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Pope allows women to vote at bishops meeting for first time

POPE FRANCIS, in a historic move that could lead to more inclusiveness in decision-making in the Roman Catholic Church, will allow women to vote for the first time at a global meeting of bishops in October.

In the past, women were allowed to attend the synods, a papal advisory body, as auditors but with no right to vote.

The revolutionary rules, announced on Wednesday, allow for five religious sisters with voting rights.

Additionally, the pope has decided the inclusion of what a Vatican document called “70 non-bishop members who represent various groupings of the faithful of the people of God”.

The 70 priests, religious sisters, deacons and lay Catholics will be chosen by the pope from a list of 140 people recommended by national bishops’ conferences. The conferences were encouraged to include young people. The Vatican has asked that 50% of the 70 be women.

Synods are usually attended by about 300 people, so the bulk of those with voting rights will still be bishops. Still, the change is remarkable for an institution that has been male-dominated for centuries.

The new rules follow two major steps Pope Francis took last year to place women in decision-making positions in the Vatican.

In one, he introduced a landmark reform that will allow any baptized lay Catholic, including women, to head most Vatican departments under a new constitution for the Holy See’s central administration.

In another last year, Pope Francis named three women to a previously all-male committee that advises him in selecting the world’s bishops.

RIGHT TO VOTE
Women’s groups in the Church have for years been demanding the right to vote at the high-profile synods, which prepare resolutions that usually lead to a papal document.

A 2018 synod became a flashpoint when two “brothers,” lay men who are not ordained, were allowed to vote in their capacity as superiors general of their religious orders.

But Sister Sally Marie Hodgdon, an American who also is not ordained, was not allowed to vote even though she was the superior general of her order.

In 2021, Pope Francis for the first time named a woman to the number two position in the governorship of Vatican City, making Sister Raffaella Petrini the highest-ranking woman in the world’s smallest state.

The same year, he named Italian nun Sister Alessandra Smerilli to the number two position in the Vatican’s development office, which deals with justice and peace issues.

He also named Nathalie Becquart, a French member of the Xaviere Missionary Sisters, as co-undersecretary of the Vatican department that prepares synods.

The upcoming synod has been in preparation for two years, during which Catholics around the world were asked about their vision for the future of the Church.

Proponents have welcomed the consultations as an opportunity to change the Church’s power dynamics and give a greater voice to lay Catholics, including women, and people on the margins of society.

Conservatives say the process has been a waste of time, may erode the hierarchical structure of the nearly 1.4 billion-member Church and in the long run could dilute traditional doctrine. — Reuters

Companies’ cost inflation is slowing but shoppers may wait for lower prices

Individuals browse through aisles as they shop for food items inside a supermarket in Quezon City, Jan. 16, 2023. — PHILIPPINE STAR/MIGUEL DE GUZMAN

LONDON/PARIS — The world’s top consumer goods companies, making everything from instant noodles to soap and ice cream, are paying less for their raw materials and energy, but it may take time before shoppers see significantly lower price tags for household goods.

Rising expenses for everything from sunflower oil to milk and grain have hit the packaged goods industry hard over the past two years, prompting companies to hike prices and helping fuel a cost-of-living crisis in many parts of the world.

Cost inflation rose during the COVID-19 pandemic and was exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent energy prices to record highs last year. Energy costs have since dropped, however, while global prices for some commodities are rising more slowly.

Companies like Nestle NESN.S, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser and Danone continued to raise prices sharply in the first quarter even though input costs are easing.

Cost of goods inflation will be “significantly” lower this year — Reckitt expects 5% to 9% versus 18% last year, the company’s finance chief Jeff Carr said on a call on Wednesday to discuss earnings results. Reckitt shares were down 3% in London.

Mr. Carr said that while salary costs have increased, commodities are a “mixed bag” and freight costs have declined. First quarter price/mix, a basket of variables the company uses to help determine what prices to charge, rose 12.4% while sales volumes declined 4.5%.

“Our pricing obviously will be measured in 2023, where we did most of our heavy lifting or pricing in 2022,” Mr. Carr said.

Danone CFO Juergen Esser told a post-earnings call with analysts that while labor costs, liquid milk and sugar prices are up, some other costs are down, so “we expect inflation to decrease through the year”.

The maker of Activia yoghurt and Evian water raised first-quarter prices by 10.3% and volume/mix rose 0.2%.

It is unclear when companies may start passing on some of their lower costs to customers. On Tuesday, Associated British Foods ABF.L said it does not expect many more price increases in the second half of this year, as costs including wheat, vegetable oils, freight and energy start to fall.

Procter & Gamble Co, which makes Luvs diapers, and rival Kimberly-Clark Corp., the manufacturer of Huggies, both saw their sales volumes decline in recent quarters as they pushed through higher prices. Both P&G’s and Kimberly-Clark’s volumes declined less than the prior quarter. Executives for both companies flagged that pulp, a key ingredient in diapers and toilet paper, has fallen in price.

‘NOT DEFLATION’
Companies including Unilever, which reports earnings on Thursday, acknowledged in February that the industry was past “peak inflation, but not yet past peak pricing”.

Several firms have since made near-record price hikes: beverage giant Coca-Cola Co said average selling prices rose by 11% in the first quarter, while rival PepsiCo, Inc. said its prices gained 16%.

Many in the industry bought ingredients far in advance, when prices were higher, so it will take time for that to trickle through to the supermarket shelves.

“We tend to buy nine to 12 months out on commodities,” Pepsico chief financial officer Hugh Johnston said in an interview with Reuters.

“Anytime there is an increase in commodity prices, it hits us a little bit later, and when there’s a decrease in commodity prices, we would we feel the benefit of that decrease a little bit later as well.”

The European Central Bank is concerned that if food inflation keeps accelerating, it will have an outsized impact on consumers’ inflation perception, potentially changing spending behaviour, pressuring wage demands and impacting interest rates.

P&G customers, particularly in the United States, continued to show little resistance during the quarter to 10% price increases, helping the Tide detergent maker boost margins even as overall volumes fell 3%.

Similarly, Nestle increased its prices by 9.8% during the quarter and sales volumes fell 0.5%. CEO Mark Schneider said the European consumer had been more “resilient” than expected.

When a company can raise prices to a large degree “it highlights the value of their brands, the value of their pricing power” said Neil Denman, a fund manager at Reckitt and Unilever investor Sarasin & Partners.

“I think that’s what we’re going to see with companies through this year: which companies really have the ability to pass prices through in a difficult consumer environment?” — Reuters

US consumer spending seen driving economy in Q1

WASHINGTON — The US economy likely continued to grow at a solid clip in the first quarter (Q1), driven by strong consumer spending at the beginning of the year, but momentum appears to have since waned considerably as the effects of higher interest rates spread.

The Commerce Department’s advance first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) report on Thursday will probably show the economy nowhere near a recession. But the economic landscape is now vastly different. Credit conditions have tightened following recent financial market turmoil, which together with the Federal Reserve’s fastest rate hiking cycle since the 1980s have raised the risks of a downturn by the second half of the year.

Following January’s surge, which economists attributed to unseasonably mild weather and difficulties adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations, economic reports have taken a weaker tone, with retail sales slumping in February and March.

“It is worth considering where the momentum is at the end of the quarter,” said Will Compernolle, macro strategist at FHN Financial in New York.

According to a Reuters survey of economists, GDP growth likely increased at a 2.0% annualized rate last quarter after rising at a 2.6% pace in the fourth quarter. Estimates ranged from a growth rate of 0.4% to a 3.3% pace.

The pace of growth remains above the economy’s potential, keeping the US central bank on track to raise interest rates by another 25 basis points (bps) next week. The Fed has hiked its policy rate by 475 bps since last March from the near-zero level to the current 4.75%-5.00% range.

The survey was, however, conducted before the Commerce Department published its annual revisions to retail sales data this week, which showed sales not as robust as previously estimated in January. Retail sales in February were much weaker than previously reported.

In addition, orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, fell for a second straight month in March, the Commerce Department reported on Wednesday.

DOWNSIDE RISK
Some institutions cut their GDP growth estimates, with Wells Fargo slashing its forecast by a full percentage point.

“If our interpretation of the latest revisions is correct, then real GDP growth for the first quarter could come in at half the growth rate that is presently expected by the consensus,” said Jay Bryson, chief economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Still, consumer spending is expected to have grown at a pace faster than the pedestrian 1.0% rate logged in the fourth quarter. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of US economic activity, is expected to be driven by demand for services. It continues to be underpinned by a tight labor market, characterized by a 3.5% unemployment rate.

A separate report from the Labor Department on Thursday is expected to show initial claims for state unemployment benefits rising to a seasonally adjusted 248,000 last week from 245,000 the prior week, according to a Reuters survey.

Though claims, which have increased since March, remain well below levels that could raise alarm about the labor market, reduced access to credit for business and households is seen hurting demand and ultimately employment.

Business investment in equipment is expected to have contracted for a second straight quarter. It has been hamstrung by higher borrowing costs, which have crimped demand for goods.

“The impact on GDP from an accounting perspective may be modest, but more important could be the signal capex is sending about the overall posture of business behavior, including as it relates to labor demand,” said Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JPMorgan in New York.

The housing market likely remained mired in recession, with residential investment forecast to have contracted for an eighth straight quarter. The pace of decline is, however, expected to have slowed relative to the fourth quarter.

Some economists argued that fears of a recession were pushing down prices of commodities like oil, which could help to reduce cost pressures for businesses and benefit the overall economy. Oil prices have erased all their gains since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and producer allies such as Russia announced in early April an additional output reduction until the end of the year.

“The reduction in commodities and energy prices will be sufficient to keep us from falling into a recession,” said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Boston College. “There’s a higher probability now that we can get to a soft landing than at the end of 2022, it’s not like we are falling out of bed here.” — Reuters

We are not bound to walk this path again

VECTORJUICE-FREEPIK

Last week, we wrote about the scars and deeper wounds in the Philippine labor market with a recall of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) forecast at the height of the pandemic in April 2020. The ILO projected that “one quarter of total employment in the Philippines is likely to be disrupted by the impact of COVID-19 on the economy and labor market.”

It’s sad enough that we have suffered lower earnings and working hours, or outright loss of jobs because of the virus, but that it has also been holding hostage a whole generation of our young people with sub-standard learning and training is just too much. It’s like inflicting a hairline fracture on our future.

But are we bound to walk this path again?

As we celebrate Labor Day on May 1 next week, we received an advisory from the health authorities that while Metro Manila and other provinces are under Alert 1, some 26 provinces ranging from Benguet and Ifugao in Northern Luzon to Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in Southern Mindanao, continue to languish under Alert 2. Vaccination remains limited three years after the virus first appeared in Wuhan, China. The Pharmally scandal continues to be archived. We have yet to appoint the head of the Health department.

This is no joke.

Confirmed cases nationwide continued to rise as last week’s average daily new infections expanded by 32%. This translates to 450 cases against the previous week’s 341. While the share of severe cases is less than half a percent and hospital use is below capacity, these last three years should have taught us to be more risk-conscious and pro-active in arresting a possible surge as we struggle against the heat of summer. This is the best time to go to the beach, or a resort, and propagate the virus.

Which reminded me of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) launch of the book, Labor Market Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines, on March 1 this year. We recall reading on the BSP website BSP Governor Philip Medalla saying, “much remains to be learned about the economic implications of COVID-19 pandemic, not just in the labor market but … (also in) the development of human capital.”

It is just incredible that the coverage in the press has been quite muted, given the awesome content of the 400-page volume.

Written by BSP staff, university professors, research experts, and former public officials, the contributions in the book range from the impact of the pandemic on employment, wages, and labor productivity to the retirement system and overseas remittances. It is also refreshing to read policy papers on monetary policy and the labor market as well as possible areas of collaboration between monetary policy and public finance in the post-pandemic era.

Which brings us to the more structural dimensions of the pandemic. This was very well captured by the second article in the book, entitled “Labor Productivity, Structural Change, and COVID-19,” written by former National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary and now University of the Philippines (UP) Professorial Lecturer Emmanuel F. Esguerra and UP Associate Professor Karl L. Jandoc.

Esguerra and Jandoc observed that the pandemic further impinged on the Philippines’ modest labor productivity gains in the last two decades. Earlier, reflective of the kind of economic and policy environment in the Philippines as well as the existing labor market institutions, those modest gains unsurprisingly failed to put the country ahead, or at least at par, with its regional peers. The authors cited the World Bank (2018) which reported that structural change has hardly contributed to the country’s growth in productivity.

Using the standard breakdown of labor productivity into intrasectoral and intersectoral components, the paper argued that labor productivity has been growing since 2000 except during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 and, of course, the steep decline during the pandemic. About four-fifths of productivity growth derived from within-sector productivity gains.

Within-sector, or intrasectoral, gains result from firms’ adoption of new technology, improvement of production processes, or higher efficiencies realized due to international trade. There was very little from structural change, or intersectoral components, or when labor moves from lower to higher productivity sectors.

It was important for Esguerra and Jandoc to have zeroed in on labor productivity because, as the literature demonstrates, “the gaps in per capita incomes and material wellbeing across countries are traceable to differentials in productivity.” Progress is driven by productivity gains.

Citing the study by M. McMillan and D. Rodrik (“Globalization, structural change, and productivity growth in making globalization socially sustainable,” 2011), the paper made the point that structural change could in fact reduce, rather than increase, economic growth. This was experienced in some parts of Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Globalization appeared to have failed to effect structural change, with labor moving in the wrong direction. Labor displacement due to trade liberalization gave way to workers moving away from manufacturing to lower productivity services.

What is tragic in the case of the Philippines is that, as the World Bank (2016) quote clarified: “Economic growth created jobs, but failed to improve their average quality. Most workers have not benefited from growth in terms of higher real wages. This is in sharp contrast to developments in other Asian countries, which saw a considerable increase in real wages.”

Part of the reason is our failure to build the country’s manufacturing base and provide high-productivity jobs to low-skilled and semi-skilled workers alike. Up to this day, one can say that even agriculture remains primitive, services remain mostly informal.

Where do we expect productivity and economic growth to come from?

The pandemic’s economic scarring and deskilling impact, especially on the young people, is too graphic to be ignored. Their learning and training activities were severely impaired. Therefore, what else can we expect but a further deterioration in labor productivity and the quality of the workforce in the future. There is no such thing as simply restoring the labor force to where they were before the pandemic. The economic milieu was flawed in the first place. What the health crisis did was simply to show the weaknesses of the system, and to exacerbate them.

Esguerra and Jandoc’s resonating message is indisputable. It is imperative to increase investments in human capital for reskilling and to overhaul the school curricula to reverse the learning losses during the pandemic. They also called for more careful formulation of industrial policy because of how global trade is unfolding today, that getting into global value chains may not work as before because the big players have increasingly shifted to reshoring or nearshoring. De-industrialization has also been reported even at lower income levels.

The paper suggested relying more on the intrasectoral component of labor productivity. There is value in nurturing tradeable services to leverage on labor in the informal sector and drive them to higher productivity sectors. The regulatory framework should be further liberalized. Budget support should be available to provide complementary inputs to education and training activities like school buildings and curriculum development. Low-end services cannot be ignored. Policies can be enhanced to expand intangible capital including business development, advertising, and software. Digitalization is indispensable.

By no means did the authors suggest moving away from agriculture. In fact, they suggested that enhancing labor productivity here would have the biggest potential impact in reducing poverty and inequality. More investments are critical. Agriculture continues to suffer from lack of scale, stifling traditional intervention measures like commodity price support and input subsidies, and weak labor market regulations. A rethink of public policies should address these weaknesses that were made more apparent during the pandemic.

Today, society is enamored with a whole-of-nation approach to cover all grounds, that nothing is missed, no one is left behind. There should be no issue that the BSP ought to popularize the key messages contained in this book, and extract from there the policy implications and concrete measures to the public.

We don’t need a pandemic resurgence to motivate this, the persistence of economic and social problems that have pulled us back behind many ASEAN counterparts are more than enough.

We are not bound to walk this path again.

 

Diwa C. Guinigundo is the former deputy governor for the Monetary and Economics Sector, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). He served the BSP for 41 years. In 2001-2003, he was alternate executive director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. He is the senior pastor of the Fullness of Christ International Ministries in Mandaluyong.

Crypto Shopping: Navigating the world of digital money with exchange platforms

FREEPIK

For this week, I thought I would discuss crypto exchange platforms. A crypto exchange is a platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies, which are two very important actions, basically the backbones, for anyone getting into cryptocurrencies. So, before you start your trading journey let’s talk about these platforms and get familiar.

Crypto exchanges are used for trade and offer price discovery through trading activity, and some even offer storage. However, it’s important to first differentiate between crypto exchange and crypto wallet. A crypto wallet is mainly a digital wallet that stores your cryptocurrencies, whereas a crypto exchange is a platform where digital transactions are primarily facilitated. Before these platforms existed, people had to work really hard to get their digital money by doing something called mining or by finding someone who had some to sell.

But now, there are many different crypto exchange platforms that offer lots of different digital money options, and some of them also keep your digital money safe.

Different crypto exchange platforms can have different prices and ways of doing things, so you have to look around to find the one that works best for you and makes you feel safe.

So, let’s discuss the advantages and disadvantages of crypto exchange platforms, how they work, and maybe even get down to which are the best ones for your needs.

Let’s jump right into some of the advantages of crypto exchange platforms.

• They can be super helpful if you want to buy or sell cryptocurrencies because they make it really easy to trade digital money without having to go through a lot of complicated steps. For example, you can usually just connect your bank account or credit card.

• Plus, many exchanges have helpful tools that show you how the prices of different cryptocurrencies are changing over time, so you can make informed decisions about when to buy or sell.

• And as for security, many crypto exchange platforms have really good security features in place to protect your digital money from hackers and scammers.

I know this is starting to sound a little too good to be true, but like all new and exciting innovations, there are some challenges involved. What are the things you should look out for from crypto exchange platforms? The two main things I will mention are regulation and manipulation.

• Regulation is one of the biggest challenges, since governments and financial institutions are still figuring out how to classify and regulate cryptocurrencies. Additionally, there are cybersecurity risks that come with storing and trading digital assets online.

• Another issue that can affect some crypto exchange platforms is market manipulation. This happens when someone tries to manipulate the price of a particular cryptocurrency in order to profit from it, which, although highly unethical, does happen sometimes.

Although risk is common in any established financial institution, the level of risk varies between crypto and other existing securities because of the regulations in place to mitigate these risks. It’s really important to choose an exchange with strong security measures, to avoid cybersecurity risks. Also, consider one with a good reputation and a track record of ethical behavior to avoid falling victim to market manipulation.

We’ve talked about pros and cons, now, what are the best platforms out there? Well, according to a recent article by Andy Rosen, who provided a list of top exchanges based on factors such as fees, security, user experience, and available cryptocurrencies, some top choices are: Coinbase, eToro, and Robinhood crypto to name a few. Let’s go through them.

COINBASE
• Coinbase is a well-established cryptocurrency exchange platform that allows users to buy and sell a variety of cryptocurrencies.

• It is available in over 100 countries and has more than 68 million registered users.

• The platform offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for beginners to start investing in cryptocurrencies.

• It charges fees that are relatively high compared to some other exchanges, but these fees can be reduced by using Coinbase Pro.

• Coinbase takes security seriously and stores most of its users’ funds in offline cold storage.

• It offers insurance protection in case of any losses due to security breaches.

• Coinbase supports a range of payment methods, including bank transfers, credit/debit cards, and PayPal.

• It also has a mobile app that allows users to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies on the go.

• One potential downside is that Coinbase’s customer support has been criticized in the past for being slow to respond to users’ issues.

eTORO
• eToro is a user-friendly trading platform for both novice and experienced traders.

• The platform allows traders to invest in stocks, cryptocurrencies, and other assets.

• eToro has a social trading feature that allows users to copy the trades of successful traders.

• The platform offers educational resources such as webinars, videos, and blog articles.

• eToro has a mobile app that allows users to trade on-the-go.

• The platform charges no commission fees on trades, but instead generates revenue through spreads.

• eToro has a minimum deposit requirement of $50.

• The platform is regulated by financial authorities in the UK, Australia, and Cyprus.

ROBINHOOD
• Robinhood is a commission-free brokerage app that offers trading in stocks, options, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies.

• The app’s user interface is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy for beginner investors to navigate.

• Robinhood offers a cash management account that earns interest and provides ATM access and debit card usage.

• The platform does not charge commission fees, which makes it ideal for small investors.

• Robinhood offers limited customer support, which can be frustrating for some users.

• The platform has been criticized for its lack of security measures and technical issues.

• Robinhood is a good option for beginner investors who want to start trading without paying commission fees, but experienced investors may prefer a more established brokerage with better customer support and security features.

This list only serves as a loose guide and you should do your own research and decide based off of your own pros and cons list.

In conclusion, crypto exchange platforms are an essential tool for anyone looking to buy or sell cryptocurrencies. They make it easy to trade digital money and offer useful tools for monitoring price changes. With proper security measures in place, users can feel safe and confident about their transactions. While regulation and market manipulation remain challenges, they are not unique to crypto and can be mitigated by choosing a reputable and secure exchange. By considering factors such as fees, security, user experience, and available cryptocurrencies, you should find the exchange that best fits your needs. Happy trading!

 

Dr. Donald Lim is the founding president of the Blockchain Association of the Philippines and the lead convenor of the Philippine Blockchain Week. He is also the Asian anchor of FintechTV.

Annual growth of 6.5-8% until 2028: How?

KRAPHIX -FREEPIK

THE KEY outcomes of President Bongbong Marcos’ Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028 — to increase income per capita, reduce poverty, and create employment — rest on a necessary condition: to attain a 6.5-8% annual growth rate through 2023 to 2028. If achieved, the Philippines would resemble its East Asian neighbors, which attained similarly high growth rates decades ago. This is much needed given the still low wages and per capita income of the country. Yet, this “target” poses several questions.

First, it is not clear where the government’s 6.5-8% target comes from: whether it is a wish, or a figure derived from an economic model. If it is the former, then it is simply the growth needed (under some assumptions and back-of-the-envelope calculations) to attain the outcomes. In the latter case, it would be a statement of what the Administration believes will happen, based on its understanding of how the economy functions (a model).

Secondly, what would be remarkable about the Philippines’ growth performance, if this target is attained, is that the age of growth miracles came to an end years ago. We know that abnormally rapid growth is rarely persistent. The lack of persistence in country growth rates implies that current growth is not a good predictor of future growth. It also means that rapidly growing countries cannot post unusually high growth, or much higher than the world’s historical average of 2% plus 2% standard deviation, for extended periods. The Philippines’ GDP grew fast in 2022, but this was partly the effect of leaving behind the pandemic, and of fully reopening the economy. Many experts question that growth will reach 6% in 2023.

Thirdly, growth miracles, particularly in Asia, have almost always been driven by labor-intensive manufacturing, and export-led growth. The Philippines skipped these. The conditions to generate such a growth process are harder to meet in the new global economy, due to changes in manufacturing technologies and the global context. Skill-biased technological progress has reduced job creation in manufacturing, resulting in an increasing share of employment in less-productive service activities. Moreover, globalization and the associated rise in competition in world markets (e.g., the rise of China as a manufacturing power) have made industrialization much more difficult for newcomers to achieve fast growth via exports.

Fourthly is the question of sustainability. Attaining a relatively high growth rate one year might be possible for a number of reasons; but maintaining it for six consecutive years is quite another: it would be the first time that the Philippines attains such a feat.

Finally, a country’s long-run growth rate has a limit, a maximum. Actual growth tends to fluctuate (above or below) around this maximum. It cannot deviate from it permanently. When it does (from above or from below), there are forces that bring it back, like a pendulum. There are two such maxima in any economy. One is on the supply side, what economists call potential growth. This is the maximum growth rate that the technical conditions of production allow. It is given by the sum of the growth rates of labor productivity and of the labor force. For example, when a country’s growth rate is above its potential, unemployment will decline, while wages will increase, leading to inflationary pressures, with the consequence that the central bank will increase its reference interest rate and the economy will cool, thus bringing growth down.

The other limit is on the demand side. This is based on the fact that developing countries’ growth rates are constrained by the current account of the balance of payments: they need to import capital goods for their development. The problem is that imports have to be paid mostly in dollars, euros, or yen, which means that developing countries need to earn these currencies. They can obtain them through capital flows but these are not guaranteed. Hence, they have to export and be paid in these currencies. If imports are larger than exports, they will run deficits. History teaches us that this situation is not sustainable and sooner or later a crisis will follow.

Therefore, there is a growth rate consistent with current account equilibrium, referred to as the balance-of-payments-equilibrium growth rate. In its simplest form, this is given by the product of the country’s trade partners (where the country exports) growth rate times a very important variable which captures the non-price competitiveness of exports relative to that of imports. Indeed, especially important for a developing country is the set of non-price attributes of its export basket. These refer to how attractive a country’s exports are in foreign markets due to quality, reliability, speed of delivery, distribution network, etc. This variable is high for countries that export machinery, cars, electronic products, or chemicals (Germany, South Korea). It is low for countries that export agricultural products and natural resources, or simple manufactures (the Philippines).

The above discussion implies that, in order to have a sensible discussion of how fast a country can grow in the medium to long-term, authorities should have an idea of what potential and balance-of-payments-equilibrium growth rates are; and also understand which one is the binding constraint on growth. My experience tells me that, for developing countries, the demand side constraint is the one that bites first. This is because before achieving its potential growth rate, an economy’s actual growth performance can be curtailed by macro constraints. For emerging economies, the external constraint associated with the current account balance is particularly significant, given these countries’ dependence on the availability of foreign exchange to finance their imports. Current account deficits can be sustainable and, indeed, necessary in the short run — especially when they allow for faster capital accumulation. But countries cannot finance ever-growing current account deficits in the long run, as there is a limit beyond which the deficit becomes unsustainable (or is perceived as such by financial markets) and a balance-of-payments crisis ensues. Thus, countries that find themselves in balance-of-payments problems may be forced to constrain growth while the economy still has surplus capacity and surplus labor — that is, while the actual growth rate is still below the potential growth rate.

It is very difficult to properly estimate potential and balance-of-payments-constrained growth rates for the Philippines given the severe recession in 2020. With this caveat, our estimates indicate that:

• The Philippines can grow fast by international standards but it will be difficult to maintain a growth rate above 6-6.5% during this administration’s term. Both potential and balance-of-payments-equilibrium growth rates are at about 6% at best, not higher.

• Barring crises, the Philippines can still attain for a few years annual growth rates of 5-6% without forcing macroeconomic imbalances. In time, labor force growth and labor productivity growth will decline, and so too will potential growth decline.

• Labor productivity growth has been the main driver of potential growth during the last 15 years. A significant determinant of labor productivity growth is the performance of the manufacturing sector. For a country like the Philippines, still far from the technological frontier, attaining a relatively high growth rate of labor productivity is not a chimera. Labor force growth is declining but still positive (contributing above one percentage point to potential growth).

• With a world economy (i.e., market for the Philippines’ exports) predicted to grow at about 3%, it will be very difficult for the Philippines to attain a growth rate over twice this rate.

• Overseas workers’ remittances contribute slightly over one percentage point to the balance-of-payments-equilibrium growth rate. This means that, even to maintain the current balance-of-payments equilibrium growth rate at about 6%, the Philippines would have to continue depending on these remittances, which is not a sign of development.

• Policy makers need to focus their attention on increasing the non-price competitiveness of the country’s export basket. This requires understanding the importance of structural change, the essence of what development is about. Indeed, what all Asian fast-growing economies did during the last decades, was to increase the sophistication (non-price competitiveness) of their exports. The export structure of the Philippines has changed during the last decades, and its non-price competitiveness has increased, but it is still far from what the country needs to attain and sustain a higher growth rate. If the structure of the export basket does not change, the Philippine economy will continue being uncompetitive in world markets and will not experience a significant increase in wages and per capita income.

Summing up: 6.5-8% growth during 2023-2028? It will be very difficult unless the world economy improves significantly, or the structure of the Philippine economy shifts in the direction of exporting a more sophisticated export basket that competes in world markets not on price but on the quality of its products. The six-million-dollar question is: who will lead transformation that the Philippine economy needs? This will be the topic of a subsequent article.

 

Jesus Felipe is distinguished professor of Economics and director of the Angelo King Institute, De La Salle University.

When the legal profession goes left

FREEPIK

Thousands more will be joining the legal profession, as the recent Bar passers take the Lawyer’s Oath (on this, see my April 21 column, “A new lawyer’s oath. And not necessarily for the better”). This brings to mind something once said by Theodore Roosevelt: “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

LAWYERS AND SOCIETY
Clearly, law schools have done their best — ostensibly — to create ethical lawyers that will do good for society. And yet, one aspect of the legal profession that needs to be understood is that the judiciary plays a huge role in the direction with which non-judicial lawyers (i.e., practicing and non-practicing lawyers, lawyers in the academe, business, politics, and so on) take. The judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, has — in practice — the unquestioned authority to determine who joins the legal profession, who can be disqualified, and even the continued training and quality of the lawyers themselves.

Considering the impact that lawyers have on society itself, it behooves everyone, not only lawyers, to examine the measures being taken by the judiciary regarding the training and quality maintenance of the legal profession. It is one thing to talk of legal philosophy in the classroom, it is quite another to be indoctrinating certain philosophies and applying the same in a manner approaching judicial legislation. All the more if such philosophies or ideologies are quite contrary to the values and principles of the Filipino people themselves, as well as contrary to the values and principles of the Constitution.

FEMINIST AND QUEER. AND MARXIST.
As a purely hypothetical scenario, let’s say a judicial officer advocates for the implementation of feminist or queer legal theories. Again, if such discussions were to take place within the academe, such would be perfectly welcome (provided, of course, that opposing views are welcomed as well). The problem in this scenario is it’s a judge advancing the said theories. Doing so would inevitably lead to certain unavoidable and quite unfortunate consequences. Indeed, to pass off such theories as if they’re practicable frameworks applicable to a working society is already ill-advised. First of all, they are what their name actually states: “theories.” And to use the country as a laboratory for such theory is utterly irresponsible.

And yet, setting that aside, the content of the theories alone should make responsible officials pause, particularly if such also go against whatever the Constitution stands for. Both feminist and queer legal theories, if not by conception but definitely in their present incarnation, are quite evidently Marxist in essence.

Take feminist legal theory, which takes the view that “women’s subordination was neither biologically natural nor God-given; instead, the class relations of capitalism enforced the gender hierarchies that anchored women’s oppression. Marxist feminists viewed this patriarchal family as integral to capitalism, and thus a site of oppression that must be destroyed.” (Marxist and Socialist Feminism, Elisabeth Armstrong, 2020)

Interestingly, while the new Code on Professional Responsibility and Accountability emphatically proscribes misinformation by lawyers, yet — in our hypothetical scenario — we see for example said a judicial officer advancing basically an unproven, practically false idea, of the “patriarchy,” being as it is an essential component of feminist legal theory:

“The theory of patriarchy, which says that there is a fundamental division between men and women from which men gain power, is accepted without question today by most of the left. The theory was developed by feminists such as Juliet Mitchell and Miriam Dixson who, in her book The Real Matilda, was inclined to blame Irish working-class men for women’s oppression, using the theory of patriarchy as the basis for her argument.”

And thus again, the essentially Marxist nature of feminist legal theory: “The Marxist analysis is that the historical roots of women’s oppression lie in class society. The specific forms this oppression takes today are the result of the development of the capitalist family and the needs of capital. Therefore, the struggle to end the rule of capital, the struggle for socialism, is also the struggle for women’s liberation. Because class is the fundamental division in society, when workers, both women and men, fight back against any aspect of capitalism they can begin to break down the sexism which divides them. Their struggle can begin to ‘transform the existing categories’.” (“The poverty of patriarchy theory,” Sandra Bloodworth, Marxist Left Review, 2020)

BIAS FOR SOGI, LGBT, AND DIVORCE
There is also the problem of perceived bias. For a judicial officer to be advancing such theories is ill-considered as it betrays a bias with regard to issues that feminist and queer legal theory are obviously in favor of: same sex marriage, gender identity and sexual orientation, and LGBT issues. Thus: “There develops the division of labor, which was originally nothing but the division of labor in the sexual act, then that division of labor which develops spontaneously or ‘naturally’ by virtue of natural predisposition.”

In other words, inequality according to Marx is the result of a “division of labor in the sexual act.” This division of labor is implicitly built on the distinction between male and female. This effects later divisions in labor and thus inequality. Thus: “if the sexual act and the division between genders is the very root of all inequality, the only means by which this inequality can be negated is through the androgenization of human nature, wherein the sexual difference between man and woman is abolished. Feminist readers of Marx, like Simone de Beauvoir and Shulamith Firestone, seized on this supposedly profound insight in Marx.” (“Marxism and the Gender Revolution,” Crisis Magazine, November 2021; see also “‘SOGIE Human Rights’: How is the European Court of Human Rights Shaping Queer Emancipation?,” Eleanor Currie, 2019).

Another potential issue that could go before the courts is a possible divorce law, which again feminist legal theory is in favor of: “Feminists would generally see the decline of marriage as a tradition as a good thing, because traditional marriage is a patriarchal institution. Most divorce proceedings are initiated by women which suggests that marriage works less well for women than for men.” (“Sociological Perspectives on Declining Marriage and Increasing Divorce on Society,” Karl Thompson, 2015)

CONFLICT THEORY AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION
The foregoing could also be said in relation to our hypothetical judge advocating for “conflict legal theory,” which was “first developed by Karl Marx” and essentially posits that “society is in a state of perpetual conflict because of competition for limited resources.”

The problem with conflict theory is its divisiveness. It goes against our constitutional call for unity, as well as “freedom, love, equality, and peace.” It holds that “social order is maintained by domination and power, rather than by consensus and conformity.” Thus, “those with wealth and power try to hold on to it by any means possible, chiefly by suppressing the poor and powerless. A basic premise of conflict theory is that individuals and groups within society will work to try to maximize their own wealth and power.”

Conflict legal theory also goes against the family and religion, which the Philippines has lifted up with constitutional value, and seeks to subvert our Constitution’s stated policy towards an “independent national economy effectively controlled by Filipinos” and encouragement of “private enterprise”:

“One common criticism of conflict theory is that it fails to capture the way in which economic interactions can mutually benefit the different classes involved. For example, conflict theory describes the relationship between employers and employees as one of conflict, in which the employers wish to pay as little as possible for the employees’ labor, while the employees wish to maximize their wages. In practice, however, employees and employers often have a harmonious relationship. Moreover, institutions such as pension plans and stock-based compensation can further blur the boundary between workers and corporations by giving workers an additional stake in the success of their employer.” (“Conflict Theory Definition, Founder, and Examples,” Adam Hayes, 2022)

NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT BUT THE CONSTITUTION
It’s bad enough if lawyers, acting as officers of the court and not as public advocates acting as clients themselves, try to impose their ideology on their clients, parties before the court, or the judges themselves. The same goes for legal academics that, instead of educating law students on the fundamentals of the law, try to indoctrinate them instead on their favored ideology. It is all the more unfortunate if judges, with their significant power, responsibility, and prestige, would seek to impose their personal beliefs on lawyers that by practice, habit, and tradition defer to them with utter trust.

In this, the remedy is to look at the Constitution and its author — our people. The product of centuries, even millennia, of human experience, it would be good for our officials of the court to rely on the wisdom contained in such experience and work within palpably proven legal frameworks, rather than subjecting our people to the role of laboratory animals vulnerable to consequences we cannot even begin to imagine foreseeing.

 

Jemy Gatdula is a senior fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence

https://www.facebook.com/jigatdula/

Twitter  @jemygatdula

Sudan fighting flares but military approves ceasefire extension

SMOKE is seen rising from buildings during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum North, Sudan, April 22, 2023. — REUTERS

KHARTOUM – Sudan‘s army and a paramilitary force battled on Khartoum’s outskirts on Wednesday, undermining a truce in their 11-day conflict, but the army expressed willingness to extend the ceasefire.

The army late on Wednesday said its leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, gave initial approval to a plan to extend the truce for another 72 hours and send an army envoy to the South Sudan capital, Juba, for talks.

The Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) previously agreed to a three-day ceasefire that was due to expire late on Thursday. There was no immediate response from the RSF to the proposal from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc.

The military said the presidents of South Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti worked on a proposal that includes extending the truce and talks between the two forces.

“Burhan thanked the IGAD and expressed an initial approval to that,” the army statement said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat discussed working together to create a sustainable end to the fighting, the State Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

Some of Wednesday’s heaviest battles were in Omdurman, a city adjoining Khartoum where the army was fighting RSF reinforcements from other regions of Sudan, a Reuters reporter said. Heavy gunfire and airstrikes could be heard into the evening.

In Khartoum, which together with two bordering cities is one of Africa’s largest urban areas, gangs marauded and there was widespread looting.

Since fighting erupted on April 15, air strikes and artillery have killed at least 512 people, wounded nearly 4,200, destroyed hospitals and limited food distribution in the vast nation where a third of the 46 million people were already reliant on humanitarian aid.

 

MALNOURISHED CHILDREN

The World Health Organization said only 16% of health facilities were functioning in Khartoum and predicted “many more deaths” due to disease and shortages of food, water and medical services including immunization.

An estimated 50,000 acutely malnourished children have had treatment disrupted due to the conflict, and those hospitals still functioning are facing shortages of medical supplies, power and water, according to a UN update on Wednesday.

Deadly clashes broke out in Geneina in West Darfur on Tuesday and Wednesday resulting in looting and civilian deaths and raising concerns about an escalation of ethnic tensions, the update said.

The crisis has sent growing numbers of refugees across Sudan‘s borders, with the U.N. refugee agency estimating 270,000 people could flee into South Sudan and Chad alone.

Foreigners evacuated from Khartoum have described bodies littering streets, buildings on fire, residential areas turned into battlefields and youths roaming with large knives.

The White House said a second American had died in Sudan.

“It was horrible,” said Thanassis Pagoulatos, the 80-year-old Greek owner of the Acropole Hotel in Khartoum, after arriving in Athens to the embrace of emotional relatives.

“It has been more than 10 days without any electricity, without water, and five days nearly without food,” he added, describing shooting and bombing. “Really, the people are suffering, the Sudanese people.”

 

FORMER DICTATOR LEAVES PRISON

Beyond the humanitarian crisis, civilian groups fear the violence will enable the military to tighten its grip and revive the sway of an ousted autocrat’s loyalists.

The army said Omar al-Bashir, the 79-year-old former dictator toppled in 2019, had been transferred from Khartoum’s Kober prison to a military hospital, along with at least five of his former officials, before hostilities started.

Over the weekend, thousands of inmates were freed outright from prison, including a former minister in Bashir’s government who, like him, is wanted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Bashir’s three-decade reign came to an end with a popular uprising four years ago. He has been in prison, with spells in hospital, on Sudanese charges related to the 1989 coup that brought him to power.

“This war, which is ignited by the ousted regime, will lead the country to collapse,” said Sudan‘s Forces of Freedom and Change (FCC), a political grouping leading an internationally backed plan to transfer to civilian rule.

The plan was derailed by the eruption of fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The two sides and the FCC missed an April deadline to launch the transition to democracy, largely over disputes about merging the security forces.

Civilian groups have blamed groups loyal to Bashir of seeking to use conflict to find a way back to power. The RSF, whose leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo rose to power under Bashir but later dumped him, has strongly opposed the Islamists who backed the former army autocrat.

Sudan‘s army took over in a coup two years after the toppling of Bashir. The whereabouts of Bashir came into question after a former minister in his government, Ali Haroun, announced he had left Kober prison with other former officials.

The ICC in The Hague has accused Bashir of genocide, and Haroun of organizing militias to attack civilians in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. It declined to comment on the situation. – Reuters

Hyundai Motor to exit Russia, selling its plants – media report

STOCK PHOTO | Image by J W. from Pixabay

SEOUL – South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. plans to exit Russia and sell its manufacturing plants there to a Kazakh company, South Korean media reported on Wednesday.

South Korean TV network MBC reported that negotiations to sell Hyundai‘s factories in Russia are in the final stage, adding that the automaker has been waiting for a final approval from the Russian government.

“It is true that there are ongoing discussions regarding the sale, but nothing has been decided,” Hyundai Motor said, according to the TV network.

Hyundai Motor suspended operations at its Russian operation last year. In March, the automaker said it was reviewing “various options” for its Russian operation.

In a statement to Reuters on Thursday, Hyundai Motor said it was reviewing various scenarios for the future of its business in Russia, adding no decision had been made so far.

Many factories in Russia have suspended production and furloughed workers due to shortages of high-tech equipment because of sanctions and an exodus of Western manufacturers since Moscow invaded Ukraine last year.

Hyundai Motor, together with affiliate Kia Corp., is among the world’s top 10 biggest automakers by sales and builds about 200,000 vehicles per year in Russia, about 4% of its global production capacity.

Along with Renault, Hyundai and Kia were among top three selling brands in Russia before the war. Now as global players have pulled out, Chinese brands are replacing them in Russia‘s war economy. – Reuters

Coursera eyeing more PHL partners, launches AI features

Online training service Coursera said it targets to expand its partnerships with schools, businesses, and government agencies in the Philippines as digital transformation and economic recovery continue to shape the country.

Philippine-based users on the platform grew by 28% in 2022, thanks to an additional 400,000 new learners, according to Coursera. 

“More digital data comes into the work that organizations do. More Filipinos go to apps now, so we have to adjust,” said Raghav Gupta, Coursera APAC managing director, in an exclusive interview with BusinessWorld.

He added that there are now close to 1.8 million Coursera users in the Philippines, of which 49% are men and 51% are women, indicating the highest percentage of women in Asia Pacific countries.

“Aside from technical skills, we see more value being placed in leadership skills to be built by everybody,” Mr. Gupta said, describing what their partners invest in.

Coursera’s partners in the Philippines include Ayala Corp., Bank of the Philippine Islands, and Globe Telecom, Inc., Mapua University, National Teachers’ College, and the Department of Science and Technology (DoST).

The program with DoST, geared towards workforce recovery from the pandemic, saw almost 75,000 learners come to the platform, clocking about 1.4 million hours of learning, according to the platform.

INTEGRATING NEW TECH
Now, Coursera is leveraging new technologies to improve learning for all its users, namely artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT and virtual reality (VR) applications.

Coursera Coach, a virtual coach that answers questions, gives feedback, summarizes lectures, and helps prepare for job interviews, is being piloted and will be available in the coming months.

“Our hope is that we progress online learning from passive and active to interactive. Coach is going to be available to everybody on the platform,” Mr. Gupta said.

Meanwhile, the platform is also piloting an AI course-building tool for teachers. It will basically be a content creation engine for teachers.

To ensure that learners won’t be getting information from just about anywhere, Coursera’s ChatGPT will only retrieve expert content from 200 top universities and 100 leading companies.

It will not just be any data from the wider internet, said Mr. Gupta.

Finally, he added that Coursera will be integrating VR into their courses, such as public speaking courses.

“If you want to practice, you can come in and choose an environment, like aboard room with 10 board members or an auditorium with 500 people — whichever environment that you must practice for,” he said.

These new features will be launched for the wider public within the next few weeks. — Brontë H. Lacsamana

Facebook owner Meta touts AI might as digital ads boost outlook; shares jump

Meta

Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that AI was helping the company boost traffic to Facebook and Instagram and earn more in ad sales, as it forecast quarterly revenue well above analyst expectations.

Meta shares surged 12% in after hours trading, adding over $50 billion to its market value and continuing a rally in tech shares that started after Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp. posted strong results on Tuesday.

Meta narrowed its cost outlook range for the year, saying expenses could be less than the company forecast in March, and also beat expectations for first-quarter profit and revenue, which rose for the first time in nearly a year.

The company, which has been slow to adopt AI-friendly hardware and software systems for its main business, has carried out several expensive overhauls to bolster its core business, including a massive project to upgrade AI capacity.

“At this point, we are no longer behind in building out our AI infrastructure,” Mr. Zuckerberg said on a conference call. “And to the contrary, we now have the capacity to do leading work in this space at scale.”

AI recommendations increased time spent on Instagram by 24% in the January-March quarter, Meta said.

“I think similar to Alphabet, a lot of Meta‘s AI investments have gone into the advertiser side,” said James Cordwell, analyst at Atlantic Equities.

“So as a consumer we’re maybe not seeing the fruits of their labor in that area, but it certainly seems as if they are able to use more advanced algorithms to maintain a certain level of ad targeting.”

Meta has also kicked off an aggressive cost-cutting drive, with plans to eliminate 21,000 jobs and flatten its middle-management structure as it works towards Mr. Zuckerberg’s goal of turning 2023 into the “year of efficiency”.

The results indicated that austerity drive was “off to a stronger than expected start for Meta,” said Insider Intelligence principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

“In this economic environment—and after the disaster that was 2022—3% year over year revenue growth is an accomplishment. Meta‘s strong guidance for Q2 revenue is another indicator that the company may be starting to come out of the woods.”

The social media giant faced a bruising 2022 as a pandemic-era e-commerce boom sputtered, while rivals like TikTok captured young users and Apple Inc’s privacy updates cut access to the user data around which it built its ads business.

 

COST CONTROL

Spending on the AI retooling has spiked the company’s capital expenditures, which came in slightly under expectations at $7.1 billion for the quarter. Analysts had forecast $7.2 billion in capital expenditures in the quarter, based on the company’s annual forecast of $30 billion to $33 billion, which it kept unchanged.

The company left open the possibility that it could increase capital expenditures as it builds products for generative AI, an emerging technology that can craft human-like writing, art and other content.

“Zuckerberg is well aware that his spending habits are being watched very carefully, and any renewed efforts to shift the budget to untested areas won’t go down well,” said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“That said, it’s very hard to penny-pinch your way to the top, leaving Meta walking a very fine line between keeping the lights on and making the future bright enough to excite investors.”

Meta said it continued to expect operating losses in its metaverse-oriented Reality Labs unit to increase in 2023. The company had been investing billions of dollars into the unit, which lost $13.7 billion last year.

Mr. Zuckerberg said he remained committed to the investments.

“A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision. I just want to say upfront: that’s not accurate,” he said. “We’ve been focusing on both AI and the metaverse for years now, and we will continue to focus on both.”

Meta narrowed its annual expenses forecast to between $86 billion and $90 billion, down from the $86 billion to $92 billion it had predicted in March, when it announced its second round of layoffs.

The company said its quarterly price per ad decreased 17% from a year earlier, while it expects current-quarter revenue between $29.5 billion and $32 billion, compared with analysts’ estimates of $29.53 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Net profit for the first three months of the year fell to $2.20 per share from $2.72 a year earlier, but beat expectations of $2.03 a share.

Revenue for the first quarter rose 3% to $28.65 billion, beating an average estimate of $27.66 billion. – Reuters

Metro Pacific plans delisting from stock exchange

MANILA – Philippine infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp said on Thursday its top shareholders will offer to buy out minority stockholders and conduct a voluntary delisting from the Philippine Stock Exchange.

The company did not provide a reason for the move, but its management has long said its shares were undervalued in the domestic bourse.

The tender offer price is P4.63 ($0.08) per share, an 8% premium versus Wednesday’s closing price and a price level last reached three and a half years ago.

“Metro Pacific intends to continue its business as currently conducted, particularly of owning and managing its portfolio of investments, as well as investing in other sectors of the economy, in the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia,” the company said in a disclosure.

Metro Pacific, which has interests in power, water, hospitals and toll roads, is a unit of First Pacific Co Ltd, which is owned by Indonesian tycoon, Anthoni Salim. It is valued at $2.2 billion. — Reuters

 

MPIC, which has a majority stake in Maynilad, is one of three Philippine units of Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being Philex Mining Corp. and PLDT Inc.

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has an interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls.

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