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PhilHealth chief says past cases vs employees slowed down payment of hospital claims

PAST CASES filed against Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) employees in Cebu — involving payment of claims of hospitalized patients who later turned out negative for coronavirus — slowed down the state-owned agency’s payment of claims by other medical institutions, the PhilHealth chief said in a House of Representatives health committee hearing on Tuesday. 

PhilHealth President Dante A. Gierran said they are now hesitant to immediately pay for claims for fear of getting charged. He said confusion over the definition of “probable case” was at the root of the cases. 

Under PhilHealth Circular 2020-009, the agency should not pay for patients who tested negative for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). 

Several private hospitals have threatened to cut ties with the health insurance agency over delayed payments since last year.

Mr. Gierran said Jaime A. Almora, president of the Private Hospitals Association Philippines, has pointed to the Cebu case as a cause for the slowdown in payments.

Rep. Angelina D.L. Tan, chair of the health committee, asked Mr. Gierran what actions should be taken to address the problem. 

Mr. Gierran said they are currently considering options in consultation with their legal department. 

“We are thinking of something to issue. One is an advisory, another one is a circular amending an earlier circular. Or maybe a payment outright, depending upon the opinion of our legal,” he said in a mix of Filipino and English. 

PhilHealth had previously issued policies concerning health insurance coverage for COVID cases, with different amounts depending on the severity of the patient’s condition. — Jaspearl Emerald G. Tan

Hundreds of VisMin-bound vehicles stranded at Matnog Port due to damaged ramps

MATNOG Port is the jump-off point for cargo and passenger vehicles traveling from Luzon to Visayas and Mindanao, the central and southern parts of the country. — PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD

ALMOST 800 vehicles and about 5,000 people were stranded along the highway leading to the Matnog Port in Sorsogon, located in the southeast of Luzon mainland in northern Philippines, due to damaged ramps for roll-on, roll-off and fastcraft vessels, a transport agency reported late Monday. 

Matnog Port is the jump-off point for cargo and passenger vehicles traveling from Luzon to Visayas and Mindanao, the central and southern parts of the country.

The Land Transportation Authority’s Bicol regional office, acting upon a request of the local police, issued an advisory appealing to freight haulers and travelers “to cancel or reschedule their trips.”

“Currently, two sea vessel ramps are damaged, causing a slowdown in the loading of vehicles. A total of 796 vehicles and more or less 5,000 individuals are presently stranded at the port,” it said in the advisory. 

Achilles Galindes, Philippine Ports Authority manager for Matnog, earlier said the ramps were damaged due to strong waves from abrupt wind changes known as shear line and the northeast monsoon. 

Mr. Galindes, in an interview streamed online by government news agency PIA, said repairs are ongoing. 

The situation is another blow to the shipment of goods and movement of people, which suffered delays in the second half of December after ports in the Visayas were damaged by typhoon Odette, internationally known as Rai. 

Several sea vessels serving the Luzon-Visayas route were also damaged. — MSJ 

Senator files bill for P20-B rehab fund for areas hit by typhoon Odette

DINAGAT ISLANDS PIO

A SENATOR has filed a bill that will provide P20 billion for the rehabilitation of provinces hit by typhoon Odette, internationally known as Rai, in December.

Majority Leader Juan Miguel F. Zubiri filed Senate Bill No. 2487 or the Paglaum Fund of 2022 following a visit to areas affected by Odette, the strongest typhoon in the Philippines last year. 

“It’s a large amount, and I expect we will run into some budgetary concerns, but we’re really hoping the executive finds it to be a fair assessment of what our affected provinces need, given how massive the damage has been,” he said.

The typhoon, which swept through central and southern parts of the country, affected over 500 towns and cities across 38 provinces, based on data from the national disaster management agency. Damage to infrastructure and agriculture are estimated at P17.19 billion and P12.75 billion, respectively.  

Under the bill, the national disaster management council will be tasked to create a Rehabilitation Plan, which serves as basis for the Budget department to identify specific infrastructure projects for reconstruction. 

Senator Richard J. Gordon, meanwhile, filed a separate resolution that seeks to set up loan windows for affected tourism establishments and other entrepreneurs.

“The resolution calls for immediate initiation of the early recovery of all areas affected by Typhoon Odette such as Bohol, Cebu, the Dinagat Islands, and Siargao, to help the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and dislocated businesses and provide support in the form of loans from GOCC (government-owned and controlled corporations) and other banks,” Mr. Gordon said in his privilege speech. — Alyssa Nicole O. Tan

El Nido homes to get solar power system from Acciona-Ayala partnership

PHILSTAR FILE PHOTO

SPANISH Infrastructure firm Acciona, through its foundation acciona.org, has partnered with Ayala Foundation for a project that will provide renewable energy supply to 100 households in El Nido, Palawan. 

“Under this program, more than 100 households in Barangay Sibaltan in El Nido, Palawan, will receive third-generation domestic solar-powered systems that provide more than eight hours of electrical light every day at zero emissions,” the Acciona said in a press release on Tuesday.  

Preliminary onsite work is ongoing to verify the technical and social feasibility of the project, it said. 

Meetings with El Nido’s local government and communities are also underway.

The project, the company said, can help the area have a more sustainable power source, especially after the impact of typhoon Odette, internationally known as Rai, which struck central and southern parts of the Philippines in December. — Marielle C. Lucenio

Another inmate found to have escaped from maximum security facility

A FOURTH inmate has been discovered to have escaped from the national penitentiary, along with three others early Monday morning, and is now the subject of a manhunt by authorities.

Chris Candas Ablas, convicted of robbery with homicide, was identified as missing Tuesday morning and has been tagged as a potential fourth escapee from the maximum security facility of the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City.

The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) said it is still confirming if Mr. Ablas was part of Monday morning’s coordinated escape or acted separately from the three.

Two of the inmates were killed in firefights with police and BuCor officers.

Still at large, apart from Ablas, is Drakilou Yosores Falcon.

Senate President Vicente C. Sotto, III, who authored a proposed law that will create a separate facility for heinous crimes convicts, said the incident “bolsters what I have been saying all along” on the need for such a more secure site. 

“We need to separate heinous criminals from the community of persons deprived of liberty,” Mr. Sotto said.

The bill has been passed by both chambers of Congress.

Also on Monday, the National Bureau of Investigation prevented an escape attempt by confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa from the same prison compound. 

Senator Leila M. De Lima, a former justice secretary, said in a statement that the recent incident should serve as another “wake-up call” for the government to make reforms and tighten security around the nations’ prison and correctional systems. — John Victor D. Ordoñez and Alyssa Nicole O. Tan

Taiwanese wanted for forgery nabbed in PHL

A TAIWANESE woman facing forgery charges since 2017 in a district court in Taiwan was recently arrested in the Philippines, the immigration bureau reported on Tuesday.

The fugitive forged a financial instrument to defraud a Taiwanese victim of about US$14,000, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said.

Immigration Chief Jamie H. Morente issued an arrest warrant against the woman upon the request of Taiwanese authorities based in Manila.

A probe by the BI’s fugitive search unit showed that the Taiwanese national had been in the Philippines for more than five years and is an overstaying alien under a tourist visa.

She was caught at a condominium unit in Quezon City.

She is detained at the BI warden facility while awaiting deportation proceedings. — John Victor D. Ordoñez

A strategic plan for the Philippine economy

PCH.VECTOR-FREEPIK

(Part 4)

As we move to the sectoral level in formulating a strategic plan for the Philippine economy, the first and most important step is to have a long-term plan for Philippine agriculture, the Achilles heel of the Philippine economy. Resolving the perennial problem of low productivity and widespread poverty in the agricultural sector will literally hit two birds with one stone. It will lead to higher GDP growth while at the same time reducing poverty incidence. At very low annual growth rates of 1% to 3%, the agricultural sector has been a perennial drag to growth. Considering that as many as three-fourths of the Philippine poor are in the rural areas, increasing the incomes of farmers, farm and forest workers and fisherfolks will directly contribute to the reduction of poverty.

In performing the SWOT analysis for agriculture, we can benefit from the work done by the leading agribusiness think tank of the country, the Center for Food and Agribusiness (CFA) led by Dr. Rolando Dy. In a very succinct document entitled “Agribusiness Towards 2040,” Dr. Dy and the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P)-CFA Agribusiness Team presented the following Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of the Philippine agricultural sector:

Agriculture directly accounts for less than 10% of GDP. If we consider, however, the entire agri-food value chain, agribusiness contributes 35% of GDP and employs 10 million people, about a fourth of the country’s labor force.

As already mentioned, Philippine poverty is predominantly an agricultural phenomenon. The poorest segments of the population are engaged in crops (mainly rice, corn, and coconuts) and fisheries (mainly sustenance fishing). The major weaknesses of this sector are low farm productivity, lack of diversification, and limited value adding. Across many crops, the Philippines is behind its ASEAN peers (especially Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam). The exceptions are in Cavendish banana and pineapple, the leading fruit exports. Coconut is grossly under-exploited as the main products are lowest in value, i.e., copra, coconut oil, and desiccated coconut. There is very limited production of the higher-value products like coconut water, coconut milk, coconut sugar, and coconut coir. There is very low productivity in palay (unmilled rice), corn, fisheries and aquaculture. Low productivity stems from various weaknesses from input supply, production, and all the way down to the market. Productivity is likewise adversely affected by the occurrence of pests and diseases (as in the recent African Swine Fever that afflicted the hog industry), weather conditions/climate change (as in the recent very destructive Typhoon Odette), inadequacies of government programs and infrastructure (especially farm to market roads, irrigation systems, and post-harvest facilities), and, most recently, the pandemic.

Diversification is weak with some 80% of the croplands planted to only three crops — coconut, rice, and corn which all produce much below potential if we are to compare them to levels of productivity in their ASEAN peers. It is no surprise then that Philippine agricultural exports are way behind their ASEAN peers. The Philippines is also the only country with a negative trade balance in agri-food trade. Value adding is limited for lack of raw materials supply, limited knowledge on value adding, poor dissemination of value adding technologies, and undeveloped markets, among other weaknesses. As a very obvious opportunity that can be tapped is the large market of China for high value vegetables and fruits that go beyond bananas and pineapples. The greatest concern of China is food security.

What strategic moves have been suggested by Dr. Dy and his team from the CFA? The most obvious ones are those that flow from the weaknesses. They suggest three pillars:

• Increasing yields of many crops through applied modern farming systems that can be learned especially from more successful East Asian neighbors, such as Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Already a Taiwan-Philippine company called Harbest is successfully transferring advanced technology in the growing of high-value vegetables and fruits to Filipino farmers.

• Diversifying the land use based on market signals. Large tracts of land now devoted to rice and coconut can be shifted to high-value fruits, vegetables, and commercial forests.

•  Promoting value adding in the rural areas through agro-processing. Such processing can be done at all scales of business, i.e., micro, small, medium, and large-scale. If raw materials are produced at lower costs, food processing at all these scales of production can compete with imports.

All these strategic moves will produce multiplier effects in raw material supply, processing capacity utilization, and exports, as well as job and income creation.

These three pillars must be anchored on the following programs and operational approaches:

• Developing quality infrastructures that link farm areas to ports;

• Promoting digital transformation, such as giving farmers direct information about prices of their products through their digital devices, thus freeing them from the clutches of middle men.

• Enhancing agricultural credit, such as through fintech that allows unbanked people in the rural areas to have access to credit and other financial services through their smart phones or similar devices;

• Consolidating small holdings to achieve economies of scale. This is especially crucial in the coconut industry where cooperatives or nucleus estates can be effective means of land consolidation to enable commercial farming to result in higher-value products such as coconut water, milk, sugar, and other consumer items greatly valued by such large corporations as Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola.

• Adopting farmer-driven irrigation systems and mechanization;

• Benchmarking extension services to the small farmers;

• Sustaining support for research and development (R&D) with strong private sector partnership.

The Government should partner with both the academe and the private business sector in R&D work that will result in practical solutions to improving the productivity of agribusiness operations at all levels of the value chain, from farming to post-harvest, storage, cold chain, food processing and retailing.

(To be continued.)

 

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

Multisectoral collaboration and responsive policy making

STORIES-FREEPIK

The 2020 regulatory impact assessment by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/Asian Development Bank (ADB) was unequivocal: “Governments are generally becoming more citizen-centric. For example, improving government service delivery has increasingly become a focus for many OECD member countries in recent years.”

Governments operating under a citizen-responsive orientation have the capacity to deal with powerful social forces. They are insulated from parochial or particularistic interests that tend to undermine the general welfare of the population and society. In this respect, the OECD/ADB report also emphasized that “where government have operated in silos — rather than based on life events or journeys — anticipated benefits have not materialized.”

Republic Act No. 11635, otherwise known as “An Act Amending Section 27(B) of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997,” is an example of a citizen-centric legislation that was enacted because of the collective intervention of stakeholders to protect, not only the interests of the private education sector, but of the whole education ecosystem in the country.

As stated in the said landmark law, “Hospitals which are nonprofit and proprietary educational institutions shall pay a tax of ten percent (10%) on their taxable income except those covered by Subsection (D) hereof: Provided, that beginning July 1, 2020 until June 30, 2023, the tax rate herein imposed shall be one percent (1%).”

This effective legislative intervention represents how a sensible and responsive legal and regulatory environment should be. Aside from eradicating once and for all the threat of a flawed policy, i.e., the Bureau of Internal Revenue RR 5-2021 that imposed a 150% tax increase for private schools, it demonstrated how such intervention could provide much-needed relief for proprietary educational institutions and concerned stakeholders in this time of pandemic.

The timely and appropriate resolution of the education tax policy predicament is a much-needed relief for the private education system. Burdened with dwindling enrollment, closures, and rising costs of maintenance, government assistance is what private schools or universities need during this crucial time.

If there were no such intervention, the co-existence of public and private educational systems to mold each Filipino to be productive citizens for nation building could have greatly been disrupted with long term consequences.

The non-correction of the BIR RR 5-2021 could also have entrenched an irrational tax regime that is detrimental to the millions of Filipinos relying on proprietary educational institutions and private education. Moving forward, this incredible policy could have served as a precedent for further erroneous taxation policies and regulations, which would surely spill over to other economic and social sectors and adversely affect them.

How did this policy intervention succeed with such speed?

When the devastating consequences of BIR RR 5-2021 were made known to the public, the private education sector united its constituency and collaborated with civil society to bring the issue to a level of national awareness. Naturally, this caught the attention of legislators in both Houses of Congress and moved them into action. Merely six months after the campaign to rectify this error was launched, RA 11635 was approved and signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on Dec. 10, 2021.

The multi-stakeholder character of this legislative victory in amending a bad policy is clearly instructive of the following lessons.

First, the private education sector had a shared goal of rectifying a wrong policy, alleviating the plight of its institutions, and protecting the interests of its stakeholders.

Second, the passage of RA 11635 could not have been possible without the attention and due consideration given by our concerned legislators both in the Lower House and Senate.

Third, civil society actors have equally played an important role in terms of advocacy and lobbying.

The above-mentioned three actors displayed a cross-sectoral collaboration that created a powerful clamor to extinguish the imminently disastrous threat of BIR RR 5-2021. Truly, the students, teachers, non-teaching employees, parents, allied workers and industries, and the whole education system itself would be benefitted by the corrective legislation.

Another very important lesson in governance, economy, and society points to the lessons that emanate from a bureaucratic policy or regulation that is devoid of consultation and insensitive to the needs of citizens. Erroneous policies, on the one hand, are a result of an organization’s culture or practice operating in isolation from the involved social sectors. Good policies, on the other hand, are a result of consultation, coordination, and collaboration between agencies and sectors.

As highlighted by the OECD/ADB’s report, “OECD experience shows that facilitating engagement of affected businesses and citizens at the outset has been crucial in gaining acceptance of burden reduction programs, and more broadly in improving the design of regulations.”

We need to further strengthen the productive balance between the public and private education systems. Our educational institutions should be treated as a structural pillar that not only trains our workforce but teaches our people the morals, values, and duties as Filipino citizens.

 

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

Bring tech and innovation to climate-change fight

FREEPIK

OVER the past few weeks, Alaska recorded record-high temperatures, scientists released a “report card” showing relentless deterioration of the Arctic’s climate, and researchers warned that an ice shelf in Antarctica could collapse within a few years, dramatically increasing the region’s contribution to rising sea levels.

These are signposts on a grim path. They show that damage to the cryosphere, the portions of Earth’s surface where ice predominates, is happening faster than many anticipated. After a year of promises — at the United Nations’ Glasgow climate conference and beyond — 2022 must be the year of concrete action, in particular at the Earth’s poles.

The annual Arctic health check produced by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provided a worrying snapshot. For the eighth year in a row, surface air temperatures in the High North were at least 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the long-term average. In April, the post-winter volume of sea ice — a crucial indicator — hit the lowest level since record-keeping began.

Since 1980, the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the globe. This is partly due to feedback loops. Retreating sea ice exposes darker ocean, which absorbs sunlight rather than reflecting it, and hence causes more melting. It’s a similar story with thinning ice sheets and shrinking snow cover. Permafrost — which holds twice the present-day atmosphere’s load of carbon — is now thawing and releasing methane, which in turn is heating the atmosphere and worsening the thaw.

Antarctica tells a similar tale. An ice shelf has held the giant Thwaites Glacier in place like a cork, but researchers last month said warm water was melting it from below, while the grip of an undersea mountain that has pinned it in place is loosening. Increased fracturing could simply shatter it. If the Thwaites Glacier melted entirely, it would raise global sea levels by about two feet, threatening coastal cities.

What’s to be done?

Global emissions reduction is of course essential. But those efforts won’t do enough to forestall a looming crisis in the polar regions. Policy makers should view the cryosphere as a test bed for the kind of large-scale technological interventions that may soon be needed in other areas as climate change intensifies.

As a start, that will require a more robust governance forum for the poles. Existing frameworks — notably the Arctic Council and the Antarctic Treaty — have helped keep the peace and advance scientific goals, but neither is suitable for making political choices. An effort under the UN’s auspices to oversee climate technology at the poles could help lay the groundwork for significant new experiments.

Several such projects are already under study. Some are clever if far-fetched, such as a plan to coat seasonal Arctic ice with a reflective glass powder, thereby increasing its reflectivity and diminishing feedback loops. Some are plausible but require further study and risk assessment, such as efforts to deploy hydrosols to increase surface-water brightness; use wind power to pump water to the surface during the Arctic winter, where it should rapidly freeze and thicken; or inject sulfates into the lower stratosphere to reduce temperatures and ice loss.

A few proposals seem potentially transformative. One plan, published by four scientists in Nature, envisions constructing large barriers at the base of glaciers that could block warm ocean currents and prevent the underlying ice from thawing. The authors propose using berms and artificial islands to buttress ice shelves and impede sea-level rise. If successful, they estimate, such efforts could delay catastrophic melting by several centuries — buying crucial time for emissions reduction to take hold.

All these approaches will have drawbacks. Some won’t work. None should reduce the urgency to slash carbon emissions. But solving climate change requires experimentation, boldness and openness to new ideas — even those that may sound slightly unhinged.

BLOOMBERG OPINION

Reasonable expectation of privacy at work in light of Data Privacy Act of 2012

JCOMP-FREEPIK

It is a common work set-up that employees, either in a private establishment or government, are issued employer-owned computers or mobile devices in the conduct of their work. A work-specific e-mail address created by the employer is usually also provided. With this set-up, questions on whether an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such that an employer may look into the employee’s employer-owned computer or mobile device that is left open, logged in, and/or visible to passers-by in the office premises.

A similar issue was answered by the National Privacy Commission (NPC) through its Advisory Opinion No. 2018-090 dated Nov. 28, 2018 (Opinion). The query was regarding the use of office-issued mobile devices, in particular, whether the access of the employer to the employee’s personal iCloud account using an office-issued mobile device would be in violation of the employee’s rights to data privacy or constitute any of the offenses punishable under the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (DPA).

The NPC discussed the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test in determining whether there was a violation of the right to privacy, citing the 1998 Supreme Court case Ople v. Torres1 which ruled that reasonableness of a person’s expectation of privacy depends on a two-part test:

1. Whether by his conduct, the individual has exhibited an expectation of privacy; and,

2. Whether this expectation is one that society recognizes as reasonable.

The “reasonable expectation of privacy” test was also used in the 2011 Supreme Court case of Pollo v. Chairperson Constantino-David2 which involves a search of an office computer assigned to a government employee who was administratively charged. The Supreme Court cited several US jurisprudence as bases considering that our present Constitutional provision on the guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure had its origin in the US’ 1935 Charter. To resolve the issue in Pollo, the Supreme Court considered the following circumstances:

1. the employee’s relationship to the item seized;

2. whether the item was in the immediate control of the employee when it was seized; and,

3. whether the employee took actions to maintain his privacy in the item.

Thus, where the employee used a password on his computer, did not share his office with co-workers and kept the same locked, he had a legitimate expectation of privacy and any search of that space and items located therein must comply with the Constitutional guarantee to privacy.

In its Opinion, however, the NPC noted that the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test was used at a time when there were no laws on data protection and informational privacy and that such a test should be revisited and interpreted in the context of the DPA.

It is the opinion of the NPC that through the DPA, the assumption now is that individuals have an expectation of privacy which is more than reasonable as it is now enshrined in the DPA. The “reasonable expectation of privacy” test should then take into consideration the standards provided under the DPA. This means that employees must be aware of the nature, purpose, and extent of the processing of his or her personal data in the workplace. The processing of personal information of employees shall also be compatible with a declared and specified purpose which must not be contrary to law, morals, or public policy. Lastly, the processing of such information shall be adequate, relevant, suitable, necessary, and not excessive in relation to a declared and specified purpose.

The NPC further opined that the fact that an employer has the ownership of the electronic means does not rule out the right of employees to privacy of their communications, related location data, and correspondence. As such, employees have an expectation of privacy in their own personal iCloud accounts even if they are logged in using their office-issued mobile devices.

The NPC likewise advised that companies should revisit policies on the use of electronic communication devices, taking into consideration the DPA, especially data privacy principles and data subjects’ rights. This translates to clear and well-defined policies and practices as to the extent of monitoring, degree of intrusion, consequence to employees, and procedural guarantees against arbitrariness.

In sum, based on the NPC Opinion, even if the employer-issued computer or device can readily be seen or accessed, e.g. the same is not password protected or if protected, the password was saved in the device; or the device was shared with co-workers, the employee still has an expectation of privacy considering that the NPC requires the express consent of the data subject before personal data may be processed and shared in accordance with a declared and specified purpose which should be made known to the data subject.

While the application and interpretation of the provisions under the DPA have not yet reached the Supreme Court, it must be noted that interpretations of an administrative government agency (e.g., opinions/rulings) tasked to implement a statute are accorded great respect and ordinarily controls the statutory construction of the courts.3

1 G.R. No. 127685, July 23, 1998.

2 G.R. No. 181881, Oct. 18, 2011.

3 Energy Regulatory Board v. CA, G.R. No. 113079, April 20, 2001.

This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not offered as and does not constitute legal advice or legal opinion.

 

Erika Joy B. Murcia is an associate of the Cebu Branch of the Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz Law Offices (ACCRALAW).

ebmurcia@accralaw.com

Tonga suffers major damage following volcanic eruption

REUTERS

SYDNEY/WELLINGTON — Tonga’s small outer islands suffered extensive damage from a massive volcanic eruption and tsunami, a Tongan diplomat said on Tuesday, raising fears of more deaths and injuries.

“Alarming” images taken by New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) reconnaissance flights showed an entire village destroyed on Mango island and numerous buildings missing on nearby Atata island, said the diplomat, Tonga’s deputy head of mission in Australia, Curtis Tu’ihalangingie.

“People panic, people run and get injuries,” Tu’ihalangingie told Reuters. “Possibly there will be more deaths and we just pray that is not the case.”

Tonga police told the New Zealand High Commission that the confirmed death toll stood at two but with communications in the South Pacific island nation cut, the true extent of casualties was not clear.

Australia’s Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja said Tongan officials were hoping to evacuate people from the isolated, low-lying Ha’apai islands group and other outer islands where conditions were “very tough, we understand, with many houses being destroyed in the tsunami.”

The United Nations had earlier reported a distress signal was detected in Ha’apai, where Mango is located. The Tongan navy reported the area was hit by waves estimated to be 5-10 meters (15-30 feet) high, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Atata and Mango are between about 50 and 70 kms from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, which sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and was heard some 2,300 kms (1,430 miles) away in New Zealand when it erupted on Saturday.

Atata has a population of about 100 people and Mango around 50 people.

“It is very alarming to see the wave possibly went through Atata from one end to the other,” said Tu’ihalangingie.

The NZDF images, which were posted unofficially on a Facebook site and confirmed by Tu’ihalangingie, also showed tarpaulins being used as shelter on Mango island.

British national Angela Glover, 50, was killed in the tsunami as she tried to rescue the dogs she looked after at a rescue shelter, her brother said, the first known death in the disaster.

CLEARING THE RUNWAY
A thick layer of ash blankets the islands, the New Zealand High Commission said, adding it was working to establish communications with smaller islands “as a matter of priority”.

The archipelago’s main airport, Fua’amotu International Airport, was not damaged in Saturday’s eruption and tsunami but heavy ashfall is preventing full operations, hampering international relief efforts.

The U.N. humanitarian office said Tongan officials had said that clearing the runway would take days as it was being done manually, by Wednesday at the earliest.

People on the western coast of the main island of Tongatapu had been evacuated because of “significant damage,” OCHA added in an update, while government ministers had broadcast warnings on radio against price gouging amid worries of supply shortages.

The Tongan government is expected to formally request aid from countries including Australia and New Zealand tomorrow. Both antipodean nations have C-130 military aircraft on standby, packed with emergency supplies.

“The priority now will be to be get supplies to Tonga and the biggest constraint on that at the moment … is the airport. There is still a significant amount of ash,” Seselja said. Tonga is a kingdom of 176 islands, of which 36 are inhabited, with a population of 104,494 people.

The archipelago has remained largely cut off from the world since the eruption which cut its main undersea communications cable.

Subcom, a US based private company contracted to repair various subsea cables in the Asia-Pacific, said it was working with Tonga Cable Ltd. to repair the cable that runs from Tonga to Fiji.

Samiuela Fonua, the chair of Tonga Cable, said there were two cuts in the undersea cable that would not be fixed until volcanic activity ceased, allowing repair crews access. — Reuters

Public trust in democracies fell to new low, says survey

VISITORS take photos outside the White House in Washington, US, Dec. 27. — REUTERS

PUBLIC TRUST in governments running the world’s democracies has fallen to new lows over their handling of the pandemic and amid a widespread sense of economic pessimism, a global survey has found.

The Edelman Trust Barometer, which for two decades has polled thousands of people on trust in their governments, media, business and NGOs, conversely showed rising scores in several autocratic states, notably China.

It also highlighted that business, thanks to its role developing vaccines and adapting workplace and retail practices, had retained strong levels of trust globally, albeit with reservations about its commitment to social fairness.

“We really have a collapse of trust in democracies,” said Richard Edelman, whose Edelman communications group published the survey of over 36,000 respondents in 28 countries interviewed between Nov. 1-24 of last year.

“It all goes back to: ‘Do you have a sense of economic confidence?’” he added, noting high levels of concern about job losses linked either to the pandemic or automation.

The biggest losers of public trust over the last year were institutions in Germany, down 7 points to 46, Australia at 53 (-6), the Netherlands at 57 (-6), South Korea at 42 (-5) and the United States at 43 (-5).

By contrast, public trust in institutions in China stood at 83%, up 11 points, 76% in United Arab Emirates (+9) and 66% in Thailand (+5).

The trillions of dollars of stimulus spent by the world’s richest nations to support their economies through the pandemic have failed to instil a lasting sense of confidence, the survey suggested.

In Japan, only 15% of people believed they and their families would be better off in five years’ time, with most other democracies ranging around 20-40% on the same question.

But in China nearly two-thirds were optimistic about their economic fortunes and 80% of Indians believed they would be better off in five years.

Mr. Edelman said higher public trust levels in China were linked not just to economic perceptions but also to a greater sense of predictability about Chinese policy, not least on the pandemic.

“I think there is a coherence between what is done and what is said…They have had a better COVID than the US for example.”

According to the Reuters pandemic tracker, the United States currently leads the world in the daily average number of new deaths reported, while China has regularly been reporting no new deaths for months as it pursues strict “zero-COVID” policies.

The results of the latest Edelman survey are in tune with its findings in recent years that charted rising disillusionment with capitalism, political leadership and the media.

Concerns about “fake news” were this time at all-time highs, with three-quarters of respondents globally worried about it being “used as a weapon”. Among societal fears, climate change was now just behind the loss of employment as a major concern.

The burden of expectation on business leaders remains heavy, with strong majorities saying they bought goods, accepted job offers and invested in businesses according to their beliefs and values.

Around two-fifths, however, also said that business was not doing enough to address climate change, economic inequality and workforce reskilling. — Reuters

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