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In Japan, efforts afoot to win hearts, and votes, of the alienated young

TOKYO — Momoko Nojo’s campaign for Japan’s upcoming election revolves around social media and T-shirts, but she’s not running for office. Instead, the activist is fighting a different battle — against the apathy that keeps young voters away from the polls.  

It’s no wonder the young don’t vote, with many of them saying candidates are overwhelmingly male, old, and disconnected from their concerns.  

Only 10% of lawmakers in the just-dissolved lower house were women; the representation of female candidates in the ruling coalition is even lower. The average age of male and female candidates is 54, with more than a third aged 60 and above. A handful are over 80.  

Women’s rights are not debated, and other issues such as gender equality, support for young families, the dire labor shortage and dysfunctional immigration system are also barely on the agenda.  

The disconnect means that in elections over the past decade only a third of young voters turned out, and some analysts fear participation in the upcoming Oct. 31 poll could be the lowest in post-war history.  

“In this situation, young peoples’ voices won’t be reflected in politics,” said Ms. Nojo, 23 and a graduate student.  

“By not going to vote, life will become more difficult for this generation. Whether it’s problems with raising children, or other issues, to get politics to turn to our generation you have to vote, you have to take part.”  

Japan’s situation contrasts with that of the United States, where, according to the US Census Bureau, voter turnout of those aged 18–24 was 51% in the 2020 Presidential election.  

Ms. Nojo, who developed an interest in activism while studying in Denmark, is not easily discouraged and has already triumphed against huge odds. Early this year she shot to fame with a campaign that ousted octogenarian Tokyo Olympics head Yoshiro Mori after he made sexist remarks.  

But apathy among young voters is deep-seated and reflects long-term systemic issues in Japanese politics, often dominated by families who have been elected through generations, analysts said.  

That the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which is on track to suffer hefty losses in this election, has held power for all but a brief period over the last six decades also creates a sense change is impossible.  

“I don’t go to vote because there’s just no feeling it’s connected to my life,” said Takuto Nanga, 22 and a comic illustrator. “Even if the top changes, there’ll still be problems like in the past.”  

SOCIAL MEDIA 
For women, things are especially bad. Only 9.7% of LDP candidates are women, with 7.5% for coalition partner Komeito.  

“Even elected, women lawmakers don’t get a chance at the important cabinet portfolios. There are only a handful in the cabinet, and there should be so many more. Then women would have the sense they’re taking part,” said Airo Hino, a Waseda University professor.  

While emphasizing issues such as climate change, cutting university fees and gender equality would help lure younger voters, the process also has to be appealing, Mr. Hino argues.  

That means rejecting traditional campaigning in newspapers, stump speeches and turgid political appeals on NHK public TV for social media — which some politicians, such as Taro Kono, often cited in polls as a top choice for premier, have used to good effect.  

“Almost nobody reads those massive party campaign platforms, and for young people it’s impossible, a facilitator’s needed,” Mr. Hino added.  

Voter matching apps, where people answer questions and find out which political party comes closest, are also handy.  

“It’s mainly a game, but that’s fine. In a lighthearted way you find a party you like, then you go vote,” said Mr. Hino.  

Aside from her online campaigns for “No Youth No Japan,” Ms. Nojo has taken a similar tack, partnering with a clothing firm to produce a series of T-shirts with quirky designs emphasizing issues — life, peace, equality and the planet — and voting.  

“Clothes are worn daily, it’s a form of expressing your opinion and showing yourself,” Ms. Nojo said, with the hope being they’d become conversation starters and spur wearers to vote.  

That something must be done is painfully clear.  

“With a larger population and higher voting rates, inevitably the voice of the older generation is stronger,” said Ayumi Adachi, 20 and a student.  

“To get what we want, we need to speak up. We need to vote.” — Rikako Maruyama and Elaine Lies/Reuters  

World should shut nearly 3,000 coal plants to keep on climate track — study 

REUTERS

SHANGHAI — The world will need to shut down nearly 3,000 coal-fired power plants before 2030 if it is to have a chance of keeping temperature rises within 1.5 Celsius, according to research by climate think tank TransitionZero.  

In a report published days before the United Nations COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, TransitionZero said there are currently more than 2,000 GW of coal-fired power in operation across the world, and that needs to be slashed by nearly half, requiring the closure of nearly one unit per day from now until the end of the decade.  

The need to close nearly 1,000 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity would put the onus on China — the world’s biggest source of climate-warming greenhouse gas and owner of around half of the world’s coal-fueled plants — to accelerate its shift toward cleaner electricity.  

“The logical conclusion is that half of the effort will need to come from China,” said Matt Gray, TransitionZero analyst and author of the report.  

China has reduced the share of coal in its total energy mix from 72.4% in 2005 to 56.8% last year, but absolute consumption volume has continued to rise. President Xi Jinping vowed earlier this year that China would start to cut coal use, but only after 2025.  

Its coal strategy has also come under added scrutiny in recent weeks as regulators try to find the extra volume required to resolve an energy crunch that has forced factories to shut and put winter heating and electricity supply at risk.  

Mr. Gray said while coal consumption will rise in the short term, the crisis is forcing China to accelerate reform that will eventually help the country reduce its fossil fuel reliance.  

A recent policy aimed at forcing operators of coal-fired power generators to sell electricity via the wholesale market will expose them to competition from renewable sources and further underscore their lack of competitiveness, he added.  

“I think it is fair to say that keeping the lights on and keeping buildings warm will be the exclusive priority of the Chinese government coming into winter,” he said.  

“But our hope is for this crisis to be seen as a wake-up call for being reliant on coal-fired power.” — Reuters 

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This session of #BUSINESSWORLDINSIGHTS is made possible by InLife, with the support of British Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, Management Association of the Philippines, Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and The Philippine STAR.

Philippines remains worst place to be amid pandemic

PHILIPPINE STAR/ MICHAEL VARCAS

The Philippines remains bottom of Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking of the best and worst places to be amid the pandemic in October, as vaccinations and reopening lag despite its outbreak easing. 

While other Southeast Asian nations also continue to be ranked low among the 53 economies tracked, the Philippines fares among the worst on vaccine coverage, with just 26% of the population covered amid challenges in bringing shots to areas outside of the big cities. 

In comparison, Indonesia and Vietnam — ranked 48th and 52nd respectively this month — have distributed enough vaccines to cover more than a third of their populations. Ranked 50th, neighbor Malaysia has given out shots covering 76% of its population, the highest in the region except for Singapore. 

Ongoing curbs on movement domestically, including a ban on kids in malls and other public spaces, along with restrictions on international travel also drag on the Philippines’ score, a reflection of the country’s conservative approach to reopening the economy amid concerns about its fragile healthcare system. 

The capital Manila has allowed more businesses to open their doors again, including gyms and cinemas, but it’s still behind neighbors like Thailand and Indonesia which are back to embracing tourists. 

The good news for the Philippines is that virus infections have ebbed after hitting a record high last month, driven by the spread of the more contagious delta variant. 

The percentage of those testing positive for the virus has declined significantly from nearly one in three in September to about 12%, indicating the Philippines has a better handle on its outbreak than before and is catching cases. That could pave the way for more reopening going forward. — Bloomberg

Top US general confirms ‘very concerning’ Chinese hypersonic weapons test

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley. -Image via US Secretary of Defense/Flickr.

WASHINGTON — The top US military officer, General Mark A. Milley, has provided the first official US confirmation of a Chinese hypersonic weapons test that military experts say appears to show Beijing’s pursuit of an Earth-orbiting system designed to evade American missile defenses.  

The Pentagon has been at pains to avoid direct confirmation of the Chinese test this summer, first reported by the Financial Times, even as President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and other officials have expressed general concerns about Chinese hypersonic weapons development.  

But Gen. Milley explicitly confirmed a test and said that it was “very close” to a Sputnik moment — referring Russia’s 1957 launch of the first man-made satellite, which put Moscow ahead in the Cold War-era space race.  

“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning,” Gen. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bloomberg television, in an interview aired on Wednesday.  

Nuclear arms experts say China’s weapons test appeared to be designed to evade US defenses in two ways. First, hypersonics move at speeds of more than five times the speed of sound, or about 6,200 kph (3,853 mph), making them harder to detect and intercept.  

Second, sources tell Reuters that the United States believes China’s test involved a weapon that first orbited the Earth. That’s something military experts say is a Cold War concept known as “fractional orbital bombardment.”  

Last month, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall alluded to his concerns about such a system, telling reporters about a weapon that would go into an orbit and then descend on a target.  

“If you use that kind of an approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] trajectory — which is directly from the point of launch to the point of impact,” he said.  

“It’s a way to avoid defenses and missile warning systems.”  

Fractional Orbital Bombardment would also be a way for China to avoid US missile defenses in Alaska, which are designed to combat a limited number of weapons from a country like North Korea.  

Jeffrey Lewis at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies summed up fractional orbital bombardment this way: “The simplest way to think about China’s orbital bombardment system is to imagine a space shuttle, put a nuclear weapon into the cargo bay, and forget about the landing gear.”  

Mr. Lewis said the difference is that the Chinese re-entry system is a glider.  

China’s foreign ministry denied a weapons test. It said it had carried out a routine test in July, but added: “It was not a missile, it was a space vehicle.”  

US defenses are not capable of combating a large-scale attack from China or Russia, which could overwhelm the system. But the open US pursuit of more and more advanced missile defenses has led Moscow and Beijing to examine ways to defeat them, experts say, including hypersonics and, apparently, fractional orbital bombardment.  

The United States and Russia have both tested hypersonic weapons. — Phil Stewart/Reuters 

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are now worth almost half a trillion dollars

The combined net worth of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos approached $500 billion on Wednesday, fueled by the unrelenting rally in Tesla Inc. shares and a broad surge in tech stocks that sent the Nasdaq 100 to an intraday record. 

The value of the two fortunes — a sum bigger than the market value of Johnson & Johnson and about equal to that of America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co. — is yet another watershed moment in what’s shaping up to be a historic week for billionaires. 

A groundbreaking proposal from Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden to tax billionaires on unrealized gains was released in detailed form Wednesday morning only to be dropped in negotiations hours later. Mr. Wyden insists the billionaires’ tax plan isn’t dead, but talks have instead moved on to a possible 3% surcharge — on top of the highest income tax rate — for those earning more than $10 million. 

While such a plan would draw in a larger number of taxpayers than the billionaires’ tax and help pay for a Democratic social-spending plan that could approach $2 trillion, it would take a far smaller bite from the wealthiest Americans, such as Messrs. Musk and Bezos. 

Under the billionaires’ tax proposal, Messrs. Musk and Bezos collectively would have been hit with a $100 billion one-time tax bill, payable over five years, if the proposal had been approved, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The plan explicitly targeted appreciated public shareholdings, which have been a main driver of billionaires’ steep wealth gains in recent years. 

Mr. Musk, co-founder of publicly traded Tesla and closely held rocket company SpaceX, has added $122.3 billion to his fortune this year, pushing his net worth to $292 billion, according to the Bloomberg index. Amazon.com Inc. founder Mr. Bezos is worth $196.3 billion. 

The 10 richest Americans, including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, are worth a total of $1.4 trillion, according to the index. 

Mr. Musk was dismissive of Mr. Wyden’s plan, saying taxing billionaires would only make a “small dent” toward paying off the U.S. national debt. 

“Spending is the real problem,” Mr. Musk said in a tweet that also included a link to an online clock that estimates the country’s debt. Even if the super-wealthy were taxed at “100%,” the government would need to turn to the “general public” in order to make for the short-fall, the Tesla Chief Executive said. 

“This is basic math,” he said. 

Mr. Musk’s wealth has ballooned partly because he hasn’t sold any of his Tesla stock for years, instead tapping banks for loans using his stake in the electric-vehicle maker as collateral. Pledging shares is a way to monetize equity without actually selling it. 

Mr. Musk has $515 million in personal loans from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp., according to a regulatory filing from December 2020, the most recent one available with this information. Mr. Musk has also said some of his shares in SpaceX are pledged, but hasn’t disclosed details about how many. — Bloomberg

SM Aura Premier opens BGC’s first roof-deck mini golf course

The first roof-deck miniature golf course is now available for the general mall-going public at SM Aura Premier. The putt-putt course, featuring five (5) holes with varying degrees of challenge difficulty, is located at the mall’s open-air level, called the Skypark. The course surrounds one of the mall’s iconic art installations – the giant red carabao sculpture by internationally recognized multimedia artist, Jefrë Manuel.

Mall patrons who wish to play a few rounds only need to approach the course attendant and present a receipt from any of the restaurants located at the Skypark. There’s no minimum purchase requirement and presentation of a receipt already allows up to three (3) players to join.

FUN CAN BE SAFE

Outdoor activities have seen a big jump in popularity. Being generally more COVID-safe than indoor and enclosed alternatives, more and more people are looking for leisure recreation where they can still connect with others and not risk the safety of everyone involved. SM Aura Premier’s open-air mini golf course at the Skypark certainly fits that profile.

Safety will always be SM Aura Premier’s top priority and has implemented guidelines to ensure all players will be kept safe. All equipment is sanitized and disinfected before and after each use, ensuring that there’s no virus transmission from held items. Proper social distancing is also ensured by way of the area only being allowed up to ten (10) players at a time. Adding to that, the general area is regularly cleaned and disinfected. All these combined create the perfect recreation activity that’s out of the ordinary and, above all, safe.

The mini golf course is the newest addition to the Skypark’s permanent and semi-permanent mall features such as the Paw Park and al fresco dining pods which have all made the mall’s fifth level, and the entire SM Aura Premier complex, one of BGC’s most unique and sought-after leisure and lifestyle destinations.

For more information on the #MiniGolfAtAura and other mall features at SM Aura Premier, visit @SMAuraPremier on Facebook and Instagram.

 


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Oxford University says Marcos Jr. did not complete degree

BONGBONG MARCOS FB PAGE

The University of Oxford has waded into a row waged on social media over the education credentials of Philippines presidential candidate Ferdinand  Marcos Jr., saying he did not complete his degree.

“According to our records, he did not complete his degree, but was awarded a special diploma in Social Studies in 1978,” Oxford said in an e-mailed reply to questions.

“The special diploma was not a full graduate diploma.”

Oxford’s comments were first reported by news website Rappler. A media relations officer with Marcos’ campaign didn’t have an immediate response to the report, although Marcos’ chief of staff previously said the campaign stands by the certification issued by Oxford and challenged naysayers to check with the university.

Battles on social media have intensified over the educational background of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ son, who is among the frontrunners in the May 2022 elections. The issue over Marcos’ education first emerged six years ago when his profile on a Senate website showed he obtained an Oxford degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

Critics said he lied as the special diploma was short of a degree. His supporters, meanwhile, insist Marcos’s opponents are using the issue to derail his campaign, much like when he ran for the vice presidency in 2016 and lost by a margin of 260,000 votes to Leni Robredo, who is also now running for president. Having a degree is not mandatory for a presidential candidate.  – Bloomberg

BSP seeing concrete signs of rebound

By Luz Wendy T. Noble, Reporter

THE PHILIPPINES is seeing signs of economic recovery after almost two years since a global coronavirus pandemic hit the world, according to the central bank.

“A year and a half since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing concrete signs of economic rebound,” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno told an online forum on research on Wednesday.

Amid weakened fiscal position and higher debt in many economies, structural and institutional reforms would be critical to jumpstart economic recovery, he said.

“A comprehensive package of reforms is vital to help reverse the expected impact of the pandemic on the long-term growth prospects of emerging markets and developing economies,” he added.

The various scenarios about the global economic landscape and government policy post-pandemic have discouraged foreign direct investments (FDI) and human capital accumulation due to disruptions in education, Mr. Diokno said, citing a paper by the International Monetary Fund.

The Philippines, he added, is studying the causes of FDI decline to “help us design the appropriate policy responses that would attract more FDIs and spur post-pandemic recovery.”

FDI inflows sank to a five-year low of $6.542 billion last year, when the world was forced to deal with the pandemic. Inflows have improved in recent months from their year-ago levels.

Latest data from the central bank showed July inflows climbed by 52% to $1.263 billion from a year earlier. This brought the seven-month level to $5.562 billion, 43.1% higher than a year ago.

“Lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, falling corporate earnings, economic uncertainties, and delayed investment plans were the primary reasons for the contraction,” Mr. Diokno said.

He added that the extent and persistence of the damage to potential output— now widely termed as “scarring”— would differ across countries amid varying policy responses.

Philippine economic output shrank by 9.6% last year, one of the worst in Asia and the Philippines’ deepest recession since World War II. Fitch Ratings in July changed its credit rating outlook for the country to negative from stable.

The economy grew by 11.8% in the second quarter from a year earlier, though it declined by 1.3% on a quarterly basis.

Mr. Diokno said the BSP stands with the government’s full-year growth targets of 4-5% and 7-9% for 2021 and 2022.

FDI
He said certain industries including business process outsourcing (BPO) could contribute to recovery.

“The industry holds much promise in terms of moving up to higher value-added activities in the global supply chain of business services,” he said.

BPO receipts are expected to grow by 5% in 2021 and 2022, based on BSP projections. Dollar inflows from such transactions are crucial in supporting the country’s external payment position, aside from travel receipts and remittances.

A country’s larger market size could increase FDI inflows, Hazel C. Parcon-Santos, a senior central bank researcher, told the forum. A higher credit rating could also prompt investors to boost investments, she added.

Ms. Santos cited BSP research showing strong evidence about how a high corporate income tax and foreign equity restrictions hit FDIs.

“We also found that foreigners invest in destinations that have good quality of human capital, less corruption, better rule of law and higher quality of infrastructure,” she said.

Ms. Santos said the market size of a country and its location matter a lot to investors from Japan, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, India and Indonesia.

Investors from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Luxembourg focus more on sovereign credit ratings, minimum wage, inflation, corruption and rule of low, and infrastructure, she added.

Coal capacity pipeline halved after government ban

PIXABAY

By Angelica Y. Yang and Jenina P. Ibañez, Reporters

THE COUNTRY’S pipeline of coal capacity fell by 43% to 8.73 gigawatts (GW), during a 10-month period through end-June after the Energy department halted greenfield coal projects a year ago, according to a local think tank.

“Coal capacity in the pipeline has nearly halved since last year,” Avril de Torres, who heads the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development’s Research, Policy and Law program, told an online forum on Wednesday.

The Department of Energy (DoE) in October last year stopped approving new coal-fired power plants as part of efforts to shift to a more flexible power supply mix.

Ms. De Torres said three coal projects with a total capacity of 864 megawatts (MW) had “suddenly” appeared in DoE’s coal pipeline.

These include Petron Corp.’s 44-MW refinery boiler in Bataan, San Ramon Power, Inc.’s 120-MW coal-fired power station in Zamboanga City and Masinloc Power Partners Co. Ltd.’s 700-MW power plant in Zambales, which the government allegedly failed to shelve even if they did not meet exemption criteria.

“We urge the DoE to take bold actions in support of their pronouncement against coal starting with issuing the official list of coal-fired power projects shelved by the coal moratorium,” she said.

Civic group Power for People Coalition (P4P) earlier said the DoE’s exemption criteria for so-called projects — those that have yet to get financial backing — were unclear.

“Mired in ambiguity, the moratorium still allows several coal projects to remain in the pipeline despite failing to meet full exemption requirements,” it said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday.

Projects not covered by the coal moratorium are “committed power projects, existing power plant complexes with firm expansion plans and land site provisions, and indicative power projects with substantial accomplishments,” according to DoE.

Coal facilities contributed 57% or 59.2 terawatt-hour to the country’s power generation output last year, according to the Philippine Energy Plan.

Meanwhile, the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development urged the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to stop funding support for fossil fuels after the multilateral bank vowed to align its work with the Paris Agreement.

The advocacy group said the AIIB should overhaul its energy policy and stop all support for fossil fuels.

“There is no room, no space and no time to build new fossil fuel projects,” group coordinator Lidy B. Nacpil said in a statement. “We urge AIIB to exclude in its energy sector strategy and in all of its policies any support for any project that is related to the production and distribution of fossil fuels.”

The AIIB on Tuesday said it was considering supporting more climate-resilient infrastructure in the Philippines after it announced a three-point approach to speed up climate financing.

AIIB President Jin Liqun said the bank would align its private and public financial flows with the goals of the Paris agreement — a legally binding international treaty on climate change — by July 1, 2023 as its climate finance approvals reach $50 billion by 2030.

The amount would be a fourfold increase in annual climate finance commitments since the AIIB started reporting the figure in 2019.

The AIIB said it would set up initiatives to drive investment and mobilize private capital to speed up low carbon growth. It would also include climate mitigation and adaptation measures in its infrastructure investments.

The Asian Peoples’ Movement said the lender should turn outstanding debt from fossil fuel-based projects into grants for renewable energy projects.

The AIIB announced its strategy before the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland next week.

Developed countries will discuss plans to improve climate financing after they failed to fulfill a pledge to roll out $100 billion to help developing nations tackle climate change each year by 2020.

As governments channel financing through multilateral development banks, funds should be steered away from high-carbon assets to meet Paris Agreement goals, according to the Climate Transparency Report 2021.

Ms. Nacpil said the AIIB should stop supporting carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies that capture carbon dioxide emissions from fossil power generation and industrial activities.

“These technologies are capital intensive, unreliable, unproven and dangerous,” she said. These reinforce “lack of ambition, complacency and further delays in decarbonization, consequently missing the goal of keeping global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees.”

The AIIB did not immediately reply to an e-mail seeking comment.

JLL says office leasing shrank in 3rd quarter

YIBEI GENG-UNSPLASH

OFFICE LEASING in the Philippines shrank by 35.7% to 72,000 square meters in the third quarter from a year earlier amid a coronavirus pandemic and uncertainties posed by elections next year, according to JLL Philippines.

The extension of the work-from-home setup in many companies had mainly caused the contraction, Janlo C. de los Reyes, research head at JLL Philippines, told an online news briefing on Wednesday.

“A lot of occupiers are still uncertain about how their work environment will be in the next couple of years,” he added.

Office leasing decisions had probably been pushed back until later this year or next year, Mr. De los Reyes said.

Recovery is still expected because the Philippines remains one of the “best outsourcing destinations,” he said, without saying when the rebound would come.

There was growth in suburban office real estate, JLL Philippines Vice-Chairman Joey M. Radovan said, adding that property developers had brought these projects to the broader labor communities before the pandemic. “That is a long-term bright spot.”

Infrastructure projects outside Metro Manila could also be a growth source for office real estate, he added.

Meanwhile, JLL expects a growth in the industrial and logistics market to slow between now and in the first half of next year.

Foreign investors would probably adopt a wait-and-see approach leading up to the May 2022 elections in case of policy changes that could affect investment decisions.

“We might see a bit of uptick as we move into the third quarter of next year as we have more clarity in terms of the political landscape and, hopefully, COVID cases will have been managed,” Mr. De los Reyes said.

JLL said seat utilization or the physical occupancy of an office space could be used to measure the growth of the office market. Companies are expected to keep physical offices despite remote work arrangements.

A benchmarking report by the global arm of JLL found that some of the key employee drivers to return to the office include missing informal social interaction of an office setting, attending scheduled meetings at the office, improving focus on work and access to information and office technology.

“Hybrid workplace between office and home — it’s going to be there — but not a lot of companies are really going to get rid of the physical space,” Mr. Radovan said. — Keren Concepcion G. Valmonte

House hands on P5.024-trillion budget to Senate

THE HOUSE of Representatives sent the proposed P5.024-trillion budget for next year to the Senate on Monday, two days ahead of schedule, according to the chairman of the House appropriations committee.

The Senate received copies of House Bill 10135 or the 2022 General Appropriations Bill on Oct. 25, according to a copy of a House letter to the upper chamber that House appropriations chairman Eric G. Yap sent to reporters via Viber on Wednesday.

The House approved the measure on third and final reading on Sept. 30. Congressmen had realigned P65.5 billion of the proposed spending plan on Oct. 14 by allotting funds for coronavirus vaccine booster shots, displaced workers and health workers’ risk allowance, as well as for the downpayment for the military’s C-130 planes.

Speaker Lord Allan Jay Q. Velasco said the early transmittal would help Congress approve the budget as soon as possible and pave the way for its enactment by President Rodrigo R. Duterte by December.

“We hope to give our senators reasonable time to scrutinize and pass their own version of the General Appropriations Bill as we look forward to the bicameral conference,” he said in a statement.

Mr. Velasco also said the government could not afford a reenacted budget that could hamper the country’s economic recovery from a coronavirus pandemic.

Senator Juan Edgardo M. Angara, who heads the finance committee, said in a Viber message they had received copies of the House-approved budget bill.

He said the measure would be discussed once Congress resumes sessions on Nov. 8.

Pandemic response, funds for the task force against communist insurgency and devolution would be among the issues to be discussed during plenary debates, he added.

Senators earlier said they seek to approve their version of the proposed 2022 budget by the end of November. — Russell Louis C. Ku