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Bay Area will be full power in East Asia Super League

Andrew Nicholson — PBA MEDIA

INJURED Bay Area import Andrew Nicholson vows to be ready with a promise of spewing hotter flames when the Dragons take their act to the East Asia Super League (EASL) in March after a tough campaign that went the full route in the just-concluded PBA Commissioner’s Cup.

The 6-foot-10 American said he’s nearing full recovery from a left ankle injury he suffered in the finals against champion Barangay Ginebra and should be able to suit up when the Dragons resume training later this month. Still here in the Philippines.

“It’s getting better. I’ve been walking already. Another week and I’m good to go,” said Mr. Nicholson after his bad fall in Game 3 of the championship series that reached a pinnacle Game 7 before a record crowd of 54,589 fans at the Philippine Arena this weekend.

Mr. Nicholson served as the alternating import of Bay Area, along with guard Myles Powell, in the elimination round before owning the role as the latter suffered a foot injury of his own entering the playoffs.

A 19th overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft, Mr. Nicholson averaged 38.5 points, 11.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in the games he played prior to his injury for the Dragons, who eventually gambled on Mr. Powell for the last two games of the finals.

Mr. Nicholson said the entire PBA journey has only molded him and the entire Dragons to a whole different creature moving forward, especially after his all-out battles against the Filipino giants like June Mar Fajardo, Christian Standhardinger and Japeth Aguilar.

“I think we got better. We came here and that was our goal. That’s our main goal. It’s a good preparation for us and we’re looking forward to what we’re gonna have in the EASL,” added Mr. Nicholson as Bay Area revs up for the regional tilt slated on March 1 to 5 in Japan.

“We’re blessed to be a part of it. We’re grateful.”

Messrs. Nicholson and Powell never played together in the PBA as only one could suit up at once, explaining his confidence in what caliber they could potentially unleash in the EASL, where Philippine Cup champion San Miguel and runner-up TNT are also in as PBA bets.

“It will be interesting to see how other teams respond to having our full team play. We’re looking forward to that. It’s gonna be fun. The only times me and Myles have played together is in practice. It’ll be exciting what we can do together on the court at the same time and showcase what Bay Area Dragons are at 100 percent,” he concluded. — John Bryan Ulanday

Rublev tames Thiem, Sabalenka and Garcia stroll in Melbourne heat

ANDREY RUBLEV — 0M9EP

MELBOURNE — Fifth seed Andrey Rublev brought an end to the Australian Open campaign of former Grand Slam champion Dominic Thiem in the opening round on Tuesday when he overpowered the Austrian 6-3 6-4 6-2 on a sweltering John Cain Arena.

Mr. Thiem, a finalist at Melbourne Park and US Open champion in 2020, is on the comeback trail after a wrist injury and was able to compete only to a certain extent against the power of the rangy Russian.

In a match studded with high quality rallies between the two baseliners, Mr. Rublev broke for a 5-3 lead in the opening set, for 5-4 in the second and, after a huge roar, for 2-1 in the third.

Mr. Thiem was simply unable to get a foothold in the contest and the 25-year-old Mr. Rublev, a quarter-finalist at the Australian Open in 2021, served out for the match after little more than two hours on court.

Mr. Rublev, like all Russian and Belarusian players, is competing at the tournament without national affiliation as a result of last year’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tennis Australia on Tuesday morning banned fans from bringing flags of either nation into the Melbourne Park precinct after a Russian tricolor was hung on a bush next to a court where Ukrainian Kateryna Baindl was playing on Monday.

EXTREME HEAT
The heat was the other main topic of conversation on the second day of the championships as temperatures soared towards a forecast high of 36 degrees Celsius (96.8°F).

Play was suspended on the outside courts shortly after 2 p.m. (0300 GMT) local time as the tournament’s Extreme Heat Policy came into play.

Top women’s seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Caroline Garcia spent as little time as possible on Rod Laver Arena in their opening matches at the year’s first Grand Slam.

Fifth seed Ms. Sabalenka, who opened the year by winning the Adelaide International 1 title without losing a set, kept up her fine form with an emphatic 6-1 6-4 victory over Tereza Martincova.

Fourth seed Ms. Garcia, who won the WTA Finals last season, was equally convincing with a 6-3 6-0 win over Canadian qualifier Katherine Sebov in just over an hour.

Ms. Garcia will next face another Canadian in 2021 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, who came from an early break down to beat Alize Cornet 7-5 6-2.

Italian Martina Trevisan was the first seed to fall on Tuesday. The 21st seed went down 6-3 6-2 to Slovakian qualifier Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.

Novak Djokovic will begin his bid for a record-extending 10th title at Melbourne Park against Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena in the final match of the day on Rod Laver Arena. — Reuters

Dallas Cowboys kicker Brett Maher’s 4 straight missed PATs make history

NOT everyone on the Dallas sideline was enjoying the Cowboys’ dominant start to the playoffs Monday night.

After the Cowboys and the host Tampa Bay Buccaneers traded punts in each of the first four drives to start their NFC wild-card game, the Cowboys scored touchdowns on each of their next four possessions.

But each drive ended the same way — a missed extra point by Brett Maher.

That futility put the Cowboys kicker into the record books, on a page he doesn’t want. Mr. Maher is the first player to miss four extra points in a single playoff game, according to the NFL. He also is the first player to miss four extra points in a game (regular season or postseason) since at least 1932.

Mr. Maher’s first two misses were to the right and his third and final one of the first half was pulled to the left. His fourth attempt, with 10:04 left in the third quarter, tipped the top of the right upright before going wide.

What’s more, he missed his final PAT attempt of the regular season, giving him five straight missed extra points.

Mr. Maher finally made an extra point with 10:13 left in the fourth quarter.

Four other kickers have missed two in a postseason game, including Tyler Bass of the Buffalo Bills in last season’s playoffs. Bass missed two against the New England Patriots on Jan. 15, 2022.

The others to miss two in a postseason game are Roy Gerela of the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Bills on Dec. 22, 1974; Errol Mann of the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XI vs. the Minnesota Vikings on Jan. 9, 1977; and the Bills’ Steve Christie against the Raiders on Jan. 15, 1994.

Only Mr. Gerela has missed more extra points in his postseason career than Mr. Maher. Mr. Gerela missed six in 15 playoff games, while Mr. Maher has missed four (all on Monday) in three postseason games. Patriots star Stephen Gostkowski (29 playoff games) and the San Francisco 49ers’ Mike Cofer (12 playoff games) are tied for second with Mr. Maher, each with four career missed PATs in the postseason.

Luckily for Mr. Maher and the Cowboys, the Buccaneers’ offense was equally inept, with five punts and an interception thrown in the end zone in their first six possessions (other than their drive that finished at midfield to end the half). — Reuters

J. Clarkson leads Jazz past Timberwolves

JORDAN Clarkson hit a game-winning free throw with four seconds remaining and scored 21 points to lead the Utah Jazz to a 126-125 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday afternoon in Minneapolis.

Rookies Walker Kessler and Ochai Agbaji each played pivotal roles in helping the Jazz win their third game in four outings, and seven Utah players reached double figures in scoring to make up for the absence of leading scorer Lauri Markkanen. Mr. Kessler finished with 20 points and a career-high 21 rebounds with four assists. — Reuters

Liberty upgrades

Don’t look now, but the Liberty have just made themselves bona fide contenders for the 2023 Women’s National Basketball Association title. Their acquisition of 2021 Most Valuable Player awardee Jonquel Jones provides them with an extremely solid frontcourt presence on both ends of the court and, at the same time, sets them up for more in the offseason. Needless to say, in their sights is top free agent Breanna Stewart, whose roots close to Gotham and family situation seem to put them in front of the line of suitors for her services.

True, the Liberty received a hefty bill in the process. They bid goodbye to starting center Natasha Howard, longtime rotation regular Rebecca Allen, and its first-round draft pick this year. Then again, it’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to win big. Franchise owner Joe Tsai isn’t just averse to making high-risk-high-reward moves; he’s doing so while moving chess pieces against competition seemingly playing checkers. Even if nothing else were to happen, the arrival of Jones bolsters the competitiveness of the green and black, especially in the face of the marked improvement of 2020 top pick Sabrina Ionescu.

That said, Stewart remains the prime target, and the Liberty’s astute actuations place them in position to meet their objectives. They now have enough salary cap space to ink her to a supermax deal and, at the same time, venture further in the market for another vital cog. To argue that things are looking up would be understating the obvious; in any case, they won’t be satisfied with getting the seventh seed merely to set up a one-and-done appearance, as they did last year. Imagine if she decides to headline their cause this year.

The key, of course, is Stewart’s predilection. Will she opt to follow in the footsteps of living legend Sue Bird and stay with the Storm? Or will she bolt for the lure and allure of New York? Even as the odds point to the latter, only time can truly tell where her sentiments lie. In the meantime, the Liberty can count their bountiful blessings and look forward to a productive season.

 

Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.

CEOs most gloomy on growth in more than a decade — survey

The Wall Street sign is pictured at the New York Stock exchange (NYSE) in the Manhattan borough of New York City, March 9, 2020. — REUTERS/CARLO ALLEGRI/FILE PHOTO

DAVOS, Switzerland — Confidence among companies in their growth prospects has dropped the most since the 2007-08 global financial crisis due to rising inflation, macroeconomic volatility and geopolitical conflicts, a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)showed.

With 73% of chief executive officers (CEOs) around the world expecting global economic growth to decline over the next 12 months, this gloomy view is the most pessimistic CEOs have been since PwC began the survey more than a decade ago, it said on Monday.

The “Big Four” auditor also said that it marked a significant departure from optimistic outlooks in 2021 and 2022.

The survey also found 60% of CEOs do not plan to reduce the size of their workforce in the next 12 months, while 80% do not plan to reduce staff remuneration in order to retain talent and mitigate workforce attrition rates.

The companies that did well in 2022 are likely to see a more challenging year ahead, PwC Global Chairman Bob Moritz told the Reuters Global Markets Forum (GMF) on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.

Nearly 40% of more than 4,400 chief executives surveyed said their companies would not be economically viable over the next decade unless they innovated and transformed at a faster pace.

“It is both the timeframe and magnitude that is surprising — how do I survive the next two to three years, and make my way through a challenging macroeconomic environment, while transforming my organization to be fit for growth over the next 10 years,” Mr. Moritz said.

The survey also found that companies are cutting costs, even as many do not plan to reduce headcount or compensation in the fight to retain talent.

“You’re starting to see some differentiation … in terms of those (firms) that have a debt-driven balance sheet that will struggle while dealing with rising interest rates and inflationary pressures, versus those that have done a good job managing down debt and have the capacity to transform their portfolios,” Mr. Moritz said.

Separately, two-thirds of private and public sector chief economists surveyed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) expect a global recession in 2023.

Other highlights from the PwC survey include:

Half the CEOs reported reducing operating costs, 51% said they were raising prices, and 48% were diversifying product and service offerings.

Climate risk did not feature as prominently as a short-term risk over the next 12 months relative to other global risks. — Reuters

Climate change leads to more malaria, tuberculosis up in a recession 

PHILIPPINE STAR/ MICHAEL VARCAS

DAVOS, Switzerland — Climate change is increasing malaria infections, the executive director of the world’s biggest health fund said in Davos on Monday.  

Huge surges in malaria infections followed recent floods in Pakistan and cyclones in Mozambique in 2021, said Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.  

“Whenever you have an extreme weather event it’s fairly common to have a surge of malaria,” he said at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.  

The increase in extreme weather events, and the resulting large pools of standing water that attract mosquitoes, are leaving poorer populations vulnerable.  

He said climate change was also changing the geography of mosquitoes. The highlands of Africa, in Kenya and Ethiopia, are now succumbing to malaria because of a shift in the low temperatures that once made the area unsustainable for mosquitoes.  

Mr. Sands runs the world’s largest global fund, which invests in fighting tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS in some of the poorest nations in the world.  

The fund, which set a target of raising $18 billion, has so far raised $15.7 billion, the largest amount of money ever raised in global health.  

Part of the shortfall, he said, was a billion-dollar hit from currency fluctuations that affected donations.  

Looking ahead, climate change is just one of the factors that could hamper efforts to eradicate the diseases, Mr. Sands said.  

The war in Ukraine has led to a worsening of AIDS and tuberculosis. In middle income countries such as India, Pakistan, and Indonesia, tuberculosis cases amongst the poorest populations are also rising.  

With fears of a global recession rising, Mr. Sands said those countries would come under increased pressure.  

“I think the big concern from our perspective is what happens to health budgets in the 120 or so countries we are investing. And even within those health budgets, how much is being taken up by COVID?” — Reuters 

China’s population falls for first time since 1961

PEOPLE shop for Chinese Lunar New Year decorations in Yu Yuan Garden in Shanghai, China, Jan. 31, 2019. — REUTERS/ALY SONG

BEIJING/HONG KONG — China’s population fell last year for the first time in six decades, a historic turn that is expected to mark the start of a long period of decline in its citizen numbers with profound implications for its economy and the world.

The drop, the worst since 1961, the last year of China’s Great Famine, also lends weight to predictions that India will become the world’s most populous nation this year.

China’s population declined by roughly 850,000 to 1.41175 billion at the end of 2022, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said.

Long term, United Nations experts see China’s population shrinking by 109 million by 2050, more than triple the decline of their previous forecast in 2019.

That’s caused domestic demographers to lament that China will get old before it gets rich, slowing the economy as revenues drop and government debt increases due to soaring health and welfare costs.

“China’s demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected. China will have to adjust its social, economic, defense and foreign policies,” said demographer Yi Fuxian.

He added that the country’s shrinking labor force and downturn in manufacturing heft would further exacerbate high prices and high inflation in the United States and Europe.

The national statistics bureau said in a statement that people should not worry about the decline in population as “overall labor supply still exceeds demand.”

China’s birth rate last year was just 6.77 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 7.52 births in 2021 and marking the lowest birth rate on record.

The death rate, the highest since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution, was 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, which compares with rate of 7.18 deaths in 2021.

ONE-CHILD POLICY IMPACT
Much of the demographic downturn is the result of China’s one-child policy imposed between 1980 and 2015 as well as sky-high education costs that have put many Chinese off having more than one child or even having any at all.

The data was the top trending topic on Chinese social media after the figures were released on Tuesday. One hashtag, “Is it really important to have offspring?” had hundreds of millions of hits.

“The fundamental reason why women do not want to have children lies not in themselves, but in the failure of society and men to take up the responsibility of raising children. For women who give birth this leads to a serious decline in their quality of life and spiritual life,” posted one netizen with the username Joyful Ned.

China’s stringent zero-COVID policies that were in place for three years have caused further damage to the country’s demographic outlook, population experts have said.

Local governments have since 2021 rolled out measures to encourage people to have more babies, including tax deductions, longer maternity leave and housing subsidies. President Xi Jinping also said in October the government would enact further supportive policies.

Measures so far, however, have done little to arrest the long-term trend.

Online searches for baby strollers on China’s Baidu search engine dropped by 17% in 2022 and are down by 41% since 2018, while searches for baby bottles are down more than a third since 2018. In contrast, searches for elderly care homes surged eightfold last year.

The reverse is playing out in India, where Google Trends shows a 15% year-on-year increase in searches for baby bottles in 2022, while searches for cribs rose almost fivefold. — Reuters

Years of cat-and-mouse end as top mafioso cornered in Italian clinic

STOCK PHOTO | Image by rawpixel.com from Freepik

ROME — Italian investigators knew a lot of things about mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro.

He liked wearing designer clothes, expensive sun glasses and Rolex watches, he loved video games and had a taste for luxury foods. He was also a ruthless killer who once claimed to have murdered enough people to fill a cemetery.

What they didn’t know was where he was.

But on Monday, after 30 years on the run, the most wanted mafioso in Italy was finally captured, seized in a private clinic in the Sicilian capital Palermo after police found out he was receiving treatment there for cancer.

“It is a day of celebration when we can tell our children that the mafia can be beaten,” said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who flew straight to Sicily when news of the arrest broke, underlining the importance of the capture.

Messina Denaro was born in the southwestern Sicilian town of Castelvetrano in 1962, the son of a mafioso. He followed his father into the mob and at 15 he was already carrying a gun. Police believe he carried out his first killing when he was 18.

The Castelvetrano clan was allied to the Corleonesi, headed by Salvatore “the Beast” Riina, who became the undisputed “boss of bosses” thanks to his ruthless pursuit of power.

Nicknamed “’U Siccu” (The Skinny One), Messina Denaro became his protege and showed he could be just as pitiless as his master, picking up 20 life prison terms in trials held in absentia for his role in an array of mob murders.

Details of his crimes emerged in the many court hearings.

Police say he was heavily involved in the planning of the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino – crimes that shocked the nation and sparked a crackdown that led to Riina’s arrest in 1993.

He was also held responsible for subsequent bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993 that killed 10 people in an apparently failed bid to force the government to halt its war on the Sicilian mob, know as Cosa Nostra (Our Thing).

He was also found guilty of helping organise the kidnapping of Giuseppe Di Matteo, 12, to try to dissuade the boy’s father from giving evidence against the mafia. The boy was held for two years before he was strangled and his body dissolved in acid.

HOARDS OF MESSAGES
Messina Denaro went into hiding in 1993 as a growing number of turncoats started providing details of his role in the mob. He communicated with other mafiosi via “pizzini”, small pieces of paper sometimes written in code distributed by messengers.

A mass of these notes was found in 2006 when police caught Bernardo Provenzano, who had led Cosa Nostra after Riina’s arrest. In a letter to a contact, Messina Denaro said he couldn’t believe how careless Provenzano had been.

“When I receive a letter, even from family members, I reply as quickly as possible and immediately burn the one that arrived,” he wrote.

He never married, but was known to have a number of lovers. Denaro wrote that he had a daughter, but had never met her. He is also believed to have a son, but little is known about him.

As police repeatedly swept Sicily looking for clues about his whereabouts, more correspondence emerged showing they were dealing with someone who saw himself very differently to the way he was portrayed by his foes.

“I only care about being a fair man, I have made fairness my philosophy of life and I hope to die a fair man,” he wrote in a letter dated Feb. 1, 2005, found in an abandoned hideout.

He quotes the bible and French writer Daniel Pennac, amongst others, and laments the fact he had little formal education.

In an eavesdropped recording from prison, Riina is heard complaining about his one-time protege, apparently perturbed by news he was investing in wind farms and angered he hadn’t taken charge of the mafia, like he had.

“The only guy who could do something because he was straight… didn’t do anything,” Riina told a fellow inmate.

Despite his notoriety, prosecutors have always doubted that Messina Denaro became the “boss of bosses” after Provenzano’s capture, saying it was more likely that he was simply the head of Cosa Nostra in western Sicily.

Nonetheless, the fact he managed to escape arrest for so many years showed he had a fierce, loyal following.

Whispers surfaced last year that he was seriously ill and prosecutors finally seem to have located him thanks to the fact he needed regular treatment at a Palermo clinic.

“We have not won the war, we have not defeated the mafia but this battle was a key battle to win, and it is a heavy blow to organised crime,” Prime Minister Meloni said. – Reuters

Dreaming about the World Cup: Not impossible

CONNOR COYNE-UNSPLASH

(Part 4)

I am convinced that by combining the efforts of both public and private groups committed to helping the Philippine football national team to qualify for the World Cup, we can, in less than a decade, actually achieve what seemed to be in the past an impossible dream.

I am encouraged by the fact that world-class players like Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Gavi, Pedri, Ansu Fati, Ferran Torres and many others started to play for their respective national teams in the World Cup when they were still in their teens or at least in their early 20s. We should work on giving intensive training to the likes of Sandro Reyes of Southridge who, when he was 13, was admitted to the famous football school called La Masia of FC Barcelona which trained Messi, Iniesta (who won the World Cup for Spain in 2010), Javi Hernandez, and many other world-class players. If we do so, within a decade or so, we can have enough quality players to enable the Azkals qualify for the World Cup — way before the end of this century.

Among the most active in the private sector in promoting football (and futsal) as a national sport are the officials of the Henry V. Moran Foundation, headed by Danny Moran.

In an e-mail to me, commenting on the first articles in this series, he opined that the success of football in the Philippines will come more from the women’s rather than the men’s team — warming the hearts of those advocating gender equality. The Filipinas (the national Women’s Football Team, formerly known as the Malditas) already qualified to play in the Women’s World Cup to be held in Australia and New Zealand this year.

Danny informed me that Vic Hermans, the Technical Director for Philippine Futsal of the Henry V. Moran Foundation, observes that in the Southeast Asian region (and probably even in the whole of Asia), Filipinas are stronger and more diverse in their skills/abilities (due to different strengths coming from the diverse regions within the Philippine Archipelago). In addition, Filipino women are more competitive in sports as compared to their Asian and Middle Eastern counterparts, particularly in futsal. This is evidenced by the fact that our women have won more international championships in sports than our men, such as in golf, tennis, weight lifting, martial arts, and even boxing.

Danny reiterates the wisdom of starting with futsal as the way to develop football. Futsal is relatively new in Asia so the Philippines has better chances of taking a lead in its development, especially for women. Although the national Women’s Football Team made it to the World Cup, over 80% of the team members are Fil-foreigners, mostly from the United States. Because of the stiff competition abroad, especially in Europe and the United States, we are a long way from getting local players to ever qualify for the National Team. This problem is aggravated by the fact that we lack football fields in our public schools. There are very few local women’s football leagues. It is really a challenge to find local talents.

With futsal, girls from the ages of six to eight can start playing in our public-school basketball courts all over the country. Because of the huge numbers of our youth, some of these girls can find their way to the National Football team in the near future. There is also the psychological reality that as they reach their puberty, girls tend to be more mature, responsible, and motivated than boys of the same ages as reflected by the higher grades of girls in junior and senior high schools as compared to those of their male classmates. Dropout rates among girls at these school levels are also lower.

It is an opportune time to introduce futsal as part of the sports curriculum in public schools because of the renewed priority that Vice-President Sara Duterte, who is the Education Secretary, wants to assign to values education or character development in the public schools. There are private schools like those of the Don Bosco priests or of the Parents for Education Foundation (providentially headed by Danny Moran as Chairman) who consider “sports as means for character development.” The programs of these private schools can be used as templates for the widespread introduction of futsal into the public schools.

As Kevin Goco, a close associate of Danny in the promotion of futsal and football, wrote in an e-mail to me: “I believe DepEd (Department of Education) can learn a lot from the implementation of the Sports Club program in the PAREF (Parents for Education Foundation) schools. DepEd has a budget to fund the Sports Club program in public schools and it is a model based on a consultancy engagement with Stella Urbiztondo with the Department. Stella was also PAREF’s consultant for its own Sports Club Program. It has a head start and decided to roll out the Sports Club Program early in 2022 while DepEd is still in the deliberation stage on how to implement the program. I recently attended a conference hosted by DepEd where they discussed which sports to prioritize under the Sports Club program. The priority sports were all individual and indigenous sports (badminton, table tennis, sepak takraw, weightlifting). Futsal and football were not even in the list, and sadly most team sports were left out. It seems that the National Academy of Sports, which is the new government sports academy under DepEd and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), is prioritizing individual sports where there is a higher chance of obtaining medals, such as in weightlifting, table tennis, shooting and taekwondo.”

It has to be pointed out, however, that the focus on getting individual medals completely ignores the greater impact of team sports, if properly played, on the building of character and the inculcation of the appropriate values among a large number of Filipino youth. The fostering of individual sports has limited multiplier effects on vast numbers of school children, especially at the basic education levels.

Promoting futsal and football in the public schools, however, will not be a walk in the park. A good number of bureaucratic and cultural obstacles have to be overcome. It is, therefore, important that all sectors of Philippine society are convinced that football is a sport in which Filipinos can excel, given enough support, and that football is an effective means of developing the appropriate values among the youth.

I am fully aware of the hurdles very ably enumerated by my friend and former school mate at De La Salle University, Oscar Lagman, who wrote in this paper that aspiring to be qualify for the World Cup in the next decade or so is a “pipe dream.” I can only reply “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” I have also learned not to downplay basketball as I advocate greater interest among the youth in football. It need not be an “either/or” proposition. Even if football will always play second fiddle to basketball, our demographic dividend for at least the next 20 years will provide us enough young people for both sports.

 

Bernardo M. Villegas has a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard, is professor emeritus at the University of Asia and the Pacific, and a visiting professor at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. He was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.

bernardo.villegas@uap.asia

Seize the opportunities of RCEP

@WWW.SLON.PICS-FREEPIK

The Philippines is one of the signatories to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which was signed on Nov. 15, 2020 after eight long years of negotiations. The free trade agreement (FTA) among the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), South Korea, China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand is expected to bring significant economic benefits to its signatories.

The FTA aims to promote greater openness, create a more business-friendly environment, encourage closer integration of economies, and institute a stable, predictable, and rules-based system of trade. It will eliminate as much as 90% of the tariffs on imports between its signatories within 20 years of coming in effect.

For the Philippines, specifically, the FTA promises to be a crucial step in our shift to an investment-driven economy, given our underlying economic challenges and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Being an RCEP signatory will be crucial to our recovery and sustainable growth.

There is a crucial step, however, that needs to be taken before the Philippines can fully reap the benefits of being part of this agreement: Our country still has to ratify this treaty.

Only the Philippines and Myanmar have not yet ratified the RCEP. Former President Rodrigo Duterte, for his part, ratified it in September 2021 and forwarded it to the Senate for deliberation and eventual concurrence. Our senators, however, deferred their concurrence, seeing a need for safeguards for our embattled agriculture sector.

During the Senate hearings earlier this year, no less than the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) argued that pursuing parallel efforts — for RCEP to boost our economy, and for efforts to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the agriculture sector — is definitely possible and in fact beneficial in the long run.

Thus, earlier this month, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri stated his commitment that upon the resumption of sessions this year, the Senate will prioritize the ratification of the RCEP and the passage of bills of national importance.

We hope our senators remain true to their word.

The RCEP’s specific benefits to the Philippine economy, given our peculiar situation and unique profile, are many.

Foremost, our co-signatories make up roughly 50.4% of our export markets, 67.3% of our import sources, and 58% of the source of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs).

The RCEP will also improve our trade position, which as of November 2022 is in a deficit amounting to $3.68 billion. Imports continue to dominate our total trade, accounting for 60.3% of the total. The FTA could be an opportunity to gain access to a wider export market, increase export production, and lessen our reliance on imports by encouraging more investments, specifically in the manufacturing sector.

Investment-led growth will create higher quality jobs and more employment opportunities for Filipinos, making the economy more resilient and productive. Indeed, the RCEP will enhance investment opportunities through improved promotion, protection, and facilitation.

With lower tariffs, local industries will be encouraged to produce more and engage further in trade.

Of course, lower tariffs could be a double-edged sword and can also cause larger import volumes to flow to the Philippines, exacerbating the trade deficit. Still, I believe the exposure and increased access of the Philippines to export markets far outweigh this potential risk. The RCEP will enable our industries to compete in the international market and push our industries to be better and more efficient.

With concerns on agriculture addressed and fears assuaged, our senators must now move fast and concur with the executive ratification of the RCEP. Every day they tarry is another day of missed opportunities in export and employment. Most importantly, finally ratifying the RCEP will send a strong message to the rest of the world that the Philippines is committed to having a stable policy and regulatory environment. After all, we are aware that these are critical to attracting investments.

*****

Another opportunity is the upgrade negotiations for the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA) that were concluded substantially last November. At that time, the Philippines was not able to make ambitious commitments regarding investments because reforms, such as amendments to the Public Service Act, had not yet been passed.

But now these game-changing reforms have been enacted into law.

This is now a valuable opportunity for the Philippines to demonstrate to the rest of the world that it is open to investment. Commitments based on actual legislation offer significant assurance to the international business community that the Philippines is a good place to invest in, and that policies are not made or changed on a whim: they have solid legislative, legal basis. Thus, these critical economic reforms cannot be arbitrarily undone.

Like the situation with RCEP, the AANZFTA offers a window of opportunity that would be important to our economic recovery and growth.

Ratifying the RCEP now and seizing its huge opportunities will show that the Philippines is ready to sustain a growth trajectory.

 

Victor Andres “Dindo” C. Manhit is the president of the Stratbase ADR Institute.

Gold is getting its glitter back

ZLATAKY CZ-UNSPLASH

WHEN I recently went to talk to some school children about the nature of money, I brought props: a cowrie shell, a piece of play paper and a small handful of shredded dollar bills. Which of these, I asked, is money?

The point I wanted to make: It is all about belief. If everyone agrees something is money, it is indeed money. One particularly engaged child interrupted me just as I was getting going on the rai stones of Yap to ask: Can fiat currencies really survive? Not what you might expect from an 11-year-old.

The answer, of course, was that it depends what one means by survive. Carry on for many more decades under the same names of dollars, pounds, euros, etc.? Sure. Do so without losing purchasing power? Not a hope. Even inflation at 2% each year halves the value of your money in 36 years. And inflation at 2% for the long-term is something of a distant dream at the moment. CPI is down to 6.5% in the US and it will fall further from here, but it is very unlikely to settle at 2%, where most central banks still have their targets set.

We live in a world of very big government — one in which the answer to anything is more state spending (the UK’s response to rising energy bills, for example, is to have the state cover much of the cost) and in which governments have taken on vast investment responsibilities (in green energy, for instance). Deficits and borrowing will rise as a result. At the same time, the effort to build resilient supply chains and to reshore manufacturing will make everything more expensive, as will rising labor costs around the world. The disinflationary effects of China entering the global workforce are long gone (see Larry Summers on this).

So inflation is with us for the long haul. If you are holding cash, know that it is only a temporary king.

This all led the children and me to a discussion of whether there is anything that stays money forever. Enter physical gold, the only thing that has been considered real money by most people and that has maintained its purchasing power for nearly 3,000 years. This isn’t a particularly interesting conversation if there is no inflation: If a pound or a dollar holds its purchasing power, who needs gold? It is heavy, you have to store it, it has no yield. When inflation is on the table, things get more interesting.

With this in mind, you might have expected gold to be all the rage last year. It was not. Instead, even as inflation hit close to 10% pretty much everywhere, the gold price (in dollars at least) did nothing. Gold mining shares, a good way to get leveraged exposure to gold, fell more than 8% and demand for gold ETFs fell for the second year in a row. Exasperating stuff.

Still, things did pick up toward the end of the year. The gold price (in dollars) is up some 15% since the beginning of last November and the miners have begun to come good too: The GDX gold miners index outperformed the S&P 500 by 14.9% in November and 4.6% in December, say the analysts at Stifel. The outflows from gold ETFs also slowed for the third month in a row in December — with the US even seeing mildly positive demand, to the tune of around $530 million.

This year is looking good too: The gold price is up 7% in the last month in sterling and dollars. The VanEck Junior Gold Miners UCITS ETF (which I hold) is up 10% year to date. Might there be something brewing here? Stifel thinks so. For them, it’s all about the Fed pivot.

Since gold has been allowed to trade freely, there have been 10 periods in which US benchmark rates have peaked. Theoretically, a peak in rates is a positive for gold, which offers no yield so looks less attractive as an investment as interest rates rise and more attractive as they fall. But it works in real life, too. Look at the periods five months before each peak (possibly roughly where we are now given that US CPI has just seen its first monthly drop in more than two years) plus six months, and you see that gold averaged a gain of 18% during these times and also outperformed the S&P 500 by 9.7% through the rate peaks. Good news.

There’s more. Recessions have followed the rate peaks within 18 months 60% of the time (the average being 10 months) and gold has shown a strong tendency to do well in these periods too (beating the S&P500 by 26%) — particularly when recession coincides with a stock market downturn. Regardless of what regulators say about past performance telling us nothing about the future, this does give good reason to think about holding gold in the short-term.

It is also worth thinking about who’s buying gold at the moment. Last year, there was much talk about who the “mystery buyer” in the gold market was. It wasn’t, it turns out, money managers in the US (the ones who should have been looking at the same data as Stifel), but central banks.

Overall, the World Gold Council estimates that central bank buying has lifted gold reserves to their highest level since 1974, with massive purchases from Russia and China being key. The People’s Bank of China bought 62 tons of gold in November and December alone. Why? To build reserve currency status, to hedge against the dollar in the wake of rising sanctions risk, to diversify — all things are possible given the geopolitical environment.

TD Securities are unconvinced on the case for gold. To them, Chinese buying has created a nasty $150 per ounce mispricing in the market — one that will correct if they stop buying.

But you could look at this the other way around and take Chinese buying as a clear reminder that gold is one of the few things that everyone thinks is money — from the precocious 11-year-old I met last month to the heads of every central bank in the world. As Alex Chartres of Ruffer recently said on my podcast, there aren’t many other things you can turn to as a long-term safe haven in today’s markets.

A year ago, some thought Bitcoin might be a rival — a digital gold even. The market has now “kneecapped” that idea. These days, if you want gold you will need to buy, well, gold. That being the case, the question is not have you too much, but have you enough — the very same question the head of the PBoC is clearly asking himself right now.

BLOOMBERG OPINION

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