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Irving seals sweet 16 for Celtics; Cavs rout Pistons

LOS ANGELES — Kyrie Irving laid on a 47-point masterclass to give the Boston Celtics a 16th straight victory on Monday as the Cleveland Cavaliers thrashed the Detroit Pistons to continue their revival.

Irving was in dazzling form for Boston as they rallied from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to overhaul the Dallas Mavericks, 110-102, in overtime.

Irving’s haul included five three-pointers and three rebounds as Boston came back from 89-79 down with five minutes remaining in the final quarter to win.

Boston improved to 16-2 with the victory to head the Eastern Conference. Dallas fell to 3-15 with the loss.

Irving delivered 10 of his points in overtime, single-handedly pulling Boston clear of Dallas in the decisive phase of the game.

It was the fourth-highest scoring game of Irving’s career and helped Boston tie the franchises fourth-longest winning streak.

Elsewhere on Monday, Cleveland sent a message to their rivals in the Eastern Conference with a ruthless walloping of Detroit.

The Cavs 116-88 blowout was the clearest sign yet that the 2016 NBA champions have shaken off their early-season problems.

Cleveland have now won five games in a row and have improved to 10-7.

Detroit, who entered the game with an impressive 11-5 record, were put firmly in their place by a Cavaliers side who were determined to make a statement.

Kevin Love led the scoring with 19 points, 11 rebounds and four assists while LeBron James had 18 points and eight rebounds in 27 minutes.

Jae Crowder had 18 points with Jose Calderon adding 14. James saluted the way Cleveland maintained their scoring momentum.

“I just wanted to keep the pedal down,” James said of the big win.

“We haven’t had a win like this in a very long time. We come out sometimes in the third quarter and have a slow start and teams get back into it.

“But today, we just kept it going. That’s a pretty big step for us.”

COUSINS EJECTED
Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy chalked up the defeat to a bad night at the office.

In other games on Monday, Anthony Davis scored 36 points to help the New Orleans Pelicans defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder, 114-107, in a bruising encounter at the Smoothie King Center in Louisiana.

The Pelicans rallied from 19 points down in the first quarter to claim a victory that was overshadowed by DeMarcus Cousins’ ejection for an elbow on Russell Westbrook in the third quarter.

Cousins was given his marching orders after grabbing a rebound. As he attempted to break free from Westbrook, Cousins swung his elbow wildly into the Thunder player’s head and was given a flagrant two before being tossed from the game.

Westbrook would go on to complete his fifth triple-double of the season with 22 points, 16 rebounds and 12 assists.

In Philadelphia, 76ers star Ben Simmons continued his superb start to the season with 27 points in a 107-86 win over the Utah Jazz.

Australian rookie Simmons took full advantage of the absence of Jazz stalwart Rudy Gobert to finish with the highest single-game points total of his career.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Clippers’ woes continued as they crashed to a ninth straight defeat to the New York Knicks. — AFP

China jails human rights lawyers for two years

BEIJING — A Chinese court sentenced prominent human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong to two years in prison for “inciting subversion” on Tuesday, the latest jailing in an intensifying crackdown on rights defenders and activists.

Mr. Jiang, 46, had taken on many high-profile cases, including those of Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetan protesters and victims of the 2008 contaminated milk powder scandal, before being disbarred in 2009.

Mr. Jiang sat in court, flanked by two police officers, as a judge handed him the jail sentence and told him he would also be deprived of political rights for three years, according to a video posted on the social media account of the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court.

The court accused him of “inciting subversion of state power,” and defaming the government, in what Amnesty International has called a sham trial.

“Jiang Tianyong has long been infiltrated and influenced by anti-China forces and gradually formed the idea of overthrowing the existing political system of the country,” it said.

The court said he had gone abroad for trainings on how to accomplish the goal and “applied for financial support from foreign anti-China forces.”

In the years leading up to his detention, Mr. Jiang had repeatedly met foreign officials and politicians, including high-ranking visitors from the US, to discuss China’s human rights situation.

The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, has said he feared Mr. Jiang’s previous disappearance was in part retaliation for the lawyer’s assistance to UN experts.

Mr. Jiang’s family has been unable to contact him since his sudden disappearance last November en route from Beijing to Changsha, where he had gone to inquire about detained human rights lawyer Xie Yang.

Mr. Xie was detained in the “709 crackdown” of July 2015, and his claims of being tortured in custody, which Mr. Jiang helped to publicize, prompted international concern.

Authorities in that crackdown detained more than 200 people, including lawyers who took on civil rights cases considered sensitive by the ruling Communist Party.

Amnesty International’s China researcher William Nee said the “fairly harsh” sentence would have a “chilling effect” on Mr. Jiang’s fellow human rights lawyers. — AFP

MCIAA, Cebu province to revive airports in Bantayan, Camotes islands

Bantayan & Camotes islands

CEBU’S PROVINCIAL government and the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) have agreed to collaborate for the reopening of the airports in the islands of Bantayan and Camotes, two of Cebu’s most popular tourist destinations. The local government will take care of rehabilitating the facilities, while MCIAA will handle operations. “We will develop and fix the runway of these two airports,” Cebu Governor Hilario P. Davide said in a statement following a meeting with MCIAA officials last week. Another meeting, along with officials of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), is set in the last week of November to further discuss the partnership, which will be formalized in an agreement. CAAP, MCIAA and the Cebu government used to jointly operate these two airports until the memorandum of agreement expired in 2013. CAAP then closed the Camotes airport, while it continued to operate the one in Bantayan until last Nov. 15.

TRAIN-ing the spotlight on tax reform: Is it Pro-Poor?

Just a few months into office, bureaucrats from the Department of Finance (DoF) wasted no time and lined up five tax packages ostensibly to remedy the deficiencies in the current tax structure and to raise revenues for much-needed public investments. They wanted to take advantage of President Duterte’s popularity, and true enough, he himself soon certified the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) bill as urgent, fast-tracking the bill’s journey in Congress. This underscores the administration’s seriousness in pursuing its tax reform program.

However, despite the executive department’s push, the TRAIN bill’s passage has been constantly delayed in both houses of Congress with several legislators raising their concerns on the “anti-poor” measures of the proposal. While the architects of the tax reform program insist that the benefits — such as the cuts in personal income taxes — would outweigh its costs, several details still need to be ironed out.

Among the more controversial provisions in the tax reform proposal are the excise taxes on petroleum and sugar sweetened beverages (SSB), two of the largest sources of revenues for the government. And for good reason. By some estimates, those in the lowest five income deciles will be adversely affected by any duties imposed on these commodities, the same segment who will barely benefit from a reduction in personal income taxes.

To cushion the effects of the added taxes on poorer households, legislators have proposed that the incremental revenues from TRAIN will be used to fund a long list of programs, covering sectors ranging from health to mass transportation. Meanwhile, the executive department has identified five social mitigating measures (listed below) which will soften the impacts of TRAIN on the ordinary Filipino. To be sure, targeted earmarks are a positive step towards boosting investments in human capital. However, beyond presenting a broad outline of these measures, details on how the government actually intends to implement these programs remain scant. This raises concerns on the government’s readiness in rolling out these measures.

TARGETED CASH TRANSFER PROGRAM
Monthly cash transfers of P300 would be provided to the poorest 10 million households. The program will expand the government’s conditional cash transfer program (4Ps), where beneficiaries are already identified under Listahanan, a database covering 15.1 million households. While the 4Ps has broadly achieved its objectives, it is not without its flaws.

The Commission on Audit has identified issues that still need to be addressed, including duplicate or fraudulent households, unliquidated funds due to distance or ineligible beneficiaries, untimely release of funds, and unnecessary holding of idle funds by the Landbank.

PANTAWID PASADA
Public Utility Jeepney drivers will be supported through subsidies. This scheme is a revival of an ad interim measure implemented by the Department of Energy in May 2011 to cushion the impact of higher fuel prices on drivers and commuters. Beneficiaries have complained about the repeated change in the system for subsidy distribution and delays in rolling out the cash cards. The program remains unaudited years after its implementation.

PANTAWID KURYENTE
The program will provide cash grants to beneficiaries who consume under 100 kW per hour. In 2008, the government offered a one-time cash grant of P500 to those who would be affected by the increase in power costs due to higher excise taxes. The program was meant to assist seven million households. However, a study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies reveals that 72% of the benefits were given to nontargeted consumers while 43% of intended targets were excluded.

PUV MODERNIZATION PROGRAM
The program seeks to replace around 220,000 aging jeepneys with more fuel-efficient vehicles. Just last month, Malacañang was forced to suspend government work and classes for two days as transport groups staged protests against the proposed scheme. While roughly P2.5 billion in financing will be extended to PUV operators and drivers to make it easier to acquire these new vehicles, the scheme has faced backlash on concerns regarding the affordability of the new vehicles and risks associated with potential ridership.

NATIONAL ID SYSTEM
The system will make it easier to target qualified beneficiaries for the government’s social protection programs. The DoF is set to allocate P2 billion to roll out the system in 2018, where senior citizens and PWDs will prioritized, followed by the poorest 5.2 million households that do not have 4Ps cards. Within the next two years, the government targets to provide 105 million Filipinos with the ID card. The DoF has urged Congress to pass a law that institutionalizes the national ID system. On September, HB 6221 hurdled the lower house on third and final reading. The bill’s Senate counterpart is still pending at the Committee level. However, the Congress’ remaining 2017 sessions will be focused on deliberations for the 2018 budget and the TRAIN bill.

President Duterte is expected to sign the TRAIN bill on December 2017, in time for its implementation in January 2018. However, with a little over a month left before the year draws to a close, the government must work double time to address concerns on these mitigating measures. Otherwise, poorer households — the people the government was meant to prioritize — will lose out on the tax reform, the exact opposite of that original vision.

 

Weslene Uy is a Senior Research Associate at Stratbase ADR Institute.

Southwest integrated terminal to be operational by Q2 next year

THE Southwest Integrated Terminal Exchange (SWITX), an intermodal transport terminal intended to provide connectivity for commuters in the southern parts of Metro Manila, is set to be operational in the second quarter next year, the Department of Transportation (DoTr) said.

In a statement, the DoTr said that the P3-billion SWITX project will be completed in April next year and will begin operations in the second quarter.

“As of October 2017, the terminal is already 33.9% complete,” the department said.

SWITX is a public-private partnership project between the government and Megawide Construction Corp. The then-Department of Transportation and Communication awarded Megawide the contract to build, transfer to the government, and operate the transport hub in southern Metro Manila.

The terminal will provide easy access to different modes of public transportation, including train systems, city buses, UV Express services, and jeepneys, and is aimed at reducing the number of public utility vehicles (PUVs) traversing EDSA, and the Baclaran and Taft areas.

The DoTr also said that with the upcoming implementation of its Route Rationalization Plan, only provincial PUVs will be allowed to load and unload in SWITX.

The agency added that the terminal “will have passenger terminal buildings, embarkation and disembarkation bays, staging bays, ticketing and baggage handling facilities, and park-ride facilities.”

Other features will include an online Bus Ticketing System, Ultra-High Frequency tagging for buses for efficient tracking inside the terminal, and Wi-Fi access. — Patrizia Paola C. Marcelo

SBS creates new unit for warehouse investment

SBS PHILIPPINES Corp. has formed a new unit that will handle its planned investment in a warehouse facility, as part of the company’s efforts to ramp up its property portfolio.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange on Tuesday, SBS said it has secured the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval for the incorporation of Lence Holdings Corp.

Lence Holdings has an authorized capital stock of P137 million, and a subscribed capital of P57 million. Majority of the unit will be owned by SBS at 65%. A total of 25% will be held by SHEC, while the remaining 10% will be held by the Sytengco family. 

SBS will be using the company to acquire a warehouse complex, located in the south of Metro Manila, which is set to be a part of SBS Holdings and Enterprises Corp. (SHEC)’s operations.

“The potential acquisition, if it materializes, will allow the Company not only to indirectly own a major logistics facility that would strengthen its distribution capability and help control residual risks in not owning major logistics facilities but it is also a good investment opportunity,” SBS said.

The company, however, clarified that it has yet to enter into a definitive agreement for the acquisition.

SBS is currently increasing its investments in the property sector through SHEC, which has so far acquired a stake in firms with properties in Mandaluyong City, Quezon City, Cavite, and Bacolod City.

Shares in SBS added a centavo or 0.18% to P5.71 each at the Philippine Stock Exchange on Tuesday. — Arra B. Francia

DTI to tighten watch on food prices as Christmas draws near

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said it will monitor prices of commodities, particularly of food items such as those for Noche Buena, as Christmas nears.

Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said on the sidelines of the National Price Coordinating Council meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 21, that the commodity prices could have gone higher due to foreign exchange movements, increases in oil prices and minimum wage but competition in the market kept the prices stable.

“There’s enough supply. There are no aberrations but that should be monitored – actually the supply chain that we will assure that there will be more brands and there will be competition. We don’t mind the premium brands actually increasing prices because that is not for the masses,” he added.

In a document handed out on Tuesday, the DTI said it is currently monitoring Noche Buena products such as ham, fruit cocktail, cheese, sandwich spread, mayonnaise, queso de bola, pasta, macaroni, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, and creamers.

According to DTI these seven companies declared they will not raise prices of their products: New Zealand Creamery Inc., Philippine Leading Infinite Logistics Inc., RFM Corporation, SYSU International Inc., Century Pacific Group, Nutri Asia, Inc. Snow Mountain Dairy Corporation.

Steve T. Cua, president of the Philippine Amalgamated Supermarkets Association, said with more supermarkets being built, giving people more venues to shop, it may be harder to track if the prices would go up at all.

Mr. Cua added that supermarkets should allot more time to prepare their inventories to keep up with the demand especially those that are “the top of mind” or more popular brands. Mr. Cua also clarified that the latest data released only shows the potential increase of certain brands but that does not necessarily mean there will be an increase in prices of products in general.

DTI also reported that cement prices went down by P10, which Mr. Lopez said is good news for the government’s Build, Build, Build program.

“The NPCC will be declaring by Monday the price ceiling for specific construction material products, brands, prices in specific towns in and around Marawi. To prevent undue increases in prices during the rehabilitation stage,” he added.

Mr. Lopez said that they will also have depots in the areas to ensure availability of construction materials coming directly from manufacturers. — Anna Gabriela A. Mogato

Online exhibit shows hidden depths of Picasso’s Guernica

MADRID — Spray-painted in murals, wielded on anti-war banners, and even once hung as a tapestry at the United Nations, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica might be the world’s most famous political artwork.

Now organizers of a new initiative are inviting art lovers to revisit the iconic black-and-white painting, using the latest imaging technology and releasing a trove of previously unseen documents to chart its turbulent history.

“Guernica is a source of never-ending artistic material and it’s a privilege to be with as an art historian,” says Rosario Peiro, head of collections at Madrid’s Reina Sofia modern art museum.

She is part of the team behind Rethinking Guernica, an interactive exhibition launched this week about the work.

“Putting all of this together allows you to rethink the history of the painting,” Peiro told AFP. Guernica, conceived in the depths of Spain’s devastating civil war, shows the bombing of a Basque town on April 26, 1937 by German and Italian air forces under the orders of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.

Hundreds died in an aerial attack on civilians that shocked the world and set a precedent repeated often by German and allied forces in World War II.

Picasso, then living in France, was commissioned by the struggling Spanish Republican government to produce a work depicting the bombing for the 1937 World Fair in Paris.

STORIED HISTORY
That commission and hundreds of other documents concerning Guernica are now available online for the first time.

They tell the story of a hugely well-traveled work, with stops in Scandinavia, Britain, and the United States, where it spent decades on loan at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

There are papers relating to its trip to Venezuela in 1948 that was cut short due to a coup d’etat, and a frantic telegram sent by MoMA collections director Alfred H. Barr, Jr. informing the artist that his works were safe after a fire tore through the museum in 1958.

“Clearly it is a political painting because it was requested by the government for a propaganda purpose,” says Peiro.

“The truth is during all these years of travel and being in different places, the work was depoliticized.”

Researchers took thousands of images using visible and ultraviolent light as well as infrared reflectography and high-definition X-rays to create a “Gigapixel” rendering that allows users to browse a 436-gigabyte composite of the work.

Details of its restoration, individual paint strokes and even rogue hairs from Picasso’s brushes can be seen still stuck to the original canvas. Residue from a 1974 act of vandalism is visible in the form of barely perceptible reddish discoloration across central areas.

“For me what is interesting to see is the geography of the painting, its surface, as if it’s a kind of history map,” says Peiro.

NEW PERSPECTIVES
The Reina Sofia currently displays dozens of black-and-white war images alongside Guernica, many captured by legendary Catalan conflict photographer Agusti Centelles.

Some critics credit the photos for Picasso’s decision to eschew his usual vivid colors in the piece.

As Catalonia’s independence crisis exposes Spain to its deepest political turbulence since returning to democracy in 1978, Peiro however insists the current installation isn’t about politics.

“We do show a lot of Barcelona photographs but that’s because the best Spanish photojournalist of the time was Catalan,” she said.

Peiro hopes the new project will provide new perspectives on one of the 20th century’s defining images.

“Guernica is the most important work, physically and symbolically, for the museum so we have to keep on working on it,” she says.

“It’s the least we can do.” — AFP

Toyota, Lexus SUVs take top spots in annual auto awards

THE Toyota Fortuner was voted 2017 Automobile of the Year in the Standard category while the Lexus RX 350 topped the Premium/Luxury class in the 2017-2018 Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards (AFPCA), organized by Sunshine Television Production and Marketing Services, Inc. (STV).

The awards were handed on Nov. 9 at a Pasig City country club. STV said the Fortuner has clinched the Automobile of the Year title for the third consecutive year. The RX 350, which had won for the second year in a row, also topped the Midsize SUV/Crossover category.

Other models that bested their categories in the Standard class were the Honda City (Subcompact), Honda Civic (Compact Sedan), Honda Accord (Midsize Sedan), Honda BR-V (Subcompact SUV/Crossover), Honda CR-V (Compact SUV/Crossover), Honda Pilot (Large SUV/Crossover), Toyota Wigo (Mini), Toyota Hilux (Pickup), Mitsubishi Adventure (MPV), Mitsubishi Montero Sport (Midsize SUV/Crossover), Subaru WRX (Sports Car) and Nissan Urvan (Van).

Toyota Fortuner
…Toyota Fortuner rules Standard category.

Winners in the Premium/Luxury class were the Lexus IS 360 (Compact Sedan), Lexus ES 350 (Midsize Sedan), Lexus LS 460 (Large Sedan), Lexus RCF (Sports Car), NX 200t (Compact SUV/Crossover), Lexus LX 570 (Large SUV/Crossover), BMW 1 Series (Subcompact), Mercedes-Benz B-Class (MPV) and the Honda Odyssey (Van).

STV explained the AFPCA is an annual poll in which 80% of the score is attributed to public votes and 20% comes from a vehicle’s sales result. Journalists covering the automotive beat also vote in their choices for a separate set of awards.

In-form Justine Rose will compete in Indonesian Masters

JAKARTA — Justin Rose, a 10-time winner on the European Tour and former US Open champion, will compete in this year’s Indonesian Masters presented by Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), Bank Mandiri, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN) and Telkom, organizers revealed yesterday.

The Englishman is currently in blistering form, having won the Turkish Airlines Open in November seven days after claiming the WGC — Champions event in Shanghai. He will be looking to cap off the year in brilliant fashion by adding the Indonesian Masters title to his impressive list of achievements, which includes a Gold Medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The $750,000 Indonesian Masters will be played at Royale Jakarta Golf Club from Dec. 14 to 17, 2017 and marks the seventh edition of the nation’s most prestigious golf tournament.

The tournament, being the season-ending event on the Asian Tour, will determine the Asian Tour Order of Merit champion. The Merit champion will receive an exemption into The Open Championship and the WGC — Mexico Championship. Second-place on the Merit list also gains a berth in the latter event.

… backs Cambodia’s crackdown on political opposition

BEIJING — China supports Cambodia’s efforts to protect political stability and believes it will smoothly hold elections next year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Cambodian counterpart, after the country’s main opposition party was dissolved.

The Supreme Court banned the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) last week at the request of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government in a move that prompted the United States to cut election funding and threaten more punitive steps.

The European Union has also threatened action.

The CNRP was banned after its leader, Kem Sokha, was arrested for alleged treason.

The government says he sought to take power with American help. He rejects that allegation as politically motivated, to allow Hun Sen to extend his more than three decades in power in next year’s general election.

The United States has said that Cambodia’s 2018 election “will not be legitimate, free or fair.”

Meeting on Monday on the sides of a Asia-Europe foreign ministers meeting in Myanmar, Wang told his Cambodian counterpart Prak Sokhon that China supported the government’s actions.

“China supports the Cambodian side’s efforts to protect political stability and achieve economic development, and believes the Cambodian government can lead the people to deal with domestic and foreign challenges, and will smoothly hold elections next year,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a Tuesday statement.

China has repeatedly expressed its support for Cambodia, making no criticism of the government led by Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, who is one of Beijing’s most important allies in Southeast Asia after more than three decades in power. — Reuters

MinSAAD getting fresh P1.1 billion next year

THE MINDANAO Sustainable Agrarian and Agriculture Development (MinSAAD) program will get an additional P1.1 billion next year from the national government’s budget, covering projects in the regions of Northern Mindanao and Caraga as well as areas in southern Mindanao. The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the lead implementing agency for the program, said in a statement that the fresh fund is part of their proposed P10.3-billion budget for 2018. The national budget has been approved by the House of Representatives and is due for deliberations this week in the Senate. Acting DAR Secretary Rosalina L. Bistoyong said the additional amount will help the agency strengthen its support projects to agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs). The five-year MinSAAD, launched in 2013, has an initial allocation of P4.85 billion, of which P3.35 billion is a loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the rest is the Philippine government’s counterpart fund. The program is intended to help about 69,000 ARBs in seven provinces by boosting agricultural productivity through infrastructure, equipment, and institutional development. — Carmelito Q. Francisco

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