The Sopranos to make a comeback in film prequel

March 13, 2018 | 12:02 am

LOS ANGELES — A prequel to hit US mafia drama The Sopranos is being developed as a movie, possibly reuniting some of television’s most beloved characters, New Line Cinema said on Thursday. New Line, a unit of Time Warner, Inc.’s Warner Bros., said it has purchased the screenplay The Many Saints of Newark from series creator David Chase and fellow Sopranos writer Lawrence Konner. The script is set during the social and racial tumult of 1960s Newark, New Jersey, and will focus on tensions between ethnic Italians and African-Americans. New Line said the film is expected to include some characters from the Emmy-winning series that ended in 2007. The show was credited with ushering in TV’s new golden age of complicated characters and challenging storylines, as well as turning HBO into an industry behemoth. There was no set release date and no casting announcement. Sopranos star James Gandolfini died in 2013 of a heart attack at age 51, and supporting actor Frank Vincent, who played mob boss Phil Leotardo, died last year. “David is a masterful storyteller and we, along with our colleagues at HBO, are thrilled that he has decided to revisit, and enlarge, the Soprano universe in a feature film,” Emmerich said in a statement. No director is attached to the film yet, New Line said. — Reuters

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas bank supervisor takes aim at male-dominated boards

March 13, 2018 | 12:01 am

THE PHILIPPINE central bank’s female deputy in charge of supervising the nation’s lenders has a message for their chief executives: Get more women onto your boards.

“Right now, we have a lot of women in big banks, but almost none of them are at the top,” Chuchi Fonacier, 57, said in an interview at her office by Manila Bay. “We encourage diversity.”

The career central banker joins a growing global momentum to break down barriers to gender equality in senior corporate and government roles. In the Philippines, men hold 82% of the 265 board seats at the nation’s biggest lenders and some banks have no women on their boards at all, according to the central bank.

“Companies that have more women at the senior management level do better in terms of return to shareholders, profitability,” said Mariam Jaafar, partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group in Singapore. A BCG survey of 98 companies with the Technical University of Munich last year showed that innovation also increases as the proportion of female managers rises.

Fonacier is one of two female central bank deputies. The other, Cyd Tuaño-Amador was also appointed last year. Fonacier started as a bank auditor in 1984 and took over supervision of the sector last July.

When meeting bank presidents, Fonacier says two of her key requests are to toughen cybersecurity and to put more women in senior roles. “There’s a different approach when women are involved. Women are more intuitive, pay more attention to details and have more patience,” she said.

Balancing boardrooms in Asia is complex because of the breadth of cultural variation. Gender discrimination in Asian workplaces is mostly “unconscious,” according to a study by INSEAD Emerging Markets Institute and Deutsche Bank AG.

In conservative Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, women face “deep-rooted cultural bias,” Boston Consulting says. Societal norms often pressure women to give up careers to raise a family, producing a gender gap in senior roles. Even in the advanced economy of Singapore, men outnumber women four-to-one on the boards of top banks, the stock exchange’s Diversity Action Committee has said.

In her 34 years at the central bank, in roles that went from counting cash in banks’ vaults to investigating the nation’s biggest financial scams, Fonacier said she had to chart her career differently from male colleagues.

GOLF ETIQUETTE
“As a woman in an industry that’s full of men, you have to be factual and stick by the rules,” the deputy governor said. “You can also never arrive at decisions or deals in golf courses or over a bottle of beer. It’s seen as unbecoming of a woman.”

Lack of women in senior company roles means female executives don’t get to socialize as much as their male counterparts, says Cecilia Borromeo, president of the Development Bank of the Philippines, one of three female bank presidents in the country. “That limits my exposure to businesses, and I compensate for that with a lot of reading.”

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. estimates women comprise only 11% of all company board directors and 3% of CEOs. About 30% of the nation’s lawmakers and 25% of its ministers are women, according to the World Economic Forum.

Gender bias in the country was highlighted recently after President Rodrigo Duterte told former communist rebels to shoot female comrades in the vagina to make them“useless,” the latest of several gender-based remarks by the country’s leader that have been denounced by women’s and human rights groups. They haven’t dented his popularity: Duterte’s approval rating stood at 80% in December, according to a Pulse Asia survey.

Some of the country’s most senior female officials have also come under attack. Maria Lourdes Sereno, the nation’s first female chief justice and an outspoken critic of Duterte’s administration, is facing an impeachment vote by lawmakers on charges including corruption. Sereno, 57, has denied the allegations, calling them politically motivated.

For most women in the country, the path to a senior role means having to manage the pressure of expectations both at work and at home. “A career woman’s expected to be everything,” Fonacier said. “You work harder and have to deliver more, and at the same time you have to attend to your family.”

SICK CHILD
Shortly before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the then bank examiner left a sick two-year-old son at a hospital in the care of a nanny after getting a call from her boss to file a report. “I will never forget the disappointment in my son’s eyes as I left him. It’s still fresh in my memory,” Fonacier said.

In the Philippines, authorities want to replicate the progress made in Thailand — where a woman led the central bank from 2006 to 2010 — in increasing the number women in senior financial roles without specific legislation. Nations like Norway have laws on the minimum proportion of women on a company board.

Norway, Sweden and Thailand led a 2016 Oliver Wyman Group ranking of countries with the highest proportion of women on executive committees in financial services — all registering above 30%. At the other end of the scale, Japan managed only 2%.

“Change is inevitable,” Fonacier said. “Maybe if they see that the one supervising them is a woman, then there’ll be more women in boardrooms.” — Bloomberg

Iron Man director Favreau to create Star Wars TV series

March 13, 2018 | 12:01 am

LOS ANGELES — Jon Favreau, director of the Iron Man and Jungle Book movies, will write and produce a live-action Star Wars series for an upcoming Walt Disney Co. streaming service, the company announced on Thursday last week. Favreau previously voiced a character in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and has a role in the May 2018 film Solo: A Star Wars Story. He is currently producing Disney’s remake of The Lion King movie. “If you told me at 11 years old that I would be getting to tell stories in the Star Wars universe, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Favreau said in a statement. “I can’t wait to embark upon this exciting adventure.” Disney is developing the Star Wars series for a family oriented, direct-to-consumer streaming service it plans to launch next year as the media and theme park company aims to capture online viewers who are leaving traditional television. The new series does not yet have a release date, Disney said. — Reuters

Splash to enter new product categories

March 13, 2018 | 12:01 am

SPLASH Corp. targets to enter new product categories this year, banking on its market position in other products to help boost performance.

In a statement issued Monday, Splash said it has been able to release brands that have become market leaders in the skin whitening and exfoliant categories, as well as specialized hair solutions. The company looks to leverage on the insights it garnered from these products as it enters new markets in the future.

“We have all the parts in place for an aggressive entry into new product categories,” Splash Chief Executive Officer Roland B. Hortaleza said in a statement.

The company recently introduced a new product, Hygienix Germicidal soap, which marked its foray into the mainstream soap market. Splash said it conducted aggressive marketing and distribution activities to position Hygienix as a player in the anti-bacterial soap category.

“We will bring into these new markets the same ingredients of our success: our deep knowledge of the Filipino consumer that enables us to anticipate market needs, our speed at developing, manufacturing and distributing products that meet this market need, and well-thought out marketing strategies rooted in our deep affinity with Filipino consumers,” Mr. Hortaleza said.

Other than marketing initiatives, Splash said it also pursues efficiencies and scale in manufacturing. This has enabled the company to produce soaps and lotions at the lowest cost.

The company has further strengthened its distribution efforts through subsidiary Prime Global Distribution Corp. This has allowed the company to boost its presence in national accounts such as supermarkets, drugstores, and convenience stores, and traditional accounts.

Incorporated in 1991, Splash develops, manufactures, bottles, packs, and markets cosmetics and other beauty products and pharmaceutical products in the country. The company is currently present in North America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa. — Arra B. Francia

Home flippers pile into the US market, scoring higher profits

March 13, 2018 | 12:01 am

NEW YORK — Property investors were bullish on the US housing market in 2017, flipping more homes than in any year since 2006, when the real estate bubble that helped upend the global economy was still inflating.

Investors flipped more than 207,000 single-family houses and condos in the US last year, Attom Data Solutions said in a report, which defines flips as sales that occur within 12 months of the last time the property changed hands. More than 138,000 investors flipped a home last year, the most since 2007.

“The long up-cycle that we’re in is giving more and more people confidence to try their hand at home-flipping,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice-president at Attom. Rising home prices are “pulling more people onto the bandwagon.”

Today’s home flippers appear to be more conservative than bubble-era investors. The average flip generated gross returns of 50% in 2017, compared to 28% in 2006. Thirty-five percent of flippers financed their acquisitions last year, the highest share since 2008 but far lower than the 63% who used loans in 2006.

Still, red flags show up in local markets.

Flippers in Austin, Texas; Santa Barbara, California; and Boulder, Colorado, earned gross returns of less than 25% (which don’t include the cost of renovating the homes), suggesting that investors in some markets are depending on slim margins.

Flips represented almost 13% of home sales in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2017, more than twice the national average, a sign that some flippers are becoming overconfident, Mr. Blomquist said. — Bloomberg

Foreign direct investments in the Philippines

March 13, 2018 | 12:00 am

FOREIGN direct investments (FDI) pierced a full-year official target to hit “a record high” last year despite falling to a five-month low in December, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Monday, even as central bank data show bigger inflows elsewhere in Southeast Asia and a report of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) called for reforms to attract more capital. Read the full story.

How PSEi member stocks performed — March 12, 2018

March 13, 2018 | 12:00 am

Here’s a quick glance at how PSEi stocks fared on Monday, March 12, 2018.

Magnolia levels series with NLEX

March 12, 2018 | 9:50 pm

By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Senior Reporter

THE PBA Philippine Cup best-of-seven semifinal series between the Magnolia Hotshots and NLEX Road Warriors is back to square one after the former levelled the proceedings with a 99-84 victory in Game Two on Monday night at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Fell in the series opener last time around, Magnolia made sure not to bow down for a second straigth time in the series by countering everything that NLEX threw at it throughout the contest to notch the win and send their Philippine Basketball Association semifinal affair to a race-to-three victories engagement.

Control swung back and forth to open the first quarter as both teams had their respective runs.

It was Magnolia, however, which would take command of the opening canto, thanks to a late surge, holding a 27-20 advantage in the first 12 minutes of the contest.

The Hotshots maintained their charge early in second quarter, extending their lead to 12 points, 34-22, in the first three minutes.

NLEX then would make a mini-run, outscoring its opponent, 8-2, to come within six points, 36-30, by the 5:49 mark.

The Road Warriors continued making a charge back but the Hotshots made sure NLEX would not make much headway and stayed ahead, 48-39, at the halftime break.

In the third period. Paul Lee and Jio Jalalon would lead the way for Magnolia as it outsprinted NLEX, 16-9, to establish lead of 16 points, 64-48, in the first six minutes of the quarter.

Kiefer Ravena though settled things for the Road Warriors, facilitating to have his team come closer to six points, 64-58, with less than three minutes remaining.

Like much what they did in the previous quarters, the Hotshots countered with a 6-4 blast to end the period and take a 70-62 advantage heading into the final frame.

Magnolia opened the payoff quarter going for an early knockout with a 13-4 blast led by veteran Peter June Simon to post a 17-point cushion, 83-66, with four minutes lapsing.

It would maintain the same separation at the five-minute mark, 87-70.

The Road Warriors thereafter fashioned a fightback, coming within 12 points, 88-76, with 3:24 to go.

They would not come closer than that though as the Hotshots stood their ground and moved to wrap up the win the rest of the way.

Mr. Lee led Magnolia with 27 points followed by Ian Sangalang with 18 points and eight rebounds.

Mark Barroca had 11 points while Rome Dela Rosa and Aldrech Ramos had 10 each.

Alex Mallari and JR Quinahan, meanwhile, paced NLEX with 13 points apiece.

“Credit to the players for coming out with a team effort on both ends of the court,” said winning coach Chito Victolero after their victory, describing what in general did it for them.

“But we just tied the series. Hopefully we could sustain our performance tonight in our next games,” he added.

Game Three of Magnolia versus NLEX is tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Drug raps vs Peter Lim, others dropped

March 12, 2018 | 9:35 pm

THE Department of Justice has cleared alleged drug lord Peter Go Lim, confessed drug lord Rolan “Kerwin” Espinosa, convicted drug lord Peter Co and more than 20 others from drug-trafficking charges in a resolution made public on Monday but dated since Dec. 20 last year.

The respondents were charged last year by the Philippine National Police with violation of Section 26(b) in relation to Section 5 of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

According to the resolution approved by Acting Prosecutor-General Jorge G. Catalan, Jr., the statements by accused Marcelo L. Adorco against his co-respondents “are rife with inconsistencies and contradictions.”

Mr. Catalan was referring to the dates and places of meetings with drug suppliers, and the volume of drugs involved, among others. He added:

“(D)iscrepancies in Adorco’s affidavits have seriously impaired their probative value and have casted serious doubt on their credibility. His contradictory statements on important details simply eroded the integrity and veracity of his testimony.”

Mr. Lim, a Cebu-based businessman, is reputedly a “kumpare” of President Rodrigo R. Duterte, who, however, had also linked the businessman to drugs. Mr. Lim at the time sought an audience with Mr. Duterte in an effort to clear his name.

Mr. Espinosa, tagged as the biggest drug lord in the Visayas, is the son of slain Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, Sr., who was killed in 2016, in the course of a police operation right in his detention quarters in what an investigation subsequently tagged as a rubout. — Dane Angelo M. Enerio

Judges, court employees call on Sereno to resign

March 12, 2018 | 9:34 pm

A GROUP of judges and four court employees’ organizations called on Monday for the Philippines’ Chief Justice to step down and make a “sacrifice” to restore peace and order in the Judiciary, a plea she strongly rejected.

Maria Lourdes P.A. Sereno, the first woman to head the 15-member Supreme Court, faces impeachment over accusations she concealed wealth by not filing asset declaration statements for several years before she was appointed.

Ms. Sereno, 57, refuses to quit amid what she calls bullying by “those in power,” which she says is threatening the independence of the Judiciary.

“It is time to let go. Please let the Judiciary move on,” says a statement from five groups seeking Ms. Sereno’s resignation, read during a Supreme Court flag-raising ceremony attended by several judges.

Ms. Sereno is disliked by President Rodrigo R. Duterte and has voted against several of his controversial proposals, including extending martial law in restive Mindanao, and allowing late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos to have a grave at a cemetery for national heroes. The Supreme Court allowed both.

Mr. Duterte has accused her of being used by opponents who want to overthrow him, but he has denied having a hand in the impeachment of Ms. Sereno, who was appointed in 2012 by his predecessor, Benigno S.C. Aquino III.

The impeachment proceedings in Congress “have put the entire Judiciary in disrepute,” says the statement, read by the Supreme Court employees’ group head, Erwin D. Ocson.

The House justice committee last week found probable cause to impeach Ms. Sereno. She reiterated on Monday that she would not resign and said other judges had resisted pressure to join the campaign against her, so they could “maintain the dignity and independence of the Judiciary.”

“While the call to resign appeals to my love for the Judiciary, it is also out of love for the Judiciary that I must continue,” Ms. Sereno told reporters.

Also on Monday, Lorenzo G. Gadon, the lawyer who filed the impeachment complaint against Ms. Sereno, charged a number of her staff members and a tech consultant, Helen P. Macasaet, with graft, partly over the latter’s services.

On the same day, the man behind Ms. Sereno’s impeachment complaints — lawyer Lorenzo G. Gadon — kept his promise and filed graft complaints before the Department of Justice (DoJ) against the Chief Justice’s staff.

For his part, Presidential Spokesperson Herminio Harry L. Roque, Jr. said of Monday’s developments at the Supreme Court: “No one can force her to resign if she doesn’t want.” He added: “However, I think the sentiment even of the lower court judges have been made known, and we can only hope that the Chief Justice will take all these sentiments into consideration. But the decision to remain is hers to be made.” — Reuters with Arjay L. Balinbin

ConCom votes to ‘regulate,’ not ban, political dynasties

March 12, 2018 | 9:32 pm

By Tricia Aquino, Interaksyon

THE Consultative Committee (ConCom) reviewing the 1987 Constitution on Monday voted 10-9 to regulate political dynasties, as opposed to a total ban on political dynasties. They also voted to extend the regulation on political dynasties up to the second degree of consanguinity and affinity, as opposed to the third and fourth degrees.

This means that an incumbent official’s parents, children, spouse (first degree), grandparents, siblings, grandchildren, parents-in-law, and brothers- and sisters- in-law (second degree) are covered by the ban.

These recommendations will go into a report that the ConCom will present to President Rodrigo R. Duterte for consideration in time for his State of the Nation Address in July.

To start the ConCom’s session on Monday at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City, De La Salle University political science professor and former dean Julio Teehankee presented arguments for the regulation of political dynasties, 295 of which now exist throughout the Philippines.

According to him, more than 160 political clans with two or more members have already served in Congress.

He noted that cases of so-called “good dynasties” are “few and far between,” and cited a study by a Political Science faculty member of the University of the Philippines which found that members of the House of Representatives who get elected again and again do not get “more tried and tested.” Rather, as they get entrenched into power, their productivity is diminished.

The “main evil” that must be addressed, said Teehankee, is the incumbent advantage which leads to self-perpetuation. He cited studies that show that local officials who have been elected several times have a tendency to use their position to their advantage in electoral competition.

He further explained that political dynasties draw on the public coffers and even rely on violence to “reproduce” themselves in office.

Here is how the ConCom voted:

Arthur Aguilar – total ban, 4^th degree

Prof. Eddie Alih – regulation, 4^th degree

Fr. Ranhilio Aquino – absent

Atty. Antonio Arellano – total ban, 4^th degree

Atty. Ali Balindong – regulation, 2^nd degree

Dr. Virgilio Bautista – regulation, 2^nd degree

Atty. Ferdinand Bocobo – regulation, 2^nd degree

Atty. Reuben Canoy – total ban, 4^th degree

Atty. Roan Libarios – regulation, 2^nd degree

Retired Associate Justice Antonio Nachura – total ban, 2^nd degree

Atty. Susan Ubalde-Ordinario – total ban, 4^th degree

Atty. Randolph Parcasio – regulation, 4^th degree

Former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. – total ban, 4^th degree

Retired Associate Justice Bienvenido Reyes – regulation, 2^nd degree

Atty. Rodolfo Robles – regulation, 4^th degree

Atty. Victor de la Serna – total ban, 4^th degree

Prof. Edmund Tayao – regulation, 2^nd degree

Dean Julio Teehankee – total ban, 2^nd degree

Former Kalinga Representative Laurence Wacnang – total ban, 2^nd degree

Former Chief Justice Reynato Puno – regulation, 2^nd degree

Construction starts rise in Q4 2017 led by nonresidential projects

March 12, 2018 | 9:28 pm

By Christine Joyce S. Castañeda
Senior Researcher

CONSTRUCTION STARTS, based on approved building permits, rose 3.6% year on year in the fourth quarter of 2017, led by nonresidential projects, according to preliminary data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Building permits rose to 33,445 in the fourth quarter, up from 32,282 a year earlier.

The projects were equivalent to 7.742 million square meters of space and were valued at P81.698 billion, down 0.91% from a year earlier.

“Based on historical trends, the approved construction permits usually increase during the fourth quarter. This increase is attributed to investor confidence encouraged by high demand, [the] 2% annual population growth, [and the] expanding middle class and equity investments in property,” said Monique Cornelio-Pronove, chief executive officer at Pronove Tai International Property Consultants.

Ruben Carlo O. Asuncion, chief economist at Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank), concurred, “a growing economy may mean growing demand for both residential and nonresidential construction activities.”

“This 3.6% increase is expected of an economy that has been growing beyond 6% in the last 11 quarters,” he said.

PSA data showed that shoring up demand in the fourth quarter were nonresidential projects, which saw a 23.2% increase to 4,903 new building permits.

Agricultural-type buildings rose 51.1% to 281 permits issued in the fourth quarter followed by commercial-type buildings (25.9% to 3,129); “other nonresidential” buildings (22.5% to 109); industrial buildings (14.2% to 554); and institutional buildings (12.8% to 830).

Commercial-type buildings make up the bulk of the number of new nonresidential projects at 63.8% in the fourth quarter.

For nonresidential construction, the average cost per square meter was 3.5% lower at P9,299 due to declines in the average cost per square meter of industrial (-12.8%) and commercial (-7.7%) buildings.

On the other hand, residential construction projects — which make up 70.84% of the total approved construction permits last quarter — saw a 4.3% decline to 23,693. The decline was brought about by residential condominiums (-46.6%); apartments/accessorias (-10.2%); single-type houses (-3.5%); and duplex/quadruplex (-4.0%).

Among residential construction projects, single-type houses had the biggest share of new permits at 85.1% or 20,168.

The value of these residential projects likewise declined 12.41% to P41.583 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017 from P47.476 billion in the same period in 2016.

Additions to existing structures rose 30.1% to 1,149. Combined number of alterations and repairs of existing structures also rose 38.8% to 3,700.

Region IV-A (Calabarzon) — immediately south of the National Capital Region (NCR) — topped the number of approved building permits with 7,292 or a 21.8% share. Coming in second was Central Luzon with 3,611 or 10.8% followed by Central Visayas (8.4%), NCR (7.8%), and Davao Region (7.7%).

Ms. Cornelio-Pronove said the increase in the number of nonresidential projects was due to the government’s push for food sufficiency, which affected the value of agricultural buildings; the increase in household consumption spending; and higher tourism arrivals.

“[T]he government is strongly pushing for farmers and businesses in the agriculture sector to improve facilities [in order to] boost the harvest of rice, banana, and other products,” she said.

Commenting on commercial establishments, Ms. Cornelio-Pronove said that the increase was most apparent in the retail market with more small-to-medium sized enterprises cropping up.

“The Philippines’ consumerism is among the most active in Asia at an estimated 60% of the 105 million population capable of buying basic to lifestyle goods,” she said.

Meanwhile, Michael L. Ricafort, economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., noted the increase in infrastructure projects from more foreign direct investments and offshore gaming outsourcing companies that led to the pickup in manufacturing activities and increased demand for office space.

“Some commercial/retail/mall/office space developers have also expanded in fast-growing cities/localities outside Metro Manila,” he added.

The data “may reflect the sharp increase in residential condominium projects in recent years that led to some glut/oversupply in the middle market. As a result, some developers have adjusted downwards the new upcoming supply,” Mr. Ricafort said.

“Limited land for residential development in Metro Manila may also be a factor. Some of the expansion for residential projects have been outside Metro Manila. Higher interest rates in recent months may have also dampened demand for financing for both residential developers and end-users,” he said.

Sharon Joy Roset-Saclolo, associate director of Jones Lang LaSalle (Philippines), Inc.’s (JLL) Research, Consulting and Valuation Advisory Services, said: “The increase in nonresidential construction permits may be attributed to the shift in the strategy of real estate developers to focus on long-term assets with recurring income.”

Going forward, the analysts were optimistic in the coming quarters.

“The construction market is seen to benefit from the government increased funding on the development of railways, airports, seaports, roads and bridges across the country. These public [infrastructure] projects would then spill over to the construction of buildings or structures led by the private sector or individuals as key cities and municipalities would benefit from the infrastructure developments,” Ms. Cornelio-Pronove said.

For her part, JLL’s Ms. Roset-Saclolo said: “The growth rate of construction projects from 2017 to 2018 is expected to be stable since there is continuing interest from both boutique and major developers to invest in real estate, especially in commercial assets.”

UnionBank’s Mr. Asuncion shared the same assessment, “With the economy expected to grow further, I expect construction activity to increase even more.”

“With the government’s plan of fiscal expansion and increasing infrastructure development, I see a faster pace of growth for nonresidential construction related to commercial, industrial and institutional building-types over residential construction, that I think will also post a fast growth trajectory concentrated more outside of the usual centers,” he said.