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Accenture creating more value-added jobs

ACCENTURE said it is creating more value-added jobs for its employees while giving transactional jobs to new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), as part of the “upskill” needed in the advent of automation and AI.
With the growing adoption of new technologies, Manish Sharma, Accenture operations group operating officer, said the company adopted the philosophy of letting skilled employees take on higher-value jobs, therefore removing the jobs needing repetitive or measurable skills.
“We took a pledge in saying that, our people will not do jobs which are measurable, repeatable, predictable, and transactional in nature,” Mr. Sharma said in a press conference on June 14.
“We want to give our people higher value-added jobs rather than …boring jobs..[and] keep jobs which are intellectually stimulating,” he added.
Mr. Sharma also said these will create new, higher-value jobs in the company. “We will have the best of business advisers and who will solve clients’ business problems, and they will be the supervisors of the robots and AI,” he said.
Mr. Sharma noted new technologies have improved their processes and showed reduction in lead time.
The company did not give specific numbers, but Benedict Hernandez, Accenture operations lead in the Philippines, said the company aims to have a marginal decrease for the less than 50% in their work force which are low-skilled.
The company is also investing in increasing skills of its employees. “There’s been a massive, year-round effort to upskill everybody,” Mr. Hernandez said.
Skills upgrade is seen as a solution by stakeholders in the information technology-business process management (IT-BPM) industry, to adapt to the new wave of technologies, to avoid loss of jobs.
Accenture has around 45,000 employees in the Philippines. — Patrizia Paola C. Marcelo

Wall St. wants more female traders, but old perceptions die hard

NEW YORK — As a biomedical engineering student at Duke University, Priya Karani thought she did not have the right skills to break into the heavily male-dominated field of Wall Street trading.
“I was never interested in a career in trading at a bank because I didn’t know it was an option,” Karani said.
A decade later, Karani is a director at Barclays PLC in New York where she trades health care derivatives and helps the bank’s effort to attract more women to trading by talking to female college students about her job.
Despite such efforts Karani still represents a small minority since few women apply for jobs in trading, deterred by its decades-old reputation as an “alpha-male territory” and misconceptions about skills it requires.
“Trading is a hard one to crack,” said Jon Regan, a head of global markets for executive search firm Sheffield Haworth. “I don’t think it has changed much, although firms are working hard to improve their gender ratios.”
The firm, which works for many leading investment banks and conducts studies on behalf of its clients, found women generally account for 12% to 15% of trading roles, he said.
There are no industry-wide data but the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees US brokerages, said women accounted for about 28% of individuals registered with it at the end of 2017. Those numbers include not just traders, but also investment advisers.
Banks’ efforts to change that have intensified over the past year with the emergence of the #MeToo movement and growing shareholder calls for disclosures on workforce diversity.
For example, Citigroup, Inc. and Bank of America Corp. released information on diversity and gender pay gap for the first time this year in response to calls from an investment advisory firm.
Since last year, major employers have also been obliged to report gender pay gap data for their British operations, which for banks showed women underrepresented in higher earning roles.
Barclays’ Sophomore Springboard program that Karani supports is one of several initiatives banks have introduced recently to make trading rooms more diverse.
Citigroup Inc does college recruitment focused on informing young women about trading careers and offers them interview coaching, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. has been running an internal program for the past two years called Women Who Trade, which offers networking for female traders of all levels, including potential recruits.
“We are doing a better job at ensuring analyst classes have a better intake (of women),” said Claudia Jury, global co-head of currencies and emerging markets at JPMorgan and a senior sponsor for the program. The bank has hired around 30 women through the program since 2016, it said.
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. started its Trader Academy in London last year, offering eight months of mentoring, networking and job shadowing for 16 female college students. The bank plans to expand the program to the Americas this year and Asia soon after.
Goldman has said it wants women to eventually make up half of its overall workforce, but acknowledges trading is far from that goal.
“Having women in particular from a trading perspective has always been a challenge for us,” said Janine Glasenberg, the bank’s head of graduate recruiting in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Banks are so keen to improve their diversity ratios that one declined to make young female traders available for interviews out of fear they might get poached by competitors.
Shareholder pressure aside, managers and some studies say hiring more women simply makes business sense.
David Hesketh, chief executive of a London-based startup TradingHub said trading simulations the company ran in 2014 and 2015 for hundreds of interns as part of banks’ recruitment programs showed women made fewer trades and took fewer risks, They would also break the rules less than half as often as men. In all, having more women on a team could translate into savings on brokerage fees, loss provisions and fines.
“That is kind of nuts, if you think some firms are getting fines in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” Hesketh said.
Yet former female traders interviewed by Reuters describe an industry, which has left behind discriminatory attitudes common only a decade ago, but where women remain heavily outnumbered and can sometimes feel like outsiders in a “boys’ club.”
Simmy Grover, who worked as an equity trader at Morgan Stanley in London between 2006 and 2009, recalled how just over a decade ago one investment bank was ready to offer her a job, but just could not imagine her on the trading floor.
“I remember walking into an interview and I was asked why I had applied for trading because I was a woman and I should be applying to sales.”
Grover, now a researcher at the University College London, said she ended up working as a trader elsewhere anyway. While she said she never felt marginalized on the job, she would sometimes get overlooked by brokers hosting social events — typically involving watching a soccer game and a trip to the pub.
Divya Krishnan, who was a trader between 2009 and 2014 as part of Citi’s program for quantitative analysts, said in her time the bank was already trying to help young recruits, offering networking opportunities and linking them up with experienced female traders.
They told them, she recalls, to be confident and avoid apologizing too much, something she said women tended to do.
But like Grover she found it was harder to fit in after hours. “I was never a sports person, but that was always a topic of conversation. I had to learn that,” Krishnan, who now works for fintech startup Motif, said.
While workplace culture is slow to change, banks focus their outreach in colleges on broadening a pool of potential candidates by dispelling the myth that only math wizards or those with finance degrees can succeed in trading.
“We spend a lot of the time encouraging women who have liberal arts backgrounds to look at this business,” said Amanda Magliaro, a managing director and head of global structured finance distribution at Citigroup.
Magliaro, who graduated as a Japanese language major and holds an MBA in finance, said the efforts, including interview coaching for women joining its internship program, were bearing fruit: “It has improved the numbers.”
Headhunters say, however, it will take time before effects of such efforts show up in banks’ gender ratios.
“Firms would like to have more women in trading and other areas, but there aren’t that many women in the pipeline.” Ross Gregory, a director at recruitment firm Proco Commodities. — Reuters

Intervention needed to snap Indian bond cycle

INDIAN BONDS are caught in a vicious cycle and policy makers need to intervene to break that to prevent more losses, according to Nomura Holdings Inc.
State-run banks — the biggest holders of local sovereign debt — are largely staying away, owing to losses worth billions of rupees suffered during a rout that has seen the 10-year yield rise in nine of the last 10 months. That’s at a time when supply of government bonds is rising and foreign funds are dumping rupee notes at a record pace.
“It’s in a way a self-sustaining sort of a vicious cycle that as banks refrain from this market, bond yields go higher and as yields go higher, portfolio valuations gets significantly impacted, which further reduces their appetite,” Neeraj Gambhir, Mumbai-based managing director and head of fixed income at Nomura’s Indian unit, said in a phone interview. “This cycle needs to be broken through some policy intervention.”
Gambhir’s call comes after a slew of measures failed to halt the rout. The central bank and the government have already eased some investment rules for foreigners, pared debt sales and allowed banks to spread out trading losses. Yet, the yield on India’s benchmark 10-year bonds has climbed 58 basis points since the first such policy change was announced in late March.
The 10-year yield rose above 8% last week as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised benchmark interest rates for the first time since 2014 and set the stage for a gradual tightening cycle. It fell two basis points to 7.91% on Thursday. A combination of rising oil prices, tighter domestic liquidity and worsening public finances has cast a pall over bonds in the past year.
8.25% YIELD?
“Whether that policy intervention is by way of the RBI buying bonds through open-market operations or it’s the government taking some steps to encourage demand from outside or from the domestic market, that needs to be seen,” said Gambhir. “But unless and until we find some other source of demand for government bonds, the stress in the government bond market will probably continue for the foreseeable future.”
Investor confidence has also been dented by weakness in the rupee, which is among Asia’s worst-performing currencies in 2018.
Whether the 10-year yield “settles at 8% or 8.25% is just a matter of detail, but I don’t see any respite at this point in time,” said Gambhir. — Bloomberg

Short docu on a special Uber driver tops 1st Istorya ng Pag-Asa Film Fest

A FIVE-MINUTE documentary about an Uber driver with Tourette’s Syndrome won the top prize at the recently concluded Istorya ng Pag-asa (INP) Film Festival.
Ang Biyahe ni Marlon, directed by Florence Rosini, was named Best Film at the film festival’s gala night and awarding ceremony held on June 12 at Cinema 6, Glorietta 4 in Makati City.
Tourette’s Syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, stereotyped, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics.
The film showed how Marlon Fuentes overcame his condition by finding people with similar conditions in the Philippine Tourette Syndrome Association and through the support of his family.
The film festival was created by the Office of the Vice-President and Ayala Foundation and aimed “to enlist professional and non-professional filmmakers as partners in telling stories of hope and inspiration involving ordinary Filipinos,” according to a statement.
“We celebrate the ordinary Filipino’s triumph over adversity, but that does not mean we should resign ourselves to such a life. We need to understand why our people languish and we need to question why we have not been able to break free from the shackles of poverty and adversity. Only when we do can we figure out how to do better,” said Vice-President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo, during her opening remarks.
The film festival received over 70 short films before whittling them down to the final 15, all of which were presented in the June 12 event.
Tago by Meg Seranilla, a short film about jazz drummer Nelson Gonzales who runs Tago Jazz Café in Quezon City, was named first runner-up while Gawilan by Kelsy Lua was named second runner-up. The film tells the story of Ernie Gawilan, a swimmer who competed in the 2016 Summer Paralympics.
The top three films will be screened in Ayala Mall Cinemas nationwide from June 13 to 30.
The top films ​were also uploaded onto the film festival’s YouTube page.
Aside from the top three films, the festival also named Anna Mikaela Dizon the Best Director trophy for her film Pamilya Bernardo, the story of two women who find light inside their home amid discrimination because of their malformed limbs.
Best Cinematography was given to The Climbing Puppeteer by AR Angcos. The film is about a business process outsourcing (BPO) professional and hiker who uses ventriloquism to reach out to poor communities in the mountains.
Best Script was given to Ang Gahum Sang Daku Nga Handum by Demy Cruz, Jr., which is about an eloquent young teacher from the Ata Tribe of Negros.
The winners were determined by a panel of judges which included screenwriter Doy del Mundo, filmmakers Dan Villegas and Quark Henares, actress Shamaine Buencamino, and Film Development Council of the Philippines chairperson Liza Diño. — ZBC

LLDA issues halt order vs 2 construction firms

THE Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) said Thursday that it has ordered two construction companies to stop operations for allegedly dumping waste on the shoreland of Taguig City.
LLDA General Manager Jaime ‘Joey’ C. Medina served the cease-and-desist orders to Pasig City-based IPM Construction and Development Corp. and Taguig City-based Level Up Construction and Development Corp.
Mr. Medina also ordered the two companies to stop dumping waste materials and from further reclamation activities.
“[T]hese illegal reclamation and backfilling activities have already resulted to the depletion of the carrying capacity of the lake and because of these continuous defiance,” Mr. Medina was quoted in a Thursday statement.
“The original contour of the Laguna Lake and the natural elevation of the subject leased area which is below 12.50 meters reglementary elevation has increased tremendously and expanding rigorously towards the lake without any approval from the LLDA,” the official added.
Under Section 4 of the Republic Act No. 4850 or the Laguna Lake Development Authority Act of 1966, activities in all titled and untitled lands below elevation of 12.50 meters that will negatively affect the ecological balance of the lake, such as by causing air pollution, are strictly prohibited within the shoreland area.
The law also identifies LLDA as the sole authority to issue new permits when allowing the use of lake waters for any projects or activities affecting the Laguna de Bay. — Janina C. Lim

Living up to its promise


By Alexander O. Cuaycong
and Anthony L. Cuaycong
SINCE its inception in 2005, Sega’s Yakuza series has invariably churned out virtual masterpieces. While a bit all over the place at times, this part family drama, part mafia flick, and part martial arts and adventure franchise has always boasted of top-notch quality in terms of presentation and humor. In this regard, Yakuza 6 does not disappoint; it offers the same blend of action, comedy, and emotional heft via traditionally outstanding production values.
In Yakuza 6, players take on the role of Kazuma Kiryu, fresh off serving three years in prison. They see him return to Kamurocho in order to live peacefully, only to find Haruka, his adopted daughter, in a coma due to a vehicular accident. He then attempts to piece together what happened to her during his absence and, along the way, must fight the many lowlifes that populate the slums of his city, and of Hiroshima, and dig up clues regarding her disappearance.
At first glance, Yakuza 6’s premise might seem mundane. In truth, it is anything but; slated as the last chapter of Kiryu‘s story, it goes out of its way to bring the narrative to players, often in large barrages of cinematic cutscenes. Moreover, it provides summaries of the plots of previous installments; clearly, it moves to elicit as much sympathy for the principal character from newcomers to and veterans of the series alike. And the payoff is nothing short of spectacular; the denouement is moving and befitting of the series’ grand vision.
That said, Yakuza 6 keeps players busy with a myriad of side quests and side activities that prove to be as wild and wacky as ever; among them are a karaoke minigame and a baseball team simulator. Kiryu even gets to manage his own Yakuza clan. These mini-games may not be as fleshed out as those in previous titles, but they do fit in well with the latest release’s crazy and over-the-top theme. What other title provides value in having a selfie taken in the middle of the street?
Admittedly, the nice touches won’t exempt players from having to tackle the meat of Yakuza 6, and that’s where its superb gameplay kicks in. Part brawler and part spectacle fighter, it features combat mechanics that are simple but intuitive; Kiryu has at his disposal a heady mix of light and strong attacks as well as a variety of finishing moves and grapple counters. The style system that predecessor Yakuza Kiwami employed is gone. At the same time, there remains a sense of fulfillment in barreling through goons and thugs alike, the relative lack of variety of moves compared to previous releases notwithstanding.
Granted, Yakuza 6 loses some luster because of its simpler nature and scope. Part of it does feel lacking; there’s just something about it that seems to miss the intrinsic spark that made its siblings so special. On the other hand, it remains extremely enjoyable; for all its frailties, it continues to embody its source franchise’s sense and sensibilities quite well. And to its credit, it runs with nary a stutter in framerate or performance.
Visually, Yakuza 6 delivers; its art style, while nothing earthshaking, is done well and captures the feel of Japan’s shadier, seedier locations. Combat is extremely satisfying and rewarding, with the meaty thunks and solid thwacks Kiryu gives his opponents resounding nicely. All told, it’s a well-made game that players will find significant pleasure in negotiating.
Overall, Yakuza 6 manages to live up to promise. Longtime fans of the series will definitely take to it even if it plays shorter and appears less ambitious than its predecessors. Parenthetically, newcomers won’t take long to deem it worth their time (and perhaps be buoyed to play the previous titles as well). It captures the look and feel of the series; it engrosses as the last chapter of an epic, keeping its humor intact and injecting action in spades from its first to its 40th hour — and, due to its high replay value, well beyond.

Rolls-Royce to cut 4,600 jobs in cash-raising move

LONDON — Britain’s Rolls-Royce said it would cut 4,600 jobs to save £400 million a year in the latest attempt by CEO Warren East to simplify the business and generate more cash.
East has been overhauling Rolls during his three years in charge of the engine-maker but the job cuts announced on Thursday come at a tricky time for a company which has been hit by problems with some aero-engines that has angered clients.
Parts in some versions of the Trent 1000 engine which powers the Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet are not lasting as long as expected, forcing the company to ground planes to carry out inspections.
East said the job cuts were needed to help the company achieve profitable growth.
They will enable the company to save 400 million pounds ($536 million) a year by the end of 2020, but will cost it 500 million pounds over 2018, 2019 and 2020. It will be reported as separate one-off costs, allowing it to stick to its targets for free cash flow.
“These changes will help us deliver over the mid and longer-term a level of free cash flow well beyond our near-term ambition of around £1 billion by around 2020,” East said in a statement on Thursday.
Rolls-Royce has 55,000 employees worldwide of which 26,000 are in Britain. The latest cuts follow a previous removal of around 5,000 roles which followed a series of profit warnings in 2014.
The company said the job cuts would predominantly be in the UK where most of its corporate and support functions are based. It employs 15,700 at its headquarters in Derby, central England.
Jefferies analyst Sandy Morris said while the market would not be surprised by the job cuts as East had hinted there was more restructuring to come, the timing was not ideal.
“Against the backdrop of costly Trent 1000 in-service issues and rising civil engine deliveries, we can see how it might stir a debate about whether the timing of this fundamental restructuring increases near-term risk,” he said.
Rolls said that despite the cost of fixing the Trent 1000 issues it was continuing to stick to its forecast for free cash flow for 2018. — Reuters

BPI looks to ramp up digitalization efforts

BANK OF THE Philippine Islands (BPI) is ramping up efforts to digitize its processes and services to support rapid growth and promote financial inclusion.
In a statement, BPI President and Chief Executive Officer Cezar P. Consing said the lender wants to ramp up its digitalization efforts to enable more convenient and efficient way of banking for its clients.
“It’s about shaping and creating a whole new experience for our customers through digitalization, offering them a better, safer, more convenient way to bank with us,” Mr. Consing was quoted as saying in the statement.
He added that harnessing digitalization supports the National Retail Payment System (NRPS) initiative of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) which involves policies and standards for a “cash-lite” economy.
The BSP’s NRPS initiative, launched in 2015, aims to get more Filipinos included into the formal financial system.
The move intends to steer financial transactions gradually away from cash and checks toward electronic fund transfers.
“[A]utomating and digitalizing our transactions is critical to our ability to scale up our operations,” BPI Enterprise Services Head Ramon L. Jocson said. “We are investing in technology so we can serve our clients well.”
Mr. Consing said the lender’s continued digitalization efforts will expand its network of automatic teller machines (ATMs) and cash acceptance machines (CAMs), and will also enhance its digital channels through its Web site and mobile application.
According to BPI, around 36% of its customers access the bank through digital means such as its Web site and mobile app. This percentage grows to 66% if self-service ATMs and CAMs are included.
“Many of our clients have come to embrace technology because of the convenience, safety and reliability it offers,” Mr. Jocson noted.
“The proliferation of smartphones has also stimulated innovation, allowing our customers to save time through a wide array of transactions they can do anytime and anywhere,” he added.
Despite its efforts to enhance and promote digital banking, Mr. Jocson noted the Ayala-led lender is not veering away from its brick and mortar branches as these will continue to “enable for more meaningful interactions that address the financial needs of clients.”
In April, BPI raised P50 billion through a stock rights offer, selling 558.7 million common shares priced at P89.50 apiece.
Proceeds from the fund-raising activity will be used to finance its digital thrust, expand its retail loan portfolio and put up more branches.
BPI, the third-largest bank in the country in asset terms, booked a net income of P6.25 billion last quarter, flat from the profit posted in the same period last year, due to lower trading gains.
Shares in BPI dropped P2.80 or 2.84% to P95.85 apiece on Thursday. — K.A.N. Vidal

Citizen me

By Noel Vera
Movie Review
Citizen Jake
Directed by Mike de Leon
MIKE DE LEON’s first film in — has it been 18 years? — has to be an event; the latest from one of our finest filmmakers, in the same league as Lino Brocka, Mario O’Hara, Ishmael Bernal, Celso Ad. Castillo. If it’s arguably the weakest feature he’s done to date (hopefully not his last) it still stands head and shoulders above most anything out there today, Filipino or Hollywood.
Citizen Jake tells the story of Jacobo “Jake” Herrera (Atom Araullo) and right away De Leon has to riff on the keyboard: we have Jake seated at the computer typing and Jake walking down a hallway simultaneously, taking a seat and addressing us. We have archival footage of Jake’s beloved Baguio City where he lives in self-exile; flash-forwards to characters we have yet to meet; shots of the film crew shooting the very scene we’re watching; bits of dialogue laid out across the screen.
The film is part documentary on the City of Pines, part crime mystery (a young girl found raped and murdered), part political intrigue, part (as the director himself admits) autobiography (Jake’s tense relationship with his father Jacobo Herrera, Sr. [Teroy Guzman]). De Leon shuffles the various elements to the rhythm of his inimitably crisp editing style (actual cutting by Gerone Centeno and Tom Estrera), and you can’t help but feel you’re in the hands of a master. This is a Mike de Leon film we’re seeing and with it come expectations: that it be impeccably shot (by Dix Buhay) and acted, with high-quality (if modestly budgeted) production values (Mike Guison and Cesar Hernando) and a lovely lilting soundtrack (Nonong Buencamino). A good team — some of the names are legend — and a guarantee that we are going to be thoroughly entertained.
Only De Leon doesn’t seem to want to settle for “entertainment” — more like “information overload.” He throws at you a brief history of Baguio: how the city was established as vacation spot for our American overlords, how they exploited the native population, how that exploitation continues today in the form of “pony boys” (native youths grooming horses for tourist rides) and house servants (for vacation homes the owners live in only a few months of the year). He throws at you a withering precis of the abuses of the Marcos dictatorship, from human right violations to killings to lurid sex scandals. And he throws at you a selection of the more memorable political intrigues, lightly coated with fictionalized names.
Along with the history lesson is an entire film appreciation course tucked away in the corners of each shot (A poster of Costa-Gavras’ Z; a running gag where Roxie keeps alluding to the Godfather films [thinking he’s Sonny but suspecting he’s really Fredo]; a photographer-turned-investigator hero a la Blow-Out; alternate eyewitness accounts a la Rashomon; a home invasion scene a la Clockwork Orange; Kurosawa wipes; text spread in the Godardian manner across the big screen; images that recall Coppola, Antonioni, Leone, Dreyer; Jake’s house — the same American Colonial residence where De Leon shot Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising; the playing with medium and message as in his film essay Bayaning Third World; the film’s very title, a nod to Welles’ most famous film).
Does it all get overwhelming? De Leon doesn’t seem to want to make it easy; if anything he expects you to keep up. While you’re at it, don’t forget Jake’s uneasy feelings towards childhood friend and houseboy Jonie (Luis Alandy), his disintegrating relationship with girlfriend Mandy (Max Collins), his longstanding trauma from the disappearance of his mother Victoria (Dina Bonnevie). There won’t be a quiz, but there will be a few answers by film’s end.
It’s as if De Leon had bottled up everything he wanted to say for 18 years and let it all out in a prodigious flood; he’s doing his best to shape and shoot and cut it into some kind of coherent form and can hardly manage the flow. If anything, this film’s chief flaw is that it’s too generous, that there’s material here for perhaps three films and two hour-long documentaries; maybe De Leon shouldn’t have waited so long to start working again. The film lacks the simplicity of means, the eloquence of meaning of his greatest work Kisapmata, which is personal (as in — yes — autobiographical) and universal (as in able to happen in the house next door) and complex (metaphor for the fascist nature of patriarchal Filipino society) and simple (story of a family gone very wrong) all at the same time.
But there are, I submit, worse things in the world to be accused of than overreaching; this is a mighty meal, barely contained within its 137-minute running time. Some of the performances help clarify the storylines and histories (Was the plotline of Chinatown coherent? But John Huston’s Noah Cross helped clear the confusion: watching him you know the Devil is real and wears a white suit). Anna Luna’s Heidi is simple and affectingly direct; Ruby Ruiz’s Manang has melodramatic authority; Collins’ Mandy conveys a sense of understated grace (especially in her last scene with Jake); Raquel Villavicencio’s lovely little cameo as Miss Merci bears witness not just to the crime (or one aspect of it) but to a bygone era; Nonie Buencamino’s brief appearance as Judge is intense and movingly human; Cherie Gil’s Patricia Medina gives us cynical sophisticated decadence with a bitter personal edge.
I remember watching Lou Veloso’s performance of Anton Juan’s Taong Grasa (Street Bum) where he held an audience mesmerized for over an hour while presenting (all on his own, mind) the thoughts, the feelings, the world of the homeless. Here he plays poet-professor Lucas, holding the viewer mesmerized as he presents — in a brief scene, in verse he wrote himself — the vision of a rich land with teeming soil, sea, sky. “The Pearl of the Orient,” where the corrupt and abusive are “whipped for each soul (they’ve) harmed” and the people who have benefited must “be of service to (their) land.” Truisms galore but when Veloso delivers them and De Leon quietly shoots him (from a corner of the café, slouching on a chair) the words have the heft and feel of epiphanies.
But with De Leon it almost always comes down to family: the source of comfort and strength, of anguish and despair. It’s in the scenes down in Manila in the Herrera family mansion that the film comes truly to life, as Jake confronts his daddy dearest, his Alpha and Omega, his bête noir. It’s where De Leon gets unsettlingly personal as he digs into his knowledge of the emotional dynamics of powerful old families. Atom Araullo sometimes falters as an actor (he struggles to inject energy in Jake’s moments with Mandy) but he’s fine suggesting the love that can exist between two men who call each other brother (Jake and Jonie) and he’s magnetic suggesting the shame, guilt, resentment, yes, even hate, that can exist between privileged son and tyrannical father. “This country is best ruled by the elite!” declares Teroy Guzman as Jacobo, Sr. (who not only matches Araullo’s intensity, he, in my book, can stand beside Brando without embarrassment). “By strong men!” And to Jake’s dismay he knows exactly what his father’s words mean even as he loathes their very meaning — he’s learned to wield power and influence himself, as a way of moving his investigation forward. You might say every sin he commits up in Baguio, his father (he ultimately learns) has already committed, on a much larger scale, down in Manila.
And even in the finale (skip this paragraph if you plan to see the film!) there’s a kind of double-edged awareness to Jake’s solution to the three-way confrontation that takes place in his father’s palatial dining room/living room: he does what he does because he knows he can. He strikes a blow for what he believes is immediate justice knowing that if he had shot the gun in the other direction nothing could save him from the consequences. Despite all his continued defiance, despite his life after (which is kept deliberately ambiguous), he’s still his father’s son — he’s too smart not to figure out the angles.
From Treb Monteras II’s Respeto to Lav Diaz’s Panahon ng Halimaw to this, we’ve seen three responses to the Duterte regime to date — and may more be on their way. While none can or should be considered a definitive knockout — I doubt if anyone has the resources to suggest the scale of the abuses we’ve seen — each tries to cover differing aspects in their own brilliant way: Respeto through the angry rhythms of a rap artist, Panahon from the ground-level view of a poet being pushed, however, reluctantly to become a warrior. Jake could be their upper-class brother, yet another wanna be artist-poet (he doesn’t recite any, but I’ll bet his blog includes a few verses) looking down from his privileged vantage point, feeling the angst of someone who has the education and intelligence and power — someone very much like us in fact — to act, yet has failed to do so. One of the better films of 2018.

What to see this week

4 films to see on the week of June 15-22, 2018

Incredibles 2


AFTER A 12-YEAR WAIT, the family of superheroes returns. While Hellen is in the superhero spotlight, Bob is at home with the kids leading a normal life, but they are still unaware of baby Jack-Jack’s emerging powers. But they all have to work together — along with Frozone —when a new villain emerges. Directed by Brad Bird, the movie features the voices of Craig T. Hunter, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, and Samuel L. Jackson. The film has a 97% rating at the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregate site. “This follow-up is every bit the start-to-finish sensation as the original, and Brad Bird’s subversive spirit is alive and thriving. Like its Oscar-winning predecessor, The Incredibles 2 doesn’t ring cartoonish. It rings true,” writes Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.
MTRCB Rating: PG

Ocean’s 8


IT’S THE WOMEN’s turn this time. When Danny Ocean’s estranged sister manages to put together a team of crooks after her release from prison, the women travel to New York city to gatecrash the Annual Met Gala to steal a necklace worth $150 million. Directed by Gary Ross, the latest film in the Ocean’s franchise stars Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, and Richard Armitage. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman writes, “The first thing to say about Ocean’s 8 is that it takes the bad karma that clung — unfairly — to the Ghostbusters remake and leaves it out in the trash. For here’s a gender-flipped sequel that not only works just fine, but renders the whole ‘novelty’ of the concept a borderline irrelevance.”
MTRCB Rating: R-13

Escape Plan 2: Hades


YEARS after Ray Breslin escaped from “The Tomb,” he organizes a new security force but soon finds himself having to rescue a team member who went missing in a computerized battle maze. Directed by Steven C. Miller, it stars Sylvester Stallone, Dave Bautista, Huang Xiaoming, Jaime King, and Jesse Metcalfe.
MTRCB Rating: R-13

The Autopsy of Jane Doe


WHEN an unusual female corpse arrives at the morgue, a father and son team of coroners have to figure out the cause of death, and in the process they uncover secrets of her life including a possibility that she might still be alive. Directed by André Øvredal, it stars Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, and Ophelia Lovibond. With an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the review aggregate site, Tom Russo of the Boston Globe calls it “A lean indie horror flick that manages to creep us out even before getting to the part that’s meant to be truly unsettling.”
MTRCB Rating: R-16

Incredible Adventure at SM Cinema


As the incredible superhero family returns to the big screen, SM Cinema is inviting families for a day of superpowered fun at the Incredibles 2: Incredible Adventure at SM North EDSA on June 15-20, and SM Southmall on June 22-24. Interactive booths and activities await families in the Incredible Adventure. They can collect balloons and win prizes in the Violet Force Field Booth (below), test their speed in Dash’s Timed Obstacle Dash, feel the rush, jump, and fly at Elastigirl’s Trampoline Area, and show off their creativity with Mr. Incredible’s logo builder by Nutri-Asia’s Papa Catsup (above). The Incredibles 2 opened this week nationwide. In the new film, Helen is busy saving the world, so it is Bob who is left at home with Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack, whose turbulent superpowers are starting to emerge. As the family struggles with the change, they also have to work together to defeat the dangerous plot of a new villain. Incredibles 2 is now showing at IMAX, Director’s Club, and SM Cinema. Children will get a free movie seat for every paying adult from June 21 to 27 in SM Cinemas nationwide.

Measuring our UHC progress

WHERE is the Philippines now in its journey to Universal Health Care (UHC)? This was the critical question that Dr. Gundo Aurel Weiler, Country Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), answered during the recent “Health for Juan and Juana: Moving Forward with the Philippine Health Agenda” forum.
“What cannot be measured cannot be managed, so it’s important that we measure our progress in UHC. We want to know whether we are on track to hit our targets. We also want to see how other countries are doing… to learn from them, especially those that are doing better than us,” said Dr. Weiler, a physician and medical sociologist who has worked as a public health advocate in the Philippines for many years. Indeed, as the WHO points out, performance measurement offers policymakers a major opportunity to secure health system improvement and accountability. It can also improve the quality of decisions made by all stakeholders within the health system.
Dr. Weiler stressed the need to ensure that all people and communities receive quality health services without suffering financial hardship. He cited a pre-2012 data from the Philippine Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), which showed that 6.3% of Filipinos spend more than 10% of their household budget for health. For comparison, this figure is 3.7% for Australia, 6.2% for Japan, 9.8% for Vietnam, 13.5% for South Korea, and 17.7% for China.
“Spending 25% of the household budget [for health] is considered the threshold for potentially catastrophic expenditure because this is when people start to borrow money and sell their assets,” said Dr. Weiler.
To measure the coverage of essential health services, public health experts use tracer indicators, such as infectious diseases (e.g. HIV), reproductive health/family planning, non-communicable diseases (e.g. hypertension), and service capacity.
“The coverage of HIV antiretroviral treatment in the Philippines is 32%,” Dr. Weiler said. Our country currently lags behind Mongolia (33%), Malaysia (37%), Lao PDR (41%), Vietnam (47%), and Cambodia (80%). The globally agreed target for HIV antiretroviral treatment coverage is 80%, with the global average at 53% and regional average 55%.
In terms of meeting Family Planning (FP) needs, the Philippines scored 51%, which is lower than our Asian neighbors: Cambodia (56%), Lao PDR (61%), Mongolia (68%), and Vietnam (70%). The global average is 77% while the regional average is almost 90%.
For blood pressure control, the Philippines scored 77%, which is not far from the global average of 78% and regional average of 81%, Dr. Weiler noted. One aspect of service capacity is international health regulation compliance, which measures the health system’s ability to provide emergency services, he explained. “Under this category, the Philippines’ score of 84% compares favorably with the global average of 73% and regional average of 79%.”
Overall, the Philippines scored a UHC Composite Index of 58%. The global average is 64% while the regional average is 75%. “The Philippines is moving in the right direction,” Dr. Weiler concluded.
The Health for Juan and Juana Forum, with theme “Making Universal Healthcare Happen,” aimed to deepen engagements and strengthen collaborations to come closer to the attainment of UHC, realizing that the nation’s social and economic progress depend on a healthy citizenry. Those aspirations remain.
 
Reference:
1. Peter C. Smith, Elias Mossialos and Irene Papanicolas. “Performance measurement for health system improvement: experiences, challenges and prospects.” 2008 WHO European Ministerial Conference on Health Systems. http://www.who.int/management/district/ performance/PerformanceMeasurementHealthSystemImprovement2.pdf. Accessed June 7, 2018
 
Teodoro B. Padilla is the executive director of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP). Medicine Cabinet is a weekly PHAP column that aims to promote awareness on public health and health care-related issues. PHAP and its member companies represent the research-based pharmaceutical and health care industry.
medicinecabinet@phap.org.ph.

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