Facebook Instagram Linkedin Twitter Youtube
Home Blog Page 10859

Why Walmart farms out same-day grocery deliveries to low-cost freelance drivers

ALPHARETTA, GA. — Jeff Leonard slides behind the wheel of his burgundy Hyundai Accord and heads to a nearby Walmart Inc store, where he picks up the package of groceries waiting for him.
Roughly an hour later, the 62-year-old delivers vegetables, flavored water and cleaning supplies to a shopper’s front door. It is one of nearly 100 such Walmart deliveries for Leonard since July, when he first signed up to courier for the world’s largest retailer.
But he does not wear a uniform or collect a traditional paycheck. He is not on Walmart’s staff.
Leonard is one of hundreds of local independent drivers for DoorDash, the San Francisco-based online delivery service that Walmart uses to handle same-day delivery of groceries to shoppers’ homes outside of Atlanta.
Leonard and his cohort of some 16.5 million American “gig” workers — people who currently work in contingent jobs or as on call workers — come at a lower cost for Walmart than full-time employees, according to interviews with drivers, delivery companies and Walmart documents reviewed by Reuters. But they lack loyalty when there are better paying deliveries out there, adding risk to Walmart’s latest attempt to win more online grocery customers.
“This affords me the ability to make my own hours,” said Leonard, who pays for his own fuel, car insurance and gets no health insurance, retirement plan or other employee benefits. He and other gig drivers in the area collect $7 to $10 per Walmart delivery. Walmart has deemed $11 an hour as minimum wage for its own employees.
The world’s largest retailer began bolstering its partnerships with third-party courier firms to reach consumers in 100 U.S. cities last year to better compete with Amazon.com Inc. The move came as it ended initiatives to use Uber and Lyft drivers, and struggled with using Walmart’s own employees, to deliver packages.
Walmart told Reuters it benefits from the speed as well as the driver contacts of its seven partner firms, such as DoorDash. The move allows same-day grocery delivery to 40 percent of households across the United States, without the burden of hiring employees. The retailer is able to keep costs down by negotiating pre-determined delivery rates with the firms, namely by breaking down delivery costs by zones in cities, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the situation, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The amount that drivers are paid is determined largely by the distance from a store to the shopper’s home or location. For example, for all deliveries within 5 miles of the pick-up point, the retailer agrees to pay a certain amount. It works similarly for distances of 10 or 15 miles from the store as the pick-up point.
“That (payment) gets defined ahead of time and that is fixed,” said a source, referring to the company’s agreement with Walmart. The retailer, the source said, then charges the customer a delivery fee.
The strategy helps Walmart avoid paying surge pricing higher fares when demand for delivery drivers spikes due to rush hour, bad weather or popular meal times — that can dramatically drive up delivery costs.
Walmart spokeswoman Molly Blakeman said speed is a big factor in Walmart’s reliance on the delivery companies, who have existing contracts with drivers and technology to dispatch them on demand. “To develop that on our own in each market would take us much longer to roll out,” she said.
Walmart’s partnership approach to grocery delivery is in contrast to Amazon Flex, which taps freelance drivers directly as needed, and pays them $18 or more per hour. Amazon is also launching its own branded delivery service for Amazon packages, providing couriers with access to leased Mercedes delivery vans and discounted insurance. Amazon did not respond to request for comment.
By working with partners who hire out drivers “on demand” as contractors who can then also earn money from other outlets, Walmart is also able to lower liability risk from labor-related driver lawsuits, which are growing in number around the United States.
Walmart’s Blakeman said the drivers are paid by the delivery, not by the hour, and the all-in average delivery time is 35 minutes. The delivery companies then make decisions about payments to drivers and how they are distributed, she said.
In Georgia and Ohio where these drivers deliver for Walmart as well as local restaurants, Reuters found nearly two dozen drivers take in compensation of less than $11 an hour when they made deliveries for Walmart. And some took in less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. All but one of the 22 deliveries, Reuters tracked, took over an hour to finish.
In a statement, DoorDash Chief Operating Officer Christopher Payne said a majority of drivers earn over $11 an hour while completing Walmart deliveries and a significant portion of the drivers earn over $15 an hour. Reuters was not independently able to verify the higher end of the hourly pay scale.
Walmart partner Deliv paid drivers by the hour, sources said. Reuters reported earlier this week that Deliv, one of Walmart’s partners in Miami and San Jose, ended the relationship altogether.
The risk to Walmart’s new strategy is driver loyalty. None of the drivers in Georgia and Ohio Reuters interviewed said they would commit to handling Walmart deliveries over more lucrative gigs from local restaurants, especially during busy hours.
Garrick Clark, a 44-year-old driver making deliveries for Walmart in Alpharetta, said he would prefer dropping packages for Amazon over delivering groceries for Walmart because Amazon pays $18 to $24 an hour for similar deliveries.
A source with direct knowledge of why the relationship between Walmart and Deliv ended, said delivering large orders over long distances was a hurdle to the tie-up. Walmart charges $7.99 to $9.99 delivery fee on a minimum order size of $30 for online grocery orders, and customers willing to pay for same-day delivery often do not live close to a Walmart store, the person said.
Further, many Walmart’s stores are in low-income neighborhoods which generated fewer online grocery orders for Deliv’s same-day delivery, two sources said.
“To get drivers to agree to $7 or so to drive 15 miles to deliver 40 items was a big problem. Most drivers were like, ‘We don’t want to do Walmart anymore,’” one of the sources said. According to Spend Management Experts, Walmart would have to spend at least $141.76 per employee, per day if it hired them to make deliveries for 8 hours at $11 an hour in Atlanta. The cost analysis, which the firm performed on behalf of Reuters in December, includes what Walmart would pay for fuel, car insurance and car maintenance. But it excludes the cost of employee benefits.
Leonard, the driver here in Alpharetta, said getting a guaranteed minimum wage from delivery companies for the hours he logs would be a big help.
“But they don’t, and that’s the nature of the beast,” Leonard said. — Reuters

Scorecard rates the Philippines as having among the most discriminatory social institutions against women

Scorecard rates the Philippines as having among the most discriminatory social institutions against women

How PSEi member stocks performed — February 14, 2019

Here’s a quick glance at how PSEi stocks fared on Thursday, February 14, 2019.

 
Philippine Stock Exchange’s most active stocks by value turnover — February 14, 2019.

Clock winds down on rice tariff bill signing with no announcement of veto

By Arjay L. Balinbin
Reporter
PALACE OFFICIALS said Thursday that the rice tariffication bill remains “for signing” right up to today’s deadline for President Rodrigo R. Duterte to veto the measure, but did not comment on the reason for the delay, adding an element of uncertainty to its enactment.
Failure to sign or veto the measure by today, Feb. 15 means the measure lapses into law. No definitive Presidential action was announced at deadline time in the early evening Thursday.
“Yes. Feb. 15,” Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea said in a phone message on Thursday when asked to confirm if the measure is expected to lapse into law today unless vetoed by the President.
Mr. Medialdea, however, did not elaborate on why the President has apparently not acted on the measure, leaving open the possibility of a veto.
Farmers’ groups have been urging the President to veto the bill. The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) has said the government will not be able to respond if the international price of rice turns volatile with the National Food Authority (NFA) restricted to a role of maintaining a minimum rice inventory.
However, Mr. Duterte’s spokesman Salvador S. Panelo said the President will not veto the measure and assured the public that the bill is now “for signing.”
“I texted (Mr. Medialdea) and he answered that it was for signing. So, it has not yet been signed, but it is for signing,” the spokesman said in an interview with DZMM on Thursday morning.
On the opposition of the farmers’ groups, Mr. Panelo said: “When the farmers went to the President to complain, he told them it was for the greater good. I know where you are coming from, the President said, but the interests of everyone need to be considered.”
The Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), business groups, and the administration’s economic team have been asking the President to sign the bill. They all contend that the measure, once signed into law, will help resolve several issues afflicting the rice industry, including smuggling, uncompetitive production costs, and corruption.
University of Asia and the Pacific Center for Food and Agribusiness Executive Director Rolando T. Dy said in a chat exchange that the rice tariffication bill is a “monumental reform, and it “will remove NFAs (National Food Authority’s) control over the rice industry.” He also noted that “there are players on both sides: the cabinet members [who are] for [it] and the NFA allies.”
“A major decision requires long discernment,” he said when asked why he thought it was taking too long for the President to sign the bill.
He added that “consumers, especially the 22 million poor [Filipinos], will benefit from lower rice prices” if the bill becomes law.
“The poor spend up to 30% of their budget on rice, The government must fast-track funds for affected farmers for income transfer to compensate for potential losses,” he also said.
Ateneo Policy Center research fellow Michael Henry Ll. Yusingco said in an e-mail that the political side of the President’s decision-making process must also be considered.
“There is a political aspect in the sense that the decision-making process of President Duterte is like that of a local chief executive, like a city mayor which he was for many years. He relies more on his political instincts, honed by decades of experience in the realm of public service, than on experts’ opinion or research-based recommendations.”
He said the President “may appreciate the studies presented to him by his economic managers, but as the past three years have shown, he will still rely on his gut-feel and street-smarts on this rice tariffication issue, on any issue for that matter.”
“In this regard, it will always be very difficult to anticipate the President’s next move or to even speculate as to his leanings on issues waiting for his decision. Clearly, even his closest allies are burdened with this challenge,” Mr. Yusingco said further.
In a phone interview, University of Santo Tomas (UST) political science professor Marlon M. Villarin said: “If you ask me, I think the President will not sign it. The last time I heard from the Palace is that for as long as he is not satisfied that we are capable of really providing a mechanism that will provide a safety net to the local industry, he will not support it and just let Congress approve it. Because whatever happens, the political accountability lies with Congress. Maybe that is one way of how the President wants to define the political, the administrative, and the economic accountability should a problem arise in the near future because of this rice tariffication law.”
He added: “The President is trying to weigh the interests of the demand (side) and at the same time he is looking at the interests of the supply (side) of the industry. If the rice tariffication bill is signed into law, it will only mean one thing, that the NFA will no longer have a full control over the importation of rice, because the purpose of the rice tariffication program is to liberalize the importation of rice to address food security issues.”
“The concern of the President here is whether it will be detrimental or beneficial to the local rice suppliers. Just like what we are experiencing in the vegetable industry in Mountain Province. The vegetable growers there are having difficulty in competing with imported vegetables. That is one of the crucial things that the President is trying to consider.”
He noted that “the midterm elections is about to happen and you know very well that most of the rice cartels in the Philippines are protected by the local government leaders. And they are one of the underground sources of political funding, but the concern of the President, the last time I heard, (is to avoid) repeating the same mistakes, just like what is happening to our vegetable growers.”

DA’s Piñol warns against heavy dependence on rice imports

AGRICULTURE Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol warned against heavy reliance on imported rice amid plans to liberalize imports and doubled down on his earlier support for rice self-sufficiency.
“It is as certain that 10 years from now, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan and India will no longer be able to export the same volume of rice that they ship out today. They have to feed their growing population as well,” Mr. Piñol said in a social media post on Thursday.
“The point I am raising here, which I have raised in many occasions in the past, is: Yes, let us allow imported rice to come in to fill up the supply shortfall. But the policy to just rely on imported rice and ask our rice farmers to diversify to other crops is a death trap. This is a shortsighted view which will kill the rice industry and drive away farmers from the rice fields,” Mr. Piñol added.
Mr. Piñol said El Niño can hit any country without warning, and every country needs to be prepared.
“What if Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia suffer from harvest losses because of climatic disruptions including El Niño?” Mr. Piñol said.
“Even if we have the money to buy, there will be no available rice supply on the world market and assuming the availability of supply, can we outbid China?” Mr. Piñol added.
He called proposals to rely on imported rice as a “Short-sighted view which will kill the rice industry… The next generation of Filipinos will surely curse us for this misjudgment prompted by a myopic view which focuses on fleeting and changing economic numbers,” Mr. Piñol said.
University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) Center for Food and Agribusiness Executive Director Rolando T. Dy said that even with the removal of quantitative restrictions (QR) in the country in line with the implementation of the upcoming rice tariffication law, farmers will continue to plant rice.
“Most rice farmers will continue to plant rice under with income support. Some will eventually diversify,” Mr. Dy said in a mobile message.
“Rice farmers comprise 30% of the total rural folk. We have coconut, fisherfolk, upland farmers. They too need poverty alleviation attention. Coconut farmers and fisherfolk have been neglected for decades,” Mr. Dy added. — Reicelene Joy N. Ignacio

Consumer group contests water rate hike’s inflation assumptions

CONSUMER GROUP Laban Konsyumer, Inc. (LKI) said on Thursday it will continue to contest the water rate increases imposed on the east and west zone of Metro Manila as it claims the move from the water regulatory office was done without the required public consultation.
“The Chief Regulator took it upon himself to answer our pleading without conducting the much-needed consultation and hearing from the stakeholders. Our group pleaded to reduce the 5.7% inflation assumption adopted by the system for 2019,” LKI said through Victorio Mario A. Dimagiba, its president.
He was referring to Patrick Lester N. Ty, chief regulator of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), who in a letter to the consumer group rejected LKI’s letter contesting the rate hike.
The increase took effect on Jan. 1, 2019, at P0.64 per cubic meter for Manila Water Co., Inc. and P1.48 per cubic meter for Maynilad Water Services, Inc.
In a subsequent letter to MWSS Board of Trustee Chairman Franklin J. Demonteverde, LKI and its president said that “there is a need to mutually agree on the fundamental matter.”
LKI said under section 3(h) of the MWSS Charter under Republic Act No. 6234, the agency “shall fix water rates as the System may deem just and equitable.”
“Mr. Chairman, we concede that the fixing of rates by the Government through its authorized agents involves the exercise of reasonable discretion, but the Government has no power to fix rates that are unreasonable or regulate them arbitrarily,” it said.
He said it is the group’s belief that if the regulator’s discretion is to search for a reasonable and equitable formula to temper the price increases, the Philippine Statistics Authority’s core consumer price index (CPI) for the relevant period should have been an inflation rate of 4% for 2019 instead of the adopted 5.7%.
LKI cited the relevant periods as July 2017 at a CPI of 110.6 and July 2018 with a CPI of 115.6.
“Be that as it may, however, we maintain that the 2019 inflation can be a much lower figure from 3.3% to 4% contained in our letter,” it said.
Mr. Dimagiba said his group is requesting the intervention of Mr. Demonteverde to call a public consultation for a just an equitable interpretation of the agreement with the water concessionaires on the definition of the “C” factor of the rates adjustment formula. The “C” factor is percentage change in the CPI that is used as one of the components in computing the rate increase. — Victor V. Saulon

Output of industrial crops mostly higher in fourth quarter

PRODUCTION of abaca, coconut, coffee, rubber, and tobacco increased while sugarcane production decreased during the fourth quarter of 2018, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
According to the recently-published Major Non-Food and Industrial Crops Quarterly Bulletin, the PSA said that abaca fiber production rose 6.7% year-on-year to 18.06 thousand metric tons (MT).
Bicol was the top producer of abaca at 7.39 thousand MT, accounting for 40.9% of total output, followed by Eastern Visayas with 16.7% and Davao Region, 12%.
Coconut output rose 2.7% year-on-year to 4.03 thousand MT, with the Davao region accounting for 12.8%, followed by Northern Mindanao at 12.2% and Zamboanga Peninsula at 10.8%.
Output of coffee in dried berry form was 29.60 thousand MT, up 0.8% year-on-year.
According to PSA, SOCCSKSARGEN was the top producer of coffee at 10.70 thousand MT or 36.4% of the total, followed by the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with 21.6%, and Davao Region 16.7%.
Robusta coffee was the most-produced variety, composing 71.3% of the total, followed by Arabica with 23.7%, Excelsa 4.1% and Liberica 0.9%.
Rubber output in cup lump form was 142.72 thousand MT, up 3.2% year-on-year, with SOCCSKSARGEN accounting for 42.7% of the total, followed by Zamboanga Peninsula with 41.4%, and ARMM with 6.7%.
Tobacco output rose 14.9% year-on-year to 1.10 thousand MT despite fears that new taxes will depress production with Virginia tobacco accounting for 60.1% and native tobacco 39.9%.
Output of sugarcane, which may also come under pressure because of proposals to liberalize imports, declined 2.2% year-on-year to 7.03 million MT. — Reicelene Joy N. Ignacio

Anti-red tape body may exempt some agencies from EoDB deadlines

THE Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) will now allow government agencies claiming to be covered by special laws to be exempted from the timelines for processing transactions under the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) law.
Trade officials have said previously that the law allows no exemptions, citing the language of Republic Act (RA) 11032 or the EoDB Act of 2018 which said it covers “all government agencies including local government units.”
However, ARTA Officer-in-charge Director-General Ernesto V. Perez said Thursday that the agency will now allow for exemptions particularly for those agencies requesting waivers due to their being covered by special laws which provide for separate timelines in processing certain transactions.
The intention is to achieve a balance between due process and ensuring that government services are delivered promptly, according to Mr. Perez.
Agencies with quasi-judicial functions have raised concerns about the EoDB law, noting that the three, seven and 21-day processing rule respectively for transactions classified as “simple”, “complex” and “highly technical” do not suffice for the nature and magnitude of the cases they handle.
“As a general rule, everybody is covered. Now if you claim to be exempted because you are covered by a special law then you say so,” Mr. Perez said, noting ARTA is now writing to remind agencies to classify their transactions as “ simple”, “complex” and “highly technical” or whether they are claiming to be exempt from the EoDB law.
The classification will still have to be approved by ARTA’s director-general who has yet to be appointed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte. Meanwhile, those transactions not classified will be deemed “simple,” requiring completion within three days.
However, he said ARTA will not stipulate in the EoDB’s implementing rules and regulations (IRR) any exemption provisions.
“It should be treated on a case-to-case basis in order not to encourage agencies covered by special laws to claim exemptions. What we would like to highlight is the possibility of expediting processes through automation,” Mr. Perez added.
“If we highlight exemptions in the IRR, many might claim they are exempt,” he added.
Adding a provision to exempt some agencies may also highlight the “conflict” between a general law and a special law, rather than the essence of the law, which is to expedite government processes, according to Mr. Perez.
In principle, a general law supersedes a special law if the enactment of the former comes after the latter and if the special law is incompatible with provisions stated in the general law that followed it.
However, on Wednesday, during the news conference that followed the public consultation on the EoDB IRR in Pasay City, Mr. Perez said: “There is no question that RA 11302 is a general law. So that when there is a conflict between the general law and the special law covering a particular agency, then that special law will prevail.”
He added that the law “will really depend on the agency’s interpretation or study of their existing rules and regulations.”
Mr. Perez added that the preparations for the promulgation of the EoDB law, via the release of the IRR, complements ongoing efforts under Project Repeal.
Launched in 2016, Project Repeal aims to review old regulations and special laws which technological advances may have rendered irrelevant or replaceable by automation.
Since its launch in 2016, the project has reviewed 5,850 issuances, with 1,921 since repealed, 57 amended, 67 consolidated, 3,346 delisted; and 459 retained.
The most recent review resulted in recommendations for the repeal and amendment of 31 laws while 299 department/agency level issuances were proposed for repeal, amendment or consolidation.
Signed in May 2018, the EoDB law penalizes government officials who fail to meet its prescribed deadlines with suspensions and fines up to dismissal, perpetual disqualification from the service, and forfeiture of retirement benefits, depending on the number of times the law is violated.
The IRR will be promulgated once signed by the ARTA DG, whose appointment can be expected to be made official soon, Mr. Perez said.
But Mr. Perez, whose official appointment is as the Deputy Director General of the agency, encouraged another agencies to start moving and acting even without the IRR.
“Because the law says its already effective June 17, 2018, we are already encouraging all government agencies to do their own studies and evaluation of their existing rules and regulations without waiting for the promulgation,” he added. — Janina C. Lim

Half of LGUs around Manila Bay violate anti-pollution laws — DILG

MORE THAN HALF of the local government units along the Manila Bay watershed have been found non-compliant with environmental law, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said.
The DILG said that 53% or 95 of the 178 LGUs from the various regions along the bay failed a checklist that gauges their compliance with environmental laws, with 16 of the worst performers targeted as priorities.
“Based on our assessment, we still have a lot of work to do, and we intend to start with these 16 LGUs as we go along assisting all of the 178. We will help them, hindi namin sila pababayaan,” Interior Secretary Eduardo M. Año in a statement Thursday.
Of the 95 LGUs that failed the assessment, 56 are from Central Luzon, 37 from Calabarzon, and two from Metro Manila.
The DILG performed the assessment to measure the LGUs’ compliance with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the Clean Water Act, the Urban Development and Housing Act, the Water Code, and other such laws.
The Interior Secretary also warned LGUs that do not cooperate with the government’s rehabilitation of Manila Bay.
“We can also file cases against them with the Ombudsman or recommend disciplinary action to the President, if warranted. So we challenge all LGUs to shape up. We need them to fight and win the Battle for Manila Bay,” Mr. Año said.
The DILG also offered assistance to LGUs in order to comply with environmental laws.
“If the problem of the LGU is to create a drainage master plan to upgrade their liquid waste management, we can hold capacity development programs para for them,” Mr. Año said. — Vince Angelo N. Ferreras

House forest-management bill requiring sustainable practices passes on 2nd reading

A BILL requiring the protection and sustainable management of forests has been approved by the House of Representatives on second reading.
House Bill No. 9088, or the “Sustainable Forest Management Act,” which was approved via voice vote, also proposed to establish a Sustainable Forest Development Fund.
House Majority Leader Fredenil H. Castro of the 2nd district of Capiz said he expects third-reading approval of the bill before the 17th Congress adjourns on June 7.
“I am confident that it can be approved on third reading if we have a quorum,” Mr. Castro, who is among the authors of the bill, said in a phone message Thursday. Its counterpart measure, Senate Bill No. 402, written by Senator Loren B. Legarda, however, remains pending at the committee level.
If enacted, it will establish Forest Management Units under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to formulate management plans for forests.
The plan covers the sustainable management of mangrove resources and forest land considered mined-out or abandoned fishpond areas, and the utilization of forest resources, including those within ancestral land.
It will also allow the DENR and any natural or juridical person to enter into a Forest Management Agreement for the exploration, development and utilization of forest lands and resources.
“The Forest Management Agreement shall have a duration of 25 years and may be extended for another 25 years,” as stated under section 24 of the bill.
The agreements may be for the purpose of agroforestry plantations, forest plantation development, ecotourism development and other special uses.
The measure also hopes to establish the Sustainable Forest Development Fund to finance proposals for the FMU. It identified the DENR as the preferred government financing institution to invest 75% of the net interest income from loans extended for forest development.
The SFDF may also be sourced from at least 70% of imposed forest charges and collected government share as well as local and international grants, donations, and endowment.
Further, the bill will ban illegal practices such as utilization or possession of forest resources from protected forest land, the illegal harvest of forest resources, and unauthorized grazing of livestock, among others. Violators may face up to 20 years’ imprisonment and face fines of up to P1 million. — Charmaine A. Tadalan

A bad omen? Emerging markets ‘most crowded trade’ for first time

LONDON — Investors made a U-turn on emerging markets, naming them the most crowded trade, in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s survey for the first time in its history.
This marked a big reversal from last month, when fund managers said “short EM” was the third most-crowded trade — showing how fast the mood can shift in an uncertain market.
It could prove to be a bad omen for emerging markets, though, as assets named “most crowded” usually sink soon afterwards.
Previous “most crowded” trades have included Bitcoin, and the U.S. FAANG tech stocks, which led the selloff in December.
Emerging-market stocks are up 7.8% so far this year, and flow data on Friday showed investors pumped record amounts of money into emerging stocks and bonds.
Emerging-market assets had a torrid 2018. Crises in Turkey and Argentina ripped through developing countries already suffering from a strong dollar and rising U.S. yields pushing up borrowing costs.
But a dovish turn by the Fed at the start of the year, indicating the world’s top central bank would not raise interest rates as quickly as previously expected, sparked fresh enthusiasm among investors.
Major asset managers and investment banks such as JPMorgan, Citi and BlueBay Asset Management ramped up their exposure to emerging markets in recent weeks.
The Institute of International Finance (IIF) predicted a “wall of money” was set to flood into emerging market assets.
However, there are some indications momentum may be waning. Analyzing flows of its own clients, investment bank Citi noted that it turned cautious on emerging-market assets over the last week, with both real money and leveraged investors pulling out funds following four weeks of inflows.
BAML did not specify whether the “long EM” crowded trade referred to bonds, equities or both.
Outside emerging markets, investors’ main concern remained the possibility of a global trade war. It topped the list of biggest tail risks for the ninth straight month, followed by a slowdown in China, the world’s second-largest economy, and a corporate credit crunch.
Overall, BAML’s February survey — conducted between Feb. 1 and 7, with 218 panelists managing $625 billion in total — showed investor sentiment had hardly improved. Global equity allocations fell to their lowest levels since September, 2016.
“Despite the recent rally, investor sentiment remains bearish,” said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BAML.
Investors remained worried about the global economy, with 55% of those surveyed bearish on both the growth and inflation outlook for the next year.
“Secular stagnation is the consensus view,” BAML strategists wrote.
Following this theme, investors were most positive on cash and, within equities, preferred high-dividend-yielding sectors like pharmaceuticals, consumer discretionary, and real estate investment trusts.
As investors added to their cash allocations, the number of fund managers overweight cash hit its highest level since January 2009.
The least preferred sectors were those sensitive to the cycle, like energy and industrials — which BAML strategists see as good contrarian investments if “green shoots” appear in the global economy.
Worries about corporate debt were still running high, with this month’s survey showing a new high in the number of investors demanding companies reduce leverage.
Some 46% of fund managers find corporate balance sheets to be over-leveraged, the survey found, and 51 percent of investors want companies to use cash flow to improve their balance sheets. That’s the highest percentage since July 2009.
Europe, one of investors’ least-favoured regions, showed a slight improvement. A net 5% reported being overweight euro zone stocks, from 11% underweight last month.
But investors’ reported intention to own European stocks in the next year dropped to six-year lows as the profit outlook for the region continued to lag.
Allocations to UK stocks increased slightly from last month but the UK remained investors’ “consensus underweight,” BAML said. It has been so since February 2016. — Reuters

Representing themselves

On July 23, 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte signed Executive Order No. 2 mandating public access to information held by the agencies and offices of the executive branch. The nongovernmental organizations that had been campaigning for a freedom of information (FOI) act for decades welcomed it with cautious optimism. The Executive Order (EO) encouraged the legislature and judiciary to do the same, but the FOI advocates nevertheless pointed out the need for a law that would cover all three branches of government.
Access to information is both a public right as well as an indispensable means of checking corruption by enabling citizen monitoring of government. But the Benigno Aquino III administration and its allies in the House of Representatives resisted the enactment of any FOI law during its entire six-year watch (2010-2016).
Mr. Aquino III said at one point that the press was already “too powerful” and did not need an FOI act. He was mistaken in assuming that it would serve only the media. Such a law would benefit the citizenry most by making readily accessible information on what government is doing and plans to do as a means of uncovering and checking wrongdoing and corruption.
A Senate version passed that chamber, and several FOI bills were filed in the House during the past administration. But most of the latter contained so many exemptions to what information could be accessed that if passed they would have limited rather than enhanced the public’s capacity to obtain government-held information. Other versions not as flawed were prevented from being passed by such obviously contrived barriers as lack of quorum, and some congressmen’s introducing unacceptable riders in the bills, among them right of reply provisions.
FOI advocates initially welcomed the Duterte EO as an indication of the regime’s departure from the Aquino III administration’s opposition to a freedom of information act. Within months after the signing of EO No. 2, however, hope had turned into disappointment.
Not only was there no indication that the House would ever pass an FOI bill into law, the Duterte EO itself also made it even more difficult to obtain information from the agencies and offices of the executive branch. Requests for information from the media were either rejected outright because the requested information was among those that Malacañang had decreed may not be released, or they were given the run-around with the argument that the information being requested was in this or that office rather than in the custody of the agency where the request was originally filed. Some offices also devised complicated processes that made getting information from them extremely difficult.
The long and the short of it is that the Duterte regime, despite EO No. 2 and Mr. Duterte’s repeated claims of a commitment to reducing, if not ending, government corruption, eventually demonstrated that it is as opposed to freedom of information as its predecessor.
Make that even more opposed. Instead of an FOI bill, Mr. Duterte’s House allies passed on Jan. 30 a resolution making it nearly impossible for the public and the media to access their Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN), which contain information crucial to monitoring corruption among members of the House of Representatives.
House Resolution 2467 pays lip service to the Constitution by citing that document’s requiring every government official and employee to file a SALN on or before April 30 every year, but in reality violates it by undermining the people’s right to information.
The resolution imposes severe restrictions on accessing the SALNs of the so-called representatives of the people. The restrictions were put together by the SALN Review and Compliance Committee that Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo created, with some of her closest accomplices in that body as members.
Its most obviously repressive provision is Rule V, Section 14, which makes the release of information on any congressman or woman’s SALN possible only with the approval of the House plenary — meaning the majority of its current membership of over 200.
The congressman or woman whose SALN has been requested can also object to its being released. Only copies of the latest SALNs can be provided. Requests for previous statements will be granted only if considered “justifiable” by the SALN committee and the House Secretary General. Comparing the past and present SALNs of a government official is of course one way of establishing by how much his or her assets have grown and whether they can be explained or not.
The requesting party is also required to submit a form containing personal and employment information, the purpose of the request, and why copies of previous SALNs are being requested. It specifically mentions the media, and imposes additional requirements on any media person’s request, among them proof of his or her media affiliation and the media organization’s accreditation to establish the legitimacy of the media practitioner.
The same resolution imposes a number of other conditions and threatens the requesting party with criminal, civil and administrative liability in case he or she violates any of them.
Once a request is approved, copies of the SALN will cost P300 each — which means that a request for several SALNs can be costly. But in addition, the copies will be released only after they have been edited by the House’s Director of Records Management, specifically by blacking out the address of the SALN declarant, the names of his unmarried children below 18, the locations of his real estate properties, the names and addresses of his business and financial connections and those of his relatives in government, and other data.
These restrictions do not only make it difficult, they make it practically impossible to get a copy of the SALN of any member of the House because of the requirement that it be approved by the plenary and its release allowed by the subject concerned. But even if a request is granted, the SALN copies would be practically useless, since they have been redacted prior to their release.
Meanwhile, the provision that requires a media person to provide proof of his or her media affiliation effectively prevents freelance journalists from even filing a request for a copy of a House member’s SALN.
Equally disturbing is the SALN Review and Compliance Committee’s being empowered to question and evaluate the purpose of the request. A journalist who is doing research to determine if there was a suspiciously huge increase in a House member’s assets, which may prove that he or she may have personally benefitted from, say, the construction of a bridge or roadwork by a company owned by a relative, would be prevented from getting that information by the restrictions imposed by HR 2467.
What is glaringly evident is that the resolution is meant to conceal wrongdoing by preventing the information to which citizens are entitled from getting to them either through their own efforts or the media’s.
Those responsible for this latest outrage — almost the entire House membership passed it — against good and honest governance are not representatives of the people. Like their co-conspirators in the executive and judicial branches of government, they represent only themselves and their personal, familial, and class interests to the detriment of the people’s own. That is the message HR 2467 is loudly and clearly sending to the entire citizenry.
 
Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro).
www.luisteodoro.com

1...10,85810,85910,860...13,744Page 10,859 of 13,744
© 2024 BusinessWorld Publishing.
All rights reserved.
Read our privacy guidelines
Facebook Instagram Linkedin Twitter Youtube