, boxing media and fans lean back for a moment and realize what manner of man is Floyd Mayweather Jr., who, by all esti-mates, will be around $250 million richer when the so-called “Fight of the Century” is over.

Have we ever realized to what extent this abrasive, arrogant American and his obnoxious father, Floyd Mayweather Sr. have taken advantage of the innate goodness and humility of Pacquiao to insult him and ridicule his talent even after the prestigious Boxing Writers Association of America recognized him as “The Fighter of the Decade?”

Are some of us so enamored with his skill as a boxer and his much-ballyhooed shoulder roll, which five-division world champion Nonito Donaire pointed out, after watching some of the fight videos of the late Hall-of-Famer Gabriel “Flash” Elorde’s in our home, was originally a product of Elorde’s innate skill.

It’s like the “bolo punch,” which most boxing his-torians attribute to Cuba’s world welterweight cham-pion Kid Gavilan, when the artful practitioner of the “bolo punch” was middleweight Filipino champion Ceferino Garcia, who perfected the wide sweeping uppercut motion when harvesting sugarcane with a bolo in the fields of Southern Philippines.

No question, Mayweather is a defensive genius, but he is nowhere near the complete boxer despite his unbeaten record of 47 wins, which is a number crunched out by picking and choosing opponents he could beat.

One of his early fights against Jose Luis Castillo demonstrated Mayweather’s lock on the officials ap-pointed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission as he won a unanimous 12-round decision in a fight most media and educated fight fans believe he lost.

The strange judging mentality in Las Vegas was clearly exposed when Mayweather dominat-ed Castillo in the rematch, but inexplicably, the scorecards were closer.

Even when Floyd won a split decision victory of Oscar De La Hoya, there were quite a few who felt that Mayweather, as a challenger, didn’t do enough to wrest the title from the champion, although De La Hoya had to share in the blame for not using his jab, which was an effective weapon and for easing off in the last two rounds.

When he faced the much-smaller Juan Manuel Marquez, Mayweather violated the stipulated weight limit and ended up paying a $600,000 fine rather than shed some pounds and negate his huge advantage, which was even more pronounced by fight time.

Mayweather also had the audacity to cockily pro-claim that he was superior to two of the acknowl-edged greats of all time, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson, both boxers who displayed artistry in the ring and compassion outside.

Mayweather insists he is better than both of them and that he is the best ever as caps and t shirts with the letters TBE are worn by his minions.

He has also insulted our country when he once proclaimed “the Philippines is a fu**ed up country,” yet he has the gall to peddle t- shirts commemorating the “Fight of the Century” with his face embossed on the Philippine flag as background.

If it’s a move to try and win over Filipino fans and non-fans alike, he is sadly mistaken. We love our country and will not condone anyone insulting our people or this beloved land.

We may have our shortcomings and our prob-lems, but we are trying our best to resolve them and one individual who gives us hope to carry on is Manny Pacquiao, whose achievements in the ring are legendary and his caring, compassionate ways especially for the less fortunate anchored on re-markable humility, have won the admiration and respect not merely of his 100 million countrymen, but the whole of Asia and indeed millions even in the United States, South America and Europe.

Mayweather’s record of 47-0 rings hollow when measured against the behavior of the man, who once went to prison for beating the mother of his children, but even after pleading guilty and serv-ing what was perhaps too short a time, had the audacity to claim that he was merely trying to re-strain a woman on drugs, further aggravating an already ugly situation as some sectors of the US media, who are not under his spell, have raised the issue of his violence against women and the failure of the American public in general to condemn him rather than acclaim him.

In fact, Katie Couric of Yahoo, bore her fair share of criticism from colleagues in media for the kid gloves treatment she gave Mayweather during the interview, where Mayweather claimed he was a target because he’s black, he’s rich and he’s out-spoken, failing to accept the fact that he is a target because if his litany of wrongdoings.

Whether Manny Pacquiao is able to beat May-weather on Sunday, which is devoutly to be wished, or loses to him, one thing is certain – it will not di-minish one bit from the legacy he has left the sport of boxing and the example he has set for the rest of the sporting world and all of us who value his decency and class outside the ring perhaps, even more than his achievements within.

INSIDE SPORTS

RONNIE NATHANIELSZ

Pacman must use Cottoblueprint to beat FloydBy Dennis Principe

SCANNING all the previous � ghts of Manny Pacquiao in an attempt to � nd a single opponent, whose style is similar to Floyd Mayweather, Jr., is like trying to locate a needle in a haystack.

Chances are you will never find one.

If ever, Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto may be the closest thing to our quest of studying a former Pacquiao foe that re-sembles at least few of May-weather’s skills.

Pacquiao vied for the World Boxing Organization welter-weight crown of the then once-beaten Cotto in a 12-round catchweight match on Nov. 14, 2009 at the MGM Grand Gar-den in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cotto was a skillful welter-weight champion, whose only loss before facing Pacquiao was an 11th-round TKO loss to Mexican Antonio Margarito. Controversy soon ruined Mar-garito’s win when the Mexican superstar’s cornermen were caught tampering his hand wraps when they fought Sugar

Shane Mosley.The Nevada commission

discovered that Margarito used hand wraps that contained sul-fur and calcium, which when combined with water forms Plaster of Paris. The discovery instantly casted doubts on his win over Cotto.

While Margarito may not be a defense-first type of fighter, the unassuming Puerto Rican is adept at throwing effective jabs and is good at setting up his right hand.

Cotto displayed those abili-ties when he dominated cer-tified movers Zab Judah and Paulie Malignaggi before snatching a close but deserving 12-round decision win against Shane Mosley, another profi-cient ring tactician.

Cotto held his own against Pacquiao in the early rounds as

they traded punches, mostly at the center of the ring.

But after being floored once each in the third and fourth rounds, Cotto was never the same again as Pacquiao blitzed his way to a superb 12th-round technical knockout win.

“I didn’t know from where the punches were coming. And I didn’t protect myself from his punches,” said Cotto afterwards.

Against Cotto, Pacquiao showed the kind of patience he will need once he faces May-weather this weekend.

A lot of times during the fight, Pacquiao was seemingly on the verge of knocking his physically bigger opponent out.

However, Pacquiao just contented himself in dart-ing in and out and hurting Cotto with 2-3 punch combos,

punches that were just enough for him not to get robbed of a clear victory in case the bout reaches the scorecards.

“The key to this victory was staying disciplined,” Pac-quiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said. “We didn’t panic in the ring.”

In this fight, Pacquiao showed he can be a disciplined fighter and be not the old, ag-gressive Pacman, who may have won a great number of competitive fights. But that type of aggression also led to a few, but debilitating knockout defeats.

If the Pacquiao who beat Cotto shows up against May-weather, it is not far-fetched that the Filipino boxing sen-sation can etch a convincing decision win.

Mayweathermust re-visitHatton game-planEIGHT years ago in Las Vegas, unified world welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. fought an unbeaten British buzzsaw named Ricky Hatton.

Like Pacquiao, Hatton was a charismatic, di-minutive boxer whose devil-may-care style and explosive hands endeared him to millions of Brit-ish and non-British boxing fans around the world.

And like Pacquiao, Hatton is smaller than Mayweather, but was considered back then as having a pretty decent chance of winning against the unbeaten American champion.

Hatton fought Mayweather for the Ameri-can’s World Boxing Council welterweight crown on Dec. 10, 2007 at the MGM Grand Garden.

Entering the fight, Hatton was unbeaten in 43 fights, 31 of those did not last the distance. But this was his first time to vie for a crown in the 147lb division after dominating the equally tough junior welterweight class.

Mayweather, meanwhile, was also unscathed by that time, winning 38 fights, while stopping 25 of them inside the distance.

The first few rounds saw Hatton connecting some clean shots, while relentlessly moving for-ward in a bid to disrupt Mayweather’s balance.

“I took my time. I fought inside and outside. A true champion can adapt to anything. I already knew coming in it was going to be a rough night and that it was going to be tougher than most of my fights. I didn’t prepare halfway. I had a great training camp,” said Mayweather.

While Hatton was having some measure of success in the early rounds, it was evident by the middle rounds that the British champion was no more than a gung-ho type of fighter, whose only fight plan was to go forward.

Mayweather’s jab and counter right were al-ready hitting their marks, while making Hatton miss his own shots by way of moving around and using his patented shoulder roll.

“He is very good at making you miss. He was better inside than I thought. He caught me. It was working, but I didn’t quite stick to the game plan. I was a little gung ho,” said Hatton. “He wasn’t the biggest welterweight I’ve seen, but I

felt the difference. I knew what the tactics were. I wasn’t quite good enough to apply it tonight.”

Mayweather finally threw the coup de grace when he unleashed a powerful coun-ter left hook that saw Hatton crumbling to the canvass, forcing referee Joe Cortez to wave of the fight in the 10th round.

“He’s very clever. He picked up a cou-ple of shots, and that was that. I was forcing it, and I was doing well. I should have been a touch more careful. He knocked me out, but he wasn’t the hard-est puncher I’ve ever fought. He’s very accurate. Knock me down, I keep get-ting up,” said Hatton. Dennis Principe

SECOND OF A SERIES

The marquee at MGM Grand Garden Arena advertises the upcoming fight between WBC/WBA welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. and WBO welter-weight champion Manny Pacquiao. The two boxers will face each other in a unifica-tion bout on May 2 (May 3 in Manila) in Las Vegas. AFP

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Tough southpaws give Mayweather problemsBy Dennis Principe

MANY are wondering, what’s the blue print when it comes to beating Floyd Mayweather, Jr., or is there really such thing?

After 19 years fighting as a pro-fessional, Mayweather has yet to taste a defeat in 47 fights.

Forty-seven tried, a few came close, but in the end, no one among them achieved that dis-tinction of beating the man widely considered as the sport’s pound-for-pound king.

The last time Mayweather lost in a boxing ring was when he was still a 19-year-old amateur fighter campaigning in the 1996 Olym-pics held in Atlanta.

Mayweather fought Bulgaria’s Serafim Todorov in their feather-weight Olympic semifinals match.

Todorov, a three-time world champion, outpointed May-weather in their three-round

semis encounter.But reports posted about the

result consistently revealed that Mayweather got the raw end of the deal and was actually a victim of unfair judging.

So technically, Todorov had no clear-cut skills or fight plan that would have truly beaten May-weather.

Soon after, Mayweather turned pro and established what is per-haps the most successful boxing career in history.

Raking in millions and mil-lions in Pay-Per-View money is a strong testament of Mayweath-er’s marketability.

Mayweather, 38, won his first world crown on his 18th fight by

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stopping the late great Genaro Hernandez of Mexico for the World Boxing Council super-featherweight crown in Octo-ber of 1998.

Since then, Mayweather fought in 23 world title fights with only a handful able to give the Michigan native some fits.

Mayweather will be fight-ing in his 24th world title match when he takes on Fili-pino boxing sensation Manny Pacquiao in a 12-round wel-terweight unification match on May 2 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, Nevada.

While oddsmakers have fa-vored Mayweather to win this battle, which took nearly six years of on-and-off negotiations, most people believe Pacquiao has what it takes to surprise the proud American champion.

One story that is slowly be-ing unearthed, which is be-lieved to serve as a clue on how

to beat Mayweather, is the re-ported beating he got from fellow American Paul Spada-fora when the two were still lightweight champions during the late 1990s.

Like Pacquiao, Spadafora is an aggressive southpaw, a former world champion, who would have been in that Pac-quiao-Mayweather equation if only the Pittsburgh-born fighter had discipline in his entire boxing career.

In that six-round spar-ring session, which happened sometime in the 1990s, Spada-fora got the better of May-weather all throughout after a close first two rounds.

Good for Mayweather, the sparring was not an official record, but it exposed one thing that may turn out to be the brash American cham-pion’s weakness: Fighting ag-gressive southpaws.

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“Even if I am fighting a guy they say is just a regular guy then I am still going to train extremely hard.”

Mayweather told Barkley he doesn’t watch tapes of his opponents because he learns all he needs to about them once they are trading blows in the ring.

“I never watch my opponent. I feel like you can have a certain game plan, but once you get inside that square circle the game plan changes,” May-weather said.

“Boxers may fight certain guys the same way, but they fight me different.” AFP

“We had all the tests done and went out well. When he returned to the gym, there were no flaws and no changes and every-thing, no gun shy. He took it very well. No concern about that,” said Roach.

Meantime, Mayweather assured that he will be dominating every round once the bell sounds signaling the start of their fight.

A notorious slow starter, Mayweather said he is has prepared for an action-filled match during his entire training camp in Las Vegas.

“I’m in tip top condition. I’m very good at doing what I do best. I’ll go in there and dictate the pace from the beginning,” said Mayweather.

While he is confident of a victory, May-weather still praised Pacquiao as some-one who remains as a solid threat to his 47-fight winning streak.

“I’m not going to take nothing away from this guy. You know, I think that I’m the bigger, stronger guy. I truly believe that. But he’s a solid competitor,” said Mayweather.

The 38-year-old Mayweather (47-0, 26 knockouts) will stake his World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association welterweight crowns, while the 36-year-old Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) will be lay-ing on the line his World Boxing Organi-zation title.

They will meet in a highly-anticipated 12-round battle tomorrow morning at the MGM Grand Garden, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Meanwhile, the Pacquiao-Mayweath-er fight will also be aired live at King of Sports Bar located along Quezon Ave., in Quezon City.

WBC/WBA welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (left) and WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao go face to face during a news conference at the KA Theatre at MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. AFP

Floyd... From A16

Pacquiao... From A16

S AT U R D AY : M AY 2 , 2 0 1 5

A16RIERA U. MALL ARI

E D I T O R

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REUEL VIDALA S S I S TA N T E D I T O R

LAS VEGAS—Floyd Mayweather says he is going to come out swinging and be the aggressor early against Manny Pacquiao when they meet in Saturday’s super � ght in Las Vegas.

TURN TO A12

TURN TO A12

The Bucks

stop here

The 38-year-old Mayweather, who is putting his undefeated record on the line to fight Fili-pino icon Pacquiao at the MGM Grand, usually needs a few rounds to feel out and adjust to his opponent’s game plan.

“I am going to approach it in a very, very aggressive way and go out there and press the attack early,” Mayweather said Thurs-

day night on the NBA on TNT.“Of course I would love to win

by knockout. I am pretty sure he is going to come at me extremely strong.

“I am facing one of the best fighters I have ever faced.”

Mayweather was on the NBA television show with hosts Shaq-uille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson.

SPORTS

Pacquiaopreparedfor foe’s

overhandright

By Dennis PrincipeWHILE Freddie Roach is expect-ing Floyd Mayweather, Jr. to study the knockout loss suffered by Manny Pacquiao at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez, the famed trainer thinks the American will be looking at a different punch, other than the knockout blow.

Acccording to Roach, what May-weather may try to utilize is the punch that floored Pacquiao in Round 3, where Marquez connected with an overhand right that put the Filipino champion on the seat of his pants.

The bout, which happened in December of 2012, saw Pacquiao being floored twice, the first one happening in the third, with the second one, a counter right, turn-ing out to be the dreadful punch that saw the Filipino icon lay mo-tionless for about two minutes.

“I do think Mayweather will come out with a shot like that be-cause he can punch if he wants to. The thing is, as a coach I would ad-vise my fighter to take advantage of it if he could,” said Roach.

However, Roach assures he has prepared Pacquiao for that type of blow and that they are more than ready in case Mayweather utiliz-es his counter-punching abilities.

Roach said the knockout loss is certainly a thing of their past and that Pacquiao has moved on well from the devastating loss.

Floyd plans to strikeearly against Pacman

Mayweather’s disclosure Thursday night that he will be the aggressor is welcome news to boxing fans who are being charged a hefty $100 for the pay-per-view to watch the fight in their homes. The 12-round welterweight unification fight is expected to generate a record $400 million in revenue.

Mayweather’s longevity in the sport has been attributed to his brilliant defence and coun-terpunching skills but it also makes for some boring fights. Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said Thursday he goes to sleep watching some of May-

Jr. NBA fueling youth’s dreams

weather’s title fights.Mayweather, who is the world’s highest grossing athlete, said he would spend the next day and half before the fight doing light workouts, watching playoff basketball on TV and trying to stay focused.

“I want to be real relaxed and real calm. I just try to have tunnel vision when I am on my way to the gym,” he said.

Mayweather, who is 47-0 with 26 KOs, told the shows hosts the secret to keeping his unblemished record intact is that he never takes any oppo-nent lightly. Turn to A15

Turn to A15

Floyd Mayweather will need everything from his arsenal, including the nod of the boxing gods to stop a charging Manny Pacquiao. AFP

RODERICK T. DELA CRUZASSISTANT EDITOR B1

SATURDAY: MAY 2, 2015

business@thestandard.com.phextrastory2000@gmail.com

CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK

CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK

RAY S. EÑANOEDITOR

Mactan woos more airlines

Metrobank expects economy to expand 6.4%

BUSINESS

Bangko Sentral ng PilipinasThursday, April 30, 2015

Foreign exchange rateCurrency Unit US Dollar PesoUnited States Dollar 1.000000 44.2500

Japan Yen 0.008400 0.3717

UK Pound 1.543600 68.3043

Hong Kong Dollar 0.129034 5.7098

Switzerland Franc 1.064283 47.0945

Canada Dollar 0.832085 36.8198

Singapore Dollar 0.757002 33.4973

Australia Dollar 0.805412 35.6395

Bahrain Dinar 2.652379 117.3678

Saudi Arabia Rial 0.266681 11.8006

Brunei Dollar 0.754148 33.3710

Indonesia Rupiah 0.000077 0.0034

Thailand Baht 0.030441 1.3470

UAE Dirham 0.272257 12.0474

Euro Euro 1.111700 49.1927

Korea Won 0.000938 0.0415

China Yuan 0.161298 7.1374

India Rupee 0.015785 0.6985

Malaysia Ringgit 0.281057 12.4368

New Zealand Dollar 0.772320 34.1752

Taiwan Dollar 0.032916 1.4565 Source: PDS Bridge

7,714.82110.65

Closing April 30, 2015PSe comPoSite index

46

45

44

43

42

HIGH P44.400 LOW P44.600 AVERAGE P44.518

Closing APRIL 30, 2015PeSo-dollar rate

VOLUME 547.400M

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 Pilipinas

oilPriceS today

P508.00-P728.00LPG/11-kg tank

P38.40-P52.05Unleaded Gasoline

P26.90-P43.80Diesel

P35.40-P39.15Kerosene

P23.70-P24.40Auto LPG

todayP26.90-P43.80

P35.40-P39.15

P23.70-P24.40

PP38.40-P52.05

8500

8000

7500

7000

6500

6000

Closing APRIL 30, 2015

P44.520CLOSE

Bank of Commerce expansion. Bank of Commerce opened its 125th branch at the King’s Court Building in Pasong Tamo corner Dela Rosa Streets in Makati City. Bank of Commerce offers innovative banking solutions as well as an extensive range of products and services tailored to meet the needs of clients. Shown at the opening ceremony are (from left) senior vice president and branch banking south division head Violeta Tirol; branch manager Janice Gonzalez; King’s Court chief operating officer Gerovy King; executive VP and branch banking group head Em-manuel Herbosa; Calmarland chief executive Reynaldo Calayan Jr.; first VP and branch banking systems head Celestino Mendiola; assistant VP and Makati area head Ma. Theresa Soriano; and chief audit officer Reginald Neri.

By Julito G. Rada

ECONOMIC growth this year is expected to be higher at 6.4 per-cent from 6.1 percent in 2104, driven mainly by spending for the 2016 national elections, results of a study by Metrobank Research Department showed over the weekend.

“Research sees 2015 to be a bet-ter year especially with spending for the 2016 elections expected to be kick-started in the second half of 2015,” Metrobank said.

“The increase in government spending is seen to cause a re-bound in investment spending and will also further boost con-

sumption spending,” it said.Metrobank expects the industry

sector to be a top performer this year amid the solid expansions in the manufacturing and construc-tion subsectors. “Full-year GDP growth for 2015 is seen to average around 6.4 percent,” it said.

However, the research said risks to the domestic economy would remain amid the persistent port congestion issues, the loom-ing power supply crisis, uneven global economy and the impact of financial market volatilities.

The Philippine economy grew respectably in 2014, slower than the expansion of 7.2 percent in 2013. Fourth-quarter GDP acceler-

ated to 6.9 percent after a lackluster third-quarter growth of 5.3 percent due to lower public expenditures.

Economists said the government’s cautious and calculated spending stemmed from the administration’s controversial disbursement accel-eration program, which was earlier ruled by the Supreme Court as un-constitutional. The high tribunal later reversed the ruling.

The 6.1-percent growth in 2014 was lower than the government’s forecast of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent. However, the Philippines remained in the top three of Asean + China in terms of economic growth.

“2014 growth can be attributed to the rebound in external trade,

robust industry sector, and still solid consumption spending,” Metrobank said.

Meanwhile, inflation rate this year is expected to be more man-ageable compared with the full-year average of 4.1 percent last year.

Research sees full-year aver-age inflation this year to come in at 2.8 percent as low inflationary pressures are expected due to sta-ble food prices and soft oil prices.

“The high 2014 base will also dampen pressures to the index. Possible upside risks may come from power costs given shortages in the Luzon grid this summer and a sudden reversal in oil price movements,” it said.

By Darwin G. Amojelar

THE Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority has proposed to reduce the landing and take-off fees as incentives to bring more airlines to the country’s second busiest airport, which is being expanded by a consortium led by Megawide ConstructiWon Corp.

Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority general manager Nigel Paul Villarete said in a text message the objective of the proposed incentive plan for landing and take-off fees was to attract more airlines.

MCIAA proposed to offer rebates of 30 percent to 75 percent on landing and take-off charges for long-haul international routes and 30 percent to 65 percent for short to medium-haul routes, depending on the frequency of

flights per week.The agency also proposed

rebates of 25 percent to 65 percent on landing and take-off fees for domestic routes, depending on the number of flights a week.

“The incentive plan is a route development and marketing tool to spur up the routes and frequencies or increase capacities at MCIA,” Villarete said.

Data from MCIAA showed the number of domestic and international aircraft that landed in and took off from the country’s second busiest airport dropped 13 percent to 56,281 in 2014 from 64.945 in 2013.

Passenger volume at MCIA also fell 2.1 percent to 6.8 million last year from 6.9 million in 2013.

Villarete said the incentive plan aimed to encourage more opportunities for travel to and from Cebu, promote tourism and business opportunities and achieve the airport’s ultimate objective of supporting economic and social development in the region and the country as a whole.

Airlines operating at MCIA include Philippine Airlines, PAL Express, Cebu Pacific, Air Asia Zest, Tigerair, Cathay Pacific, Air Busan, Jeju Air, Asiana Airlines, Air Nuguini, China Airlines, Far

Eastern Airlines and Jin Air.“Cebu Pacific welcomes the

proposed incentive plan for airlines at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport. Airline incentive programs, which help encourage development of new routes is in line with best practices of successful airports around the world. We look forward to further developing our Cebu-based network,” JR Mantaring, officer-in-charge of Cebu Pacific corporate affairs said.

The government handed over the operations of MCIA to GMR-Megawide Consortium in November 2014.

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BUSINESSSATURDAY: MAY 2, 2015

B2

US keepsIndia andChina onwatch list

Villegas challengesfoundation scholars

Japan inflation up 2.2% in March

World IP Day. The Philippines renewed its commitment to eliminate illegal camcording in the Philippines during the World IP Day 2015 in Makati City. Shown at the event are (from left) Brian Brehaus, US Embassy economic officer; Ronnie Ricketts, Optical Media Board chairman; Mayet Dagsa of the legal af-fairs department of the Intellectual Property Office Philippines; and Col. Milo Pagtalunan of the Philippine National Police- Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

Marriott Hotel partner. The Philippine Institute for Supply Management signed a partnership with the Manila Marriott Hotel for the upcoming 23rd Supplylink conference slated on June 18-19, 2015 at the Grand Ballroom of the Manila Marriott Hotel in Pasay City. PISM president Edwin Constantino (sec-ond from left) shakes hands with Marriott Hotel Manila general manager Bruce Winton to formalize their partnership for the upcoming event. With Constantino and Winton are PISM immediate former president Mariel Zamora (left) and PISM vice president for events and conferences Alicia Pascual.

By Veronica Smith

WASHINGTON—The United States on Thursday kept China and India on its Priority Watch List of trading partners that fail to protect intellectual property rights, hurting the economy.

By Miwa Suzuki

TOKYO--Japanese inflation picked up in March for the first time in 10 months, data showed Friday, but household spending tumbled in a worrying sign for consumer confidence.

Core inflation, excluding volatile fresh food prices, hit 2.2 percent year-on-year, accelerating from the previous month for the first time since May 2014, and offering a sliver of hope for Tokyo’s war on deflation.

However, stripping out the impact of a sales tax rise last year, the rate was a tepid 0.2 percent, well short of the central bank’s 2.0 percent target.

Analysts say central bank policymakers will almost certainly be forced to expand its monetary easing scheme to jack

up prices and counter a downturn in the world’s number three economy.

Sustained inflation is a cornerstone of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to conquer stagnant or falling prices and revive growth.

“Inflation is still close to zero and could drop in the coming months,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute.

“The reading was a little bit positive, but worries [for the Bank of Japan] have not disappeared.”

Separate figures showed household spending in March dropped almost 11 percent, the worst on record since comparable data started in 2001 and steeper than an 8.2 percent on-year decline in March 2011, when Japan was hammered by a quake-

tsunami disaster and nuclear crisis.

On Thursday, the BoJ conceded the original timeline for hitting its price target would be missed, as it cut its growth and inflation forecasts.

Japan’s gross domestic product will expand 2.0 percent in the year to March 2016, while the inflation rate is seen at 0.8 percent, the BoJ said in a semi-annual report. That compares with a previous estimate of 2.1 percent and 1.0 percent respectively.

The report--which followed a meeting where policymakers held fire on fresh stimulus --pushed back an already murky timeline for hitting the bank’s inflation target to the first half of fiscal 2016, which runs from April through September next year.

AFP

CATHOLIC Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president and Lingayen Archbishop Socrates Villegas challenged scholars of the Wong Chu King Foundation at its annual meeting in Lingayen, Pangasinan against insensitivity, complacency and lack of ethics.

“You’ll become worthless no matter how educated and intelligent you are if you don’t care for the welfare and moral values of other people,” the outspoken bishop told in a vernacular homily the 200 WCKF scholars who were accompanied by their parents at the gathering held at the Sison Auditorium in the province’s sprawling capital.

“Practice education with social ethics so that you’ll become agents of change and progress in our society,” Villegas said, reminding them that their sponsor, the

WCKF, stands on a strong ethical ground on its social and cultural projects.

The WCKF, the social outreach arm of Mighty Corp., has been in the forefront in selectively rebuilding churches damaged by typhoons and other calamities in various parts of the country and giving out scholarships to deserving students in tobacco-producing provinces.

The meeting is held annually by the foundation to strengthen its rapport with the students.

One hundred ninety one of the 200 scholars came from the tobacco-producing provinces of Abra, Cagayan, Isabela, Ilocos Norte, Bantay, Pangasinan, Candon and La Union. The rest came fromother provinces.

Traditionally, they are gathered by WCKF yearly in venues within Northern Luzon.

In its annual Special 301 Report, the Commerce Department’s US Trade Representative said there were now 13 trading partners on its Priority Watch List, three more than its previous report. Ecuador and Ukraine were newcomers, and Kuwait was added late last year.

The 2015 report also underscored some success stories. Italy, for example, had implemented new regulations in 2014 to combat online copyright piracy.

The Philippines, which came off the Watch List last year, had undertaken enforcement reforms that included increased seizures of pirated and counterfeit goods. (Related story on B4)

Ecuador made the Priority Watch List because of its repeal last year of its criminal IPR provisions. “The current lack of criminal procedures and penalties invites transnational organized crime groups that engage in copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting to view Ecuador as a safe haven,” the USTR report said.

Ukraine’s government had not

resolved problems identified two years ago by the US that include widespread use of illegal software by Ukrainian government agencies and the failure to adopt effective means to combat online copyright infringement, it said.

While welcoming promising efforts by the Ukrainian authorities, the USTR said it was looking forward to seeing “tangible and lasting improvement, both in legislative reform and in practice.”

Kuwait was moved to the Priority Watch List in November after failing “to introduce legislation resulting in a copyright law consistent with international standards, and resume effective enforcement against copyright and trademark infringement.”

The other countries on the Priority Watch List were Argentina, Algeria, Chile, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand and Venezuela.

China, the second-largest US trading partner, remained on the list despite certain improvements, including an intellectual property law reform effort, the report said.

business@thestandard.com.phextrastory2000@gmail.com

BUSINESSSATURDAY: MAY 2, 2015

B3

Organismto help inpreservingPH trees

Inflation pressures may rise

Philippine nickel output not enough to satisfy China

Peace award. The Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Atlanta’s Morehouse Col-lege, King’s alma mater, honored Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen with its 2015 Gandhi King Ikeda Peace Award for promoting peace and civil rights. Past recipients of the award include Nobel laureates Nelson Mande-la, Desmond Tutu and Mi-chael Gorbachev, as well as Rosa Parks. Representa-tives of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel, which has presented the award since 2001, say the award is designed to promote the importance of positive social transformation by honoring ‘those who demonstrate extraordinary global leadership toward reconciling differences.’

Urban poor housing. Social Housing Finance Corp. president Ma. Ana Oliveros (right photo) tours World Bank officials to the housing units of the beneficiaries of the High Density Housing program in Bistekville II, Quezon City. Officials of World Bank in the country for a three-day project site visit (left photo) lauded the efforts of SHFC in promoting community-driven housing projects and in upgrading the lives of the urban poor as seen in the success of the Alyansang mga Mamamayan sa Valenzuela at Caloocan) housing project in Valenzuela City.

By Julito G. Rada

BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo sees the buildup of inflation pressures in the second semester, especially with the expected interest rates hike in the United States this year.

“What we see is that some pressures may be building up in the second semester. US monetary tightening could send the US dollar on an upward spiral again and this would have some impact on the peso and on to domestic inflation,” Guinigundo said in an e-mailed statement Friday.

Despite the scenario,

Guinigundo said the inflation rate would still average within the central bank’s previous target range of 2 percent to 4 percent for the year. He also said inflation would not likely average lower than 2 percent in 2015.

“I am not sure if Philippine inflation would average lower than 2 percent. While it’s possible

to have a year on year monthly inflation of lower than 2 percent during the year, the 12-monthly average is expected to keep within the 2-4 percent target for both 2015 and 2016,” he said.

He said upside risks included the El Niño phenomenon and power rate adjustments.

“In short, our baseline forecasts as we indicated in the last board meeting [on March 26] are 2.2 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, for 2015 and 2016…,” Guinigundo said.

Earlier, economists from First Metro Investments Corp. and University of Asia and the Pacific said in a joint report inflation could further decelerate below 2 percent in July this year if the

current trend of lower consumer prices continued.

In its latest Market Call Capital Markets Research, First Metro and UA&P said inflation might settle at 2.3 percent in April and 2.1 percent both in May and June.

“Headline inflation rate will likely trek the downward path, with stable food prices and soft fuel prices in the horizon. It may even go below 2 percent by July if the current trends continue,” the report said.

“With inflation at the low end of its target and money growth at a single-digit pace until Q2, the [Bangko Sentral] will likely keep rates on hold not only next quarter, but all the way to the end of the year,” it said.

By Alex Davis

THE Philippines will fail to satisfy China’s nickel ore demand and that may push up refined metal prices more than 15 percent, according to the largest miner in the world’s top producer.

The Southeast Asian nation won’t be able to supply enough ore

once China exhausts stockpiles built up before last year’s export ban by Indonesia, previously the biggest producer, said Manny Samson, chief financial officer of Nickel Asia Corp. China’s output of nickel pig iron, a lower-grade substitute for the refined metal used to make stainless steel, may fall by about 30 percent when

the country becomes solely dependent on Philippine supply, according to Samson.

“NPI producers would be completely reliant on Philippine ore” after stockpiles of Indonesia ore run out, Samson said. “Chinese stainless steel producers will now have to source nickel elsewhere.”

The tightening supply may

drive prices to $16,000 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange, Samson said.

While the Philippines raised output after Indonesia’s export ban started in January 2014, Chinese imports still fell 33 percent last year to the lowest since 2010. Inbound shipments in the first three months of the year are also at the least in five years.

“Any time between the third and fourth quarter, we’ll see the stockpiles being fully depleted,” Samson said in a telephone interview on April 28. “That would be a strong catalyst for prices to recover.”

China’s inventories of laterite ore, the type shipped from Indonesia, fell to equivalent of about 120,000 tons of pure nickel at the end of March from about 194,000 tons at the start of 2014, Celia Wang, an analyst at Beijing Antaike Information Development Co., said April 24. Current stockpiles of nickel ore, refined nickel and ferro-nickel can cover three months of the country’s stainless steel production, according to Antaike.

Bloomberg

THE Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau of the En-vironment and Natural Resourc-es Department has developed a promising plant microorganism that can help trees survive hostile soil conditions.

Acting ERDB director Henry Adornado said the plant organ-ism called mycorrhiza is known to benefit plants by making sure they survive in any soil condition. It is also cost-effective, environment-friendly and sustainable. Once it is inoculated in the roots, it will stay in the roots of the plants through-out its lifetime.

“This technology, commer-cially known as the Hi-Q Vam 1, is helping trees grow much faster, doubling the rate compared with those without mycorrhiza,” said Adornado.

ERDB’s mycorrhizologist Evan-geline Castillo in 2000 led the col-lection of different species of my-corrhiza all over the Philippines in search of the right species that could be used in environmental rehabilitation programs.

Castillo said ERDB’s field ex-periments revealed mycorrhiza played a “conduit role” in poor soil conditions by actively spread-ing its roots to obtain the needed nutrients of the plants to survive. The experiments were patented as a utility model by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.

“Since many of the marginal areas such as upland, grassland, mined-out and other areas in the country have been degraded due to unsustainable farming, grazing, and ore extraction activities, the mycorrhiza that is naturally avail-able in many plant species have been lost from the soil,” Castillo said.

B4

USTR cites Manila’s anti-piracy campaign

In BrIef

SATURDAY: MAY 2, 2015

business@thestandard.com.phextrastory2000@gmail.com

8990 Holdings plans to issue P9-b fixed-rate bonds this month

BUSINESS

Bankers’ convention. The Chamber of Thrift Banks, the umbrella organization of Philippine thrift and savings banks, presents a token of appreciation to Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. (third from left) after his session at CTB’s National Convention on April 7, 2015 at Dusit Thani Manila in Makati City. With Tetangco are (from left) Edmundo Medrano, CTB trustee, convention co-chairman and Producer Savings Bank vice-chairman and president; Rommel Latinazo, CTB and RCBC Savings Bank president; and George Martirez, CTB second vice-president, convention co-chairman and Malayan Savings Bank president.

No blackout on SundayPOWER distributor Manila Electric Co.

assured there will be no blackout in its franchise area during the much-anticipat-ed Pacquiao-Mayweather boxing bout on Sunday.

National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, operator of the power transmission grid, said power reserves in Luzon would reach 1,863 megawatts on Sunday, which meant there would be enough reserves to address demand.

Luzon’s power demand is expected to reach 7,541 MW while system capac-ity would be 9,404 MW.

Rolando Cagampan, head of energy management and vice-president of Meralco, told reporters demand was usually lower during the weekend.

“Demand is low [during weekend]. We can assure you that there will be no blackouts. Supply can readily meet the demand,” he said.

Cagampan said with respect to Meralco’s distribution network, “the facilities are in good shape” to ensure a blackout-free Pacquiao-Mayweather fight. Alena Mae S. Flores

PLDT teams up with SamsungPHILIPPINE Long Distance Telephone

Co. has expanded its partnership with Ko-rean electronics manufacturer Samsung to deliver full-service packaged business solutions for the large enterprise market.

“We are excited to further strengthen our ties with a globally admired brand such as Samsung. This partnership definitely adds value to the services we provide our customers and bolsters our position as the preferred trusted ICT pro-vider of large enterprises,” PLDT execu-tive vice president and ePLDT president and chief executive Eric Alberto said.

“We are confident that through this continued support and partnership, the PLDT Group will sustain its leader-ship and bring forth exciting solution bundles, both in hardware and software offerings to the market,” Alberto said.

Under the partnership, PLDT/Smart and Samsung will co-develop specialized business solutions for the enterprise lev-el with an “operated dedicated support” agreement including dedicated after-sales hotlines for business-to-business handset models, and full participation in commercialization and co-branding in marketing efforts. Darwin G. Amojelar

NGCP adds transformersNATIONAL Grid Corporation of the

Philippines said it has commissioned the 300-megavolt ampere and 50-MVA power transformers at its La Trinidad and Ambuklao substations, respectively.

The commissioning of the projects aims to achieve system reliability and flexibility, it said.

The 300-MVA transformer in La Trini-dad substation accommodates the 130-MW peak load of Baguio City, the en-tire Benguet and Montain Province and parts of Ilocos Sur and Kalinga.

NGCP said to comply with the Phil-ippine Grid Code’s N-1 contingency re-quirement, which is the ability of the grid to withstand the loss of a major system component with minimal dis-ruption, another 300-MVA transformer was expected to be commissioned at La Trinidad substation in July.

With the 50-MVA transformer at Ambuklao substation, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority might now draw power from either La Trinidad or Ambuklao substation.

The energization of power trans-formers is a part of the Luzon substa-tion expansion project, which also in-cluded substation equipment testing and upgrading of conductors and other associated equipment.

Alena Mae S. Flores

By Othel V. Campos

THE Philippines has main-tained its standing as one of the countries with effective intellectual protection rights policy based on the annual “Special 301” report published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines said with the release of the new report, it would continue efforts to curb viola-tions and re-educate the Filipinos about pira-cy and the protection of intellection property.

“This is a recognition of our hard work and sustained drive to improve the protection and

enforcement of intellectual property rights in the country. It means that our national government gives priority to IP as a tool for economic development,” said IPOPhl acting director general and officer-in-charge Allan Gepty.

Gepty said the good news was a testament of the good coordination and working relation-ship of various government agencies involved in IP enforcement, particularly members of the National Committee for Intellectual Property Rights, Philippine Judicial Academy and the judiciary for continuously building capacity for special commercial court judges and court attorneys.

“It is also an indication of our productive partnership with the private sector. With an effective and reliable IP regime, we can ex-pect more foreign investments, particularly IP intensive industries, in the country and

improved competitiveness,” Gepty said.The USTR report said the Philippines, to-

gether with Paraguay, had committed to a whole-of-government approach to IPR en-forcement that has been critical to enhancing the effectiveness of IPR enforcement and re-sulted in positive reports from a number of affected stakeholder groups.

It said the Philippines carried out adminis-trative enforcement reforms that had resulted in streamlined procedures, enhanced inter-agency cooperation and more enforcement action, including increased seizures of pirated and counterfeit goods.

The 2015 report said trading partners on the priority watch list presented the most significant concerns, regarding insufficient IPR protection or enforcement or actions that otherwise limited market access for persons relying on intellectual property protection.

By Jenniffer B. AustriaMASS housing developer 8990 Holdings Inc. plans to issue P9 billion worth of unsecured fixed-rate bonds this month to support the construction of new and ex-isting projects.

8990 Holdings said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission the bonds with a base offer of P5 billion, and an-other P4 billion in case of over-subscription, would have tenors of five years and three months, seven years and 10-years.

The company appointed BDO Capital and Investment Corp., SB

Capital and First Metro Invest-ment Corp. as joint issue manag-ers and joint lead underwriters for the fund raising activity.

The planned bond sale will provide the company with an al-ternative source of debt financing and diversify 8990’s creditor base to include other financial institu-tions and individual retail inves-tors.

A fixed-rate over a long tenor eliminates the risk of interest rate fluctuations, it said.

Proceeds from the fund raising activity will be used to finance rollout of additional low-cost housing projects, land acquisi-

tions and construction of existing projects.

The property firm earlier said it would launch 11,083 units this year, with unit prices ranging from P450,000 to P1.25 million.

It said of the housing units to be launched this year, 6,598 would be from 10 ongoing projects with total sales value of P4.1 billion while 4,486 units would be from new nine housing developments with sales value of P4.1 billion.

The company said at least 44 percent of the housing projects would be built in Luzon, 31 per-cent in the Visayas and 25 percent in Mindanao.

8990 Holdings said it contin-ued to look for land acquisition in line with the target to have 500 hectares of land bank over the medium term.

It said it was close to signing 50 hectares of land in Davao, 30 hectares in Cebu and 20 hectares in Bacolod. It is currently look-ing at potential sites in Bulacan, Pampanga and Zamboanga City.

Meanwhile, 8990 Holdings’ board approved the investment by the company in a new or existing subsidiary to engage in the provi-sion of cable and Internet services to existing housing developments.

8990 Holdings also approved

the declaration of P0.18 cash divi-dend to stockholders as of record date March 4. The dividends are payable on March 30.

8990 Holdings posted an unau-dited net income of P3.3 billion in 2014, up 52 percent from the 2013 level and surpassing the P3-billion net income guidance for the year.

Revenues jumped 48 percent to P7.9 billion from P5.35 billion in 2013.

The company said it expected net income to grow by 21 per-cent this year to P4 billion and revenues to rise 27 percent to P10 billion.

S AT U R D AY : M AY 2 , 2 0 1 5

worldeditorial@thestandard.com.ph

1 in 6 species faces extinction

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Labor Day rally. Thousands of South Korean workers attend a May Day rally in Seoul on May 1, vowing to fight the government’s planned reforms. AFP

WASHINGTON—One out of six species faces ex-tinction as a result of climate change and urgent ac-tion must be taken to save large numbers of animals from being wiped out, an analysis said Thursday.

The study, published in the US journal Science, found that a global temperature rise of four degrees Celsius could spell disas-ter for a huge number of species around the world. 

“We urgently need to adopt strategies that limit further cli-mate change if we are to avoid an acceleration of global extinc-tion,” said study author Mark Urban, an ecology and evolu-tionary biology researcher at the University of Connecticut.

The analysis evaluated 131 previous studies about the im-

pact of climate change on flora and fauna around the world. 

It concluded that with each rising degree in global tempera-tures, more species were at risk. 

A two-degree increase, the study noted, could threaten 5.2 percent of species, while a three degree boost would put 8.5 per-cent of all species at risk.

“If we follow our current, busi-ness-as-usual trajectory (leading to a 4.3 degree Celsius rise)... cli-mate change threatens one in six species (16 percent),” the study said.

Different regions of the world had varied extinction threats. 

“Extinction risks were highest in South America, Australia and New Zealand, and risks did not vary by taxonomic group,” Urban said. 

In South America, the most vulnerable region, 23 percent of species may face extinction. 

Fourteen percent could be threatened in New Zealand and Australia. 

Five percent of species in Eu-rope could face extinction, com-pared to six percent in North America, the study found. 

Urban said governments must urgently act to prevent wide-spread extinction. 

“Climate change is poised to accelerate extinctions around the world unless we adopt new strat-egies to limit it and implement

specific conservation strategies to protect the most threatened species,” he said. 

Meanwhile, a related study in Science Thursday found that marine fossils can help identify which animals and ocean eco-systems face the greatest risk of extinction. 

A team of paleontologists and ecologists looked at marine ani-mals that died out over the past 23 million years. 

They found that some groups were more vulnerable than others and the threat varied regionally. 

“Whales, dolphins and seals show higher risk of extinction than sharks or invertebrates such as corals. Clams and mussels— so-called bivalves—had about one-tenth the extinction risk of mammals,” the study found. 

Regions of the tropics such as the Indo-Pacific and the Carib-bean were most at risk. Climate change and other human-related activities such as fishing contrib-uted to that vulnerability.

“Climate change and human activities are impacting groups of animals that have a long history, and studying that history can help us condition our expecta-tions for how they might respond today,” said lead author Seth Finnegan, an assistant professor of integrative biology at the Uni-versity of California, Berkeley. 

But he said more research is need-ed to protect vulnerable species. 

“There is a lot more work that needs to be done to understand the causes underlying these pat-terns and their policy implica-tions,” he added. AFP

China biggest investor in AustraliaSYDNEY—China has for the first time overtaken the United States as Australia’s largest source of foreign in-vestment, according to offi-cial data, laying out A$27.7 billion (US$21.8 billion) in 2013-14 as real estate pur-chases more than doubled.

The Asian economic gi-ant’s spending in Austral-ia for the year ending June 30, 2014, far outstripped the A$17.5 billion from the United States—which was the biggest investor for more than a decade—and Canada’s A$15.4 bil-lion, the Foreign Invest-ment Review Board said

in its annual report.The Chinese surge was

driven by A$12.4 billion in approved investments in property, the report released Thursday said. That com-pares with A$5.9 billion in the previous financial year.

“For the first time, China was the largest source of proposed foreign invest-ment in Australia, mainly driven by a large increase in residential real estate ap-provals,” the report said.

The new report followed the Australian government’s move in February to enforce foreign investment rules as concerns grow that foreign

buyers are squeezing lo-cal house seekers out of the market.

Chinese investment for 2013-14 also included A$3.3 billion in the manufactur-ing sector, A$5.7 billion in mining and A$6.2 billion in services.

Rounding up the top five foreign investors were Ma-laysia at A$7.2 billion and Singapore at A$7.1 billion.

The Australia govern-ment in February high-lighted plans to crack down on illegal property purchases and charge ap-plication fees on all foreign investments. AFP

Feeding the planet. People stand in front of the Chinese Pavillion for the Universal Exposition Milano 2015, EXPO2015 on May 1 in Milan. The exposition will run from May 1, 2015, to October 31, 2015, on the theme Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life. The fair focuses on food security, sustainable agricultural practices, nutrition and battling hunger. AFP

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WORLD

Quake survivors desperateMELAMCHI, Nepal—Desperate survivors liv-ing at ground zero of Nepal’s earthquake felt abandoned to their fate Friday after losing their loved ones and liveli-hoods in a disaster that has claimed more than 6,300 lives.

While the joyous rescue of two survivors reinvigorated the search for further signs of life in the ru-ins of Kathmandu, the Red Cross warned of “total devastation” in far-flung areas of the poor Hima-layan nation.

Six days on from the 7.8-mag-nitude quake, authorities put the number of dead in Nepal at 6,204 while around 100 more were killed in neighboring India and China.

But the full extent of the destruc-tion wrought by Nepal’s deadliest earthquake in more than 80 years was still emerging as relief workers struggled to reach mountainous districts.

The destruction appeared partic-ularly dire in the Sindhupalchowk region, northeast of Kathmandu, where the sense of desperation was mounting.

“One of our teams that returned from Chautara in Sindhupalchowk district reported that 90 percent of the homes are destroyed,” said Ja-gan Chapagain, Asia head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

“The hospital has collapsed, and people are digging through the rubble with their hands in the hope that they might find family mem-bers who are still alive.”

AFP journalists in another part of Sindhupalchowk saw utter dev-astation.

“Almost every house in my vil-lage is destroyed, and 20 people died. We lost our cattle and our sheep,” said Kumar Ghorasainee, amid the ruins of his hometown of Melamchi.

The 33-year-old English teacher said the school had collapsed and there was nowhere for the children to go.

“No one has come to help us -- the cars and the aid trucks just drive by ... How will we manage now?”

In Melamchi, shops and restau-rants were closed and streets were mainly deserted. AFP

Moscow visit too risky for Kim, say analystsSEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s decision to cancel his first overseas visit was probably prompt-ed more by concerns about image control than any threat of domestic instability, analysts said Friday.

Announcing that Kim would not be attending Russia’s World War II anniversary celebrations in Moscow next week, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the reason communicated by Pyongyang was “internal North Korean issues.”

No further details were pro-vided, but the wording inevitably triggered speculation that Kim might be facing some sort of do-mestic challenge to his authority.

“I don’t buy that at all,” said vet-eran North Korean watcher An-drei Lankov.

“There’s no sign of any collective dissent in the leadership. He’s been playing a game of musical chairs with his top military officers and his position still seems very secure,” said Lankov, a professor at Kook-

min University in Seoul.Kim’s initial acceptance of the

invitation to the Moscow event had set up a number of potentially intriguing diplomatic scenarios for what would have been his first foreign trip since taking power after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il, in December 2011.

Although he has received a number of high-ranking Chinese officials in Pyongyang, the most prominent foreigner Kim has met in all that time is probably the former NBA basketball star, Den-nis Rodman.

He has yet to hold a single sum-mit, having snubbed the presi-dent of Mongolia who visited Pyongyang in 2013.

Moscow, therefore, would have been quite a showy debut, given the presence of numerous other heads of state, including China’s Xi Jinping.

“In the end, I think that might have been the real problem,” said Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the

University of North Korean Stud-ies in Seoul.

“This young man hasn’t had a sit-down with any foreign leader, and suddenly he’s looking at the prospect of walking into a room-ful of them,” Yang said.

North Korea is extremely sensi-tive and protective when it comes to the image of the ruling Kim dy-nasty, whose members are deified in both life and death.

Although Kim Jong-Un has shown himself to be more spon-taneous than his father, his public appearances are heavily choreo-graphed and the images released of them carefully vetted.

“He seems quite impulsive, and it might well be that he genuinely wanted to go to Moscow at first,” said Lankov.

“But the possible pitfalls are ob-vious. Even Russia couldn’t pro-vide the sort of media control he’s used to.

“And then there’s always the chance of an encounter with an

openly hostile foreign leader who might choose to register his dis-gust just to score points at home,” Lankov said.

Most analysts agreed that, with Moscow off the cards, the most likely “coming out” for Kim would be a bilateral summit—most prob-ably on North Korean soil.

The Kim dynasty has never been big on overseas trips.

Kim’s grandfather and North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il-Sung managed to visit most of the former Eastern Bloc, but the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union left fewer des-tination options for Kim Jong-Il when he took over in 1994.

Kim Jong-Il also hated flying, and limited his travels to train trips to China and Russia.

China remains North Korea’s main diplomatic protector and economic provider and Beijing would normally be seen as the nat-ural choice for Kim Jong-Un’s first overseas trip as leader. AFP

Remembering Joan. France’s far-right political party Front National Marine Le Pen, center, lays flowers at the foot of a statue of Joan of Arc during a traditional rally in her honor on May 1 in Paris. AFP

N. Korean envoys slam UN meeting UNITED NATIONS—North Korean diplomats on Thurs-day stormed out of a UN conference on human rights after lashing out at the United States for inviting three defec-tors to speak at the event.

Pyongyang envoy Ri Song Chol interrupted the confer-ence when he tried to deliver a statement following the poignant testimony of Joseph Kim who fled North Korea as an orphaned, homeless and hungry teenager.

US Ambassador Saman-tha Power ordered UN staff to turn off the North Korean diplomat’s microphone and

security guards were dis-patched to the conference room at UN headquarters.

The three diplomats then stood up and left the room telling reporters that they were denied the opportunity to speak as a UN member-state.

Ri accused the United States of “murdering innocent black people” and pointed to the deaths of African Ameri-cans in Baltimore and Fergu-son as proof that the US “is the true kingpin of human rights violations.”

He blasted the event as a “one-sided political drama.”

Power in turn accused the North Koreans of “bullying,” saying that they were told beforehand that they would have an opportunity to speak.

“The delegation chose in-stead to try to drown out the testimony of these panelists,” she said.

The conference opened with testimony from Joseph Kim who watched his father die of starvation at the age of 12.

His mother was sent to a prison labor camp for traveling to China where she had sent his sister in the hope that she would be spared from hardship. AFP

Launching. Guests attend the Joico’s Hair Shake Launch hosted by Peta Murgatroyd at The District Restaurant on April 30 in Los Angeles. AFP

B7JOEL D. L ACSAMANAE D I T O RPROPERTY

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ON THE RIGHT TRACK. Amaia Land recently celebrated its fifth year of building topnotch, yet affordable homes all over the country. Amaia, an Ayala Land company, has touched base with over 12,000 families across the country.  It is present in North Luzon (Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Urdaneta), Metro Manila (Quezon City, Paranaque, Manila, Caloocan, Iloilo). This year, it will venture to CDO, Mindanao.  At the anniversary rites were (from left to right): Francis Mallari, human resource head;  Bobby Dy, CEO; Ricky Celis, president; Nikie Lingad, project strategic  management head; Petes Gamboa, innovation and design head.

TOP OF THE TOTEM POLE. Megaworld recently bagged the most awarded company in the 2015 Property & Real Estate Awards. The International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI) Philippines chapter, organized the event to recognize high-performing property develop-ers in the country’s real estate industry. Megaworld received the “Overall Outstanding Developer” award, while its chairman, Dr. Andrew L. Tan, was named “Property Man of the Year” for his contributions to the industry. The company likewise snagged the “Outstand-ing Developer for Office” for its 8 Campus Place in McKinley Hill Township in Fort Bonifacio; and the “Outstanding Developer for Townships/Mixed-use Communities” for Eastwood City. At the awards were Megaworld chairman Andrew Tan (third from left); (from left) Flo-rentino Dulalia, FIABCI-Philippines chairman; Pedro Tario, FIABCI-Philippines vice chairman; Robyn Waters, FIABCI world president; and Felino Palafox, FIABCI-Philippines president.

CITY DWELLING FOR YOUNG FAMILIES, PROFESSIONALS. DataLand, Inc. (DLI) recently launched ‘The Olive Place’, a 50-storey mixed use development in Mandaluyong City. With scenic views of the city’s skyline, and greenery of nearby Wack Wack Golf Club, the project offers a balance between a hectic lifestyle and serene living. At the groundbreaking rites held onsite at 407 Shaw Blvd., in Bgy. Addition Hills, were (from left to right): Susan P. Alcabao, sales & marketing head of DLI; Ruben V. Paguntalan, division head of DLI; Atty. Fely Manaois, legal manager of DLI; Arch. Annette F. Gaddi – Liganor of GF & Partners; Engr. Jose Sy; Engr. Danilo D. Tamayo, chairman of DDT Konstract Inc. (DDTKI); Leo Montenegro, president of DLI; Paul Vincent R. Chua, AVP-business development of DLI; and Joseph V. Garcia, AVP – business development of DDTKI.

Today’s houses, condo units and of-fices are a study in restraint rather than excess, utilitarian form instead of impractical ornaments, econo-

my of space, and free-flowing layouts. The Dyson Cool range of fans is a good addition to the mix, with its bladeless fan that delivers a powerful and continuous air-flow without a blade in sight, and no noise.

LESS IS MORESix years ago, inventor James Dyson bid farewell to the blade by inventing the

world’s first bladeless fan. Previously, fans relied on the spinning blades to cool, but blades chop the air before it hits you. Dyson’s Air Multiplier™ technology accelerates air through an annular aper-ture to create a jet of air, which passes over an airfoil-shaped ramp. What you get is a smooth, high-velocity airflow, less the unsightly blades which can pose a risk to curious young children. Dyson engineers have spent the past few years improving the original design in terms of acoustics and energy efficien-

cy. In the next generation of Air Multi-plier fans, airways have been tuned to sig-nificantly reduce turbulence. The motor no longer needs to work so hard to gen-erate the same cooling performance—re-sulting in a 75% reduction in noise levels and 40% less power consumption. Kenneth Cobonpue—a globally re-nowned, multi-awarded furniture de-signer whose roster of clientele includes Brad Pitt and members of the royalty—is impressed. He refers to Dyson Cool fans as “marvels of form and function.”

FAN ENGINEERED TO FIT

SMALL FOOTPRINT, BIG STYLE. Local designer Kenneth Co-bonpue believes Dyson cool fans have hurdled the most difficult thing for designers to do : “ improve a reliable design that has worked for decades.”

A Filipino urban planner warned that buildings in Metro Manila should under-go a structural audit to determine if these could withstand a very strong earthquake. He made the call following the 7.8-mag-nitude earthquake that devastated hit Nepal last week, killing more than 3,000 people and injuring 6,000 more,

Architect Jun Palafox urged that there was a strong need for the country “to ad-dress the hazards to architecture and urban planning before they become disasters.”

He explained that if a 7.2-magnitude mega-quake hit Metro Manila, an es-timated 20 percent of the structures would probably collapse.

Citing a 2004 study of the Japan In-ternational Cooperation Agency (JICA), Palafox said an estimated 50,000 people would be killed and that Metro Manila would be divided into four since bridges would collapse and roads would be cut.

“Ten-hectare evacuation areas should be identified for metro residents and workers,” the architect added.

But he said that 11 years after the JICA study, no concrete measures have been taken to address these hazards in case of a strong earthquake.

“There should already be a structural audit on buildings, especially government structures,” the architect and urban plan-ner said, noting that 2 percent of tall build-ings and 20 to 30 percent of low-rise build-

ings would collapse in a strong quake. He added that the bridges and struc-tures with the tendency to collapse should already be marked and identified. “There are still structures above the fault line. They should already be iden-tified and transferred to safer areas,” added Palafox noting that addressing the hazards would be 90 percent less costly than rehabilitation. As for old buildings, the architect explained that these should undergo structural retrofitting to reinforce their strength. Meanwhile, ongoing con-structions are advised to have their own earthquake analysis before, during and after construction. “All should have an emergency pre-paredness plan,” he added.

PROPERTYj d l a c s a m a n a @ g m a i l . c o m

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2014 FUNDS BEEF UP ASIA PACIFIC PROPERTY SCENEP

rivate equity funds for the Asia Pacific real estate environment reached US$14 billion in 2014, its highest since the global financial

crisis (GFC), though still well below the US$28 billion peak recorded in 2007.

In a recent report, CBRE predicted that 2015 will continue to see a positive en-vironment for fund raising, though does not expect further significant increases given that 2013 and 2014 were both very active years. Fund raising was boosted by 42 APAC private equity real estate funds

in 2014, an increase from previous years driven by the ongoing demand for access to the region.

The majority of raised funds could translate into direct real estate investments in the region in the coming year, helping to drive up the turnover of overall capital activities by 5% in 2015, CBRE predicted.

Asia Pacific remains a major focus for international investors, with an increasing number of new groups looking at the region for the purposes of portfolio diversification and long-term investment.

Magnet for investment. Booming real estate and

property activities up ahead for urban growth spots like

Makati with the recovery of the global economy, and

excess liquidity in the Asia-Pacific.

NEPAL QUAKE PRODS NEED FOR AUDIT OF MM BUILDINGS

DISASTER-READY? PATCHWORK SOLUTIONS WON’T HACK IT WHEN THE BIG ONE HITS.

GETAWAY TO THE SOUTH. Ara Vista Village in General Trias, Cavite is a 50-hectare community with Wi-Fi connectivity, a round-the-clock CCTV system, 24-hour security service, and ame-nities (e.g. clubhouse swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts, playgrounds, gym, and a church). The village also promotes an eco-friendly lifestyle with its rambling bicycle lanes and jogging paths. From Manila, Ara Vista Village can be reached via South Luzon Express-way (SLEX) through the Carmona Exit; via Coastal Road – Cavitex, from SM Mall of Asia; and through Daang Hari Road, from Alabang, Muntinlupa area.

PROPERTY