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PHL firms ignore nearly half of cyberthreat alerts

COMPANIES in the Philippines are not able to address nearly half of legitimate cybersecurity threats they receive, a study published by Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco) showed.
According to the Cisco 2018 Asia Pacific Security Capabilities Benchmark Study, in the region, companies receive six threats every minute but only 50% of alerts are being investigated.
The study was conducted by independent third-party researchers had more than 2,000 respondents across 11 countries — China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, and India.
For the Philippines, there were 150 respondents from the financial services, telecommunications, retail, and software industries all classified as medium and large enterprises.
The study showed 42% of the Philippine respondents said they receive 5,000 alerts per day, although this share is among the lowest in Southeast Asian countries.
“As compared to Singapore, we are not as digitized yet… Second is the cybersecurity law and data privacy act that’s recently been implemented has created a lot of awareness and education… While the number of attacks is less compared to the other five [Southeast Asian countries], it’s a statistical model… We are not discounting the fact that it may be less in volume, but…the attacks could be bigger,“ Karrie C. Ilagan, Cisco Systems Philippines Managing Director, told BusinessWorld on the sidelines of a briefing on the study yesterday when asked why the result was better than other countries in the region.
However, on average, local firms investigate just 50% of the alerts they receive. Of those investigated, 30% turn out to be legitimate, of which just 51% are acted upon and corrected.
Attacks were not observed just in the information technology infrastructure, but also in the operational infrastructure, which includes the data center, cloud services, and endpoints. About 19% of respondents said they encountered such attacks on their operational infrastructure, and more than a quarter expect these in the coming year.
“The threat is really becoming bigger… The new kind of security discussion or conversation is happening globally. The security has gone beyond borders because of this. Cybersecurity has become an industry. The cyber-hacking industry is massive globally and that’s precisely why you see a lot of actors coming about in many parts of the world… because of the amount of data that is available today and how these data has become a source of revenue, income,” Ms. Ilagan said.
Still, the study showed that companies in the country had the largest percentage in terms of allotting budget both for information technology and security.
“The Philippines had the largest percentage of companies, at 37%, whose security budget is completely separate from the IT budget. That’s one of the reasons why we think the Philippines is actually doing much better in terms of ranking… Bottom line, I think this is good news,” Ms. Ilagan said.
Earlier this year, Cisco said in a study that the Philippines needs to spend $8.8 billion between 2018 and 2025 to be in line with the average benchmark and $22.8 billion to be in line with “global best-in-class countries” in the same period.
In the region, 60% of the respondents said cybersecurity attacks cost them more than $500,000, while 51% of cyberattacks resulted in losses of more than $1 million. These costs includes lost revenue, lost customers, lost opportunities and out-of-pocket costs, among others.
With multiple security providers coming and companies engaging different providers, identifying and managing threats take longer. The study said 97% of respondents in the Asia Pacific are having a hard time managing the multiple alerts they receive from these vendors. — V.M.P. Galang

PCC taps UK firm to keep track of Grab’s ‘voluntary commitments’

By Denise A. Valdez, Reporter
THE Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) tapped a United Kingdom-based audit firm to monitor Grab Philippines’ (MyTaxi.PH, Inc.) fulfillment of its voluntary commitments in relation to its acquisition of Uber Philippines in March.
In a statement on Wednesday, the competition watchdog said it picked Smith & Williamson (S&W) as the third party auditor to oversee Grab’s compliance for one year.
“After thorough evaluation, S&W was determined as the most suited to conduct monitoring compliance with the parties’ voluntary commitments in the Grab case. Their track record on competition cases includes the most recent task of monitoring Grab-Uber on the Interim Measures Directions in Singapore,” the PCC said.
It noted the company’s credibility as an auditor is backed by its “over 100 years’ experience as an audit firm and 13 years of reporting to various competition authorities across jurisdictions.”
In a statement, Grab said it has worked with S&W in Singapore, describing them as “truly fair and independent.”
Last August, the PCC approved Grab’s voluntary commitments that were meant to address competition concerns. These commitments cover the ride-hailing company’s service quality, fare transparency, pricing, removal of a “see destination” feature for drivers, driver and operator non-exclusivity, incentives monitoring, and an improvement plan.
“During the 12-month period, every time the monitor would have findings of some kind of a breach (in commitments), they would have to report that to the Commission, then the Commission will decide whether or not to impose fines,”
PCC Commissioner Stella Luz A. Quimbo told BusinessWorld in a phone interview.
Should the PCC find Grab engaging in anti-competitive practices after the 12-month period, Ms. Quimbo said it may still call out the company, but for a different provision in the Philippine Competition Act.
“After the 12-month period, if PCC still finds anti-competitive behavior on the part of Grab, we can open Section 15 (a) which is abuse of dominance. We can have some form of intervention, not a merger control but a case that we open under what we call abuse of dominance,” she said.
Section 15 of the Philippine Competition Act outlines provisions that empower the PCC to prohibit practices from a dominant industry player that “substantially prevent, restrict or lessen competition.”
Ms. Quimbo said the monitoring of voluntary commitments, which Grab tapped to deal with its Uber buy-out issue, is part of PCC’s merger control policy.

Neuroscience start-up teaches robot drivers to think like humans

ROBOT CARS make for annoying drivers.
Relative to human motorists, the driverless vehicles now undergoing testing on public roads are overly cautious, maddeningly slow, and prone to abrupt halts or bizarre paralysis caused by bikers, joggers, crosswalks or anything else that doesn’t fit within the neat confines of binary robot brains. Self-driving companies are well aware of the problem, but there’s not much they can do at this point. Tweaking the algorithms to produce a smoother ride would compromise safety, undercutting one of the most-often heralded justifications for the technology.
It was just this kind of tuning to minimize excessive braking that led to a fatal crash involving an Uber Technologies Inc. autonomous vehicle in March, according to federal investigators. The company has yet to resume public testing of self-driving cars since shutting down operations in Arizona following the crash.
If driverless cars can’t be safely programmed to mimic risk-taking human drivers, perhaps they can be taught to better understand the way humans act. That’s the goal of Perceptive Automata, a Boston-based startup applying research techniques from neuroscience and psychology to give automated vehicles more human-like intuition on the road: Can software be taught to anticipate human behavior?
“We think about what that other person is doing or has the intent to do,” said Ann Cheng, a senior investment manager at Hyundai Cradle, the South Korean automaker’s venture arm and one of the investors that just helped Perceptive Automata raise $16 million. Toyota Motor Corp. is also backing the two-year-old startup founded by researchers and professors at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“We see a lot of AI [Artificial Intelligence] companies working on more classical problems, like object detection [or] object classification,” Cheng said. “Perceptive is trying to go one layer deeper — what we do intuitively already.”
This predictive aspect of self-driving tech “was either misunderstood or completely underestimated” in the early stages of autonomous development, said Jim Adler, the managing director of Toyota AI Ventures.
With Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo planning to roll out an autonomous taxi service to paying customers in the Phoenix area later this year, and General Motor Co.’s driverless unit racing to deploy a ride-hailing business in 2019, the shortcomings of robot cars interacting with humans are coming under increased scrutiny. Some experts have advocated for education campaigns to train pedestrians to be more mindful of autonomous vehicles. Startups and global automakers are busy testing external display screens to telegraph the intent of a robotic car to bystanders.
But no one believes that will be enough to make autonomous cars move seamlessly among human drivers. For that, the car needs to be able to decipher intent by reading body language and understanding social norms. Perceptive Automata is trying to teach machines to predict human behavior by modeling how humans do it.
Sam Anthony, chief technology officer at Perceptive and a former hacker with a PhD in cognition and brain behavior from Harvard, developed a way to take image recognition tests used in psychology and use them to train so-called neural networks, a kind of machine learning based loosely on how the human brain works. His startup has drafted hundreds of people across diverse age ranges, driving experiences and locales to look at thousands of clips or images from street life — pedestrians chatting on a corner, a cyclist looking at his phone — and decide what they’re doing, or about to do. All those responses then get fed into the neural network, or computer brain, until it has a reference library it can call on to recognize what’s happening in real life situations.
Perceptive has found it’s important to incorporate regional differences, since jaywalking is commonplace in New York City and virtually non-existent elsewhere. “No one jaywalks in Tokyo, I’ve never seen it,” says Adler of Toyota. “These social mores and norms of how our culture will evolve and how different cultures will evolve with this tech is incredibly fascinating and also incredibly complex.”
Perceptive is working with startups, suppliers and automakers in the US, Europe, and Asia, although it won’t specify which. The company is hoping to have its technology integrated into mass production cars with self-driving features as soon as 2021. Even at the level of partial autonomy, with features such as lane-keeping and hands-off highway driving, deciphering human intent is relevant.
Autonomous vehicles “are going to be slow and clunky and miserable unless they can understand how to deal with humans in a complex environment,” said Mike Ramsey, an analyst at Gartner. Still, he cautioned that Perceptive’s undertaking “is exceptionally difficult.”
Even if Perceptive proves capable of doing what it claims, Ramsey said, it may also surface fresh ethical questions about outsourcing life or death decisions to machines. Because the startup is going beyond object identification to mimicking human intuition, it could be liable for programming the wrong decision if an error occurs.
It’s also not the only company working on this problem. It’s reasonable to assume that major players like Waymo, GM’s Cruise LLC, and Zoox Inc. are trying to solve it internally, said Sasha Ostojic, former head of engineering at Cruise who is now a venture investor at Playground Global in Silicon Valley.
Until anyone makes major headway, however, be prepared to curb your road rage while stuck behind a robot car that drives like a grandma. “The more responsible people in the AV industry optimize for safety rather than comfort,” Ostojic said. — Bloomberg

All roads lead to the stomach


WE’D LIKE to think that the hours spent in cars and the hours spent waiting for a meal feel the same: both measures of time were made to exist to make the final results more rewarding.
During the first week of October, San Miguel took guests across the TPLEx (the Tarlac–Pangasinan–La Union Expressway), the concession of which is held by the conglomerate. Other infrastructure developments in the country linked to San Miguel include the South Luzon Expressway, the Skyway system, the STAR Tollway, NAIA-X, the Boracay Airport, and the MRT-7, among others.
The possibilities opened by the TPLEx include cutting short travel times, but for many communities along the route, it opened up tourism opportunities for stops that once would have been inaccessible.
San Miguel first took us to Nampicuan, in Nueva Ecija, home to the Sanctuary of the Holy Face, which possesses a replica of the Holy Veil of Manoppello. The veil is believed to be an imprint of the face of Jesus Christ, one of the many claimants to being the cloth with which St. Veronica wiped the face of Jesus during his agonies. The one in the Philippines, and the only one in Asia, is indeed a replica, but it had the good fortune of touching the original in Italy.
After the church, our spirits were teased further with a swipe of ylang-ylang essential oils from Anao, Tarlac, which has a steam distillation factory in the town. The ylang-ylang plants which fuel the local industry are grown around the town, and, wouldn’t you know it, also along the expressway.
Finally, food: our watches were ticking, and after leaving Manila at 8 a.m., we arrived at our first food stop at approximately 1 p.m. In a restaurant called Ruperto’s in Binalonan, we saw how Binalonan longganisa was made, a proud product of the town. The sausages were crispier than what we’re used to, and altogether quite a good treat.
Next, after a drive straight through the expressway, we finally arrived in Baguio, one of the highlights of the trip.
IBALOY CUISINE
We stopped by a restaurant called Farmer’s Daughter, named in honor of the owner’s grandmother, who was a daughter of, you guessed it, a farmer. The owner, a man named Pil Od, was also taught by his grandfather how to raise then butcher animals in the way of the Ibaloy, and the restaurant serves to honor and promote the ways of his people. It’s useful, because one of the easiest ways to know about a people is to watch how they eat, for their food will serve as sustenance for the rest of their activities.
An important tenet of Ibaloy cuisine is preservation. While blessed with cold weather, back in the day, refrigeration techniques were foreign, thus we were served a dish of Kinuday, beef or pork that had been smoked, steamed, then stir-fried. The result was multiple layers of flavors and texture, and a meat dish that you’ll dream about once you get back to the cities down below. This was complemented with a dinakdakan, pig’s face mixed with pig’s brain, resulting in creaminess and crisp. And what’s a highland meal without Pinikpikan? The dish, akin to the lowlanders’ tinola, is made from chicken. The dish is a horror for animal rights activists, for it involves softly beating (or irritating) a chicken with a stick until it bleeds into its muscles, resulting in a more flavorful, more dark-colored meat. If you don’t have any qualms about this, it is very tasty.
MAMA’S TABLE
Our favorite stop, in any place in the world, is Mama’s Table. Fortunately, it’s also a name of a restaurant in Baguio, for which Manilenos can fight about reservations. Some reserve months in advance, for chef Vicky Clemente does not accept any bookings and reservations for parties less than six. Ms. Clemente runs a private dining experience from a grand mountain retreat left behind by her parents.
For dinner that evening, Ms. Clemente unleashed her knowledge of French cooking learned from Canada in a nine-course meal. We started out with dips, our favorite being a Bagna Cauda (an anchovy-garlic dip with vegetable crudites). As we sat down at the table, we eagerly awaited for an amuse bouche, a quiche in an eggshell with caramelized onions, gruyere and parmesan, local mushrooms, and truffle oil. It had an earthy taste and a delicate play on textures, for it was surprisingly fluffy and light despite its heavy taste and appearance.
Next came a squash soup with smoked bacon and grated apples, and, frankly, it was one of our favorites. It captured the taste of autumn air; thick and crisp, but made steamy by the fire indoors.
An intermezzo of feta puff pastry followed, after which a Baked Norwegian salmon appeared, with zucchini, peas, orange supremes, and citrus beurre blanc. This was an examination in lightness, in taste and in texture. Another intermezzo of sweet and salty cheese followed, then out of the kitchen came a Roasted Chicken Breast stuffed with sage, various cheeses, and topped with bacon; with red wine reduction and a mushroom jus. This was a masterpiece in itself, the chicken perfectly tender and absorbing and summarizing all that went into it; perfectly condensing hours of labor in just one bite — or seven.
A salad, then a dessert of Toblerone Mousse and Creme Brulee ended the meal, after which younger guests played with a guitar and the guitarist, and drank beer and gin from San Miguel.
Now the meal was interesting, but nowhere as interesting as Ms. Clemente’s life. She was a teacher in Manila who migrated to Canada to become a banker, then a paralegal. She told BusinessWorld that she had been cooking since she was a little girl, and her family entertained a lot. “I really wasn’t taking the work that seriously, but I did well,” she remembered. A trip to Italy with her sisters made her think about the 15 years she would still spend within a law firm, and she decided to take up cooking courses to hone a skill she had kept burning in her heart. She was 50 years old.
Mama’s Kitchen was her culinary course thesis, basing it upon the important women in her life, and she modified their recipes with French techniques. She flew back to the Philippines to take care of her ailing father. She then went on to open her restaurant sometime after.
She compared her life before in the corporate world to the relatively sedate life she leads now (except when she’s in the kitchen).
“’Pag cooking kasi, instant gratification (you get instant gratification from cooking).” This was unlike her former life of bringing documents home to wrestle over them after dinner. “Kapag nagluto ka ng pangit, alam mong pangit. Kapag nagluto ka ng masarap, alam mong masarap (When you cook something badly, you know it’s bad. When you make something nice, you’ll know it’s nice.)” — Joseph L. Garcia

TDF yields hit fresh high

By Melissa Luz T. Lopez, Senior Reporter
YIELDS fetched for term deposits surged to a fresh high yesterday even as demand cooled from a week ago, with players again crowding the seven-day papers at a time of market uncertainty.
Bids for the term deposit facility (TDF) reached P124.259 billion on Wednesday, well above the P80 billion the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) offered but lower than the P131.03 billion put forward by banks a week ago.
All tenors stood oversubscribed for the second straight week since the central bank tightened interest rates by another 50 basis points (bp) during their Sept. 27 policy meeting, which brought the interest rate corridor to 4-5%.
Demand for the seven-day term deposits reached P73.282 billion, settling higher than the P50 billion which the BSP placed on the auction block but down from P77.305 billion received last week.
Banks also sought for bigger returns for their placements within the 4.645-4.75% range, which pulled the average yield to 4.7274% which inched up from the 4.7127% fetched the previous week.
On the other hand, players wanted to place more funds under a 14-day arrangement as they put forward P33.216 billion in total tenders, improving from P27.22 billion a week ago and surpassing the P20 billion which the central bank is offering.
This pushed the average yield higher to 4.7729% as lenders wanted returns between 4.7-4.8%, climbing from the 4.7353% rate posted during the Oct. 3 exercise.
Appetite for the 28-day instruments tapered off to P17.761 billion, slipping from last week’s P26.505 billion but still above the P10-billion auction amount. Despite this, the month-long tenor saw the biggest rise in yields, with the average rate climbing to 4.8549%, up 6.7 bps from last week’s 4.7884%.
The TDF is currently the central bank’s main tool to capture excess money supply in the financial system. The weekly auctions of short-term papers are meant to usher market and interbank rates to within the BSP’s desired range by setting the standard for short-term instruments using the margins that they pay to banks for these TDF placements.
BSP Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo said last week that he expects “relative stability” in the foreign exchange market as well as sustained state spending to boost domestic liquidity, which could leave banks with more cash to deploy for lending and investments.
Market economists mostly expect another rate hike from the BSP as inflation maintains its ascent within the remaining months of 2018 in order to temper inflation expectations. If realized, this would also push market yields higher.

PT&T firms up interest in 3rd telco bidding

PHILIPPINE Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (PT&T) on Wednesday signified its interest in joining the government’s search for a third telecommunications player by purchasing the bid documents.
“We have gone over the bid documents and they are acceptable to us. We have bought the bid documents and believe we have a strong chance to win. We are the only local company that would comply with the requirements and we have over 50 years of telecommunications experience servicing the Filipino people,” PT&T President and CEO James G. Velasquez said in the statement.
Mr. Velasquez said the bid documents were “consistent with what the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) and NTC (National Telecommunications Commission) has shared in the…selection process.”
On Tuesday, another third telco aspirant, Now Corp., said it sued the NTC over “onerous” financial requirements in the terms of reference for the new major telecommunications player.
At the same time, PT&T said it posted a P25-million net income for the full year ending June, growing 193% from in the same period last year.
In a statement on Wednesday, the aspiring third telco player said its financial performance was “fueled by higher client base and lower operating expenses,” after recording a 62% rise in revenues to P201 million from P124 million during the same period in 2017.
PT&T said its client base grew 72.64% year-on year, noting the impact of the company’s change in leadership.
Menlo Capital Corp. acquired 70% of PT&T from Republic Telecommunications Holdings, Inc. in August 2017. A new set of management has since come in.
“Our focus on the fixed broadband business has led to growth. The future is bright for PT&T and we expect continued growth as we capture more opportunities in this space,” Mr. Velasquez said in the statement.
When PT&T held its annual stockholders’ meeting last month, the first since its voluntary suspension of trading in 2004, Mr. Velasquez said the company intends to strengthen its broadband network nationwide.
Mr. Velasquez said the company is raising P7 billion to fund a plan to double its fiber footprint to about 20,000 kilometers within two years. He noted its newly signed memorandum of understanding with state-owned National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) will help PT&T with the plan as it will ensure the use of the government’s fiber optic backbone facility. — Denise A. Valdez

Samsung unveils new Galaxy J smartphones

SAMSUNG IS set to launch new budget smartphones from its Galaxy J series line in the country this week.
Samsung Philippines said the Galaxy J6+ and J4+ will be available on Oct. 13 at suggested retail prices of P10,990 and P6,990, respectively.
The new phones are the first in the J series to sport a glossy back finish. The Galaxy J6+ will come in the colors red and gray, while the J4+ will be available in black and gold color options.
The Galaxy J6+ and J4+ will also have face recognition technology.
According to the Samsung website, the Galaxy J6+ has a 1.4 GHz quad-core chip, with 3GB RAM and 32GB in internal storage, expandable via a MicroSD card. It comes with a 6-inch, 1480 x 720 LCD screen, with a battery capacity of 3,300 mAh equivalent to about 23 hours of talk time. The phone also has 13MP + 5MP dual lens rear camera and an 8 MP front camera. Aside from the facial recognition feature, the J6+ features a side fingerprint sensor for easier user access.
Meanwhile, the cheaper Galaxy J4+ likewise carries a 1.4 GHz quad-core chip and has 2GB RAM and 16GB worth of native memory, also expandable via an external card. The phone is also equipped with a 6-inch, 1480 x 720 LCD screen, with a battery capacity of 3,300 mAh, and has a 13 MP rear camera and 5 MP front camera.

Johnnie Walker House pops up


By Kap Maceda Aguila
THE WORLD’S leading Scotch whisky is also known for its so-called Johnnie Walker Houses “designed to immerse (patrons) in the history, provenance, and pioneering spirit of the… brand,” as a “lifestyle space and part museum (which brings together) luxury whisky innovation with art, design, fine-dining, and culture.”
Presently, there are six Johnnie Walker House locations outside of Scotland — four flagships in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Seoul, and two retail boutiques at Taoyuan International Airport (Taiwan) and Mumbai International Airport (India). Additional retail boutiques are set to be opened at Changi Airport (Singapore) and Schiphol Amsterdam Airport (Netherlands).
Last Friday, the first-ever Johnnie Walker House (a pop-up one) opened shop in Southeast Asia — more specifically, at the Burgos Park in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. At its heart is a highball bar where guests can order featured Johnnie Walker variants in exciting blends. At the opening, invitees were treated to a trio of interesting mixers: Black Smoky Highball (Johnnie Walker Black Label, ginger ale, burnt rosemary, and salt), Double Black Creamy Highball (Johnnie Walker Double Black, soda water, honey, and desiccated coconut), and Gold Fruity Highball (Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve, apple juice, apple slice, and brown sugar).
More than just a pop-up bar and store, the Johnnie Walker House is also an events place, said Diageo Philippines marketing director Cesar Gangoso to this writer. It will host “Johnnie Weekends… events in collaboration with local trailblazers in music, film, photography, and art.” Mr. Gangoso added that patrons can expect “unique serves inspired by different passion points.”
There will be quiz nights, too, plus “bar takeovers” by noted bartenders in Manila. Guests can also do their different versions of the highball. Through the Johnnie Walker House, the company is expecting Filipinos to “rediscover the smooth, smoky taste of the whisky… and rediscover its different blends.”
On Oct. 12, a pre-game show for All of the Noise 2018 Music Festival will feature sets by Sandwich, Cheats, Jason Dhakal, and others. AXN takes over the House on Oct. 19 with a “Freedom Fridays” event with live performances, games, and giveaways. On Oct. 20, Purveyr kicks off the #JohnnieWeekend x Sound Fiesta live series.
Open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays until Oct. 25, the Johnnie Walker pop-up will move to 11 other locations in Metro Manila. The next staging will be at Greenbelt 3 at the Ayala Center in Makati City from Nov. 18 to Dec. 28. Mr. Gangoso hints that as the Makati pop-up store will open nearer to and until Christmas, patrons can expect gift ideas such as personalization, Blue Label engraving, stickering, and labeling.
There have been requests to open pop-ups in Cebu and Davao, too, and the executive intimated to BusinessWorld that parent company Diageo is “planning a permanent House in the city.” That is expected to be a venue for showcasing rarer kinds of Johnnie Walker blends or editions, and serve as a true museum of the iconic whisky.

RCBC offers basic accounts

RIZAL COMMERCIAL Banking Corp. (RCBC) has launched basic deposit accounts (BDA), offering a cheaper and simpler way to access financial services in line with the government’s inclusion push.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Yuchengco-led RCBC said it is now offering basic deposit accounts, which require less documents.
To open a basic deposit account, RCBC requires its clients to bring a valid ID or latest barangay certificate, as well as a P100 initial deposit.
The account does not have a minimum daily balance requirement and comes with access to RCBC’s online banking facility and a Mastercard-enabled debit card.
“With the BDA, RCBC aims to encourage the value and discipline of saving, as well as give them access to the convenience and security that bank accounts offer,” RCBC’s Senior Vice President for Deposit Products & Promotions Head Emmanuel Mari K. Valdes was quoted as saying in the statement.
RCBC said the new product is in support of the central bank’s financial inclusion campaign which encourages lenders to offer accessible and affordable products to serve different market segments, particularly the unbanked and unserved sectors.
Earlier this year, the central bank released Circular No. 992, which provided a framework for BDAs, encouraging more Filipinos to open up accounts in formal institutions as it waivers maintaining balances and dormancy charges, and simplifies the know-your-customer requirements.
RCBC posted a P2.2-billion net income in the first half of the year, 6.4% lower than the P2.35 billion tallied a year ago.
Its shares gained P1.40 or 5.26% to close at P28 apiece on Wednesday. — KANV

CLC-Trans-Asia deal under review

THE Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) on Wednesday started a review of Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp.’s (CLC) acquisition of Trans-Asia Shipping Lines, Inc.
The Phase 1 review comes after the anti-trust body received the companies’ notification of the deal last Sept. 21.
To recall, the transaction was earlier voided due to CLC and Trans-Asia Shipping’s failure to notify the PCC, even as the size of the transaction fell under the compulsory notification threshold of P1 billion.
The voided deal led to the PCC approving CLC’s purchase of shares in KGLI-NM Holdings, Inc., which owns 2Go Group, Inc. The PCC had said the Trans-Asia transaction initially raised competition concerns, as both 2Go and Trans-Asia were owned by Udenna Corp.
A hearing was held at the PCC on Sept. 17, as the parties sought to have both decisions reconsidered.
The PCC said Udenna Chairman and CEO Dennis A. Uy and company representatives committed to complying with the notification requirements, as well as make “voluntary commitments” to address the competition concerns.
“These include the commitment to be bound by a price monitoring scheme and provide necessary information to implement the same,” the PCC said.
Because of this, the PCC set the applicable administrative fine at 1% of the transaction value amounting to P11.4 million. This lower than the P22.8 million penalty set by the PCC.
“Compliance is the cornerstone of fostering a culture of competition. The competition law is fair as it rewards faithful observance of the rules while it penalizes violations,” PCC Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan was quoted as saying in a statement.
Under PCC rules, the Phase 1 review is conducted within 30 days from notification and payment of filing fees. The review will determine whether or not the deal will raise competition concerns. If competition concerns arise, the PCC will proceed to a Phase 2 review.
Based on its previous review of the Chelsea/KGLI-NM transaction, PCC found that Chelsea’s control of both 2Go and Trans-Asia would lead to a substantial lessening of competition affecting Roll-On/Roll-Off passenger shipping services in six routes, namely Cebu-Cagayan De Oro; Cagayan De Oro-Cebu; Cebu-Ozamis; Ozamis-Cebu; Cebu-Iligan and; Iligan-Cebu legs.
It also found substantial lessening of competition in the cargo shipping services in the same areas plus the Cebu-Zamboanga leg. — JCL

SEC warns public vs investing in Bioglow laundry shops

THE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has advised the public against investing in Bioglow Laundry Shop (Bioglow), noting that it is not registered with the commission nor authorized to solicit investments.
The commission found that Bioglow has been inviting people to invest in the laundry shop’s branches at P2,500 per one percent share in the main branch, and P2,000 per one percent share in a satellite branch. An investor could own an entire branch for P250,000 and P200,000 for main and satellite branches, respectively.
In exchange for the investment, Bioglow will manage the business, including the procurement of permits, employment and training of staff, as well as actual business operations. The investor can then earn income proportionate to the revenues generated by the branch.
Bioglow will deduct 25% from the branch’s income as processing fee and for other expenses incurred during the period, with the remaining income to be divided among the investors.
The company also guaranteed investors that the branch will generate P10,000 in net sales monthly, as per its Monthly Sales Protection System.
The SEC said that Bioglow is not registered as a corporation or partnership with the commission, and is likewise not authorized to offer investments to people since it does not have a secondary license to sell securities or investment products.
“In view thereof, the public is hereby advised to exercise caution before investing in these kinds of activities and to take the necessary precaution in dealing with Bioglow Laundry Shop or its representatives,” the commission said.
The SEC added that those who act as salesmen, brokers, dealers, or agents of Bioglow who sell or convince people to invest in the group may be prosecuted as per the Securities Regulation Code (SRC). Penalties could reach as high as P5 million or up to 21 years of imprisonment, in accordance with Section 73 of the SRC.
The commission has continuously been issuing advisories against several investment scams to protect investors. It previously warned the public against entities like KAPA Community Ministry International, Inc., Bibli Online Store, and Nutriwealth Multi-Purpose Cooperative, among others. — Arra B. Francia

JBL launches Bluetooth speakers, headphones with built-in assistant

MORE VOICE-ASSISTED products are seen to be available in the Philippines, as American audio equipment maker JBL looks to intensify its presence in the country.
Samsung Electronics subsidiary Harman International Industries, JBL’s parent company, last week launched its first line of Bluetooth speakers and headphones with a built-in Google Assistant in the Asia-Pacific in the Philippines.
“In the APAC region, especially in the Philippines, consumers are still buying Bluetooth speakers… [It’s] easy to use and it’s [getting] more affordable, [with] mid-range products,” Seng Hock Chang, Brand Activation Director & Sales Director for Car Audio at Harman International (APAC), told BusinessWorld at the launch last week.
“Voice platform will slowly but surely grow so we will monitor this very closely. We are seeing the growth happening very fast, [so] we [will] give a wider range of products at different price points,” he added.
Launched last week were the Google Voice-assisted JBL Link series and JBL Everest GA series.
The JBL Link line has four products with a built-in Google Assistant. Two items in the line, the Link 10 and Link 20, are smaller, portable and waterproof, with five and 10 hours of battery life, respectively. Meanwhile, the Link 500 and Link 300 are larger and meant for home use. Multiple speakers can be connected via the Google Home app, as with other Chromecast built-in products.
On the other hand, the JBL Everest headphone line, on the other hand, comes in three kinds: the in-ear Everest Elite 110GA, on-ear Everest 310GA, and on-ear Everest 710GA with playtime of eight, 10 and 25 hours, respectively. These wireless Bluetooth headphones can access Google Assistant with a button and allow users to control music via voice commands.
JBL is looking to launch more voice-assisted gadgets here before Christmas.
As soon as Google gives its go signal, JBL will also release JBL Link View, a speaker with built-in 10-inch screen, and JBL Link Bar, a voice-activated sound bar which is doubles as a speaker and a device to control the television it is connected to.
While JBL is not expecting to compete with Amazon and Google in the voice-assisted platform market, it is expecting its line of voice-assisted speakers to rank at third.
“As soon as the voice platform is available, we can launch the product. So if tomorrow, Amazon sees that Alexa is ready in the Philippines, we will be able to launch Alexa,” Mr. Seng said, hinting that they are also open to partner with Amazon to give its consumers more choices.
Mr. Seng said the key is looking for a larger consumer market with mastery in the English language.
“Philippine customers are very discerning. I think your command of English is very strong, [and] this platform is currently only in English, [because] Tagalog is not ready,” he added.
With this in mind, Mr. Seng said that “the usage will be very seamless, will be easy for the consumers here to try it out and enjoy the functionalities.” — Anna Gabriela A. Mogato

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