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Signature Art Prize gives voice to minorities

By Sam L. Marcelo, Associate Editor, High Life

Verdant in color and languid in pace, Phan Thao Nguyen’s Tropical Siesta was named the Grand Prize winner of the Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Foundation Signature Art Prize in a ceremony recently held at the National Museum of Singapore. The 14-minute two-channel video, steeped in the languor of a tepid afternoon, reinterprets the writing of French Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), who documented his travels in Vietnam in several books. The installation is composed of a pair of projections set at an angle, accompanied by six oil paintings on x-ray film, each depicting a scene from the video, hanging on the opposite wall.
“The first thing that strikes you as you encounter Thao’s work is a mood. It’s very tranquil,” said Louis Ho, curator of the Signature Art Prize exhibition, which features the 15 finalists culled from 113 nominations. Redolent of a Southeast Asian countryside — with its rice paddies, burbling streams, and overall lassitude — Tropical Siesta was compared to a “pastoral pre-Raphaelite painting” by one of the judges.
Ms. Phan’s imaginary tales of crime and punishment, and a water goddess are populated only by children. Despite the innocence of its young actors, Tropical Siesta possesses a dark undercurrent rife with references to the history of communism in Vietnam, one of the few remaining communist countries in the world. The work, according to Zoe Butt’s curatorial essay, “speaks to the dark eras of Vietnamese history where the country has economically and ideologically struggled.” Ms. Butt continues: “This traumatic history, which saw thousands lose their dignity and livelihood, remains politically sensitive and un-reconciled, thus not published or taught within national educational curricula.”
Tropical Siesta is part of a larger project titled Poetic Amnesia, which includes drawings, paintings, sculptures, and other media. “I think it’s important for an artist from Vietnam to get international recognition because in Vietnam, the situation for the arts still has a lot of limitations,” said Ms. Phan, who studied in Singapore’s Lasalle College of the Arts before pursuing an MFA in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “We don’t have any support from institutions or from the government — and there is still the system of censorship. Even though there are many artists doing wonderful work, if they don’t really show and get recognized somewhere else outside of Vietnam, it will be hard for them. This prize has a personal meaning but, somehow, it also will create an impact on the art scene inside Vietnam,” the Grand Prize winner told Filipino journalists.
DECONSTRUCTING THE GRAND NARRATIVE
On its fourth edition, the Signature Art Prize is a triennial award for contemporary art organized by the APB Foundation and the Singapore Art Museum (this year’s exhibition is installed at the National Museum of Singapore because SAM is undergoing a S$90-million renovation scheduled to be completed by 2021).
First given in 2008, the prize is one of Southeast Asia’s largest, in financial and geographic terms: Ms. Phan received S$60,000 for besting 113 nominations from 46 countries and territories. Casting a wider net to include Central Asia — composed of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — “made sense” said Mr. Ho, who is also a curator at SAM. “Central Asia is definitely one of the most complex and dynamic regions in the world today. I don’t want to keep repeating stuff that we’ve already put in the press release but we actually mean it: contemporary art emerging from that region is fascinating.”
Brand, a work from Kazakhstan that made the final cut, greets visitors upon entering the exhibition space. Eight panels of leather flensed off from a grunting ox (a yak found in the Himalayas) have been carved with numbers, recalling the identification numbers tattooed by Nazis on the forearms of prisoners.
“It also pays homage to the history of violence during the Soviet era in the 20th century,” said Mr. Ho. “There are allusions to traditional culture but also to a history of violence that we are all familiar with. These forked references are very specific but universal enough for us to understand.”

Although the exhibition is a jury prize show without a curatorial concept, Mr. Ho feels that it is coherent, regardless (or is it because of?) of the predilections and interests of the jurors — namely, Mami Kataoka, chief curator at Mori Art Museum (Japan) and artistic director of the recently concluded 21st Biennale of Sydney; Bose Krishnamachari, president of Kochi Biennale Foundation (India); Joyce Toh, head of content and senior curator at SAM (Singapore); Gerard Vaughan, former director of the National Gallery of Australia (Australia); and Wong Hoy Cheong, artist and independent curator (Malaysia).
“The expression of minority identities is a very important part of this exhibition,” said Mr. Ho. Marginalized voices — whether ethnic, economic, or sexual — were the focus of works such as Kaokao #1, a space-filling chevron-shaped installation from New Zealand evoking a traditional Maori pattern; Ex Nilalang (Balud, Dyesebel, Lola ex Machina), a video trilogy from Club Ate, a Filipino-Australian collective, which tackles queer experiences via Filipino mythology and iconography (a manananggal, a mermaid à la Mars Ravelo’s comic book character Dyesebel, and a jeepney-esque creature); and He was lost yesterday and we found him today and Museum of the Lost, a mixed media work by a pair of Korean artists who, in the most literal sense of “focusing on the marginal,” took anonymous characters from pictures and blew them up into portraits only about a foot shy of being life-sized.
“Putting marginalized narratives into the center was very prevalent in a lot of the works,” said Mr. Wong. “For the past few years, like it or not, there’s been such a great sense of the deconstruction of, in PoMo [postmodern] language, the grand narrative.”
Choosing to tell these stories, added Ms. Toh, imbues an “activist dimension or a social dimension” to an artist’s practice. “I think artists fundamentally believe that art — if not directly changing the world — can offer a perspective that is not really recognized or seen in the mainstream,” she said. “There is that thought that we can change something about our ways of seeing. It sounds very youthful but it’s still very current and very powerful, especially with a lot of the pessimism that we encounter in current affairs. In this exhibition, I still see that glimmer of hope there, in a way.”
CONTEMPORARY ART IS ABOUT HISTORY
In a separate interview, Ms. Toh said that the online availability of archives has allowed petits récits, or “localized” narratives, to flourish. “Research into history, archives, forgotten or occluded narratives plays a very big part in their thinking. You see artists performing as researchers of sorts. That’s one thing that we’ve seen coming out in a lot of the works in the last two editions,” she said. “There may be a realization that you really do not and should not accept the dominant narrative as the only one.”
The work of Singaporean artist Shubigi Rao, one of two recipients of the Jurors’ Choice Award, is, perhaps, the most straightforward manifestation of archive-as-material and of archive-as-work. Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book. Vol I: Written in the Margins (2014-2016) is the first complete installation of a decade-long project on, in the artist’s words, the “history of book destruction, censorship and other forms of repression, as well as the book as symbol and resistance.” Ms. Rao’s process consists of “visiting public and private collections, libraries and archives globally that have served as flashpoints in history” in order to produce, in this instance, a multimedia installation centered on Sarajevo’s National Library, which burned to the ground 20 years ago during the Siege of Sarajevo.
The genesis of Tropical Siesta, the Grand Prize winner — lest one forget — is a real historical document that was written several centuries old. The Kris Project by Au Sow Yee (Malaysia) and Mud man by Chikako Yamashiro (Japan) were likewise sparked by archival research, the former on the golden era of the Sinophonic film industry and the latter on Okinawans protesting against the construction of a military base.
“Contemporary art is about history,” said Ms. Toh, summarizing the archive-as-material trend in an oxymoronic turn of phrase. “A lot of current work is looking to the past and its many layers and margins. You can contrast this with modernism, which was looking at the future. Our contemporary art seems to be trying to incorporate histories. I think that’s quite fascinating. And again, history and myth are converging.”

WHITHER PAINTING?
Walking through the exhibition, a visitor might notice a glaring fact: there are hardly any paintings at all. Not counting the six small acrylics that support Ms. Phan’s two-channel video, there is only one major painting: After Paradise Lost #1 by Indonesian artist Gede Mahendra Yasa, whose figurative canvas is crammed with scenes from everyday life and art historical references. Incidentally, this work won the People’s Choice Award, which means it garnered the most votes from exhibition visitors.
The “paucity of painting,” as Mr. Ho put it, was so marked that Mr. Krishnamachari was moved to ask about it during the jurors’ panel. “I felt the lack of finding painters from all these regions. Where are these painters? Where have these great minds gone? Do we believe in skill? Do we believe only in the intellectual part of it? Where have these handmade techniques gone?”
The question led to a detour that touched on the importance of nominators (see sidebar) and the evolution of painting. Mr. Wong, who trained as a painter with the students of Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann, offered the works of Thasnai Sethaseree (Thailand) and Bae Young-Whan (South Korea) as examples of painting disguised in new clothes.
The recipient of the other Jurors’ Choice Award, Mr. Sethaseree’s Untitled (Hua Lamphong) is a monumental paper collage on Buddhist monk robes possessed of a “visceral tactile quality” that Mr. Wong compared to an abstract painting. “It is as painterly as a painting. It may not use oil paint, it may not use acrylic but, in effect, it is a stunning, stunning painting.” Viewed from a distance, the layers of fabric, newspapers, streamers do indeed coalesce into a luminous piece that could easily be mistaken for a colorful canvas of polka dots and squiggles.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bae’s Abstract Verb — Can you remember? is a four-channel video starring a lone feathered figure dancing, twirling, and gyrating to a joyous percussive beat against a white background. “Someone pointed out that it’s like a Franz Kline painting coming alive,” said Mr. Wong, who added that these observations (made in the same vein as comparing Tropical Siesta to a pre-Raphaelite painting) were not meant to contextualize the works in the West. “What I’m saying is that painting takes on new forms, new media. Painting as defined by oil paint or encaustic or acrylic is not necessary.”
And in this debate on painting, which went on for quite a while, lies the value of the Signature Art Prize. “Art prizes, for better or for worse, can trigger conversation, controversy, and debate,” said Ms. Toh. “They are also a validating platform, even if not everyone will agree with it. It’s good to look at it as a starting point and not the endpoint because then, it will trigger some sort of debate. We actually had one today when we talked about wherefore does painting lie in this art prize. So maybe that can spur a bit more thinking and development.”
(The Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize 2018 exhibition is on view till Sept. 2 at the National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Rd., Singapore. BusinessWorld covered the event as a guest of the organizers.)

Asia’s newest millionaires swap basket-case economy for fine art

IN THE PHILIPPINES, where a fifth of the country lives beneath the poverty line, locals have a new obsession: fine art.
Salcedo Auctions is gearing up for its flagship annual sale in September that last year left standing room only beneath the chandeliers of the ballroom in Manila’s five-star Peninsula Hotel.
The inaugural 2010 event was held under a tent in a shopping mall and attracted only about a fifth of today’s crowds.
“Every event, there are always new faces,” said Richie Lerma, director and co-founder at the auction house.
“There are a lot of new affluent who have a shopping list of artists.”
RAPID WEALTH CREATION
Packed art auctions, luxury home sales and exclusive resorts are among telltale signs of an unprecedented rise in rich Filipinos.
While the Philippines still lags the likes of South Korea and Taiwan in dollar millionaires, rapid wealth creation is prompting brokerages and finance firms such as Credit Suisse Group AG to tap what was once Asia’s economic basket case.
An outsourcing boom, record remittances from overseas workers and low interest rates have kept Philippine economic growth above six percent for most of the past six years.
High net-worth individuals — those possessing at least $5 million — are tipped to increase more than 80% in the five years through 2022, the third-fastest pace in the world.
The race to woo millionaires is on.
Credit Suisse is opening a Manila unit of its wealth management business, joining a growing number of private banks such as Julius Baer Group Ltd. that are targeting the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
They’re turning to the region’s emerging rich as growth in the more mature markets of Europe and Hong Kong slows.
“We see a huge potential in the Philippines among Asia-Pacific,” said Christian Senn, private banking market group head for the Philippines at Credit Suisse, who estimates that the nation’s millionaire market will grow 10% annually.
“Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”
Countries producing multimillionaires
STRICTLY FOR THE RICH
Jump on a private jet in Manila, and within an hour you’ll find exclusive resorts offering a reprieve from city life.
Balesin Island Club provides 7.3 kilometers of white-sand beaches strictly for members’ use only, while millionaires can laze on their own private island at the Amanpulo resort.
Back in the capital, high-end department stores selling luxury brands such as Balenciaga and Lanvin have sprouted.
While still in its infancy, the Philippines’ luxury goods market is tipped to grow more than a third to almost $2 billion in the five years through 2022, according to Euromonitor International Plc.
POVERTY TRAP
Now, the reality check: the brashness of new wealth lies in stark contrast with the lives of the Philippines’ poor.
About a fifth of the nation’s more than 100 million people live on less than $3.20 a day, the World Bank estimates.
But it’s also optimistic that economic growth is helping to lift a million Filipinos out of that category each year.
President Rodrigo R. Duterte is building infrastructure and industries outside the capital region, which accounts for a third of the $314 billion economy, to help narrow the stubbornly wide income gap.
To be sure, his efforts are being threatened by the fastest consumer price-gains in at least five years.
More millionaires means opportunities for local lenders, says Stella Cabalatungan, executive vice president at the private banking unit of BDO Unibank, Inc., the nation’s largest bank.
BDO is gearing up for the stiffer competition from offshore private banks by taking on more wealth advisers, as it seeks to boost ties with asset managers locally and overseas.
Real estate brokers and developers are also enjoying the spoils.
Luxury condominiums in Manila’s key business districts have been snapped up by the newly rich, with some projects selling out just months after their launch.
‘FILLED WITH JOY’
Ayala Land, Inc. is building a high-rise condominium block in the main financial district, and sold the three-level penthouse-with-pool for 477 million pesos ($8.9 million).
Indeed, prime Manila residences are becoming scarce, and with prices nearing the costs of offshore property, the nation’s new millionaires are now looking further abroad.
“Manila’s a sellers’ market, so for the wealthy it’s becoming a good idea to go out of the country for property,” said Toby Miranda, residential sales manager at Santos Knight Frank, the London-based brokerage’s Philippine affiliate.
“They’re either looking for a good place to invest in or preparing for the time they’ll send their kids abroad to study.”
Knight Frank has this year marketed London residences to wealthy Filipinos, and partnered with US firm Douglas Elliman Real Estate to offer homes in New York and Los Angeles in May.
Back in Manila, Salcedo Auctions is busy seeking consignments for its September event that it calls “The Well-Appointed Life.” As well as artworks, the sale will include fine jewelry, antiques and rare automobiles.
“We expect prices to go up as they do every auction,” Salcedo’s Lerma said. “The rich will spend to make every part of their life filled with joy.” — Bloomberg

Art talk

By Sam L. Marcelo,
Associate Editor, High Life

MEANDERING AND THOUGHTFUL, the jurors’ panel at the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize covered a wide range of topics and raised questions — a few of which became even thornier as the discussion progressed. Here are excerpts from interviews and from a conversation featuring Bose Krishnamachari, president of Kochi Biennale Foundation (India), Joyce Toh, head of content and senior curator at Singapore Art Museum (SAM) (Singapore), and Wong Hoy Cheong, artist and independent curator (Malaysia), moderated by Louis Ho, SAM curator and curator of the Signature Art Prize 2018 finalist exhibition.
• Nominators, more than jurors, wield the power.
Every country included in the Signature Art Prize is covered by a nominator — or nominators, depending on how active the art scene in that place is — invited by SAM. It’s up to them to make a case for the artworks to the jurors.
“It [the nomination process] gets a little bit overlooked because everyone’s eyes are on the jurors and the winning works, but it’s the first cut. And it represents what the nominators believe or what they want to project as the art of the country, something they want to say about the art of a particular country or region. Or it might be even their own interest — maybe they have an interest in video art. Maybe they feel that a certain kind of art has been overrepresented from their country in the last few years and they want to show another side that has not been seen,” said Ms. Toh in an interview that took place after the panel.
Much like lawyers making their closing arguments in a courtroom drama, nominators have to be eloquent but refrain from bullshit — because jurors have finely tuned bullshit detectors. “We’ve seen nominations where the talking is so good but when you look at how the work is expressed, it doesn’t match up,” said Ms. Toh.
• When it comes to awards as big in scope as the Signature Art Prize, a lot rests on a PowerPoint presentation.
“It’s very difficult to look at artworks using slides,” said Mr. Wong. Unfortunately, these are the parameters that jurors must work with when it comes to any art prize of this scale. This dependence on slides resulted in what he called “the flattening of an idea.” “What could be more stunning is flattened. What was less interesting became prominent,” he said.
Added Ms. Toh: “The first round may be something that the artist struggles with as well. So much of their heart and soul is poured into the making of the work but the first point of reception for this work is then either through social media or a slide. Multilayered works, monumental works — how do you shoot and document this kind of work knowing that people are going to see this on screens?”
Jurors sometimes had to make a leap of faith, dependent as they were on slides, and wait to be vindicated. “There’s a kind of sigh of relief when you see the way the work manifested in the flesh,” said Ms. Toh.
• The art world is bifurcated in several ways: there’s the “Basel vs. Biennale” bifurcation and the “cosmopolitan artist vs. provincial artist” bifurcation, among many other bifurcations.
A collector seated in the audience theorized that the dearth of paintings submitted to the Signature Art Prize was due to the gaping, untraversable chasm between art that appeals to collectors and art that appeals to curators. “Very few collectors would ever buy what you’ve put in this award, which is perfectly all right,” he said. “You can see this difference when you go to the Venice Biennale and Art Basel: the art is completely different. Even if it’s the same artist, what they produce for the Biennale will be completely different from what they produce for Basel. And that’s why I believe there are no oil painting in your awards show, because that’s for Art Basel. Painting is not grand enough, conceptual enough, or deep enough. So the artist would rather send it to Basel.”
“The difference between entering the Biennale or Documenta or Manifesta and an art fair is that an art fair is completely commercial artwork,” said Mr. Krishnamachari, although he did concede that Art Basel makes an effort “to be curatorial” in its Unlimited section. “As a collector, you have to make up your mind as to what kind of things you are looking at, whether history is important for you, whether the visuality is important for you, or the market.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Wong sidestepped the question and shared what he thought was a more worrying divide: “I think what is important for curators — again, this is a very personal point of view — and art professionals to think through is the bifurcation or the polarization between the cosmopolitan artists articulate in the international transactional language of English as well as so-called ‘provincial’ artists who are not very articulate, who work in more traditional forms, whose worldviews are ‘trapped’ in provincial ideas.”
He called for reflexivity among art professionals so that “provincial” artists aren’t further marginalized. Both Mr. Krishnamachari and Ms. Toh agreed that patronage is part of solving what the latter characterized as “a very deep, complex, and fraught topic.”
• Does the selection process — and the art world, in general — favor artists who are more skilled with words?
It is acknowledged that those who do not speak the language — the “international transactional language of English” as Mr. Wong called it (perhaps a variant of International Art English/art speak?) — don’t get to play in the rarefied realms of the contemporary art world. From where this reporter was sitting, Mr. Wong and Mr. Krishnamachari seemed to have differing opinions on this point.
“The disjuncture between what is thought of, what is articulated, and what is seen — all this happens. Some people are more articulate but then if you look at the work — oh, dear. There are all these concepts but where are they translated. Have they been mistranslated, or lost in translation?,” he said. “And so, in this world, the ability to present yourself has become so important and those who are not articulate, those who do not speak this international language are left out.”
Where Mr. Wong previously called for reflexivity on the part of curators (see previous bullet point), Mr. Krishnamachari placed the burden of fluency on the shoulders of the artist. “Artists needs to know the language of what they’re working on, especially those who have contemporary international practices. They definitely need to know what is happening around the world if they want to be in the mainstream. ‘Mainstream’ in the sense of presenting their work and not in the sense of commercial art world,” he said. “Whether you live in Kerala or Singapore, communication is important. You need to know about the world. Opportunities — you have to find them. If you are not building a career, it is your problem. If you are passionate and if you are committed, you can make your career successful.”
• The Philippines has nothing to worry about.
Apart from Club Ate, a Filipino-Australian collective based in Sydney, there were no Filipinos among the finalists. That none of the six nominees were short-listed shouldn’t alarm anyone.
“I am fairly familiar with the scene in Manila and there are plenty of good artists from the Philippines. I hardly think that you guys have anything to worry about. It just so happens that for this edition of the Prize, the selection was a little bit narrow,” said Mr. Ho in an interview. “The Philippines is always a strong contender,” said Mr. Ho.
In a separate interview, Ms. Toh said that any fears about Philippine contemporary art could be assuaged by looking at local events. “All you have to do is go to Art Fair Philippines or the Manila Biennale, she said. “In fact, Art Fair Philippines is a great indicator of where you are. Every year I go, it seems to be getting bigger and bigger. Not just more artists, but more people either going to collect or to present.”
Viva Excon, she added, should get more love as it says a lot about the “tenacity and foundational strength” of Philippine art. The artist-run biennale, founded in 1990 by the Bacolod-based group Black Artists in Asia, will open in Capiz this November. The 2018 edition is under the artistic direction of Norberto “Peewee” Roldan of Green Papaya Art Projects. “It’s very important to go to Viva Excon as it provides a very interesting counterpoint to what you might see in Art Fair Philippines, which is geared toward collectors,” said Ms. Toh.

PPP fest to show 8 films this year


EIGHT FILMS, ranging from romantic comedies to action thrillers, make up the slate of the this year’s Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino (PPP) which runs from Aug. 15-21 in all cinemas nationwide.
The PPP is a film festival created by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) in 2017 “to recognize Filipino artistry in film and promote the country and its talents globally,” says the festival website.
Last year, the festival featured 12 feature films for its week-long run but the council decided to pare it down to eight in order to give each film a chance to be seen by as many people as possible.
“What happened last year was the audience didn’t have the chance to see all the films. I think one week is really [too] short a time for the audience to watch all the films in the festival which makes other films to suffer (sic),” FDCP CEO and Chairman Mary Liza B. Diño, told the media during a press conference on July 9 at the Sequoia Hotel in Quezon City.
Among the films in this year’s lineup are: Ang Babaeng Allergic sa Wi-Fi by Jun Robles Lana, a romantic comedy about a girl who develops an allergy to Wi-Fi and is thus forced to live in a remote province, pushing her to re-evaluate her relationships; Bakwit Boys by Jason Paul Laxamana, a romantic musical about four boys who get a shot at their dream when a rich city girl discovers their musical talent; Madilim ang Gabi by Adolfo Alix, Jr., a political thriller about a couple caught up in the drug war when their son goes missing; and Unli Life, a comedy by Miko Livelo which tells the story of a famous podcast DJ who travels back in time to change events that affects his love life.
Also in this year’s lineup are: Pinay Beauty by Jay Abello, a comedy film about the perennial quest of a typical Filipina to look Caucasian and the cost it entails; Signal Rock by Chito Roño, a drama about a boy living in a small town who decides to help his sister in Finland win a child custody battle; The Day After Valentine’s, also by Jason Paul Laxamana, is a romantic drama about a woman who want to fix a man’s broken heart; and We Will Not Die Tonight by Richard Somes, an action thriller about a stuntwoman who tries to survive the night after a botched deal goes haywire.
“What we were looking for are quality films which are audience friendly,” said director Jose Javier Reyes who is part of the festival’s selection committee during the launch.
He added that of the 21 films which were submitted for consideration, they chose quality films which can reach a wider audience because “Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino has no pretenses beyond being a celebration of Filipino films and part of that celebration is audience-friendliness.”
Aside from the main lineup, the festival will also feature a special section which will be screened in select cinemas. Films in this section come from local independent festivals held in 2017: High Tide by Tara Illenberger from TOFARM Film Festival, Paki by Giancarlo Abrahan from CinemaOne Originals, and Tu Pug Imatuy by Arnel Barbarona from Sinag Maynila Film Festival.
Short films will also be featured in the festival in a section called the Sine Kabataan Short Film Competition. The shorts will be shown in tandem with the full-length features. The entries in this section are: Alas-Nuebe ng Tanghali by Enalyn Legaspi; Anonymous Student Vlog by Christian Babista; Bahay-bahayan by Bryan Spencer Reyes; Bato Bato Pik by Ardinian Jaq Sanaqu and Lorys Plaza; Isang Tula Para sa Nawawala by Rodemille Singh; Koleksyong Pamalo by Len Frago; Masaya Ako by Daniel Edwin Delgado and Tiara Angelia Nicolas; and Runner by Levi Jun Miscala.
The Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino runs from Aug. 15 to 21 in all cinemas nationwide. For more information, visit https://pistangpelikulangpilipino.ph/. — Zsarlene B. Chua

NKG to shift manufacturing to PHL from China

By Arra B. Francia, Reporter
TAIWAN-BASED firm New Kinpo Group (NKG) is positioning the Philippines as its next main manufacturing hub in Southeast Asia, while preparing its local unit for an initial public offering (IPO) to expand its capacity.
In a statement issued Thursday, NKG’s Cal-Comp Technology (Philippines), Inc. said it is scheduled to build two new manufacturing facilities in the country, purchase new equipment, and invest in research and development (R&D) for new products.
Cal-Comp Technology expects to fund this expansion through a P6.77-billion IPO recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company targets to sell up to 378.07 million shares to the public before yearend.
The aggressive expansion is part of NKG’s plan to shift its production capabilities to the Philippines from China.
“China will move towards higher level R&D, so its manufacturing component will slowly be transitioned to the Philippines. This IPO will allow us to raise the funds needed to support the said transition and help the Philippines enhance its manufacturing and R&D strengths,” NKG Chief Executive Officer Simon Shen was quoted as saying in a statement.
A total of P1.88 billion raised from the IPO will be used to construct and develop phases 2 and 4 of its First Philippine Industrial Park, Inc. (FPIP) manufacturing complex in Sto. Tomas, Batangas. This will give the company an additional 48,000 square meters (sq.m.) of space for manufacturing.
The site currently houses a facility of Cal-Comp Technology’s subsidiary, Kinpo Electronics (Philippines), Inc. (KPPH).
The company also plans to build additional facilities in KPPH’s Lima Technology Center site in Lipa, Batangas.
The NKG unit will further allot P1.26 billion for its entry into additional land leases with FPIP for a land area spanning 300,000 sq.m.
Alongside the facility expansion, Cal-Comp Technology will be acquiring new assembly equipment and machinery worth P844 million, such as surface mount technology, assembly lines for storage, home appliance, and calculator products. The budget also includes upgrading existing equipment to increase their production capacity.
Around P800 million will be spent for Cal-Comp Technology’s investments in R&D for it to introduce new products in the next four to five years. Some P243 million has been programmed for capital expenditure requirements, including the purchase of miscellaneous equipment and computer software for production operations.
The remaining P900 million from the IPO proceeds will be used to repay short-term loans of KPPH from Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. and Cathay United Bank, which were initially used as working capital.
“We are ramping up investments in the Philippines because we believe in the country’s economic potential. With an increasingly tech-grounded world, we intend to expand Filipinos’ access to technologically advanced products, equipment, and training,” Mr. Shen said.
The company, which provides global electronic manufacturing services and original design manufacturing, will be launching its own branded products in the Philippine market this year.
Its multiple product lines include external hard disk drivers, televisions, laser printers, smart home appliances, AI humanoid robots, and 3D printers, among others.

Thailand cave rescue to be turned into Hollywood movie

LOS ANGELES — The mission to rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach from a Thai cave is to get the Hollywood treatment in a movie announced by faith-based production house Pure Flix.
Managing partner Michael Scott, who lives in Thailand and was at the rescue site in Chiang Rai as the boys were being pulled to safety, made the announcement late Tuesday on Twitter.
“I couldn’t be more excited. This story has meant so much to me as I have followed it in Thailand this summer,” he said in a video filmed at the scene of the flooded cave in the country’s north.
“My wife actually grew up with the Thai Navy SEAL that died in the cave. To see all that heroic bravery in the cave, and to get all the divers out, it’s just such a touching event and so personal to me.”
Stunning video footage emerged Wednesday of several of the “Wild Boars” team — aged 11 to 16 — being freed from the Tham Luang cave on stretchers, ending a successful three-day rescue.
They are in good physical and mental health, say doctors, despite a harrowing 18 days inside the dank, dark cave before a risky rescue operation that was dubbed “Mission: Impossible.”
Scott’s wife has been involved with planning the funeral for Saman Kunan, the former SEAL that died on July 6 while helping install oxygen tanks in preparation for the extraction.
“We’re here really looking at this as a movie that could inspire millions of people across the globe,” Scott added.
“And we’re here witnessing the events, gathering some contacts and everything, to really tell a story about an international effort, the entire world coming together to save (12) kids trapped in this Thai cave.”
Pure Flix cofounder David A.R. White told The Wall Street Journal the company — which was behind the 2014-2018 God’s Not Dead trilogy — was talking to actors, writers, and potential investors.
“Pure Flix joins the rest of the world in thanking God for answering prayers for the successful rescue of those trapped in the cave in Thailand,” the company said in a statement. — AFP

Kylie Jenner, 20, on cusp of billionaire status

AFP

NEW YORK — Aged just 20 and the youngest member of the extended reality-TV Kardashian clan, Kylie Jenner is on track to become America’s youngest “self-made” billionaire, Forbes revealed Wednesday.
The young mother, who gave birth to daughter Stormi in February, set up Kylie Cosmetics two years ago and the company has already sold more than $630 million worth of makeup, the magazine said.
Forbes conservatively valued her company at $800 million and raised her overall worth to $900 million by throwing in earnings from television programs, endorsements and after-tax dividends.
Jenner owns 100% of the company, which started out with a $29 “lip kit” — matching set of lipstick and lip liner that traded on her trademark pout.
She’s already the youngest person on Forbes’ list of richest self-made US women and another year of growth would make her the youngest self-made billionaire ever, beating Mark Zuckerberg, who crossed the threshold at the age of 23.
“Thank you @Forbes for this article and the recognition. I’m so blessed to do what I love everyday,” she tweeted next to a photograph of the cover story.
Her success has been attributed to her fame and ability to leverage social media. She has more than 110 million followers on Instagram, 25.6 million on Twitter, and 16.4 million follow her company directly.
Forbes said the firm has only seven full-time and five part-time employees, with manufacturing, packaging, and sales outsourced, and “momager” Kris handling the business side in exchange for a 10% management cut.
“As ultralight start-ups go, Jenner’s operation is essentially air. And because of those minuscule overhead and marketing costs, the profits are outsize and go right into Jenner’s pocket,” Forbes wrote.
Jenner is the youngest daughter of Kris and Caitlyn, formerly Olympic gold medalist Bruce. Her sister is supermodel Kendall. Her half-sisters are Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe Kardashian.
Reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians launched when Kylie was 10 years old. Aged 17, she trademarked the phrase “Kylie Lip Kits… for the perfect pout.”
Forbes said she used $250,000 earned from modeling to pay a company to produce the first 15,000 lip kits, which she spent months teasing on Instagram. They sold out in less than a minute at the November 2015 launch.
That May, Jenner had admitted to having temporary lip fillers. On Sunday, she revealed on Instagram that she had ditched them. — AFP

EDC to obtain P11.5-billion loan facility

By Victor V. Saulon, Sub-Editor
ENERGY Development Corp. (EDC) has secured on Thursday approval from its board of directors to obtain three-year loan facilities with various local banks for a total amount of P11.5 billion, the Lopez-led company told the stock exchange on Thursday.
The loan facilities will be partly used to refinance its $80-million club loan, it said.
Aside from dollar-denominated loan, which translates to around P4.2 billion in the local currency, EDC said it will use the proceeds “to fund a portion of its capital expenditure program, and for other general corporate purposes.”
“These are peso loans so no forex risk,” said Erwin O. Avante, EDC vice-president and head for corporate finance, in a text message.
He also said the loan facilities are targeted to be obtained within the third quarter of this year. EDC — the country’s largest geothermal and wind energy company — declined to disclose additional details of the planned borrowing.
In May, Mr. Avante said EDC had allocated a capital expenditure of P6.1 billion for 2018, around the same as the previous year’s.
He said the company had “growth projects” up until 2014 and 2015, but the outlay had since been for existing operations.
“I think the bigger chunk here is the drilling. We’re looking at drilling I think three wells if I’m not mistaken this year. That’s in the program. That’s over a billion already,” he said.
EDC expects this year’s revenues and profit to be flat, a positive development for the company that ended the first quarter with a double-digit decline in top- and bottom-line figures.
In the first quarter, it posted consolidated revenues of P8.18 billion, down 15% from the level a year ago. Its consolidated recurring net income attributed to equity holders of the parent firm was at P1.81 billion, lower by 44% from a year earlier.
Including non-recurring items, EDC reported a consolidated net income attributable to equity holders of P1.34 billion, or less than half of last year’s P3.09 billion. Net income was down by 54% to P1.5 billion from P3.26 billion, although the company said its financial position remained strong with a cash balance of P14.27 billion.
On Thursday, shares in the company rose 0.77% to close at P5.24 each.

Matti’s BuyBust leads PHL contingent at NYAFF

ERIK MATTI’s BuyBust (2018) and On the Job (2013) are to be screened this week at the ongoing New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF). They and four others make up the largest lineup of Filipino films in the festival since 2013, according to the festival’s website.
“This is a very big opportunity to showcase what kinds of films are currently in the Philippines,” said Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) CEO and Chairman Mary Liza B. Diño in the vernacular during the send-off press conference on June 10 at the Cocoon Hotel in Quezon City.
“This is our biggest film contingent in North America so far. [The region] is really, really hard to penetrate,” she said before explaining that directors like Lav Diaz and Brillante Mendoza, among others, have already made a name for themselves in European film fests like the Cannes Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival, but very few Filipino films have made it through to the North American film market.
First held in 2002, NYAFF generally features contemporary premieres and classic titles from Eastern Asia and Southeast Asia with genres ranging from horror to crime and action. The festival is organized by Subway Cinema and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
This year’s festival runs from June 29 to July 15.
Mr. Matti’s BuyBust, an action film about the drug war which stars Anne Curtis-Smith and MMA fighter Brandon Vera, will have its world premiere at the festival and also serves as the festival’s closing film on July 15 at the SVA Theater.
“On the surface, it is structured like an action film in the vein of The Raid… [with] narcs taking down a drug kingpin against insurmountable odds over one unrelenting rainy night. The film employed 309 stuntmen and features a wildly ambitious three-minute, one-cut action scene. Being a Matti film, it also offers a searing perspective on the ongoing drug war and broader issues of political corruption,” noted the festival website.
Three other Filipino films were chosen that also tackle the ongoing drug war: Respeto (2017) by Alberto “Treb” Monteras II which is competing in the festival’s Tiger Unleashed section and screens on July 14 at the SVA Theater; Mikhail Red’s NeoManila (2017), which was screened on July 5 at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center; and Mr. Matti’s On the Job (2013), which screens on July 14 at the SVA Theater.
Also included in the Filipino lineup are Richard Somes’ We Will Not Die Tonight which had its world premiere on the festival’s opening night on June 29 at the Lincoln Center; and Irene Emma Villamor’s Sid & Aya (2018), the only romantic drama in the lineup, will be screened on July 15 at the SVA Theater.
“The festival aims to show that Asia is a beacon of cinematic excitement, its films as rich in provocative artistry and as emotionally compelling as those of its Western counterpart. In the age of algorithm-dictated curation and Eurocentrism, NYAFF holds two convictions: that taste in films cannot be deduced or reduced to one’s browser history; and that the best in new cinema is rising from the East,” said the festival on its website.
This year’s edition of the NYAFF is dubbed the “Savage Seventeenth” and features four world premieres, three international premieres, 21 North American premieres, three US premieres, and 12 New York premieres, showcasing comedies, dramas, thrillers, romances, horrors and arthouse films from Asia. — Zsarlene B. Chua

Holcim assures cement production ready to meet Mindanao demand

DAVAO CITY — Holcim Philippines, Inc. is preparing to ramp up cement production in Mindanao as demand continues to increase with private sector projects and the government’s “Build, Build, Build” program.
“There is no shortage of cement despite the increasing number of construction projects in the country,” Holcim Philippines Senior Vice-President for Sales William C. Sumalinog said at Wednesday’s Habi at Kape forum.
The company announced in October last year that it is investing P1.5 billion for the expansion of its Davao City plant to increase production capacity to 22 million bags in 2019 from the current 14 million.
The P1.5-billion investment is part of the company’s P2.5-billion capital expenditure earmarked this year.
To demonstrate Holcim’s present production capacity, Mr. Sumalinog said its two plants in Davao City and Misamis Oriental can cover up to 400 kilometers of two-lane roads per month.
“Our investment of P1.5 billion goes to show our commitment that we are more than willing to support the development not only in the entire Philippines but in particular in Mindanao, and we believe that by so doing to be able to really uplift somehow the lives especially for the masons, the workers in the construction industry,” he said.
The company’s “Galing Mason” program, its flagship corporate social responsibility project launched in 2004, provides training in partnership with the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA). Program graduates also get priority hiring from members of the Philippine Constructors Association, Inc.
“Our role is not just developing cement but also increasing the capability of our skilled workers within the industry… we are not just introducing cement but we are also introducing new types of technology and innovation to also elevate the skills of our partners and whoever is going to use our products,” Mr. Sumalinog said.
Alongside Holcim’s plant expansion, it is also rolling out innovative construction solutions such as the Solido, which provides soil stabilization such that contractors can still pour cement even when it is raining.
Another product is the Super Fast Crete (SFCrete), a fast-drying cement that is now being used for repairs on Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare, EDSA.
“We are also the first in history to go out of Metro Manila to put up a technological center in Mindanao,” Mr. Sumalinog said, referring to the Davao Tech Center, which is capable of conducting concrete and soil analysis.
Holcim also has two mobile laboratories moving around southern and northern Mindanao to provide testing and other services on site.
Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa) Assistant Secretary Romeo M. Montenegro, in the same forum, said the company’s expansion is a welcome development for the implementation of projects in the pipeline.
“We may not see the shortage in cement (now) but we are continuously seeing an increase in the demand for cement and steel considering the ‘Build, Build, Build’ involves big-ticket projects,” he said.
Mr. Montenegro cited that 14 of at least 60 major infrastructure projects lined up by the national government are in Mindanao.
Construction for most of these are expected to start a year from now, he said, while private sector initiatives are also being rolled out. — Carmencita A. Carillo and Maya M. Padillo

SEC warns public against Boss Network

THE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warned the public about dealing with Building our Success Stories Network, Inc. (Boss Network), saying the group is not licensed to solicit investments despite being registered with the commission.
In an advisory posted to its website Thursday, the country’s corporate regulator said Boss Network’s registration only allows it to directly sell goods and merchandise to consumers.
“It must be emphasized that the company is not authorized to offer, solicit, sell or distribute any investment/securities,” the SEC said. It added that a company needs a secondary license to offer, solicit, sell, or distribute investments or securities, as well as register the securities with the commission.
SEC released the advisory after receiving information that Boss Network was recruiting people into its group through the sale of eight types of packages starting from P1,500 to P382,500 each.
The lowest package, called the Bronze package at P1,500 each, grants members one universal bonus pool (UBP) share, which allows them to earn a maximum of P2,250. The package includes two perfumes, and two kinds of soap.
Boss Network’s most expensive package called Diamond is priced at P382,500, and in turn will let them earn up to P707,625. Products under the package include 510 perfumes and a total of 510 soaps.
Another way to earn is through what Boss Network calls the Unilevel income, where a member can earn P5 for every purchased product of his downline up to the 10th level.
The SEC noted that a company promising profits mainly from the efforts of its members and recruits, instead of the success of an underlying business, may be an investment scam.
“While the scheme may involve sale of products, the same may still constitute an investment scam if the sale of the products is not the primary focus of the scheme. In such a case, the sale of the products is just being used in order to make the investment scam appear to be legal,” the commission said.
The SEC warned that those who act as salesmen, brokers, dealers, or agents of the company described as a potential investment scam may be prosecuted and held criminally liable under the Securities and Regulation Code, with a maximum fine of P5 million or penalty of up to 21 years imprisonment. — Arra B. Francia

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