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What and who to see at Art Fair Philippines 2019

UNLIKE the previous editions where featured works were found on every floor of The Link carpark in Makati, this year’s Art Fair Philippines will showcase all its ArtFairPH/Projects featured artists and their works on one floor, for better impact and convenient viewing, said one of the fair’s organizers, Lisa Ongpin Periquet, during a press conference on Wednesday.
Some of the works in ArtFairPH/Projects were commissioned especially for the fair.
This year’s edition of Art Fair Philippines — it seventh — will run from Feb. 22 to 24.
ARTFAIRPH/PROJECTS ARTISTS
Internationally acclaimed Filipino artist David Medalla is among the featured Filipino artists, along with Ray Albano, Mauro “Malang” Santos, Liv Vinluan, Ryan Villamael, Oca Villamiel, MM Yu, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, and Olivia d’Aboville, Ian Fabro.
Also among the featured artists this year is Fernando Botero, a Colombian figurative artist best known for his rotund figures.
Mr. Medalla will present a collaborative work called A Stitch in Time where Art Fair visitors is encouraged to share their experience by sewing a part of themselves into the canvas that will be suspended in the air. Previous iterations of this work have been showcased around the world, including the Venice Biennale in 2017 — this will be the first time that A Stitch in Time will be shown in the Philippines.
Another participative work in the Fair is Ray Albano’s acclaimed 1974 installation Step on the Sand and Make Footprints. As the title suggests, fair goers can step on a box filled with sand to literally leave their footprints behind. The artist, who died in 1985, was the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ director from 1979 until his death, all the time working on his conceptual and collaborative work which has influenced the Philippine art to this day.
There will also be an exhibit of prints and drawings by the late Mauro “Malang” Santos called Malang’s Women, curated by his son, Soler Santos, featuring works from the family collection.
The artists and their works are: Liv Vinluan’s Nung Gambalain Yung Sayawan/The Disruption of Dance, Ryan Villamael’s Behold a City, Oca Villamiel’s Cheap Medicine, Ian Fabro’s Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, and MM Yu’s Subject/Object, who will headline the photography section of the fair.
The Art Fair added a photography section in 2018 to emphasize that photos are forms contemporary art and, just like paintings, can be collected.
Two women artists — Christina Quisumbing Ramilo and Olivia d’Aboville tackle environmental issues in their works, Forest for the Trees and Everything, Everywhere, Everyone respectively.
OTHER FLOORS
On the other carpark floors one will find a plethora of other art in exhibits by 36 Philippine galleries and 16 international galleries from Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
The participating galleries are: 1335MABINI, Asian Cultural Council/León Gallery, Affinity Art, Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea, Archivo 1984, Art Cube, Art Underground, Art Verite, Artemis Art, Artery Art Space, Artinformal, Avellana Art Gallery, Blanc, Botero in Asia, Boston Art Gallery, CANVAS, CLEAR Gallery Tokyo, District Gallery, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Eskinita Art Gallery, Finale Art File, Gajah Gallery, Galerie Roberto, Galerie Stephanie, Galleria Duemila, Gallery Kogure, Gallery Orange, J Studio, Kaida Contemporary, Kobayashi Gallery, La Lanta Fine Arts, Mind Set Art Center, MO_Space, Nunu Fine Art, Paseo Art Gallery, PINTÔ ART GALLERY, Salcedo Auctions, Secret Fresh, Shukado, Silverlens, Soka Art, TAKSU, The Crucible, The Drawing Room, Tin-aw gallery, Underground, Vin Gallery, Vinyl on Vinyl, West Gallery, Yavuz Gallery, YOD Gallery, and Ysobel Art Gallery.
Art education has always been part of the annual art fair, and this year will again feature a number of lectures. In the line upare: “Contemporary art practice: Focusing on the materials they use,” “Tax 101: taxes for artists and creatives,” “Selfies and Celebrities: The portrait from Van Gogh to Warhol,” “Value of Pictures,” and “A Conversation: Domenec and Carlomar Doana,” among others.
One of the speakers is art historian Kathy Galitz from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. An expert on French art of the 18th and 19th centuries, she wrote the book Masterpiece Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will be sharing her knowledge and insights about art during the fair.
Complementing the fair is the 10 Days of Art initiative, a series of events around the Makati Central Business District that will involve galleries, museums, bars, restaurants, and retail establishments in celebrating art beyond the venue of the fair. For schedule and updates, visit www.10daysofart.com.
Tickets for the fair can be purchased in advance at www.artfairphilippines.com. They will also be available at the venue during the fair. Regular tickets cost P350, P150 for students, and P100 for Makati-based students.
For more information, visit the Art Fair Philippines website www.artfairphilippines.com and follow Art Fair Philippines on Instagram (@artfairph) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/artfairph).
The fair will run from Feb. 22 to 24, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., at The Link carpark between Landmark and the Makati Shangri-La at the Ayala Center, Makati.

Japan’s ANA in talks to invest in PAL

MANILA — Japan’s ANA Holdings, Inc. said on Wednesday it is in talks with Philippine Airlines, Inc.’s parent company PAL Holdings about making an investment but it had not yet made a “concrete decision.”
Philippine Airlines is closing in on selling a minority stake to a foreign strategic investor, with a deal likely to be sealed in the first half of this year, its president said on Wednesday.
Earlier, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported the carrier was finalizing a deal with ANA. Shares in PAL Holdings surged on Wednesday, closing up 42% at the highest price since August 2016.
An ANA spokeswoman said the airline continually reviewed its market strategy and was considering investments that fit with its medium-term corporate strategy. The Japanese carrier already owns an 8.8% stake in Vietnam Airlines.
“We are in discussion with PAL Holdings but we have not made a concrete decision yet,” the ANA spokeswoman said in an e-mailed statement.
Philippine Airlines is “talking to several investors” about the stake, President Jaime Bautista said, but he declined to name the investors due to confidentiality agreements.
“We have not signed any agreement with any of the possible investors,” he told Reuters.
Philippine Airlines, a loss-making carrier, fours years ago hatched a plan to bring on board a strategic investor to help boost revenues and fast-track an expansion program. — Reuters

Art Fair 2019: Art and earth


By Nickky F.P. de Guzman, Reporter
THE works of two women artists — Olivia d’Aboville and Ling Quisumbing-Ramilo — converse about the crucial issues concerning our environment: climate change and plastic pollution at this year’s Art Fair Philippines.
Using plastic scraps she sourced from Davao, Ms. D’Aboville’s installation is called Everything, Everywhere, Everyone. With a smiling emoticon, teased BusinessWorld via e-mail: “Can you guess what it’s about? :)”
Since plastic is found everywhere in the Philippines — the country is the third largest contributor to ocean plastic pollution in the world — the artist didn’t have problems sourcing her materials.
“I’ve been collecting plastic packagings that my family consumes and my artisans have also been gathering packagings from their community. The source is endless… But what I’m really excited about is using planks of plastics made from recycled compressed soft plastics such as sando plastic bags, single-use packaging, candy wrappers, and all the soft plastics that never get recycled,” said Ms. D’Aboville.
The plastic planks she’ll be using for her piece for the Art Fair are created by Envirotech Waste Recyling, Inc., a Davao-based company that collects and recycles soft plastics such as sachets, candy wrappers, and food packages. Unlike hard plastics which junk shops buy, soft plastics get discarded easily. The company collects these to create planks for shelters for the people who are displaced after a natural disaster.
Ms. D’Aboville said she’s introduced to the company by Plastic Flamingo, a French NGO. The artist flew to Davao to order planks for her installations and to personally meet the company’s founder.
The Filipina-French artist, whose been advocating smart plastic consumption in her art works since 2010, said her goal for this year’s exhibit is “to showcase works that would engage on a deeper and more meaningful level than what I have been showing these last few years.”
In Chasm of Fantasies, Ms. D’Aboville’s first solo exhibition in 2010 at the Ayala Museum, she presented the relationship between a capitalist and consumerist society and the inevitable pollution of our seas that is brought about by our buy, buy, buy attitude.
“The outcome of the works made of interlaced and woven plastics was quite poetic, also because of the mise en scene, but for Art Fair, I am going with a more frontal approach, a more literal approach. And I’ll be using discarded plastics in each artwork including two installations. I’m going for more conceptual works for this show,” she said of her past and present works.
A small country, yet one of the biggest plastic polluters in the world, the Philippines, said Ms. d’Aboville, should be ashamed of its environmental offense. “But I think Filipinos are ready to act upon this and find solutions,” she said.
AWARENESS
Instead of plastic, Ling Quisumbing’s installation is made of wood but it has the same agenda: awareness.
She will be presenting a bookshelf made from scraps of wood she’s collected over the past decade, mostly leftover pieces of wood from her grandmother’s house that she renovated, and from the constructions and art pieces she’s done over the past 10 years.
“I’ve had this idea brewing for over a year: to create a biblioteque made of old wood from different sources. That’s my starting point,” said Ms. Quisumbing via e-mail.
A tedious process of gathering scrap wood, she said “the history of the fragments are essential to the piece.”
She describes her wood installation as a conversation piece for the environmental and socio-political climate of our society today.
“Each piece has its story, where it came from, where it was used. It requires time. I’m also very specific in the wood I use. They have to be old, scrap wood, and discards. I don’t like cutting long pieces of wood that can still be used. The challenge is to make sense of all these and create a piece from all these unwanted raw materials,” she said.
Her previous and current works are interconnected and have conversations together. For instance, her most recent installation in Taiwan was a large brick structure in the shape of a typhoon formation.
“The idea came about from thinking what was geographically similar with Taiwan and the Philippines: strong typhoons,” she said.
Before that she had her Swell exhibition in West Gallery where she used discarded materials from construction at an old house.
The artist’s role, said Ms. Quisumbing, is to “highlight things that are sometimes overlooked” or to lend a new lense in viewing the world.
Art works made from scrap aren’t only given new physical purposes to their materials, but now serve as platforms for consciousness and conscience.
The works of Ms. D’Aboville and Ms. Quisumbing will shown during the Art Fair Philippines 2019 at The Link Makati in February, which is National Arts Month.

Lack of data, support hampers PHL e-commerce roadmap

By Janina C. Lim
Reporter
THE GOVERNMENT has admitted being in the dark in determining its progress in implementing its five-year e-commerce roadmap due to the lack of support form other government agencies and the absence of official industry data.
Stated in the Philippine E-commerce Roadmap 2016-2020 is government’s “primary objective” for online business activities to contribute 25% of the GDP by 2020,” a leap from the 10% the sector reportedly contributed in 2015 as per data from iMetrics Asia Pacific Corp., a local statistics firm.
Maria Lourdes A. Yaptinchay, director for the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Bureau of Trade and Industrial Policy Research, said the agency is not subscribed to iMetrics’s e-commerce index data which was used as the roadmap’s base comparative, reasoning out the “millions” it would cost government.
“It’s so hard to obtain the data so you don’t have the total picture so we just rely on research organizations… ‘Yun ang problema namin, ‘yung numbers,” Ms. Yaptinchay, who introduced the roadmap, told BusinessWorld in an interview this month in Makati City when asked for updates on the progress of the roadmap’s implementation.
The DTI wants the government to have its own official e-commerce measuring tool to factor in other success criteria indicated under the e-commerce roadmap. This includes adding 100,000 micro, small, and medium enterprises doing e-commerce compared to the 2015 base — which has not been determined — and a total of 40% to 50% of internet users doing e-commerce.
But as for the 53 action plan items dwelling on six key areas, as highlighted in the APEC Digital Prosperity Checklist, the government is on track, according to Ms. Yaptinchay.
“Fifty plus ‘yun eh, more than half naman na achieved or ongoing. Kasi ‘yung iba talaga it would take time para masabing accomplished,” Ms. Yaptinchay said.
The six major areas include infrastructure, which means improving the country’s internet access, e-government system, e-banking, e-payment, tax system, consumer protection, and logistics; investments, to promote and support a range of opportunities, from foreign direct investments to capital flows; and innovation, to nurture digital startups from the development stage up until their ideas materialize and enter the commercial market.
The roadmap also touches on intellectual capital, which means fostering the appropriate skills and training from technological to linguistic to entrepreneurship; integration to connect domestic industries with the global economy; and information flows, to use, transfer, and process data while ensuring privacy and cybersecurity.
The task list under the roadmap has led to an interagency effort with roles assigned to several agencies such as the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Department of Science and Technology, and National Privacy Commission, among several others, to fulfill the plan’s goals.
MIDTERM ASSESSMENT
The DTI has launched efforts to conduct a midterm assessment and update of the e-commerce roadmap, Ms. Yaptinchay said. “Kasi meron d’un mga recommendations na maaaring hindi na relevant at baka meron namang kailangan gawin na wala sa roadmap.”
The DTI official declined to cite the specific areas where the country has progressed but said the agency will be able to finalize the report on the action plans within the fist quarter as they wait for progress reports from other agencies.
“Hindi lahat ng government agencies hindi nag-provide ng inputs,” she said.
As for goals that involve figures, the DTI said it is hoping to make adjustments once official e-commerce data becomes available, which Ms. Yaptinchay hopes will be possible by next year.
Currently, the DTI is working closely with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to discuss the budget needed for the plan.
“PSA can measure e-commerce thru the broader framework of digital economy. We plan to release by April 2020 when we release the overall revision of system national accounts which we are working on now,” PSA National Statistician and Civil Registrar General Lisa Grace S. Bersales said in an earlier mobile message.
With the launch of the digital economy framework is a national survey to be conducted by the DICT which will include a few survey questions regarding e-commerce, according to Ms. Yaptinchay.
The agencies are also discussing whether the e-commerce measuring tool will be developed by government or research companies who can be tapped.
“Pinaplano nga namin baka pwede mag-outsource, kasi baka ‘di kaya ng internal eh, yung manpower. Ipapasok namin sa budget proposal ng DTI for 2020,” she added.
The PSA once attempted to measure e-commerce activities in the country through its 2012 Census of Philippine Business and Industry report where it showed that sales of e-commerce — referred to the selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet Protocol-based networks and other computer networks — that year reached P79 billion or 0.6% of total income generated in 2012.
However, the proposed e-commerce data is envisioned to capture all online business transactions, purchases and sales, according to Ms. Yaptinchay.
“Marami kasi talaga nasasaklawan ang e-commerce kaya it would require millions,” Ms. Yaptinchay added declining to give estimates pending a final budget proposal.
The agency revealed also seeking help from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) which publishes e-commerce-related reports.
One of its country-specific reports is the eTrade Readiness Assessments which aims to help countries improve their e-commerce progress.
“Originally, we create this Programme in response to the discussions at the WTO where a number of LDCs [least-developed countries] were saying that they were not ready to embark in negotiations,” UNCTAD Press Officer Catherine Huissoud said in an e-mail interview last week.
“We’re until now for LDCs only. We have done 15 already and another 10 are in the pipeline. However, we are now considering non LDCs and we have already three requests, starting with Iraq. I know there is interest from the Philippines but we have not received yet any request,” Ms. Huissoud added.
The assessment report assesses the current ecosystem in one country regarding the information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, the legal environment, the payments, the trade facilitation and logistics, the skills, the financing of SMEs, and offer recommendations.
UNCTAD also has a program on measuring ICT Development which aids statistical offices around the world collect data on the use of ICT by businesses.

Yields on 7-day deposits drop as demand surges

By Melissa Luz T. Lopez, Senior Reporter
BANKS FAVORED week-long term deposits this week, resulting in a sustained decline in yields for these papers despite an uptrend seen for longer tenors.
Offers for Wednesday’s auction reached P60.829 billion, surpassing the P59.778-billion demand fetched last week and the P50 billion which the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) placed on the auction block.
Half of these tenders went to the one-week papers, leaving the other denominations with just enough bids to match the auctioned amounts.
Banks were mostly interested to get hold of seven-day deposits, with demand rising to P30.155 billion from P29.739 billion a week ago to log past the P20 billion which the BSP wanted to sell.
In turn, this pushed the average yield for the tenor lower for the fourth straight week to a 5.0447% average. This came from a narrow 5-5.1% range of bids sought by banks, and slid by roughly two basis points from the 5.0638% fetched during the Jan. 16 offering.
Demand also improved for the 14-day papers, which saw tenders rise to P20.163 billion coming from the P17.319 billion which lenders put forward the previous week. This allowed the central bank to fully award P20 billion worth of termed papers, but pushed margins to 5.1437% from 5.129%.
Meanwhile, appetite for the 28-day tenor paled to just P10.511 billion compared to the P12.72 billion bids received last week. Still, this was enough to fill the P10 billion auction size set by the central bank.
The market players also asked for better returns for these placements, bringing average interest rates higher to 5.1547% from 5.1339% logged during the Jan. 16 exercise.
Since June 2016, the TDF has been the central bank’s primary tool in shoring up excess cash in the financial system. Through the weekly auctions, the BSP brings market and interbank rates closer to its desired range of 4.25-5.25% through the yields they accept.
BSP Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo previously noted that “tight” liquidity conditions observed during the holidays have been normalizing in recent weeks, with banks growing more comfortable to place their excess money on the short-term papers to earn some returns.
“There is clear ample liquidity in the system after the holidays. But banks wanted to go short given the Bureau of the Treasury’s tap facility so they swarmed the seven-day TDF. As a result of this more stiff competition in the shortest tenor, interest rates have levelled down,” Mr. Guinigundo said via text, noting that the trend is likely to be sustained in the coming week.
Apart from the TDF, market players can also choose to place their idle funds in government-issued debt papers, with the Bureau of the Treasury appearing to be more “aggressive” in their issuances to support greater spending targets of the Duterte administration this 2019.

McDonald’s Philippines ramps up recruitment

MCDONALD’S Philippines is targeting to hire 20,000 new employees this year, as it ramps up store expansion.
In a statement, the fast food giant said it will hold “Go Hire Day” this month in select McDonald’s branches which will be turned into recruitment hubs for service crew and manager trainee applicants.
McDonald’s Philippines said it directly hired 19,000 as of end-December 2018, as it opened 60 new stores and introduced the new store format NXTGEN.
“This year, McDonald’s Philippines eyes to reach a recruitment target of close to 20,000 service crew and manager trainees as it continues to grow its foothold in the Philippine market and elevate the customer experience with NXTGEN,” the company said.
The company has been directly hiring employees since it opened in the Philippines in 1981. It currently has around 60,000 regular employees in over 620 stores nationwide.
“It is an exciting time to join McDonald’s Philippines as we continue to open more new stores and elevate the customer experience through our unique service. With this, we are bringing back ‘Go Hire Day’ which would make it more accessible for job-seekers to be part of our growth,” Chona Torre, senior vice-president for human capital group of McDonald’s Philippines said in a statement on Wednesday.
For those interested, McDonald’s Philippines is looking for bachelor’s degree holders for manager trainee positions, while currently enrolled college students can apply for service crew positions.
Recruitment for service crew positions will be held on Jan. 24 at McDonald’s J. Centre (Mandaue City, Cebu), Jan. 25 at McDonald’s Jones (Cebu City, Cebu), Jan. 26 at McDonald’s Kabihasnan (Parañaque), McDonald’s Lipa Ayala (Lipa City, Batangas), McDonald’s Angeles Intersection (Angeles City, Pampanga), McDonald’s Davao Sta. Ana (Davao City, Davao del Sur) and Jan. 28 at McDonald’s U.N. Ave. (Metro Manila).
For both service crew and manager trainee posts, “Go Hire Day” is scheduled on Jan. 26 at McDonald’s Buendia (Makati) and McDonald’s Alabang (Muntinlupa). — Vincent Mariel P. Galang

China drone maker DJI says $150-million scam involved staff padding parts

SHANGHAI — China’s SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd., the world’s largest maker of consumer drones, said employees inflating the cost of parts for personal gain led to incidents of suspected corruption that may have caused it to suffer a hit of almost $150 million last year.
Privately held DJI said late last week it was “investigating a number of serious cases of corruption at the company leading to losses of more than 1 billion yuan ($147.03 million) for 2018,” in one of the largest cases of corruption involving a Chinese technology company.
On Monday, it offered some more details about the cases, pinning the blame on staff for inflating costs of parts. It also said in a statement it “did not incur a full year loss in 2018.”
DJI did not respond to further questions about the matter and its earnings.
Founded in 2006, Shenzhen-based DJI is one of a handful of Chinese consumer technology companies to successfully expand overseas, developing North America as its biggest market.
Speaking to Chinese online media outlet The Paper in December, DJI president Luo Zhenhua revealed that the company posted revenue of 18 billion yuan in 2017, 80 percent of which came from outside of China.
According to an internal notice which begun circulating on Chinese social media on Friday, during an overhaul of management procedures DJI discovered that employees in several parts of its supply chain engaged in “corrupt behavior” that caused prices to rise on an average of 20 percent.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the contents of the document, which also said the company fired 45 individuals, most of whom were in research and development as well as procurement.
There has been a spate of cases in recent months in which Chinese tech companies have fired employees citing corruption.
Earlier this month, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing Technology Co. Ltd, which is backed by Japanese investment giant SoftBank Group Corp. and US ride-hailing firm Uber Technologies, announced it had fired over 80 employees as part of a corruption crackdown.
According to Didi the dismissed individuals had primarily engaged in fraud, profiteering, or violating information security regulation.
The president of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s video streaming service Youku stepped down and is believed to be talking to Chinese authorities as part of a potential corruption case, the company said in December. — Reuters

The flavors of love


LOVE ISN’T a simple affair to be conducted in silence and secrets at the Manila Hotel. For its Valentine’s Day offering, a concert-cum-dinner called A Taste of Love, love will be grand, shouted across the rooftops and sweeping lovers off their feet.
Singer Christian Bautista will be sure to make hearts sing with his performance, which will include five covers, including “Beautiful Girl” and “Ligaya” by the Eraserheads, and such romantic classics as “La Vie en Rose,” “That’s Amore,” “Because of You,” and “My Cherie Amour.”
The dinner itself is another affair altogether: it’s as well-planned and choreographed as a dance and a courtship.
At the prompt of the show’s director Freddie Santos, Manila Hotel’s Executive Chef Walter Konrad designed a meal of seven courses, each course representing a famous couple in history.
INGRID BERGMAN AND ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
The love affair between actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini rocked Hollywood in the late 1940s. While working on the film Stromboli, the married actress, known for her virtuous roles in The Bells of St. Mary’s and Joan of Arc, fell in love with her director, and got pregnant as a result. She later said, “People saw me in Joan of Arc, and declared me a saint. I’m not. I’m just a woman, another human being.”
This relationship is represented in the dinner with this dish: Roses of Beetroot-Cured Gravlax, paired with a salad of arugula, balsamic vinegar, and rosemary focaccia. Trying the dish out during a press lunch, this writer learned that both are aggressive and powerful, waking up the tongue like a kiss that couldn’t help itself.
DIEGO RIVERA AND FRIDA KAHLO
The next course is a soup of Mirliton Squash, with a jamon tortilla crostini. The soup is surprisingly mild and calming, unlike the marriage of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo which inspired it. The crostini, studded with goodies such as quail eggs, alfalfa and a salty ham, represents the artists’ palettes, and perhaps like their own work bled into their married lives, this crostini gave it a powerful kick.
ROMEO AND JULIET
The love affair between the two scions of warring Verona families, as immortalized by Shakespeare, was interpreted as a Duetto di Ravioli. One in green is shaped like the bust of Juliet’s statue in Verona, believed to bring good luck to those who touch it.
The pink raviolo, representing Romeo, calls to mind the caps worn by men in paintings of the period. Both are filled with wild boar (the feminine one filled with fat; the other with lean). The dish is given a bit of gravitas with the wild boar and truffles, calling to mind the Italian countryside, while the young, foolish, and eventually tragic love exemplified by the pair is given some representation in the Szechuan peppercorns, which made the truffle cream some youth and liveliness.
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
The normally staid and obedient Isabella of Castile eloped with the heir to the throne of Aragon, the future Ferdinand II. The marriage, uniting the crowns of the territories in the Iberian peninsula, gave birth to modern Spain. The pair’s ambition and power also drove them to sponsor Christopher Columbus on his trip purportedly to the West Indies, reaching America instead. This spurred on the Age of Exploration, and enabled products from the New World to reach Europe.
This ambition is represented in the dinner by a sorbet of frozen chocolate and chili — both the products of the New World. It had a delightfully velvety texture, and tasted exotic: it’s almost like tasting it the same way Ferdinand and Isabella might have.
JOHN AND JACQUELINE KENNEDY
“He knew I loved him and did everything I could,” said Jacqueline Kennedy, reminiscing about her years in the White House with her husband. Mrs. Kennedy reformed the White House in the 1960s, bringing to it a cosmopolitan flair that would be talked about for decades. Mrs. Kennedy hired French chef Rene Verdon, who would serve as the White House’s first executive chef (a title created for him). She also changed dinners from grand, stifling affairs to simple, tasteful, more intimate ones, changing the settings from large U-shaped tables to small rounder ones, the better to initiate conversation.
To represent the Kennedy years in the White House, Mr. Konrad looked into state dinners and came up with a rack of lamb with an herb crust, an interpretation of the main course served during the state visit of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco. The dish is, not surprisingly, dripping with elegance and finesse; the lamb having an excellent texture, separating from the bone with little effort.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
From political allies to literal bedmates, the romance of the Roman leader and the queen of the Nile would change history. Their defeat at the hands of Octavian, Antony’s rival, and the future emperor Augustus, would form the Roman Empire as we remember it today.
Their spicy love affair is represented by a Heart of Velvety Ricotta Mousse with Strawberry Jelly. The heart shape calls to mind the plant silphium, an early form of birth control which the lusty Romans consumed to extinction. The kunafa pastry, a staple in Macedonia, calls to mind Cleopatra’s Ptolemaic lineage, and the whole thing is scented and flavored with rosewater, making it sweet, luxurious, and undeniably romantic.
NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE
One of the world’s greatest generals would be constantly defeated by love. As he won great victories abroad, Napoleon feverishly wrote to his wife, the former Josephine de Beauharnais, who gave soothing replies, but still kept him at arm’s length. Despite their marital problems, Napoleon would elevate her to the rank of Empress when he crowned himself Emperor. He would later divorce her with deep regret, to marry Marie Louise of Austria, in an effort to produce an heir to solidify his empire. She would remain the love of his life, murmuring her name in his death throes.
This marriage is represented by macarons, popularized after Napoleon came to power in France. Chestnut cream and chocolate represent Napoleon, in reference to his Corsican roots (chestnuts were a popular product there). Meanwhile, rose-colored macarons represent Josephine, who was known as “Rose” in her previous marriage, before Napoleon began addressing her by one of her other first names, so that he could call her truly his. The rose-colored macarons, also a recall to the roses she cultivated at the chateau of Malmaison, are filled with pineapple rum cream, bringing to mind her roots in Martinique as the daughter of a plantation owner.
Manila Hotel’s Marketing Communications and Multimedia Manager, Regina Troy Barrios, has no qualms pronouncing the Manila Hotel as the city’s most romantic hotel. “The Champagne Room is very dramatic,” she said about the hotel’s restaurant, with her noting its long history, as shown in its decor.
“It has the most number of proposals. We have an average of three marriage proposals a week.”
The Taste of Love Valentine Dinner with Christian Bautista is priced at a range of P4,000 to P6,000. For inquiries, call the hotel at 527-0011 or e-mail concierge@themanilahotel.com. — Joseph L. Garcia

BoJ keeps policy steady, trims inflation outlook

THE BANK of Japan left its policy unchanged again on Wednesday. — REUTERS

THE BANK of Japan (BoJ) left monetary policy unchanged as it cut its inflation outlook once again, underscoring how far away its price target is and how few options the central bank has for drawing closer.
The BoJ maintained its yield curve-control program and asset purchases, it said in a statement Wednesday, a result predicted by all but one of 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The bank lowered its inflation forecast for a fourth consecutive time in its quarterly outlook report.
With the European Central Bank meeting on Thursday and the Federal Reserve next week, the gap between the BoJ and its global peers keeps widening. While the Fed may hit pause soon, both it and ECB are seeking to return to pre-crisis policies, giving them more room to respond to another shock or downturn.
The BoJ’s inaction even as it cut its inflation forecasts was “strong proof” that it has few tools left at its disposal, said Shinichiro Kobayashi, senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting. He noted that the central bank had previously taken preemptive action when inflation had been deemed at risk.
In its outlook report, the BoJ cut its inflation forecast for the fiscal year starting in April to 0.9% from 1.4%, citing lower oil prices as the primary reason.
But the BoJ’s inflation forecasts didn’t include the effects of expected cuts to cell phone fees or a government initiative to provide free education for young children. The central bank said the education policy alone would cut another 0.3 percentage point from core inflation in fiscal 2019 and 0.4 percentage point the next year — effectively bringing its forecasts to 0.6% and 1.0%, respectively.
A downgrade to 0.6% in fiscal 2019 would have been the biggest since Governor Haruhiko Kuroda took over the BoJ in 2013.
Japan’s core inflation slipped to 0.7% in December. Many economists expect that figure to fall below zero sometime this year. Yet after six years of extreme stimulus, few economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect any more to come, judging the BoJ’s bias to be toward normalizing policy eventually.
On Wednesday, the BoJ again stated that momentum toward its 2% inflation target is intact, though not yet sufficiently firm.
GROWTH OUTLOOK
As the global elite gathered in Davos, Switzerland, Kuroda said overseas risks are on the rise and the BoJ must pay close attention to how they affect sentiment among businesses and households in Japan. Yet his main view of the outlook hasn’t changed, he said, and Japan’s broad balance of supply and demand would push inflation higher.
The BoJ slightly raised its growth forecasts for the next two years, just days after the International Monetary Fund said it sees the Japanese economy growing faster than previously expected, citing additional fiscal support.
Yet the BoJ has plenty to worry about. In addition to a sales-tax increase scheduled for October, an escalation of the US-China trade war, a “hard” Brexit and a deeper slowdown in China could all take a big toll on Japan’s export-dependent economy. Data released earlier Wednesday showed that Japan’s exports fell for a second time in four months in December. Shipments to China slid 7%.
“If the China-US economic friction, trade friction becomes prolonged, it’s clear that we will see the impact from that,” Kuroda said. “I sincerely hope that they’ll get this resolved quickly.”
The question is whether the BoJ has the tools to respond to a shock or even a mere recession. Kuroda said the BoJ has plenty of unconventional policy measures left to choose from. “Our policy options have neither disappeared nor narrowed,” he said. — Bloomberg

Bourse operator amends short-selling guidelines

THE Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE) has amended the guidelines for short-selling transactions on Wednesday, clarifying that short- selling orders will not be allowed during the market’s pre-open and pre-close phase.
In a memorandum posted on its website yesterday, the PSE said it noticed a discrepancy between Section 2.e of the Short Selling Guidelines and Article IV, Section 5.2.c of the Trading Rules.
While the former states that short selling orders will not be accepted during pre-open, pre-close, and run-off/trading-at-last, the latter only rejects such transactions during pre-open and pre-close periods.
“For consistency and to avoid confusion to our stakeholders, Section 2.e. of the Short Selling Guidelines shall be amended, as follows: short selling orders shall not be accepted during the following trading phases: pre-open and pre-close,” according to the memo.
Short selling pertains to the sale of a security that is not owned by the seller, but will be settled by the delivery of borrowed securities. An investor can generate profits by selling borrowed securities at a time of lower prices, then buying them at a lower price in the future.
The PSE looks to allow short selling within the year. — Arra B. Francia

Amazon.com starts direct sales of merchandise in Brazil after delays

SAO PAULO — Amazon.com Inc is launching its long-awaited in-house fulfillment and delivery network in Brazil after months of delays caused by complicated logistics and a highly complex tax system in the largest Latin American economy.
Amazon, which some rivals had expected to kick off direct sales of items beyond books as soon as the Christmas selling season, said it will directly sell 11 categories of merchandise from over 800 suppliers from L’Oreal to Black & Decker as of Tuesday.
Its shift to stocking and delivering goods itself from acting mostly as a marketplace is expected to intensify competition for fast delivery of goods in Latin America’s largest economy as it exits a painful recession.
“We are launching (our direct sales platform) with 320,000 different products in stock, including 200,000 books… Our obsession is always to increase this catalog and to have everything Brazilian consumers seek and want to buy on the internet,” Amazon’s Brazilian country manager Alex Szapiro told Reuters.
In November, Reuters reported that Amazon’s attempt to advance with its so-called Fulfillment by Amazon program in Brazil had run into difficulties such as the nations’s tangled tax system, complicated logistics and testy relations with some prominent vendors.
“As in every negotiation, you take a seat at a table and you want to agree on the best possible terms,” said Szapiro when asked on the tone of conversations with suppliers, without entering in details.
Amazon entered Brazil quietly in 2012, selling e-readers, books and then streaming movies in the fast-growing Brazilian market. The company made its first big move into merchandise in October 2017, when it began offering the use of its Brazilian website to third-party merchants to sell electronics.
The company does not reveal the number of sellers in its marketplace, which it has slowly expanded over the past year, adding new categories while laying the ground for a direct sales platform.
As part of the fulfillment program, Amazon leased a 47,000 square-meter (505,904-square-foot) warehouse just outside of Sao Paulo, as first reported by Reuters almost a year ago.
Szapiro, who previously worked as Brazil country manager for Apple Inc, declined to say how much the company is spending on the new distribution center or how many people it is hiring, but said Amazon employs directly and indirectly over 1,400 people in Brazil.
In a report published on Monday, analysts at investment bank BTG Pactual said the expected direct sales launch signaled the company was ready “to strengthen investments, potentially via more partnerships with fulfillment operators and last-mile carriers.”
Even though the bank predicted Amazon would take a “gradual approach” and was likely to vye for a “low double-digit market share,” shares of Brazilian retailers reacted negatively to BTG’s report, with B2W, Magazine Luiza e Lojas Americanas among the biggest losers in Monday’s session. — Reuters

History-making Oscar nominations leave top prize up for grabs

LOS ANGELES — Netflix movie Roma and British historical romp The Favourite from Fox Searchlight led nominations for the Oscars on Tuesday in a history-making lineup that left the best picture race wide open.
The lists for the highest honors in the movie industry were packed with people of color, including nominees from Mexico, Greece and Poland, as well as films featuring the stories of women and gay and black people.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron’s semiautobiographical, black-and-white tale Roma scored a first best picture nod for streaming service Netflix, Inc. It will also compete in the foreign language film category, where it is widely considered a shoo-in.
Roma and The Favourite shared a leading 10 nods, followed by Lady Gaga musical A Star is Born and scathing political comedy Vice with eight apiece.
Walt Disney Co.’s Black Panther, which collected seven nods, became the first superhero movie in the 91-year history of the Academy Awards to win a best picture nomination.
“There is now no clear front-runner for best picture, making it an enormously suspenseful Oscar race,” Tom O’Neil, founder of awards website GoldDerby.com said in a telephone interview.
Shot entirely in Spanish and an indigenous Mexican language, Roma scored nominations across the board, including director, lead actress Yalitza Aparicio as a maid, supporting actress Marina de Tavira, screenplay, and multiple technical fields.
“It’s a movie centered on a domestic worker of indigenous origin who’s being celebrated. That’s what gives me the most pleasure,” Cuaron told Mexico City local radio program Aristegui Noticias.
Aparicio, 25, who had never acted professionally, said she was “humbled and honored.”
“As a daughter of a domestic worker and an indigenous woman myself, I am proud this movie will help those of us who feel invisible be seen,” she said in a statement.
The Oscars, chosen by the 8,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will be handed out in Hollywood on Feb. 24.
The Favourite, set in the court of 18th-century British monarch Queen Anne, garnered nods for its British star, Olivia Colman, and supporting actresses Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz. Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos was also nominated for the film.
“Yorgos has such a unique vision. He is very witty, he takes a lot of risks,” Ceci Dempsey, one of the film’s producers, said in a telephone interview. “It’s a remarkable feeling to have a film with so many women in it get so many nominations.”
Warner Bros. A Star is Born, led by best actress contender Lady Gaga in her debut in a major movie, earned eight nods, including for Gaga’s hit song “Shallow.” But while Bradley Cooper will compete in the best actor category, he was snubbed in the director’s race.
Other snubs included the all-Asian cast romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians, which got nothing, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, and If Beale Street Could Talk, which was excluded from the best picture race but won a supporting actress nod for Regina King.
Crowd-pleaser Bohemian Rhapsody was nominated for five awards, including Egyptian-American Rami Malek for his role as Queen front man Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991.
Gay and lesbian campaign group GLAAD said another three of the eight best picture nominees touched on gay issues, reflecting what it said was “a banner year for LGBTQ inclusion in film.”
Veteran actress Glenn Close, who has yet to win an Oscar, will compete for the seventh time, this year for her lead role in The Wife.
Green Book about the friendship that develops between a black pianist and his white driver in the 1960s, won nods for stars Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, but not for director Peter Farrelly. Nevertheless, the film remains a strong best picture contender after a win at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday.
The Oscar ceremony looks set to take place without a host after the withdrawal in December of comedian Kevin Hart due to past homophobic comments he made on Twitter. — Reuters

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