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Agri dept’s Dar says food supply not an issue, but affordability is

PHILSTAR

AGRICULTURE Secretary William D. Dar said that there were no problems with the availability of food during the pandemic, but acknowledged that affordability was an issue for the poor and other Filipinos whose livelihoods were disrupted by the public health crisis.

“There was notably no food shortage, despite the pandemic. There were no food lines, like what is happening now in Sri Lanka,” Mr. Dar said during the Philippine Economic Briefing on Tuesday.

“We then realized that hunger was caused more by poverty and inability to buy food than food supply deficiency,” he added.

Sri Lanka is facing currently protests over food and fuel shortages, the government of Sri Lanka has responded with a curfew and restrictions on social media.

Mr. Dar said that the succeeding administration must pursue its own projects with an eye towards improving productivity and achieving sustainability.

“Philippine agriculture has a lot to make up for in significantly increasing productivity and achieving food security. We do this through a food systems approach, or making all aspects of governance and the economy work to assure food security,” Mr. Dar said.

“The task now is to cultivate continuity in our services. The next President will have a tough road ahead,” he added.

Mr. Dar said he recommended increasing the funding devoted to agriculture to a level at par with the region.

“Our ASEAN neighbors allot 4% to 5% of their national budgets to agriculture. Based on our annual national budget, we are only at 1.7%,” he said.

“We continue the call for significant budgetary support, about triple the current budget, to realize gains over and beyond,” he added.

Apart from increasing the budget, Mr. Dar said that the next leadership team should invest in technology, as well as the completion of key agricultural infrastructure projects such as farm to market roads and agri-industrial business corridors.

“We strongly recommend fast-tracking farm consolidation, an inevitable, modernizing pillar in our reform agenda. We badly need economies of scale denied by the fragmentation of agricultural land,” he said.

“A food sovereign status puts the Philippines on track to becoming a competitive player in world trade. We are professionalizing the sector because we really need competent and technically trained human resource managing increasingly scarce agricultural resources. We hope the next leadership will be generous with training programs, scholarships, funding for youth engagement, and tailored credit programs with friendly terms to encourage additional sectoral participation in agribusiness,” he added. — Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson

Trade dep’t pursuing 250 leads from potential foreign investors

REUTERS

THE Trade department said it is following up on about 250 leads from companies considering investing in the Philippines as the economy reopens.

Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said during the Philippine Economic Briefing news conference at the Philippine International Convention Center on Tuesday that many of the potential investments had been postponed due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak and the surge in cases due to the Delta and Omicron variants.

“We have a list of about 250 investment leads… Many of these investments (were) actually just postponed during the pandemic,” Mr. Lopez said.

Asked to elaborate, Mr. Lopez told reporters via Viber that some of the leads can generate expected investment of about P450 billion.

He said in a subsequent message that some of the strongest leads involve electronics projects from MinebeaMitsumi, Inc., Brother Industries Co. Ltd., US automotive electronics supplier Amphenol Corp., data center equipment supplier Positronic, contract electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group; as well as an expansion by Toyota Motor Corp. and the previously-reported entry of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX).

Mr. Lopez added that some of the investments will be finalized before the end of the Duterte administration.

“Some are (coming in) before end June. Usually within 18 months,” Mr. Lopez said.

According to Mr. Lopez, the rest of the investments involve, renewable energy, healthcare information technology and business process management, integrated agriculture production and processing, logistics, and garments and textiles.  

The government is expecting more foreign investment following the passage of key economic reform measures, such as the amendments to the Foreign Investments Act, the Public Service Act, and the Retail Trade Liberalization Act.

These measures seek to attract more foreign investment that will drive the economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Trade department recently reported that investment pledges recorded by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and Board of Investments (BoI) fell 90% year on year to P12.82 billion in the first two months of 2022.

PEZA took in P7.55 billion worth of pledges during the period while the BoI registered P5.27 billion.  

In 2022, PEZA hopes to post growth of 7-8% in approved investments, while the BoI is targeting P1 trillion worth of investment approvals. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

Fitch Solutions maintains PHL growth outlook at 6.5%

FITCH SOLUTIONS Country Risk and Industry Research said it left unchanged its Philippine economic growth forecast for this year at 6.5%, as the economy gains “further traction” with easing quarantine restrictions.

The decision to maintain the Philippines’ growth outlook was accompanied by a downgraded forecast for the Asia-Pacific overall.

In a webinar on Tuesday, Fitch Solutions cited the loosening of the quarantine and the impetus provided by government spending.

The Fitch view is lower than Development Budget Coordination Committee’s target of 7-9% for this year.

The growth forecast for the Asia-Pacific was cut to 4.7% from 4.9% previously as fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war widens.

The easing of quarantine rules in the Philippines “should offset the drag caused by tighter monetary conditions as well as higher commodity prices,” according to Raphael Mok, Fitch Solutions head of Asia Country Risk.

“Improving vaccination coverage will also allow the economy to normalize at a more sustained pace and reduce the likelihood of another destructive lockdown,” he added.

Mobility levels in March have matched their pre-pandemic baseline levels, Mr. Mok noted.

As of April 3, the Department of Health reported 66.13 million fully vaccinated individuals, for a coverage rate of 73.5% of the target population.

Metro Manila and nearby areas are to remain under Alert Level 1, the least restrictive quarantine setting, until April 15.

“On the fiscal side, the government needs to put off any plans for fiscal consolidation (if it) aims to achieve its growth target of 7%-9% for 2022,” Mr. Mok said.

“As a result, the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) is trying to stay as accommodative as it can for as long as possible although we expect the central bank to hike its rates by 75 basis points over the course of 2022,” he said.

The central bank kept its key rate untouched for an 11th straight meeting in March.

Last week, the central bank governor said the BSP is looking to end its accommodative policy by the second half. Governor Benjamin E. Diokno also signaled that policy rates could rise to 2.75% by 2023.

“Rising commodity prices will have a significant impact on the Philippines, given that the Philippines is a consumption-driven economy, which informs our below-consensus view,” Mr. Mok said.

The Philippine Statistics Authority reported on Tuesday that inflation picked up to a six-month high of 4% last month due to soaring fuel and food prices.

The statistics agency will report first-quarter gross domestic product data on May 12. — Ana Olivia A. Tirona

Healthcare-focused BPOs seek bigger share of Australian market 

REUTERS

THE healthcare information management services (HIMS) industry is seeking a larger share of the Australian market, having proven during the pandemic of being capable of taking on higher-value work.

Juanloz Botor, Pointwest Innovations Corp. business development manager for healthcare, said the healthcare business process outsourcing (BPO) sector has expanded the scope of services it can now offer.

“From the early start of the industry doing medical transcription, the sector has now evolved into higher work functions such as remote care and patient engagement. These are now available in the Philippines since we have the capability to conduct transactions without compromising the patients’ integrity and data security,” Mr. Botor said.

Vincent Remo, Health Information Management Association of the Philippines (HIMAP) president, said in a recent webinar that the industry’s growth was driven by increased demand for healthcare services during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

“The Philippines has the capability to (service) the demand with companies that are able to adapt quickly to the changes, a robust IT infrastructure to support HIMS (information technology-business process management) businesses, as well as government and private sector initiatives on upskilling of workers particularly on future trends and opportunities such as the Internet of Things, analytics, and artificial intelligence,” Mr. Remo said.

“One of the reasons for the growth of the industry is the demand for healthcare services triggered by the pandemic. From 2020 to 2022… revenue (increased) 4.8% to 5.3%, exceeding the headcount growth rate of 4.01% to 4.5%, respectively. This indicates that the Philippines is now offering higher value-added services as compared to the previous years,” he added.

Maria Lourdes M. Salcedo, Philippine consul general to Melbourne, said that the Philippines is competing with other countries in IT services.

“For many decades, I have witnessed how Filipino nurses and caregivers have given the Philippines a reputation of delivering high quality healthcare services. In recent times, the country has also contended alongside countries such as India… particularly in voice and business processing,” Ms. Salcedo said.

Medgate Philippines Country Manager Ron Estrella said telemedicine will be sticking around after the pandemic.

“Telemedicine is here to stay and, in the Philippines, where we just don’t have enough doctors, this is where (artificial intelligence) will come in to reduce time spent with patients because the process has been streamlined,” Mr. Estrella said. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

The $120-billion global grain trade is being redrawn by Russia’s war in Ukraine

REUTERS

ACROSS Ukraine’s farm belt, silos are bursting with 15 million tons of corn from the autumn harvest, most of which should have been hitting world markets.

The stockpiles — about half the corn Ukraine had been expected to export for the season — have become increasingly difficult to get to buyers, providing a glimpse into the turmoil Russia’s war has wrought in the approximately $120-billion global grains trade. Already gummed up by supply-chain bottlenecks, skyrocketing freight rates and weather events, markets are bracing for more upheavals as deliveries from Ukraine and Russia — which together account for about a quarter of the world’s grains trade — turn increasingly complicated and raise the specter of food shortages.

Before Russia’s attack, Ukraine’s corn would have made its way to Black Sea ports like Odesa and Mykolaiv by rail and loaded on to ships bound for Asia and Europe. But with the ports shuttered, small amounts of corn are creakily winding their way westward by rail through Romania and Poland before being shipped out. An added aggravation: wheels on the wagons have to be changed at the border because unlike European rails, Ukrainian train-cars run on wider, Soviet-era tracks.

“Railways are not supposed to go that way with the grain,” Kateryna Rybachenko, deputy chair of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, said in an interview. “This makes the whole logistics very expensive and inefficient, and also very slow. Logistically, it’s a big problem.”

Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest exporters of corn, wheat and sunflower oil, flows of which are largely stalled. Grains exports are currently limited to 500,000 tons a month, down from as much as 5 million tons before the war, a loss of $1.5 billion, the country’s agriculture ministry says. Crops from Russia — the world’s biggest exporter of wheat — are still flowing, but questions persist over delivery and payment for future cargoes.

Disruptions in the flows of grains and oilseeds — staples for billions of people and animals across the world — are sending prices soaring. Countries fearing potential food shortages are scrambling to find alternative suppliers and new trades are emerging.

India, which historically kept its huge wheat harvests at home — thanks to a government-set price — is jumping into the export market, hawking record amounts across Asia. Brazil’s exports of wheat in the first three months have far surpassed those in all of last year. US corn cargoes are heading to Spain for the first time in about four years. And Egypt is considering swapping fertilizer for Romanian grain and holding wheat talks with Argentina.

Even those efforts may not be good enough, said Dan Basse, president of AgResource, an agriculture markets research firm.

“We can move the deck-chairs around today,” he said. But if the conflict stretches into the summer, when wheat exports from the Black Sea usually accelerate, “then you start running into problems. That’s when the world starts to see shortfalls,” Basse said.

Alternative suppliers come with pricier freight, longer transits or differing quality, further accelerating food inflation. World supplies were already reeling from droughts in Canada and Brazil and transportation blockages in parts of the world, from rail logjams in the US to trucker strikes across Spain. The added shock from the war sent a gauge of prices to a record, with corn and wheat futures in Chicago up more than 20% since the beginning of this year.

The United Nations has warned food prices — already at an all-time high — could rise as much as 22% more. A severe drop in Black Sea exports could leave as many as 13.1 million additional people undernourished, it said, deepening the rise in global hunger in a world still recovering from the effects of the pandemic.

For now, other suppliers are stepping in. Drawn by the higher prices, India, the second-largest wheat grower after China, has boosted exports, which may have reached a record 8.5 million tons in the season ended last month. “I don’t remember the last time when open-market prices were higher than the government’s minimum support price,” said Nilesh Shivaji Shedge, 46, who grows wheat on a fifth of his family’s 15 acres.

India’s Kandla and Mundra ports in the western state of Gujarat, the main gateways for wheat exports, have been abuzz with activity as sales have surged. The government is making more railway capacity available to transport the wheat, while port authorities have been asked to increase the number of terminals and containers dedicated to the grain. Some ports on the Indian east coast and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai are also preparing to handle wheat cargoes.

“We will continue to export wheat in a big way to meet needs in countries who are not getting supplies from conflict areas,” Piyush Goyal, India’s food and commerce minister, said on Sunday. “Our farmers are focused on increasing production.”

India is negotiating access to markets in Egypt, Turkey and China, three of the four largest importers, and other potential buyers, including Bosnia, Nigeria and Iran, according to the commerce ministry.  Exports from the country could “easily” touch 12 million tons in the 2022-23 season that started this month, said Fauzan Alavi, a director with Allana Group, which has traded agricultural commodities since 1865.

Brazil — a net wheat importer — is also expecting its highest exports of the grain in a decade. Low river levels in neighboring Argentina pushed sales toward Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state. A bumper harvest, a weak currency and a delayed soybean crop that allowed extra time for wheat flows have buoyed sales, according to Walter Von Muhlen Filho, a trader with Serra Morena Commodities. Total wheat exports from the country are set to reach 2.1 million tons for the first three months of the year, almost double those in all of 2021. Destinations include Turkey, South Africa and Sudan, all for the first time in at least four years, according to data from the Secretaria de Comercio Exterior.

Sales for Australia, a large wheat exporter, are running at full tilt, with shipping slots booked for months and buyers purchasing the grain further out than usual.

Some governments are limiting trade to counter higher food prices. Serbia, the ninth-largest corn shipper, temporarily barred exports. Argentina and Indonesia increased taxes on vegetable oil exports, and Kazakhstan will limit wheat shipments. The global grains trade, not including rice, could shrink by 12 million tons this season, the most in at least a decade, the International Grains Council estimates.

“High prices more often than not, rather than just having more exporters, will result in protectionism,” said Michael Magdovitz, senior analyst at Rabobank.

Importers are meanwhile rolling back restrictions to get grain from more origins. Spain — Ukraine’s No. 2 corn buyer — relaxed rules on pesticides to allow for feed from Argentina and Brazil. It also got 145,000 tons from the US in March, its first cargoes since 2018, and China, another major Ukraine corn customer, ramped up American purchases.

While that’s helping narrow the gap, there’s little room for error. The main Brazilian corn harvest is a few months off and any bad weather in the northern hemisphere could mean curtailed supplies for farmers who feed the grain to hogs and chickens, said Nathan Cordier, an analyst at Agritel in Paris.

Some feed mills in southern Italy have closed from a lack of grain, said Alexander Doring, secretary general at European feed-industry group FEFAC. Supply is being booked from the US and Argentina, which needs 10 days of extra shipping time versus the Black Sea, he said. Italian industry group Assalzoo said some livestock farmers are culling their herds, starting with milk-producing cows.

The country gets more than 5 million tons of corn annually from abroad, and producers are struggling to pay their bills as the cost of the grain has skyrocketed, Giulio Usai, an executive at Assalzoo, said in an interview. Livestock farmers are getting almost no supplies now from either Russia or Ukraine due to the naval blockade in the Black Sea, Usai said. Efforts are being made to source from the Americas, but the process will “take time,” he said. Pig farmers could be next at risk, he said.

“These are the things we are trying to manage —  how we can change the origin of our product in order to get what we need,” said Miguel Angel Higuera Pascual, director of Spanish pig-farming group Anprogapor. “This is the situation we have right now, to try to readjust.”

North African and Middle Eastern importers are particularly dependent on Russian and Ukrainian supplies and are grappling with finding  alternatives. Algeria — which opened to Black Sea wheat just last year — is already reverting to French cargoes. Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer — with more than 80% of its imports coming from Russia and Ukraine over the past five years —  is having to cut back purchases as prices soar. It scrapped two straight import tenders as offers dried up and prices shot up by about $100 per ton, including freight. It is holding off on further tenders until at least mid-May, according to its supply minister. The country is struggling to maintain a bread subsidy program used by about 70 million of its citizens.

With no signs the supply crunch will ease anytime soon, Rabobank forecast in March that wheat futures would average $11 or more per bushel through the end of the year, and corn about $7.75 a bushel or higher. That’s an increase of 30% or more than at the end of 2021.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Dutch lawmakers last week that the Russians are “doing everything to ruin our agriculture potential and to provoke a food crisis not only in Ukraine but in the world,” saying troops have placed land-mines in fields and that farm equipment has been destroyed.

On the ground, farmers are struggling to get fertilizers to wheat crops sown in the autumn as they emerge from winter dormancy. Plantings of key spring crops like corn and sunflowers are set to drop as producers deal with diesel shortages and stolen tractors.

“We all hope this war will end soon and ports will open,” said Rybachenko of the Ukraine club. “We’re feeling responsible —  not only for the food safety inside of Ukraine, but also the food safety of the world.”  — Bloomberg

Duterte asked to do more on Marcos estate tax

PRESIDENTIAL MUSEUM AND LIBRARY

FORCING the heirs of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos to pay billions of pesos in estate taxes is a matter of political will, according to the former head of the agency tasked to recover the ill-gotten wealth of Mr. Marcos and his cronies.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte should do more than ask the country’s tax agency why the taxes have remained unpaid for decades, former Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Commissioner Ruben Carranza said on Tuesday.

“If it’s easy for him to kill Filipinos, it should be easy for him to collect taxes from the Marcoses,” he told One News channel in Filipino. “It’s a matter of political will.”

Mr. Carranza, who now works as a senior expert at the International Center for Transitional Justice, said the government should charge the Marcos family including former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. in court for refusing to pay the tax liability, which supposedly has ballooned to P204 billion ($4 billion) due to interest and other penalties.

Marcos lawyer and spokesman Victor D. Rodriguez did not immediately reply to a Viber message seeking comment. Marcos, Jr. is running for president this year and is leading in opinion polls.

“File tax evasion charges against the Marcoses under the National Internal Revenue Code,” Mr. Carranza said in Filipino. “You have not settled it for years, you do not want to settle it, that’s a criminal case.”

“The government could go after the Marcoses and they must be legally charged if they don’t want to pay their liabilities,” he said. “That’s what the law says.”

Mr. Carranza was involved in a Supreme Court case where $678-million in Swiss deposits of the late dictator and his wife Imelda were found to have been illegally obtained.

He earlier said the late strongman’s son is aware of his family’s stolen wealth because he has been a key administrator of the Marcos estate since his father died in exile in the US in 1989.

He said Mr. Marcos was already 40 years old when the PCGG discovered in 1998 the $2 million worth of assets deposited by his late father with Merrill Lynch Securities in New York in 1972 under the Panamanian corporation Arelma S.A.

Mr. Carranza said it was the son who answered questions about the contents of the Swiss bank accounts. “When Marcos, Sr. died, who took over their estate? Of course, Imelda, because she was still alive, but also Bongbong,” he told a virtual forum organized by the University of the Philippines Department of History on March 3.

“The money sat in the account for about 30 years, growing to $33.8 million in cash and securities by 2000,” according to Courthouse News Service.

Legal experts including Mr. Carranza and former Supreme Court Justice Antonio T. Carpio, worry that the government would never recover the ill-gotten assets once Bongbong becomes president.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III told reporters they were discussing the estate tax with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

“There are several amounts that have been floated around, originally it was P9 billion, then it became P23 billion, and now because of penalties and interests, they say it is P203 billion,” he said. “Which amount it will be settled at will be in discussions with the BIR.”

Mr. Dominguez said the government was intent on collecting the taxes.   

Last month, the Bureau of Internal Revenue said it sent in December a written demand to the Marcos family to settle their tax liabilities.

The Finance department has said the estate tax would be an additional source of revenue for the government amid surging global oil prices.

ENRILE TO THE RESCUE
Juan Ponce Enrile, the dictator’s defense minister who led a coup and a popular street uprising that eventually toppled the Marcos regime in Feb. 1986, has dismissed as “politically motivated” the estate tax issue against Marcos, Jr. and his family. 

“There is no issue,” Mr. Enrile, one of the architects of the dictator’s martial rule, told Bombo Radyo in Filipino, the office of Mr. Marcos said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday.

He said he would lawyer for Marcos, Jr. for free to prove his critics wrong. “Indict Bongbong? It’s laughable,” he added, noting that Bongbong’s critics are all “ignorant of taxation laws and do not know what they were talking about.”

“I’m not bragging, I did practice law,” Mr. Enrile, 98, said. “The cases I have handled are in the Philippine records. I haven’t lost a case.”

Mr. Enrile is a tax expert and graduated with a Masters of Law degree from Harvard School of Law with a specialization in international tax law.

After helping oust the dictator, the late President Corazon C. Aquino named Mr. Enrile her defense minister but he was forced to resign months later due to policy disagreements.

“I don’t know what they will do but if I were Bongbong, I will ignore it,” said Mr. Enrile, who is also a former Senate president. “I will tell Bongbong, to give me the case and I will handle it. Gratis et amore.”

He said the P204-billion estate tax is a big nonsense because both the National Government and Bureau of Internal Revenue have yet to come up with a final and accurate assessment of the Marcos estate’s assets.

“The BIR can’t by itself assess the valuation of the asset.” Mr. Enrile said. He added that if there was an estate tax to be paid, the government should not compel not the Marcos heirs but the Marcos estate to pay for it.

“The estate tax is a tax on the estate and not a tax on Bongbong,” he said. “It’s not Imelda’s tax. It’s not Imee’s or Irene’s tax. It’s a tax on the estate of President Marcos,” he added, referring to Bongbong’s mother and sisters.

Mr. Enrile said the estate tax was only forcibly being heaped on Mr. Marcos for political reasons. Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Norman P. Aquino and Tobias Jared Tomas

Arroyo endorses Marcos, Sara for president and VP

HUGPONG NG PAGBABAGO FB PAGE

FORMER President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has endorsed former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. for president, saying she expects a landslide victory for the only son of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos.

“I know all of us are for Bongbong Marcos,” the ex-president, who is running for Pampanga representative, said at her 75th birthday event in Pampanga province on April 4, according to an e-mailed statement from her office on Tuesday.

“I hope you give Sara the equal support you gave Noli de Castro, who was my vice-president,” she added, referring to Mr. Marcos’ running mate Davao City Mayor and presidential daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio.

Ms. Carpio attended the event, according to the statement.

Pampanga, a province northwest of the capital Manila, is one of the largest vote-rich provinces in the country. It has more than 1.5 million registered voters this year.

“We are also endorsing her because of the help which her father, President Rody Duterte, provided Pampanga,” Ms. Arroyo said of Ms. Carpio. “Let us return the favor.”

Ms. Arroyo’s father, the late President Diosdado P. Macapagal, Sr. and the late dictator were bitter rivals in the Liberal Party, the political group of opposition presidential bet Vice-President Maria Leonor “Leni” G. Robredo.

The elder Mr. Marcos left the Liberal Party and joined the Nacionalista Party to run against Mr. Macapagal for president in 1965.

Mr. Macapagal and his daughter helped the anti-dictatorship movement, which later opposed Ms. Arroyo’s rule after alleged cheating in the 2004 presidential election.

The government under her predecessor Benigno S.C. Aquino III indicted her for election sabotage, for which she was arrested in Nov. 2011 while confined at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City.

She was transferred to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City a month later and was released from hospital arrest on bail in July 2012.

Three months later, she refused to enter a plea on charges she misused $8.8 million in state lottery funds while she was president, for which she got arrested again and placed on hospital arrest

In July 2016, the Supreme Court dismissed the corruption charges against her and ordered her release from the hospital where she had been detained since 2012.

Meanwhile, government prosecutors have endorsed the indictment of a delivery rider for cyber-crime after he allegedly threatened on Twitter to shoot and kill Mr. Marcos. They recommended a P72,000 bail.

In a statement dated April 4 and released on Tuesday, the Office of the Prosecutor General said the man, who was being detained, would be charged with grave threats in relation to the Cyber-crime Act. The case will be filed at a Quezon City trial court.

“I am not afraid to go to jail and I am not afraid to die,” the delivery rider tweeted in Filipino, according to the Justice department. “It is a great honor to avenge my fellow activists who were abused during martial law.”

Quezon City police arrested the man last week. Mr. Marcos’s camp filed the complaint.

“Grave Threat is a crime against public security,” said the Justice department, which ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in January to validate an anonymous tip from a TikTok user who allegedly posted an assassination plot against the late dictator’s son.

The man who owned the TikTok account denied the allegations and said his identity had been illegally used to make the suspicious post.

Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra said in January the NBI would prioritize any validated information on threats to the security of any presidential candidates. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza and John Victor D. Ordoñez

Foreign tourist arrivals hit over 186,000 from Feb. 10 

BOHOL TOURISM OFFICE

MORE THAN 186,000 foreign tourists have arrived in the Philippines since reopening its borders on Feb. 10, according to the Department of Tourism (DoT).  

From Feb. 10 to April 4, we have received 186,438 tourist arrivals, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat reported during the Philippine Economic Briefing press conference at the Philippine International Convention Center on Tuesday.  

The Philippines started accepting foreign tourists from visa-free countries on Feb. 10. This was expanded on April 1 to include vaccinated tourists from all countries in a bid to help in the recovery of the tourism sector and the overall economy.  

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the industry contributed 12.7% to the countrys economy in 2019, higher than the 2000-2018 average of 7.4%.  

Visitor receipts that year were tallied at P482.15 billion, up 18.8% from 2018. 

From the border reopening date, Ms. Puyat said the top country of origin among foreign travelers was the United States, followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Australia. 

In 2019, the Philippines recorded nearly 8.19 million foreign arrivals with Koreans at the top of the list at 1.99 million, accounting for 24% of the total.  

Coming in second was China at 1.74 million, followed by the US at 1.06 million and Japan at almost 683,000.  

Ms. Puyat highlighted that the Philippines has the least entry restrictions among Asian countries, which is seen to entice more visitors.  

When you arrive in the Philippines, all you need is a test before arrival. And when you arrive here, there is no more quarantine and no more test upon arrival. I think in Asia, we have the least number of restrictions,she said.   

Previously, the DoT announced that fully-vaccinated foreign tourists should only present either a negative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test taken 48 hours before departure or a negative lab-based antigen test taken 24 hours prior to leaving the country of origin. Revin Mikhael D. Ochave  

Indian envoy sees continued strong ties post-Philippine election  

EMBASSY OF INDIA MANILA

RELATIONS between India and the Philippines is expected to remain strong even after a change in leadership following the May elections, said the Indian Ambassador to Manila, but broadening ties will depend on the new administrations governance and foreign policies.  

I dont see any significant change in the Philippinesforeign policy orientation… with regards to India, post-elections. Interactions with the other political formations indicate that there is considerable and continued interest in building a relationship with India,Indian ambassador to the Philippines Shambhu S. Kumaran said during a forum on Tuesday via Zoom.  

Our understanding is that whatever new government or new president comes into the Philippines, its likely to be very supportive of a stronger India-Philippines partnership but that would include, I would suspect, a stronger defense partnership,he said. 

The diplomat noted that the two countries have begun working closely on more security aspects, including counterterrorism and transnational crime, among others.  

He said there is potential to expand this partnership in terms of cybersecurity cooperation and space-based applications.  

In economic relations, he said there is great room for cooperation and growth togetherin the business process outsourcing industry.  

I dont think Indian companies regard the Philippines as some sort of competitive space, really the approach is collaborative endeavor where we can both grow.” 

India and the Philippines agreed in 2020 to enter into a preferential trading deal, and discussions on the terms of reference are ongoing.  

I do hope this process can be taken up quickly. Apparently, there are some capacity issues at our end in terms of the processing of these agreements aswe do have a range of agreements we are working on, Mr. Kumaran said. Alyssa Nicole O. Tan 

Business leader pushes for ‘fully-vaccinated’ definition to include booster shot

PHILIPPINE STAR/ MICHAEL VARCAS

THE DEFINITION of a fully-vaccinated individual against coronavirus should be updated to include a booster shot, according to Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Jose Ma. JoeyA. Concepcion III.   

Mr. Concepcion said in a statement on Tuesday that he has asked the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to consider the revision, which is also a means for stimulating faster uptake of available booster doses.   

I am proposing that booster cards become proof of vaccination, adding that local government unit (LGUs) booster cards could suffice as proof of full vaccination as record-keeping and encoding on the national governments vaccination database VAXCERTPH catches up,he said.  

The validity of vaccine cards (should) be time-bound, taking into account the efficacy of the primary doses as determined by the governments medical experts,he added.  

Booster vaccine cards can take the place of vaccine cards 60 days from the date of an IATF resolution, as proof of vaccination for travel, work and overall movement.” 

The business sector leader said booster shots are being pushed to as part of efforts to keep the countrys economy healthyand to avoid another surge in coronavirus infections.  

We are pushing for boosters because we dont want the economy to suffer again should we experience another increase in cases. This is so we can continue going back to a normal life. Boosters will keep us and the economy healthy until the end of the year,he said. Revin Mikhael D. Ochave  

Groups warn of disenfranchisement as overseas voting starts April 10

RIYADHPE.DFA.GOV.PH

OVERSEAS Filipino voters may be disenfranchised due to lack of preparation and ample communication initiatives from embassies and consular offices across the world, groups warned as absentee voting is set to start on April 10.   

Migrante International Chairperson Joanna Concepcion on Tuesday said Filipino migrant leaders from different countries have criticized authoritieslack of effort to widely disseminate important election-related information and call for timely community meetings to reach overseas Filipino voters. 

The accreditation or even the acknowledgment of the request for poll watchers is also late, and they are not calling for community meetings with our Filipino communities overseas to orient them,” she said in Filipino during a press conference via Zoom. 

She added that many have yet to receive their ballots for the postal voting method. Inquiries also receive no response. 

United Filipinos in Hong Kong Vice-Chairperson Shiela Tebia, who is also under the 1Sambayan political group, said lack of meetings and consultations has made the community feel unsure and nervous about the voting exercise, especially for the 14,000 first-time voters.  

She said their assessment of the voting plan in Hong Kong where ballots will be cast in-person also indicates that not all 93,000 registered voters will be able to exercise their right.  

Likewise, Kabayan for Leni Kiko-Canada Chairperson Earl Francis Oriño Dacara said many registered voters among the Filipino community have yet to receive their ballots, and those that have are still unsure of the process. 

In Saudi Arabia, Migrantes area chair Marlon Gatdula said there are only three voting centers available, while the overall number of registered voters in the state is about 300,000. 

There are almost 1.7 million registered overseas Filipino voters. Absentee voting which will be mainly by post in most countries and in-person in a few areas will be until May 9.    

Overseas Filipinos are calling on the Comelec (Commission on Elections)and the Department of Foreign Affairs to urgently address the concerns of our overseas Filipino voters,Migrante International said in a statement on Tuesday. Alyssa Nicole O. Tan 

Prop-tech firm expanding workforce in Davao City office

BW FILE PHOTO/ MMPADILLO

PROPERTY technology firm Poplar Homes is expanding its workforce in Davao City, where it has a full-scale office with teams for engineering, web development, sales, and customer service. 

Rico Mok, chief technology officer and co-founder of the company that used to be called One Rent, said for the engineering team alone, they are looking to double the number within the next quarter. 

Our engineering team is based here in Davao City, we have a team of about 40 peoplebeing web developers, people who create the products and its a true testament of what the team can do,he said in an interview last week.  

The company is on the lookout for talents from the city after recently securing $53 million in Series B funding, the second round of capitalization for a company that has passed the startup stage. 

Poplar Homes provides technology solutions to property owners and renters in several parts of the United States and is looking to expand its scope of services. It is also eyeing to cover more American states as well as enter the Asian market.  

We started our team here with customer service first and as we developed the team, we found out that the talents here are very diverse, not just concentrated on voice or non-voice,Mr. Mok said.  

And I came to know a couple of developers, meaning engineers, computer engineers and you know, they were very impressive and I see that they are better in some sense than our team in Silicon Valley, so we decided to create our team here as well.” 

The Davao City office, which serves as the companys Philippine base, was opened in June 2016. It currently employs about 250 people.  

For the human resource expansion, Mr. Mok said they are open to hiring fresh graduates as well as those who already have extensive experience in the industry. Maya M. Padillo