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8 out of 10 Filipinos believe May elections were credible — Pulse Asia survey 

PHILIPPINE STAR/MIGUEL DE GUZMAN

EIGHT out of 10 Filipinos or 82% believe the results of the May 9 national and local elections were accurate and credible, according to a survey conducted by Pulse Asia Research, Inc. 

Majority of Filipinos or 89% were also satisfied with the automated election system and want to continue automated voting, based on the survey results released on Monday.   

“Almost every Filipino adult who reported voting in the recent elections (95%) found it very easy/easy to use the vote counting machines,” Pulse Asia said in a statement.  

The pollster interviewed 1,200 adults from June 24 to 27. The survey results have an error margin of ±2.8 points.  

Only 4% of the respondents expressed distrust in the election results and were dissatisfied with the automated voting system.  

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. won in the first landslide victory in four decades, securing over 31 million votes out of 65.75 million registered voters.  

“While the 2022 national and local elections were far from being perfect, the situations on the ground on election day reflect a generally successful conduct of the polls save from a few isolated incidents,” Acting Chairperson of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Socorro B. Inting said in an online forum that discussed the poll’s findings.  

“However, your Comelec is not oblivious to malfunctions of vote-counting machines and SD cards,” she said.   

Comelec earlier said 1,867 machines encountered paper jams, rejected ballots, and faulty printing of election returns, which it said were promptly resolved.  

Ms. Inting added that it was unfair to negatively judge the election body for the “minuscule” number of malfunctions.  

In the same forum, acting Comelec Spokesperson John Rex C. Laudiangco pointed out that the May 9 elections saw fewer election-related violent incidents with 27 compared with 133 in 2016.  

On the other hand, the International Coalition for Human Rights (ICHRP) said last month its International Observer Mission (IOM) concluded that this year’s elections did not meet the standards of free, honest, and fair voting due to numerous reports of human rights violations and incidents pointing to fraud.  

The IOM was a collaboration between the international coalition, election watchdog Kontra Daya, and academics worldwide. 

ICHRP called for a revamp of the automated election system since it had reported thousands of voters being unable to vote due to technical blunders. — John Victor D. Ordoñez 

PhilPost says over 14M national IDs distributed 

PHILIPPINE STAR/ MICHAEL VARCAS

MORE than 14 million national identification cards had already been distributed, according to the Philippine Postal Corp. (PhilPost).  

PhilPost Chief Executive Officer Norman N. Fulgencio told a televised news briefing that 14.03 million out of the 14.8 million national IDs due for delivery had been released as of July 8.  

There are still more than 700,000 IDs to be distributed as of July 8, he said, although that number may have already been reduced to 50% as of the briefing.  

“By tomorrow (July 19), we will get our latest update report,” he added.  

The government has been criticized for delays in the distribution of the national ID cards.  

“Our job is to deliver them,” Mr. Fulgencio said. “Once we receive them, we need to deliver them.”   

As of June 1, about 67 million individuals have already registered for the national ID, based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority.   

The government is targeting to have 92 million registered by the end of the year, according to National Economic and Development Authority Director-General Arsenio M. Balisacan.  

President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. ordered Mr. Balisacan last week to speed up the printing and distribution of more than 50 million national ID cards so these can be used by early 2023. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza 

Scions of fallen heads of state also rise… and fall

GR STOCKS-UNSPLASH

The ouster of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as executive president of Sri Lanka by people power drew from observers of Philippine politics the joke that some 30 years from now a scion of Rajapaksa would be elected president of Sri Lanka by an overwhelming majority. The remark is a satirical reference to the recent landslide victory of Bongbong Marcos whose father, President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., was overthrown by people power 36 years ago.

The remark that a scion of a deposed head of state eventually also rises to power may not entirely be one of flippancy. The case of Bongbong Marcos has many precedents. There have been heads of state whose rule was cut short by people power or by extermination but whose scion also became head of the same state.

There are the Parks, father and daughter, of South Korea. Park Chung Hee was general and president of South Korea from 1963 to 1979. His rule brought about rapid economic growth, but at the cost of human rights and political freedom.

He imposed restrictions on personal freedoms, suppressed the press and political dissent. He controlled the judiciary and academe. He organized the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) for the purpose of monitoring closely the activities of the political opposition. He claimed that all his measures were necessary to fight communism. On Oct. 17, 1972, Park declared martial law. A month later he put in place a new constitution, which gave him sweeping powers.

He became more virulent towards his political enemies. When, in 1979, he dismissed the leader of the opposition party from the National Assembly, the Koreans erupted in violent protests. Park was assassinated by the head of the intelligence agency he himself formed, the KCIA.

Thirty-four years later, Park Chung Hee’s daughter, Geun-hye, was elected president of South Korea. Before her presidency, Geun-hye was leader of the conservative Grand National Party from 2004 to 2006 and leader of the Liberty Korean Party from 2011 to 2012. She was also a member of the National Assembly serving four consecutive parliamentary terms between 1998 and 2012.

In July 2012, she formally announced her presidential bid. In this event, she emphasized the right to pursue happiness, a democratic economy, and customized welfare services for the Korean people. She was elected president in 2013.

Then there are the Bhuttos, father and daughter, of Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became president, army commander-in-chief as well as the first civilian chief martial law administrator on Dec. 20, 1970. He served as prime minister from 1973 to 1977.

On Jan. 2, 1972, Bhutto announced the nationalization of all major industries. He adopted a labor policy that increased workers’ rights and the power of trade unions. He instituted land reforms, limiting land ownership. The government took over a million acres of land for distribution to landless peasants.

He dismissed more than 2,000 civil servants on charges of corruption. Subsequently he dismissed the military chiefs for refusing orders to suppress a major police strike. He convened the National Assembly, lifted martial law, and charged the legislators with writing a new constitution.

Bhutto began to draw criticism as his term progressed. An estimated 100,000 troops were deployed to suppress protests. The troops were accused of human rights abuses and of killing large numbers of civilians. Bhutto himself was accused of masterminding the murder of political opponents.

On July 5, 1977, Bhutto and members of his cabinet were arrested by troops under the order of General Zia. On March 18, 1978, the Supreme Court found Bhutto guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. On April 4, 1979, Bhutto was hanged.

Just 11 years later, his daughter Benazir Bhutto became Pakistan’s first female prime minister and the head of its first civilian government since the dissolution of Zulfikar Bhutto’s government.

Benazir was educated at Harvard University where she obtained a B.A. degree in 1973. She subsequently studied philosophy, political science, and economics at the University of Oxford, earning a B.A degree in 1976 and a master’s degree in international law in 1977.

She returned to Pakistan after completing her studies abroad. Shortly after her return, her father was deposed, which led to her becoming the titular head of her father’s party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). She was placed under house arrest frequently from 1979 to 1984. She went into exile in 1984 but returned in 1986 when martial law was lifted. Benazir soon became the foremost political opponent of President Zia.

Zia died in a mysterious plane crash in August of 1988, resulting in a power vacuum in all of Pakistan. In the elections that year, Bhutto’s party won the biggest number of seats in the National Assembly. On Dec. 1, 1988, Bhutto was elected prime minister. She served two terms as prime minister, in 1988-1990 and 1993-1996.

There are also the mother and son pair, the Ghandis of India, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Ghandi. Indira Ghandi was the first female prime minister of India, serving for three consecutive terms (1966-1977) and a fourth term from 1980 to 1984.

Shortly after her election as prime minister in 1966, Indira was charged with violating election laws in that contest. In June 1975, the High Court of Allahabad ruled her guilty. Her response was the declaration of a state of emergency throughout India. She jailed her political opponents and enacted new laws that limited personal freedoms. She also ordered large-scale sterilization to arrest the population explosion.

Disapproval of Gandhi’s two years of emergency power was widespread. She stepped down when she and her party were defeated in the parliamentary elections of 1977. But when new elections for the Lok Sabha (lower chamber of national parliament) were held in January 1980, Gandhi and her party scored decisive victories. During the early 1980s, Sikh separatists vehemently demanded autonomy. Tensions between the government and the Sikhs grew and in June 1984 Gandhi ordered the Indian army to attack and oust the separatists who occupied and fortified the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex at Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine. At least 450 Sikhs were killed in the incident. Five months later, she was killed by her own Sikh bodyguards.

Rajiv Gandhi rose to become the leader of the Congress (I) Party and served as prime minister of India (1984-1989) after the assassination of his mother. Rajiv attended Imperial College, London, and completed an engineering course at the University of Cambridge (1965). He was drafted into a political career by his mother. In June 1981 he was elected to the Lok Sabha and in the same month became a member of the national executive of the Indian Youth Congress (the youth wing of the Congress Party).

Rajiv was regarded as a reasonable person who consulted other party members. After his mother was killed on Oct. 31, 1984, Rajiv was sworn in as prime minister that same day and was elected leader of the Congress (I) Party a few days later. He led the Congress (I) Party to a landslide victory in elections to the Lok Sabha in December 1984. He reformed the government bureaucracy and liberalized the country’s economy. Rajiv tried to discourage separatist movements. That worked against him. When his government got involved in a number of financial scandals, he became ineffective.

There is something strikingly similar about the life stories of the scions of the fallen heads of state. Like Bongbong Marcos, who studied in Oxford and the Wharton School of Business, the others also went to the best schools in the world. Park Geun-Hye studied at Joseph Fourier University in France, Benazir Bhutto at Harvard and Oxford, and Rajiv Ghandi at Imperial College, London, and Cambridge.

They also met the same fate as their famous parents. They fell from grace. In December 2016, Park Geun-hye was impeached by the National Assembly on charges related to influence peddling. The Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment by a unanimous 8-0 ruling in March 2017, thereby removing her from office and putting her in jail.

In October 2007, Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi after eight years of self-imposed exile. She was assassinated in December while campaigning for upcoming parliamentary elections.

Rajiv Ghandi resigned his post as prime minister in November 1989 after his party was defeated in parliamentary elections. In May 1991 Rajiv was campaigning for the next round of parliamentary elections when he was assassinated like his mother.

 

Oscar P. Lagman, Jr. is a retired corporate executive, business consultant, and management professor. He has been a politicized citizen since his college days in the late 1950s.

Critical and strategic priority policies for economic dynamism

PRESSFOTO-FREEPIK

This was lifted from the Inaugural Address delivered recently by the author as President of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2022.

First, allow me to thank Secretary Fred Pascual for accepting again to serve the country, this time as DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) Secretary. And thank you for your service to MAP. I know, Secretary Fred that you will continue to serve our country well for “good men never tire of doing good.”

Thank you as well to the members of the MAP 2022 Board of Governors for their vote of confidence.

As far as I am concerned, as the saying goes, I am “a collateral damage” after Secretary Fred accepted the DTI position. Anyway, allow me to briefly say a few things about myself, to many who do not know me.

I never ran away from any challenges or meaningful assignments in my life. In fact, of all my previous assignments, the ones I enjoyed most were the non-traditional and challenging work.

For example, shortly after I graduated from UP Diliman many moons ago, as an Industrial Engineer, instead of working in a production factory, I accepted an assignment in an NGO, promoting rhythm family planning method to targeted provinces, to be responsible parents in producing babies. Come to think of it, it’s still production.

Shortly after, I was tasked to set up the management and operating systems of then newly built Development Academy of the Philippines Training Center in Tagaytay, and eventually assuming full responsibility in managing the training center as the first Resident Manager. The other assignments were similarly non-conventional. My getting actively involved in various capacities in the implementation of the Bases Conversion and Development Act of 1992, putting into full operation the conversion of the former US Military Baselands, that included Subic Bay, Clark, John Hay, and Poro Point. I was also directly involved in the privatization of the Fort Bonifacio and Villamor Air Base into the country’s premier business centers. In particular, the Bonifacio Global City which set new development standards for huge property development.

The only traditional but equally challenging assignment of late was the full six-year term as DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) Secretary from 2010 to 2016. But even then, I had to completely overhaul the public’s perception of DPWH, both inside the department, and outside, including the Congress. In fact, I would say, especially the members of both houses of Congress — to ensure that everyone understood our new thrust — that we adopted and will implement good governance principles, and transparent and competitive procurement, to reduce corruption and ensure the use of government’s scarce resources for the right projects, right cost, and right quality.

As the new MAP President for the next six months, I would like to seek the support of all MAP members, in their individual capacities, and as leaders of your companies and spheres of influence — to help make the voice of MAP, in what MAP boards under President Fred Pascual and previous President Gigi Montinola had prepared, a critical and strategic policy agenda for the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.

We all agreed that there has to be a strong collaboration and partnership between the public and the private sectors, to create a more just, inclusive, and compassionate society. The public sector cannot be expected to do it alone, without meaningful engagement of the private sector, particularly the captains of industry and business – [we have] to work together for the common good.

To help in this collaboration, the MAP will be undertaking what an expert calls an “advocacy communications plan” and a lot of lobbying and engagement. We hope to get the attention of the concerned officials and agencies in government, and the private sector as well, in these particular areas, with our advocacy plan.

So let me briefly mention these critical and strategic priority policies for economic dynamism that the MAP Board has identified, with the help of many of the MAP Committee Chairmen and their members and subject experts:

1. Education: to address the country’s urgent education crisis, particularly to strengthen basic education;

2. Health: to make quality healthcare accessible to every Filipino;

3. Agriculture and agribusiness: to achieve an agriculture and agribusiness sector marked by high productivity and international competitiveness, that ensures food security for all Filipinos;

4. Trade and industry: to ensure a trade and industry policy environment that fosters level competition, lowers the cost of doing business, and encourages productivity-enhancing innovations, and to ensure Filipinos’ wide access to quality goods and services at lower and stable prices;

5. Infrastructure: to sustain the gains of the Build, Build, Build program of the past administration by prioritizing infrastructure of the greatest strategic importance, and resuming active public-private partnerships in infrastructure development;

6. Labor and employment: to institutionalize labor flexibility and welfare through executive action and legislation for quick employment generation, and recognize that labor market and employment policies are a critical ingredient in the enabling environment for investments;

7. Fiscal and financial policies: to ensure that fiscal and financial policies be supportive of business enterprises, specially MSMEs, to promote wider job generation, particularly in the countryside;

8. Finally, justice: justice and the rule of law must be upheld if business confidence is to be sustained, and the general population to live in an atmosphere of peace and security; particularly ensuring government transparency, zero tolerance for corruption, faith in government institutions, upholding civil liberties, and freedom of the press.

MAP has released to the media the details and specifics of these eight priority and strategic areas, after undergoing its 6th revised version. We hope that all of us at MAP will be engaged in advocating all or any of the priority areas that we are comfortable with.

Aside from these areas, let me share what the MAP’s Human and Management Development Committee created with expert panelists, as they recently discussed Dr. Nick Poblador’s views from his book A New Age of Capitalism in the Philippines, and MAP’s strong support for micro and small enterprises (MSEs). The consensus was, again, the need for collaboration and partnership between government and private sector, to ensure inclusive and diverse growth of our economy.

The discussion was in line with the MAP 2022 theme of “Push For Change: Towards a Better Future for All,” particularly on the main thrust of shared prosperity and sustainability. The expert panelists agreed that MAP should push its members to supporting MSEs in lifting the bottom 40%, to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. In particular, we will advocate and practice as an organization the following policies:

1. Propose to DTI Secretary Fred Pascual and other concerned government agencies, both at the national and local levels, to substantially deregulate micro and small enterprises. Let them grow as fast as they can instead of harassing them, [so they may] contribute to the economy and employment generation. There is no need to spend scarce government resources trying to regulate them;

2. For big business and government institutions to support micro and small enterprises in their procurement of supplies and materials, and ensure timely payment to the micro and small enterprises within 30 days or shorter, to help them from predatory lenders;

3. Promote micro and small enterprises, and make room for them in government purchases and supply requirements both at the national and local levels;

4. Freeze all field tax audits of micro and small enterprises, unless an apparent crime is being committed, to avoid huge friction cost and source of harassment.

In closing, there is agreement that the captains of industry and business leaders cannot continue on using the traditional shareholders interest and financial bottom line as measures of their success, but how the enterprise contributes to the wider stakeholders, to the general public, and its contribution to nation building. In particular, measuring their contribution to the economy, to social justice, addressing the bottom 40% poor, good governance, and the protection of the environment and mother Earth.

Finally, as your MAP President, with your engagement and cooperation, I would like to offer myself as the MAP’s principal lobbyist, to push our priority and strategic policies for a more just and compassionate society, for shared prosperity and for the common good.

 

Rogelio L. Singson is President and CEO of Metro Pacific Water. He previously served as Secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

map@map.org.ph

Rogelio.Singson@metropacwater.com

Lucky Me, bureaucracy rightsizing, electricity prices, and MPIC

There were five events last week that I want to comment on.

LUCKY ME! AND FOOD SECURITY
Scrolling through corporate news of BusinessWorld, these two reports caught my attention: “Monde Nissin ends flat after Lucky Me! noodle brand recall” (July 11), and “Monde Nissin says ethylene oxide not added in noodles” (July 8).

Lucky Me! is a famous brand and my family occasionally consumes their pancit canton and other instant noodles, so I read further and found these facts.

One, ethylene oxide (EtO) is a gas used to treat and sterilize spices and other agricultural products to control microbial growth. It leaves traces in practically all food classifications like noodles, bread, tofu, soy sauce, pizza, etc. It is also used to sterilize surgical and medical equipment like personal protective equipment (PPE).

Two, Lucky Me! products manufactured in Thailand have been subject to a recall in some countries of the European Union especially Ireland, Malta, and France over concerns of high level of EtO. The EU limits it to zero parts per million (ppm).

Three, a leftist and socialist-leaning local organization lobbied the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to “immediately recall the products if it genuinely determined to be contaminated.”

Four, the FDA has released a statement on July 11 saying that EtO “is present in the environment, comes from various sources including plants and the heating of cooking oils… Consumption of foods containing residual EtO does not pose an acute risk to health… The United States, Canada and Singapore have assigned… EtO range 7 ppm to 50 ppm maximum residue limit (MRL). In the Philippines, EtO is allowed for gas sterilization of certain agricultural products.”

Five, Monde Nissin, manufacturer of Lucky Me! is a Philippine-based transnational food and beverages company and exports to the world many market-leading brands like Lucky Me! instant noodles, and SkyFlakes and Fita crackers. They said that EtO is not added in noodles but there are just traces when the agricultural products were treated with this gas.

Here are the respective implications of facts one to five:

One, EtO is a useful gas and should not be considered as a contaminant or pollutant gas, the public should not be scared of it.

Two, by EU standards, the EU should also recall bread, tofu, pepper, etc. with traces of EtO in their grocery shelves and have more food insecurity.

Three, the local socialists would rather see more food insecurity here, perhaps to hurt a big capitalist food manufacturer, and see more political upheavals against the new administration.

Four, the Philippines and other countries should align their MRL with the US and Singapore to help stabilize the food supply.

I checked the BusinessWorld Top 1,000 Corporations 2021 report: Monde Nissin is ranked #32 in 2020 with a gross revenue of P54.2 billion, 6.9% higher than 2019 revenues when the top 1,000 companies’ total gross revenues suffered a decline of 13.2% over 2019 level.

Five, Monde Nissin being a big food manufacturer with rising revenues despite the pandemic and lockdowns means it is a big contributor to local food security, a big job creator, and a big taxpayer.

I also checked some components of the Philippines’ recent inflation rates — it turns out that ready-made food products like noodles have price increases that were nearly one-half of overall inflation (See Table 1). Thus, ample supply of those ready-made foods actually temper and control higher inflation.

The public and government agencies should junk the leftist lobby and ignore the EU’s zero tolerance for EtO. The FDA is starting from a good scientific argument in this case. We should have a better food supply, both of raw and manufactured food. We should have more food security and lower food inflation. And we should have more big Philippines transnational companies exporting more commodities to the world.

BUREAUCRACY RIGHTSIZING
On July 13 and 14, I saw two television/radio interviews of Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman where she reiterated the DBM’s plan to “rightsize” the bureaucracy. According to Secretary Pangandaman, rightsizing is to “determine which among the 187 government agencies and government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) with more or less 2-million personnel, may be streamlined through merging, restructuring, or abolition.”

This is a good move by the Marcos Jr. economic team and I support it. There should be some spending cuts to reduce the need for more debt to pay old debts.

I computed the averages in government spending and GDP level every four years, computed the expenditures/GDP ratio, and compared it with average GDP growth for the same four-year period. The result seems convincing — we have faster economic growth when government spending (and borrowings) decline, and vice versa (Table 2).

Meanwhile, my friend and fellow BusinessWorld columnist Romy Bernardo wrote in his column yesterday, “A first look at the medium-term fiscal program,” that “the government’s 6.5% to 8% growth target through 2028 is rather ambitious… rather the 6-7% of the past decade pre-pandemic.”

Romy has good reasons for arguing his numbers but I think the economic team’s 6.5-8% growth targets are achievable. Partly because I believe that the US, Canada, and Europe will deteriorate economically and deindustrialize in the short and medium term, many companies there will migrate to Asia including the Philippines. It will be a supply-push investment plus demand-pull investment if we do big reforms like faster growth, reduced debt stock without resorting to high taxation, and no threats of blackouts, nor yellow and red alerts.

ELECTRICITY DEMAND AND PRICES
On July 13, I joined the media briefing of the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP). Their data show the following: 1.) based on peak power demand for June, the 2022 numbers are much higher than the pre-pandemic 2019 level and implies that economic recovery is indeed occurring; 2.) Customer effective spot settlement price (ESSP) this year declined in April-May and increased only in June; and, 3.) Coal share to total power generation has increased to 60% while the share of Malampaya natural gas has declined to 19%, and the share of solar + wind has shrunk to only 2.2% as the country experienced less-windy and more cloudy conditions recently (Table 3).

If we want fast and sustained economic growth, and attract more foreign investors, we should rely less on unstable, unreliable, intermittent solar-wind and have more thermal fossil fuel plants, plus nuclear power.

DIPLOMATIC TOUR
The Embassy of Poland in Manila invited me on July 13 to a press conference by Marcin Przydacz, Undersecretary of State in Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Poland’s Ambassador to the Philippines, Jaroslaw Szczepankiewicz, was also there.

Mr. Przydacz’s tour of some ASEAN countries was meant for economic and business diplomacy, but his talk focused more on the invasion of Ukraine and why other countries like the Philippines should push back against Russia. I checked Poland’s inflation rate — it was 15.5% in June 2022, the highest since 1996 or 26 years ago.

I believe that it is the US- and EU-led economic war against Russia that has had an unlimited impact on global energy and commodity prices, and not the shooting war per se which is limited to Russia and Ukraine only. With rampaging inflation in many European economies that penalize their own citizens more and not Russia, I think Poland should focus more on business diplomacy in Asia and less on justifying politicized trade and investments.

MVP AND MPIC CONGLOMERATE
Finally, on July 14, Manuel V. Pangilinan (MVP), Chairman and President of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) celebrated his 76th birthday and I saw a short video clip of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. making a good vibes greeting to him, and a newspaper ad where key officials and business partners of MPIC gave their good wishes.

Miguel G. Belmonte, President and CEO of the PhilStar Media Group that includes BusinessWorld, said that MVP is not only his boss but also his inspiration to always give his best in his work.

Mike Toledo, Head of Government Relations and Public Affairs of MPIC, said that MVP’s commanding and purpose-driven leadership inspired the group to survive and thrive during the pandemic, and no one was left behind.

I think Mr. MVP has done a good job in further developing the Philippines’ toll roads, mining, energy, and media sectors. Consistent with my hypothesis that America and Europe will deindustrialize in the short and medium-term, Philippine conglomerates like MPIC should do more big, highly capital-intensive infrastructure projects to help attract those big companies from the west to the Philippines. Good health and more wealth, Mr. MVP.

 

Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Minimal Government Thinkers.

minimalgovernment@gmail.com

Rising seas are the next crisis for the world’s ports

WILLIAM WILLIAM-UNSPLASH

THE DELICATE choreography of ships, trains, and trucks at the world’s ports has been badly disrupted by the pandemic, and the turmoil is not likely to end soon. If a virus can have such an adverse impact on the journey of a plastic toy or automobile from Point A to Point B, consider the potential impact of something even more pervasive and powerful: water.

In the years ahead, sea level rise, more intense storm surge, and jacked-up tropical storms will be visiting many of the world’s roughly 3,800 ports. Most of those ports are coastal; roughly a third are located in a tropical band vulnerable to the most powerful effects of climate change. “If sea levels rise and storms become stronger as expected in the future due to climate change, the magnitude and costs of these disruptions are expected to grow,” states a report from the Environmental Defense Fund.

Ports cannot easily escape the influence of water. When extreme rains led to flooding in Itajai, Brazil, in 2017, the floodwaters produced currents strong enough to prevent ships from berthing. The port was closed for three weeks. Just as too much water poses a threat, so too does not enough. Extended drought along Germany’s River Rhine in 2018 lowered the water table and made it impossible for some ships to pass.

“Ports, working waterfronts, and coastal infrastructure more generally have a lot of pressures on them from a number of sides,” said Austin Becker, chair of the department of marine affairs at the University of Rhode Island. “They’re located in highly sensitive environments that are often in estuaries where riverine systems meet the ocean. They’re there because that was a nice way to get cargo from one country to another, and then get it inland through a riverine system.”

Because ports were early tenants of waterfront cities, there is no place to which they can easily retreat from rising seas. As Becker told me, cities grew up around the ports. And then the cities pushed the ports further toward the sea.

As cities have enveloped ports, so have the transportation networks that enable goods to travel from the sea inland. “They need all these other infrastructure connections that have grown around them over the years — rail systems and highway systems and pipelines and that kind of thing,” Becker said. In most prosperous, or even middling, cities, the land necessary for such systems is long spoken for. As a result, most train tracks, roadways, warehouses and other infrastructure adjacent to ports will not be moved to higher ground away from the water; they will have to be adapted to manage the rising threat.

Port infrastructure is constantly evolving, noted Philip Orton, a professor of ocean engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. Ports are accustomed to incorporating new technologies — and the biggest ports, which have had to evolve to handle the needs of enormous, 1,300-foot-long container ships, tend to be the most flexible. But the loading and transit areas behind ports are generally less innovative and less resilient. When storm surge from Hurricane Marie hit Southern California in August 2014, damage to the Port of Long Beach caused shipping operations to halt for several days. But as a subsequent report noted, it was months before the surrounding roads and facilities were back to normal.

The seas have been rising incrementally for centuries, but the projected rise in this century is markedly different, as are the consequences. The basic formula is this: Greenhouse gas emissions produce higher temperatures. Those higher temperatures warm the water, expanding the volume of the seas. As temperatures rise, ice stored at the poles and elsewhere — including mountain glaciers — melts, further increasing water volume. It is a powerful feedback loop that will cause the rate of sea rise to increase dramatically as the 21st century progresses.

More than 200 feet of potential global sea rise is currently stored in ice. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development says the world’s glaciers will lose between 18% and 36% of their ice mass this century. Meanwhile, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are melting at a faster pace than previously expected.

Millions of years ago, before those ice sheets materialized, water covered far more of the earth than it does now. The northern rim of the Gulf of Mexico, for example, was not along the beaches of what we now call Alabama and Mississippi. It was in present-day Illinois. The Gulf will not be flooding Chicago anytime soon. But at sea level, one foot of vertical rise can produce about 100 feet of horizontal spread. In many low places, that translates to a lot of flooding.

Sea level rise will not be consistent across the globe. But according to US government projections, if the world significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions, there may be about two feet of rise by 2100. If it doesn’t, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration notes, average sea level rise for the contiguous US could be more than seven feet. Ports, like other coastal real estate and infrastructure, are very much in the flood zone.

A paper by a team of researchers at Princeton and Rutgers points to a “preparedness dilemma” in the US. “While the federal government seeks to protect citizens from natural disasters, it has limited control over efforts to do so,” the researchers write. “Both the exposure and vulnerability to a coastal hazard are largely shaped by state and local land use and building codes.”

One thing that helps to galvanize political and financial support for resilience upgrades, they say, is a whopping storm:

In one model of the policy process, floods, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events have been viewed as “focusing events,” whereby they refocus the attention of elected officials and publics on an existing problem. During a focusing event, a “policy window” of opportunity opens for a short period, and advocates emerge, racing to push their preferred solutions through before the window closes.

For the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was a focusing event. Sandy shut down most of the port for a week, which resulted in 25,000 shipping containers being diverted to other ports. Waterways had to be surveyed and cleared. Some cargo terminals and maritime support facilities were out of commission longer, due to power failures and damaged equipment. Oil terminals, for example, couldn’t offload product from tankers because they lacked power. Damages to port authority operations, which include commuter rail, reached an astonishing $2.2 billion.

The Port Authority’s resilience and sustainability efforts after the storm included complex analysis of the port’s future but also some very basic problem solving. For example, engineers realized that motors for container cranes can be raised higher off the ground to avoid being inundated.

For the most part, cranes, like electrical substations and other vital infrastructure, are not owned by the Port Authority. So upgrading — which often means elevating — requires coordinated action with various private partners. Mitigation efforts at US ports, said Austin Becker, will require disparate interests coming together.

Given the central role that ports play in global commerce, however, those interests include more than those of shipping companies and others directly engaged in port activities. All kinds of businesses and consumers, including the most landlocked, depend on ports. Yet not all of those ports will prove dependable in the face of the 21st century’s rising waters. “Thousands of small and medium ports that provide these really essential services to their local economies and local regions don’t have the resources they need and are already working with outdated infrastructure,” Becker said.

Giants such as Long Beach and the Port of New York and New Jersey have the financial power and expertise to ride out the rising seas. As the water rises, however, hundreds of smaller ports are left hoping their luck doesn’t collide with the next waterborne “focusing event.”

BLOOMBERG OPINION

Emergency in Sri Lanka ahead of parliament vote for new president

SRI LANKAN military officer lowers the national flag at the flag square in Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 23, 2021. — REUTERS

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe gazetted orders late on Sunday for a state of emergency in the crisis-ridden island nation, in an effort to head off unrest ahead of a vote in parliament later this week to elect a new president.

Sri Lanka’s beleaguered leaders have imposed a state of emergency several times since April, when public protests took hold against the government’s handling of a deepening economic crisis and a persistent shortage of essentials.

“It is expedient, to do so, in the interests of public security, the protection of public order and the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community,” the notification stated.

Mr. Wickremesinghe had announced a state of emergency last week, after president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country to escape a popular uprising against his government, but it had not been officially notified or gazetted.

Late on Sunday, Mr. Wickremesinghe -— who was sworn in on July 15 as acting president — declared a fresh state of emergency, the specific legal provisions of which are yet to be announced by the government.

Previous emergency regulations have been used to deploy the military to arrest and detain people, search private property and dampen public protests.

The country’s commercial capital Colombo remained calm on Monday morning, with traffic and pedestrians out on the streets.

Bhavani Fonseka, senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, said declaring a state of emergency was becoming the government’s default response.

“This has proven ineffective in the past,” Mr. Fonseka told Reuters.

Mr. Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives and then Singapore last week after hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters came out onto the streets of Colombo a week ago and occupied his official residence and office.

Parliament accepted Mr. Rajapaksa’s resignation on Friday, and convened a day later to begin the process of electing a new president, with the vote set for Wednesday.

The crisis-hit nation also received a shipment of fuel arrived to provide some relief amid the crippling shortages.

Mr. Wickremesinghe, a six-time prime minister regarded as an ally of Mr. Rajapaksa, is one of the top contenders to take on the presidency full-time but protesters also want him gone, leading to the prospect of further unrest should he be elected.

Sajith Premadasa, leader of the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party, is another leading candidate, along with Dullas Alahapperuma, a senior ruling party lawmaker who served as the minister of mass media and a cabinet spokesperson. — Reuters

Ghana confirms its first outbreak of highly infectious Marburg virus

WIKIPEDIA

DAKAR — Ghana has officially confirmed two cases of the Marburg virus, a highly infectious disease similar to Ebola, its health service said on Sunday, after two people who later died tested positive for the virus earlier this month.

Tests conducted in Ghana came back positive on July 10, but the results had to be verified by a laboratory in Senegal for the cases to be considered confirmed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Further testing at the Institute Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal has corroborated the results,” Ghana Health Service (GHS) said in a statement.

GHS is working to reduce any risk of the virus spreading, including the isolation of all identified contacts, none of whom have developed any symptoms so far, it said.

This is only the second outbreak of Marburg in West Africa. The first ever case of the virus in the region was detected last year in Guinea, with no further cases identified.

“(Ghanaian) health authorities have responded swiftly, getting a head start preparing for a possible outbreak. This is good because without immediate and decisive action, Marburg can easily get out of hand,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.

The two patients in southern Ghana’s Ashanti region both had symptoms including diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomiting, before dying in hospital, the WHO said.

There have been a dozen major Marburg outbreaks since 1967, mostly in southern and eastern Africa. Fatality rates have varied from 24% to 88% in past outbreaks depending on the virus strain and case management, according to the WHO.

It is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, surfaces and materials, the WHO says. — Reuters

North Korea says it is nearing end of COVID crisis

A North Korea flag flutters next to concertina wire at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 9, 2017. — REUTERS/EDGAR SU/FILE PHOTO

SEOUL  — North Korea is on the path to “finally defuse” a crisis stemming from its first acknowledged outbreak of COVID-19, the state news agency said on Monday, while Asian neighbors battle a fresh wave of infections driven by Omicron subvariants.

The North says 99.98% of its 4.77 million fever patients since late April have fully recovered, but due to an apparent lack of testing, it has not released any figures of those that proved positive.

“The anti-epidemic campaign is improved to finally defuse the crisis completely,” KCNA said. It added that the North had reported 310 more people with fever symptoms.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has cast doubts on North Korea’s claims, saying last month it believed the situation was getting worse, not better, amid an absence of independent data.

The North’s declaration could be a prelude to restoring trade long hampered by the pandemic, one analyst said.

“Under the current trend, North Korea could announce in less than a month that its COVID-19 crisis is over and that could be a prelude to resuming cross-border trade,” said Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Sejong Institute’s North Korea studies center in South Korea.

Analysts say the authoritarian North has used the pandemic to tighten already strict social controls. Pyongyang blamed its outbreak on “alien things” near its border with the South, urging its people to avoid anything that comes from outside.

Daily new cases of fever in North Korea reported by KCNA have been declining since the reclusive country first acknowledged in mid-May that it was battling an outbreak of COVID-19.

Lacking a public vaccination effort, the North said it was running intensive medical checks nationwide, with daily PCR tests on water collected in borderline areas among the measures.

The North also said it has been developing new methods to better detect the virus and its variants, as well as other infectious diseases, such as monkeypox.

North Korea’s claim of “anti-epidemic stability” comes as other Asian countries grapple with a new wave of infections. China reported 691 new cases for Saturday with locally transmitted infections at a peak since May 23.

In the neighboring South, daily COVID infections jumped on Tuesday above 40,000 for the first time in two months, with authorities and experts predicting hundreds of thousands of new cases in coming weeks.

Japan also warned that a new wave of infections appeared to be spreading rapidly, as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called for special care ahead of school summer vacations.

Tokyo’s 16,878 new cases on Wednesday were the highest since February, while the nationwide tally rose above 90,000, in a recent surge of infections to levels unseen since early this year. — Reuters

Scorching heat expected to resume baking China

A GENERAL VIEW shows Beijing’s skyline on a sunny day in this file photo. — REUTERS

BEIJING — Searing summer heat waves are expected to return this week across large parts of China, lasting through late August, the state weather forecaster said, despite brief interludes of seasonal rain.

Temperatures from 39 degrees Celsius to 42 degrees Celsius are expected in the southern region after July 20, including the provinces of Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian, the China Meterological Administration said on Sunday.

Despite some weekend respite for provinces such as Hebei, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou and Jiangxi, maximum temperatures elsewhere are expected to hover over 37 degrees Celsius (98.6°F).

The sweltering heat will last from July 16 to Aug. 24 nationwide for an “extended period” of 40 days, up from the usual 30, the forecaster said on its website.

The so-called “sanfu”, or “three periods of laying low” during China’s summer refers to three annual 10-day stretches between July and August when temperatures and humidity peak.

But this year, the second phase is expected to run for 20 days from July 26 to Aug. 14, the forecaster said.

China has broiled in average temperatures of about 35 degrees Celsius (95°F) for the past two weeks, bringing buckled roads and more hospital visits because of heat stroke, sparking discussion on social media.

Heat waves have gripped several nations as raging forest fires sweep parts of Europe. Temperatures on the US west and southeast coasts have regularly hit 40 degrees Celsius to 45 degrees Celsius for several days.

On Monday, the Hong Kong observatory again warned of very hot weather in the global financial hub.

Chinese forecasters said the number of cities with high temperatures has gradually increased over the past 30 years. Many experts blame persistent high temperatures on global climate change. — Reuters

Pacific island nations, united, demand climate action as China, US woo

PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM/FORUMSEC.ORG

SUVA — Pacific island nations, courted by China and the United States, put the superpowers on notice, telling the world’s two biggest carbon emitters to take more action on climate change while pledging unity in the face of a growing geopolitical contest.

Leaders at a four-day summit of the Pacific Islands Forum, meeting in Fiji’s capital Suva, bristled at a Chinese attempt to split some of the nations off into a trade and security agreement, while Washington pledged more financial and diplomatic engagement.

The exclusive economic zones of the 17 forum members span 30 million square km (10 million square miles) of ocean — providing half the world’s tuna, the most-eaten fish. The nations are also feeling some of the severest effects of climate change as rising seas inundate lower-lying areas.

At the summit that ended on Thursday, leaders adopted language several members have used in declaring a climate emergency, saying this was supported not only by science but by people’s daily lives in the Pacific.

A communique, yet to be released, shows the nations focussed on the next United Nations climate conference, COP27. They will push for a doubling of climate finance to flow from big emitters to developing nations within two years, money they say is needed to adapt to rising sea levels and worsening storms.

The communique, seen by Reuters, also calls for meaningful progress at COP27 on financing for the “loss and damage” to vulnerable societies that cannot adapt and will need to relocate communities — a battle lost at last year’s global climate talks.

“What matters most to us is we secure bold commitments from all countries at COP27 to phase out coal and other fossil fuels and step up finance to the most vulnerable nations and advance causes like ‘loss and damage’ that matter dearly to the most at-risk island communities,” Fiji’s President Frank Bainimarama told reporters.

Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe, who literally made waves at the last global climate conference by standing knee-deep in seawater to show what his country faces, told Reuters: “There is technology available to protect the islands and raise the islands and that is what we are seeking. It is very costly.”

As the Pacific summit was ending, Australian coal-mining stocks soared on expectations China could resume imports after a two-year political dispute halted coal shipments to the world’s biggest coal burner from its second-biggest exporter.

In contrast to the market’s bullishness, leaders in the forum’s thatched-roof headquarters discussed how to deal with the statehood of people whose nation has sunk in rising seas, or rights to fishing grounds defined by their distance from a landmass that may disappear.

The communique cites an urgent need for assistance on debt vulnerability and the rising cost of food amid the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a video address to the forum, US Vice-President Kamala Harris pledged to triple funding to Pacific islands over a decade under a fisheries treaty, and open more embassies.

Pacific leaders at times showed irritation at the global focus on the contest between the Washington and Beijing over their region.

Australia, in tune, said less about security and pledged greater support for the climate change agenda of its neighbors, although maritime surveillance announcements to protect sustainable fishing hinted at its core anxiety.

“It’s harder for countries that are responsible for most of the illegal fishing then to argue they are going to support the region to stop illegal fishing,” Australia’s Pacific Minister Pat Conroy said in an interview, referring to China.

Australian officials privately say they do not want security choices in the region driven by economic ties to China, and although Pacific islands are sophisticated actors, they need funding support because many have historical debts to Beijing.

Fiji, for example, has taken no loans from China since 2012 but continues to service export-import bank loans for Chinese infrastructure projects that will cost the government FJ$40 million ($18 million) this year, budget documents show.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Michael Shoebridge said Beijing has a record of “splintering regionalism,” drawing a parallel between its recent Pacific diplomacy and a platform it created a decade ago to engage with European countries and bypass the European Union.

Some leaders said in interviews that China provided economic opportunities that small island economies could not ignore, although they agreed to work through the forum to stay unified in their response to great power competition, particularly on security, after disquiet that Beijing struck a security deal in April with the Solomon Islands.

The forum’s secretary-general openly criticized China’s bid to have around half the forum members sign a deal on trade and security in May that would exclude members with ties to Taiwan and exclude Australia and New Zealand. Leaders at the summit said it had been rushed without consultation.

China’s embassy in Fiji responded on Twitter on Saturday, saying Beijing had prepared and presented the outcome document to Pacific islands a month ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers. Beijing has created a new platform for cooperation with Pacific island countries through an annual meeting with its foreign minister, it said. — Reuters

A renewable source for a sustainable building

Solar panels to power JEG Tower in Cebu by end-July

In a more pressing call to mitigate the impact of climate change, businesses are facing an added responsibility to make sure that their operations and outputs lessen — if not totally remove — greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon emissions.

Real estate commercial and residential developer JEG Development Corporation (JDC) has been doing its share by integrating sustainability features in JEG Tower @ One Acacia, its flagship high-rise commercial tower in Cebu City.

The latest of these features will be solar panels, which are set to be installed by the end of this month, making JEG Tower the first commercial development in the city to use solar energy.

The installation of the panels is made possible by a 20-year power purchase agreement with Vivant Corp. subsidiary COREnergy for a zero cash-out solar photovoltaics (PV) plant.

JEG Tower @ One Acacia is set to utilize a 40 kilowatt-peak (kWp) solar PV system from over 100 pieces of polycrystalline PV modules installed on the crown of the 22-storey office and retail building.

The solar PV system will be able to supply electricity to fully or partially power the building’s lower ground floor up to the 6th floor. Tomas Tan, JEG Realty General Manager, further explained how the panels will power the tower.

“The building will be utilizing solar power to pump water from the cistern tank to the water tank above the roof deck, run all the electrical systems in the main lobby including the turnstiles, run the systems in the fire command center, run back of the house systems and/or the building manager’s office,” Mr. Tan detailed in a statement, adding that the building will use the generated energy in real time, requiring no electric storage.

“No batteries or net metering system is required since the power generated by the solar PV system will be immediately used to run the building,” he added.

For Marko Sarmiento, JEG Development Corporation and JEG Realty President, using renewable energy like solar to power JEG Tower is an opportunity worth taking.

“It is an important milestone for our company since it makes us the first developer in Cebu to have a solar roof deck installation on a high-rise office building. It is also consistent with our vision to be innovators in the industry,” Mr. Sarmiento said in another statement.

Sourcing out solar energy used to be a challenge, Mr. Sarmiento continued. Still, with suppliers like COREnergy, the developer can now fulfill its commitment to using a safer, environment-friendly energy option more affordably.

“Anything we can power through a sustainable source is a great benefit for a building. Beyond energy consumption, this further emphasizes the efficiency of our energy model and ultimately helps us lower carbon footprint,” JDC’s Brand Manager Ayla Gomez added.

Prior to installing solar panels, JEG Tower has energy-efficient features, including a recycling space for a materials recovery facility and a dedicated 20% of the estate to green spaces, among them a green rooftop that provides restoration of habitats that will support local flora and fauna.

Going above sustainability standards, JEG Tower ensures ozone protection by using R-410A, a hydrofluorocarbon refrigerant in air conditioning applications that does not contribute to ozone depletion. The tower also implemented an erosion and sedimentation control plan during construction.

For these earlier features, JEG Tower was recognized by esteemed bodies. The development was named the Best Commercial Green Development at the 8th PropertyGuru Philippines Property Awards in 2020. The following year, it achieved a LEED Gold Certification from the US Green Building Council.

 

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