PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte has signed into law a bill creating a professional regulatory board for the fishery profession.
The Philippine Fisheries Act, signed on Aug. 22, will “sustain the food security and economic development of the country” and upgrade standards of fishery education.
The board will set up quality standards for fishery professionals that will guide schools and colleges, through the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).
The Professional Regulation Commission will supervise the newly created board composed of a chairman and four members.
The new board will administer and supervise licensure exams for admission to the practice of the fishery profession. — Arjay L. Balinbin
PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte should issue an order allowing the Justice department to overrule decisions of the Bureau of Corrections, an opposition senator said yesterday.
The president should delegate his control over the prison agency to the Justice secretary after an unpopular decision to free former Calauan Mayor Antonio Sanchez, a convicted rapist and murderer, Senator Franklin M. Drilon told reporters.
The Senate will investigate the bureau’s enforcement of the law on parole and its earlier plan to release the former politician for good conduct.
Mr. Sanchez was sentenced to seven life terms in 1995 for the rape and murder of two University of the Philippine students in 1993.
“The focus of the investigation, if I may suggest, should be on how the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law is being implemented,” Mr. Drilon said. “Is it implemented properly, or do we have a basis to say that there is corruption?”
Senator Richard J. Gordon, whose justice committee will conduct the probe, said he had filed a bill to computerize prison records for a more accurate computation of remaining service time.
He said Mr. Sanchez was unqualified for parole give his bad record while in jail. Mr. Sanchez violated several prison rules including smuggling illegal drugs and receiving luxuries such as a flat screen TV and air conditioning in his cell, Mr. Gordon said in the bill’s explanatory note. — Charmaine A. Tadalan
TROPICAL STORM Jenny, the 10th to enter the country this year, exited the Philippine area Wednesday, leaving behind landslides and damaged bridges. Among those affected were portions of the Baguio-Bontoc Road, and clearing operations were ongoing yesterday except along K0362+680 in Busa, Sabangan, with the road washed out and will need funds for repair, according to the Department of Public Works and Highway’s (DPWH) Cordillera Administrative Region office. In Isabela, the Turod-Banquero bridge was damaged and not passable. In Biliran, the spillway/detour in Caraycaray River was cut-off by floodwaters. The Caraycaray Bridge is passable only for four-wheel and light vehicles. Vehicles with more than four wheels and heavy equipment have been advised to take the Biliran-Cabucgayan-Caibiran Cross Country Road in going to Naval, Tacloban City, and other parts of Eastern Visayas. As of 4 p.m. yesterday, weather bureau PAGASA reported that Jenny was already 510 kilometers west of Dagupan City, Pangasinan, which is outside the Philippine area.
EDGARDO P. Luib, the self-confessed hitman in the killing of businessman Dominic L. Sytin, has pleaded guilty to his murder charge. Senior Assistant State Prosecutor confirmed that Mr. Luib also pleaded guilty to his frustrated murder charge for wounding Mr. Sytin’s bodyguard Efren Espartero. The Department of Justice (DoJ) last month indicted Mr. Luib along with Mr. Sytin’s younger brother, Alan Dennis L. Sytin, and Oliver D. Fuentes in connection with the incident on Nov. 28 last year outside the Lighthouse Hotel at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone. The slain Mr. Sytin was the CEO of United Auctioneers, Inc., chairman of Foton Philippines, and director and chairman of the board of the listed LMG Chemicals Corp. Mr. Luib, who was arrested by the Philippine National Police last March tagged the younger Sytin as the murder’s mastermind. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas
THE SUPREME Court (SC) affirmed the dismissal of the petition challenging the 2.5-hectare ancestral land awarded to the Ati indigenous community in Boracay, Malay. In a seven-page resolution, the SC’s first division upheld the 2015 decision of the Court of Appeals (CA), which dismissed the petition of two private complainants based on wrong venue. The case stemmed from the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) awarded by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to the Ati community in Barangay Manoc-manoc. The private complainants questioned the award before a Regional Trial Court in Kalibo, which maintained that it has jurisdiction over the case despite the contention of the community. The NCIP and the community elevated the case to the CA, which dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction. The CA said the private complainants should have filed for the cancellation of the award to the NCIP. While the SC upheld that the regional trial court committed grave abuse of discretion in taking up the case, it said that the NCIP has primary jurisdiction to resolve claims over ancestral lands. The high court also said the petitioners should have appealed the NCIP Resolution straight to the CA. “The records show that no such appeal was taken. It would then appear that what the complaint subsequently filed was an attempt to revive a lost appeal, which cannot be countenanced,” the resolution read. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas
THE DIFFERENT ministries of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) are expected to submit their respective budget proposals by Aug. 30, which will then be evaluated and consolidated by the Ministry of Finance, and Budget and Management (MFBM). “All of the offices need to submit their budget proposals by Aug. 30 so that we can begin the technical deliberation at the level of MFBM,” BARMM spokesperson Naguib G. Sinarimbo said in a news conference Tuesday. “After all the proposals are already consolidated, the chief minister will submit it to the parliament,” added Mr. Sinarimbo, also head of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government. During the budget forum held in July in preparation for the fund planning, BARMM Chief Minister Murad Ebrahim stressed the need to “establish proper delivery of services and promote fiscal discipline and better planning in utilizing the said budget.”
FISCAL AUTONOMY
Mr. Ebrahim said they are hopeful that there will be no delays and that parliament will be able to enact within the year the new regional government’s budget for 2020. In his Chief Minister’s Hour address before the Bangsamoro parliament last Aug. 22, Mr. Murad noted. “One of the structural flaws of the ARMM was its lack of fiscal autonomy. It needed to ask and defend its budget to Congress yearly. This has been addressed in the BOL (Bangsamoro Organic Law) through the block grant and other fiscal powers granted to the Bangsamoro.” MFBM Deputy Minister Ubaida C. Pacasem, in an interview with BusinessWorld, further explained: “The region’s budget will be appropriated automatically… The Bangsamoro Parliament will program where the funds will be appropriated based on the budget proposal submitted by each office.” The BARMM has a P70.6 billion allocation in the proposed P4.1 trillion national budget for 2020, which has been submitted and currently under review by Congress. The total BARMM budget consists of P63.6 billion for the annual block grant, P5 billion in special development fund, and P2 billion for the region’s share in the national taxes. — Tajallih S. Basman
Only 28 provinces, 5 cities to be covered by universal health care in 2020
THE UNIVERSAL Health Care (UHC) Act, which automatically enrolls all Filipinos to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), will be rolled out only in 33 areas in 2020, the first year of implementation. “We will not have a nationwide roll out of the Universal Health Care,” Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said during the department’s budget hearing at the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Mr. Duque cited funding and the Department of Health’s (DoH) capacity for the limited implementation. He said 40% of the DoH’s proposed P150 billion budget next year will be allocated to UHC coverage. The 33 areas is composed of 28 provinces out of 81 in the country, and five cities out of 145. The provinces are: Benguet, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Bataan, Tarlac, Batangas, Quezon, Oriental Mindoro, Masbate, Sorsogon, Aklan, Antique, Guimaras, Iloilo, Cebu, Biliran, Leyte, Samar, Zamboanga del Norte, Misamis Oriental, Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Sarangani, South Cotabato, Agusan del Sur, Agusan del Norte, and Maguindanao. The cities are: Valenzuela, Parañaque, Dagupan, Baguio, and Cagayan de Oro. In a statement released Wednesday, DoH said it will also focus on fast-tracking improvements in its anti-fraud system for PhilHealth in view of the UHC rollout. — Gillian M. Cortez
TESDA targets employment for 17,000 graduates
THE TECHNICAL Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) is targeting to have 17,000 technical-vocational (tech-voc) graduates employed through a series of job fairs from Aug. 20 to 29. “[We] target to link an estimated 17,000 tech-voc graduates to employment opportunities in a series of job fairs during its conduct of World Café of Opportunities (WCO) 2019,” TESDA said in a statement on Wednesday. The WCO is being held simultaneously in 54 sites across the country’s 17 regions. “TESDA’s World Café of Opportunities brings together our tech-voc graduates and those interested in taking tech-voc courses with industry partners and tech-voc providers,” TESDA Secretary Isidro S. Lapeña was quoted as saying. TESDA noted that through the WCO, tech-voc graduates can avail of skills upgrading interventions and pre-employment guidance services, in addition to exploring wage or self-employment opportunities. TESDA’s regional offices have also invited companies from the construction sector in addition to the participating firms and organizations from other industries. — Arjay L. Balinbin
POEA asks recruitment agencies to monitor HK workers’ condition amid rallies
PHILSTAR
THE PHILIPPINE Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has called on recruitment agencies to monitor the condition of their deployed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Hong Kong amid the continuing unrest in the Special Administrative Region of China. In its Advisory No. 16 dated August 27, POEA advised all Philippine recruitment agencies (PRAs) “to monitor the status of their deployed workers in view of the ongoing strikes.” PRAs have been directed to submit an initial report as soon as possible to the POEA Welfare and Employment Office, and every Thursday thereafter. Filipino domestic workers make up 55% of Hong Kong’s total domestic workers, according to Hong Kong-based charity Enrich. — Gillian M. Cortez
Give a Hoot! is a podcast by Wiseowl, a strategy firm specializing in communication for social change, on the PumaPodcast platform. Targeting communicators and social change agents, the series aims to discuss relevant and timely topics that focus on and involve communication.
The hosts will do this by exploring “elements of communication, the range of audiences, current practices, and stimulating possibilities in the field”. Furthermore, they will be using actual events and campaigns to further illustrate their points.
Wiseowl needs helps in gathering funds to produce their first season, making a total of 5 episodes. They currently have 4 episodes planned out revolving around the following topics:
Wiseowl needs helps in gathering funds to produce their first season, making a total of 5 episodes. They currently have 4 episodes planned out revolving around the following topics:
Call-out culture on social media
How the masa, the country’s largest population group, consumes media (namely radio, tabloids, and online videos)
Gen Z as the future of brands and movements
Creative awards and their impact on social causes
Should funding exceed their current goal, the money will go towards the production of more episodes and community-building events.
Click through here if you’re interested to help or want to find out more about the project.
Is it possible to combine the best characteristics of startups and enterprises to create meaningful innovation and transformational change? IBM Garage hinges on the premise of combining the agility of a startup at the scale of an enterprise. This center for client-centric innovation was conceived to apply purposeful technologies to quickly create and scale ideas that allow businesses to evolve.
IBM Garage employs a methodology where organizations co-create, co-operate, and co-execute ideas with the right combination of people while utilizing applied technology, industry best practices, and IBM’s depth of experience.
The co-creation experience
As described in their Think Singapore 2019 showcase, IBM Garage initiates the transformation process by focusing first on the customer’s desired outcome before employing enterprise design thinking to understand who the customer is. They then bring in users from both the customer and IT to drive consensus and clarity around the business before developing empathy maps to glean insights into what the users really think, feel, say, and do.
The co-execution phase follows, and this is where the customer and IBM Garage develop a minimal viable product (MVP) together by determining how a big problem can be broken down into something small that can be tested and iterated with their users.
The main objective is to get an idea into working code as quickly as possible (as little as six to eight weeks), building an MVP that’s designed from the onset to scale.
A time-saving pricing tool
Mueller, Inc., a leading retailer and manufacturer of steel building products in the US, counts itself as one of the companies that has adopted this new way of working. When sales rose exponentially a few years ago, contractors had to contend with a manual pricing process that involved a lot of back and forth with the company’s sales team, weighing them down in paperwork and delaying projects. Mueller partnered with IBM Garage because it needed a solution to scale its business by minimizing the time spent on administrative tasks.
“This tool was going to be such a strategic portion of our connection to customers that we couldn’t afford to mess it up,” said Mark Lark, Mueller’s Manager of Strategy Analytics and Business Intelligence.
Over the next nine weeks, IBM Garage helped Mueller come up with a solution through a process that involved a user research activity that determined their customers’ pain points, an Enterprise Design Thinking workshop where the proposed solution was discussed in detail, the design of a mobile app on the IBM Cloud Public platform, and the testing and validation of the MVP. The result was the Material Estimator app, a pricing tool that helps contractors configure product specifications and generate quotes until they have a solution that fits the customer’s requirements — sans the constant input from the sales team. Customers now receive pricing quotes more quickly, translating to faster project timelines and increased customer satisfaction.
“This is the type of problem-solving approach I want the company to take,” said Mueller CEO Brian Davenport. “It is going to help Mueller be nimble as we continue these development systems in the future.”
Inspiring collaboration
IBM Garage drives digital transformations for its clients by putting to use IBM’s assets (such as hardened reference architectures and code) and practices (such as DevOps and lean agile) in conjunction with diverse experts across research, strategy, process, application, infrastructure, and technology. Their methodology is meant to inspire collaboration and eliminate traditional silos so employees are encouraged to learn by doing.
The center works with clients with the goal of building new value propositions by empowering them to design and create real applications that solve their particular needs. It also aims to help organizations build people-centered cultures and user-focused business outcomes.
THE MARKET can expect more monetary policy easing in the remaining months of the year, in terms of tweaks to benchmark interest rates and banks’ required reserves, the central bank chief told economic journalists in a forum on Tuesday.
“Another 25 basis points (bps) before the end of the year,” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said when asked on the matter. “We’ll review. We’ll be data dependent… We’ll look at the behavior of other central banks.”
The central bank has cut benchmark interest rates by a total of 50 bps, so far, this year — by 25 bp each on May 9 and Aug. 8 — to 4.25% for the overnight reverse repurchase rate, 4.75% for overnight lending and 3.75% for overnight deposit, partially dialing back the 175 bp cumulative hikes triggered last year by successive multi-year-high inflation that peaked at a nine-year-high 6.7% in September and October.
On the subject of trimming the reserve requirement ratio (RRR), Mr. Diokno replied: “Anything can happen… It’s a live issue.”
Ahead of the August monetary policy review, Bloomberg reported that the central bank chief was looking at a total of 50-bp cut in the remaining months of the year after the May 9 25 bp reduction.
In an interview after the policy meeting this month, which resulted in this year’s second 25-bp rate cut, with ABS-CBN News Channel, Mr. Diokno signaled that RRR cut could happen anytime towards the next policy review on Sept. 26 — the sixth for the year — during which another 25 bp cut would be on the table.
Two weeks ago, he had said that the Monetary Board’s consensus is to “pre-announce” plans for the RRR on a quarterly basis. The RRR now stands at 16% for big banks and six percent for thrift, savings and cooperative lenders after the phased 200-bp cut implemented after an off-cycle meeting last May.
The reductions in reserve requirement of both big and smaller banks are estimated to have released at least P200 billion into the financial system by the end of July that could support productive activity.
The central bank chief is committed to bring down the reserve requirement down to single digit when he ends his term in 2023. — Mark T. Amoguis
THE Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) is studying the economic effects of a prospective government decision to close down Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs), the central bank chief said on Tuesday.
“I already asked AMLC team as well as our financial stability team as to the impact of discontinuing of POGO in the Philippines. What’s the impact on the real estate, what’s the impact on the economy…” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said in an economic forum in Manila on Tuesday.
“What if, all of a sudden, they pack up and leave? What will be the impact of that on the property sector plus also the food industry, the restaurants? So this is part of my job as BSP governor,” he added.
“It’s not really an investigation. It’s a study for the guidance of the Monetary Board and the AMLC,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the event.
There are 60 licensed POGOs in the country but only 48 are operational, a Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. representative said during a House of Representatives hearing on the agency’s 2020 budget.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue started collecting taxes from foreign workers employed by POGOs in early July and ordered the companies to remit withholding taxes from such workers by Aug. 10.
China last week asked the Philippines to ban all forms of online gambling. — Mark T. Amoguis
