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No work in Manila on June 24 to mark city’s founding — Duterte

PHILSTAR

PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte has declared June 24 a special nonworking holiday in Manila to mark the capital’s 450th anniversary.

The holiday would give residents of the Philippine capital the “full opportunity to celebrate and participate in the occasion with appropriate ceremonies,” according to a proclamation signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea last week.

The celebration would still be subject to community quarantine, social distancing and other public health measures amid a coronavirus.

Manila is one of the 17 cities and municipality in the capital region, which accounts for a third of the country’s economic output. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

PHL, Saudi Arabia to advance labor reforms 

PCOO

THE PHILIPPINES and Saudi Arabia will “work more closely together in bilateral and multilateral fora” to advance their labor reform and fair migration efforts, the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) said.

The two countries made the commitment during a meeting Sunday between Philippine Presidential Assistant on Foreign Affairs Robert E. A. Borje and Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development Minister Ahmad Sulaiman Al Rajhi, the PCOO said in a press release.

During the meeting, Mr. Borje noted that President Rodrigo R. Duterte welcomed Saudi Arabia’s launching of the Labor Reform Initiative (LRI), saying it is a significant step towards addressing issues regarding the existing sponsorship system in the middle east country.

Mr. Borje also sought the Saudi minister’s support for other initiatives of Manila, including the ongoing repatriation program for Filipino workers whose employment had been affected by the coronavirus pandemic as well as efforts to further strengthen the Philippine’s diplomatic offices in the Kingdom.

There were about 2.2 million Filipinos working in Saudi Arabia as of 2019, based on Philippine Statistics Authority data.

The two officials will be working on a bilateral memorandum of understanding (MOU) on labor, which would be based on Saudi’s LRI.

“Both officials hope to see the convening of a technical working group on the details of the MOU on labor,” the PCOO said. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

Senior HS grads get help from DepEd, ECOP, Microsoft to attract employers

PHILIPPINE STAR/ MIGUEL DE GUZMAN

SENIOR high school (SHS) graduates got a chance to learn more about creating a “professional brand” for themselves and developing resumes online that are more likely to attract employers through a program of the Department of Education (DepEd) with the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) and Microsoft.

The virtual event was attended by more than 260,000 learners and teachers, according to Microsoft in a press release on Monday.

“By providing our SHS learners access to LinkedIn and skilling platforms such as Microsoft Learn, Microsoft Imagine Academy, and LinkedIn Learning, students will be given the opportunity to not just connect professionally with industry practitioners but also acquire competencies and digital certifications,” DepEd Undersecretary Alain Del B. Pascua said in the release.

SHS is the last two years of the Philippine’s K to 12 education system. In this level, students have choices for specialization or career tracks that prepare them for either immediate employment after graduation, entrepreneurship, or tertiary education.

Citing a 2020 research from the Philippines Institute of Development Studies, Microsoft said 80% of SHS graduates in the Philippines pursue further studies  while 20% enter the labor force immediately.

DepEd, through the program with ECOP and Microsoft, is introducing new initiatives to complement the K to 12 basic education program to prepare students with the necessary skills for the modern workplace and address the workforce and employer gaps.

Microsoft said it will work closely with DepEd for the full extension of the program to Grade 10 and 11 students, with a target of five million learners a year. — MSJ

6 Batangas areas declared ASF-free

DA.GOV.PH

FIVE towns and one city in Batangas have been declared free from African Swine Fever (ASF), the first local declaration of ASF-free areas in the country, the International Training Center on Pig Husbandry said on Monday.

In a statement, the center said the six ASF-free zones are the municipalities of Rosario, Malvar, Taysan, San Jose, and Nasugbu, and Lipa City.

The Batangas provincial government made the declarations based on their surveillance, as supported by the Department of Agriculture’s regional office, Agriculture Spokesman Noel O. Reyes said in a mobile message.

The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) will validate the declarations.

The BAI on June 8 noted a decline in the number of barangays or villages where cases of ASF are still detectable to 19, after more than 2,700 barangays were affected since Aug. 2019.

Pork prices have soared as supply dropped due to the ASF outbreak that has affected many parts in the northern island of Luzon. Several areas in the Visayas in central Philippines and Mindanao in the south were also affected.

“Challenges in the availability of test kits, facilities, laboratories were encountered. Adding on the pressure was the movement of man due to the pandemic, slowing down the surveillance activities, investigations, and repopulation,” the center said. — Jenina P. Ibañez

Cebu lawyers take quarantine protocols battle to court in support of local policy vs national COVID task force

MACTANCEBUAIRPORT.COM

TWO lawyers from Cebu on Monday filed a petition before the regional court questioning the validity of the national coronavirus task force’s quarantine protocols over that of the Cebu provincial government.

The special civil action for declaratory relief was filed by lawyers Clarence Paul Oaminal and Valentino Bacalso, Jr. in their capacity as taxpayers, according to their legal representative Benjamin Cabrido.

A declaratory relief, as defined by the Supreme Court in a 2010 decision, is “as an action by any person interested in a deed, will, contract or other written instrument, executive order or resolution, to determine any question of construction or validity arising from the instrument… and for a declaration of his rights and duties thereunder.”

President Rodrigo R. Duterte last week ordered the provincial government to abide by the task force’s quarantine rules for Filipinos returning from overseas.

Under the national policy, all arriving international passengers must undergo a 10-day quarantine at designated facilities and swabbing on the seventh day from arrival.   

On the other hand, an executive order from Cebu Governor Gwendolyn F. Garcia and an ordinance passed by the provincial board requires returning Filipinos and other residents to stay in a hotel for a period of two to three days after being swabbed for coronavirus testing upon arrival. Those with a negative result can go home where they will continue to be on quarantine for four days, then undergo another test to be handled by their local government.    

The provincial board was also set to pass a resolution calling on members of the task force to a meeting in Cebu to further discuss the different policies. — MSJ 

What resilience looks like

VECTORJUICE-FREEPIK

The disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic has, unfortunately, left many organizations paralyzed, unable to weather the storm. For those of us that have been able to adapt, it continues to be a challenging period filled with uncertainty and difficult decisions. The resilience that is required of us at this time is perhaps as unprecedented as the crisis. But what exactly does that kind of resilience look like?

Earlier this year, Deloitte released its 2021 Global Resilience Report, which surveyed over 2,000 chief executive officers (CxOs) across 21 countries to better understand what enabled them to more or less withstand disruption. Based on their responses, the researchers identified five attributes of resilient organizations — traits that leaders can cultivate so that their businesses can more readily bounce back, even from something as serious and as prolonged as this pandemic.

PREPARED — Most successful CxOs plan for all eventualities but many frequently struggle to move beyond short-term thinking. In the Deloitte survey, more than 85% of CxOs whose organizations successfully balance addressing short- and long-term priorities felt they had adapted effectively to the events of 2020, whereas fewer than half of organizations that hadn’t struck that balance felt they had adapted well.

Key ingredients of that preparation are scenario planning and designing playbooks that anticipate potential events. Scenario planning helps leaders prepare for disruption and brings to the forefront what organizations will need to survive and thrive in the future, while playbooks lay down the strategic actions that organizations need to take in response to these different scenarios. While few (if any) organizations may have planned for a pandemic, the exercise of designing a playbook already helps leaders plan for other kinds of disruptions, such as broken supply chains.

It is also important to subject these plans to regular stress tests and for key decision-makers to participate in regular crisis simulations. A plan is only as good as an organization’s ability to execute it.

ADAPTABLE — Last year, several businesses quickly pivoted to respond to the immediate needs brought about by the pandemic. Apparel manufacturers started producing PPEs, distilleries focused on producing hand sanitizers rather than their regular products. While admirable, these pivots are not necessarily adaptive. Longer-term adaptability is about addressing what is necessary in a current crisis and what may be necessary to manage future disruptions.

The CxOs Deloitte surveyed recognized the importance of “flexibility and adaptability” in their workforce as they build a culture of resilience: 54% said this is one of the top-three most critical workforce traits to their organizations’ futures, ahead of “expertise and proficiency in the roles for which employees are hired.”

The ways organizations develop their people will have a huge impact on their ability to adapt quickly. Talent leaders should also consider hiring for specific mindsets as much as they hire for skillsets, rethinking traditional job descriptions so that they can widen the pool of applicants and increase diversity. And these shifts need to happen now, not when another crisis hits.

COLLABORATIVE — Two-thirds of surveyed CxOs who said their companies removed silos in their organizations even before the pandemic reported weathering the events of 2020 better than their peers. Collaboration promotes resilience for at least two reasons: when people work together, more perspectives come to the fore, which is especially important in the decision-making process and in addressing complex challenges. Collaboration also helps organizations marshal resources from different areas and more readily respond to disruptive events.

During this period of lockdowns and social distancing, technology has played a critical role in replicating the collaborative work processes that came naturally with working on-site. With vaccinations rolling out around the world, some may think that we will soon return to our pre-pandemic normal, but consider this: Deloitte’s research shows that 32% of the workforce is expected to continue working remotely once pandemic lockdowns end. Compare that with just 18% of the workforce that worked remotely pre-pandemic.

Leaders who acknowledge that this “new normal” is here to stay will have to invest not only in a digital-first infrastructure that will empower remote work, but also in a digital-first workplace culture and capabilities. Organizations should also consider teaming up with external organizations — maybe even outside their own industries — that can help mitigate the impact of risk events and address challenges that are too big to solve alone.

TRUSTWORTHY — At a time when workers are scattered and even isolated, it becomes even more important to build and nurture trust. In Deloitte’s survey, more than a third of CxOs admitted they are not confident that their organizations maintained trust between leaders and employees during the height of the pandemic last year. For those who are succeeding, they are focusing on improving communication and transparency with key stakeholders, and they are choosing to lead with empathy.

Leaders can cultivate trust across three dimensions: physical, emotional, and digital. Building trust in the physical space includes prioritizing worker and customer safety. In the emotional space, surveyed CxOs said they are providing employees with stress and mental health resources, which has yielded dividends: 82% of CxOs whose organizations had done well in providing adequate mental health resources also felt that they could adapt quickly and pivot in response to disruptive events.

In the digital space, leaders may want to focus on keeping ethical principles in mind when adopting advanced technology. Implementing ethical tech includes safeguarding employee and customer privacy or working to eliminate bias in algorithms.

RESPONSIBLE — Most leaders acknowledge that businesses have a responsibility beyond the bottom line, that they need to be accountable to all their stakeholders. Considering today’s challenges, this kind of accountability can come in many forms such as championing environmental sustainability initiatives, prioritizing mental health and wellness, and promoting diversity and inclusion.

The most responsible and resilient organizations focus on many of these areas at once, cultivating a reputation as a force for good in the world. For leaders who are unsure where to start, consider asking millennial or Gen Z employees, two generational cohorts that have shown deep concern for societal impact and business responsibility. They may be able to provide a roadmap that will help organizations focus their efforts and resources.

These five attributes of resilience are relevant to business leaders not just because of the ongoing health crisis, but because this may just be the tip of the iceberg. In the same Deloitte study, 62% of CxOs believe the world could see occasional or regular disruptions of this scale going forward. It is a daunting scenario to consider, which gives us even more reason to make the most of the challenges we face today. The resilience we build now within our organizations will not only help Deloitte Philippines overcome the pandemic, but it will also fortify us for an even more uncertain future.

This article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines or MAP.

 

Attorney Fredieric “Eric” B. Landicho is a Member of the MAP and the Managing Partner and CEO of Deloitte Philippines.

map@map.org.ph

flandicho@deloitte.com

Why nobody will ever agree on whether COVID lockdowns were worth it

STARLINE-FREEPIK

As an increasingly vaccinated world emerges from lockdowns, lots of people are talking about whether the fight against the pandemic was too strong or too weak. Some people argue restrictions did not go far enough; others maintain the attempted cures have been worse than the disease.

One reason for these conflicting views is that the answer depends on both facts and values.

Relevant facts include features of the virus like transmission rates and deaths. Government policies were often guided by scientific findings to reduce the spread of the virus and the resulting illnesses and deaths.

Relevant values include health and longevity, but also prosperity, opportunity, equality and freedom. Different people weigh those values differently.

Our research on the study of how fair and reasonable discussion helps citizens reach political decisions suggests there will never be widespread agreement on whether lockdowns, the most controversial coronavirus policy, were worthwhile.

COSTS VERSUS BENEFITS
In a perfect world, policymakers’ decisions are based on evidence. But which science and data matter to some people is different from the science and data that matter to others. Should the government prioritize public health at the expense of the economy? Should individuals sacrifice liberty for the social good?

In principle, the US could have devoted all of society’s resources to fighting coronavirus — but doing so would have meant ignoring all other illnesses and the personal priorities that make life worth living, like hugging Grandma on July 4th.

Cost-benefit analyses offer one way to ensure that various trade-offs are explicitly considered rather than left unstated. These analyses rely on well-established methods to estimate how much society is implicitly willing to pay to save one life.

Based on those estimates, the number of deaths prevented by coronavirus mitigation policies could be converted into dollars for the “benefit” side of the ledger. The associated “costs” include direct government expenditures now and into the future, along with lost wages and revenues for individuals and businesses.

With both benefits and costs denominated in dollars, it’s potentially possible to determine a policy’s net social effect: It’s a simple math problem.

LOCKDOWNS ARE HARD TO EVALUATE
But even if we could cleanly compare costs to benefits, it’s impossible to definitively measure the effects of lockdowns. Communities that had longer and more extensive lockdowns were often those likely to be more vulnerable to the spread of disease, or with less access to medical care.

For example, some denser places with more intergenerational households introduced severe lockdowns — but were also more likely to suffer high levels of virus transmission and death. This would artificially make it seem like lockdowns didn’t work, because those places still suffered many deaths — just fewer than they would have without the lockdowns.

Fortunately, one of the central aims of social science work is finding ways to tease out cause from effect using real-world data. Researchers can use statistics to adjust the data in a way that neutralizes the effects of factors that influence both a state’s fatality rate and its propensity to adopt lockdowns, like its population density, wealth, age distribution, and healthcare capacity.

Still, any honest researcher should acknowledge they can only reduce, not eliminate, this type of uncertainty.

THE RANGE OF COSTS AND BENEFITS
Even if it were possible to isolate the number of deaths prevented through a lockdown, it’s hard to measure other costs and benefits associated with coronavirus policies.

Confining people to their homes may have reduced their odds of spreading the virus. But staying home may have raised other risks, such as domestic abuse, addiction and mental health problems and the harms from delayed treatments for other medical conditions.

Among children, the lack of in-person schooling can hurt learning and raised rates of anxiety, depression and sleep disorders.

Other potential costs can be measured only in the future — such as smaller expected earnings among people whose learning was slowed down.

On the flip side, mask-wearing and social isolation may have had the unintended benefit of temporarily countering seasonal flu, which kills about 40,000 Americans a year. And there may have been technological innovations — like improved video-conferencing — sparked by lockdowns. It’s simply too early to tell.

While the ultimate economic effect of lockdowns may be negative, lockdowns may still be justified if people value a dollar today more than one tomorrow. But policymakers, let alone citizens, simply do not agree how much society should value today’s versus tomorrow’s dollars. Indeed, this perhaps fuels the biggest disagreements over policies with delayed effects.

THE NEED FOR HUMILITY
Because the benefits and costs of policies unfold over time in ways that produce different winners and losers, it’s simply hard to arrive at a consensus on what benefits to rank first and what costs are worth incurring.

An older person may want the government to prioritize elderly people’s health, while parents with young children may emphasize reopening schools. Young adults may bemoan lost job opportunities while waiting out lockdowns.

Ultimately, that’s why there will never be a definitive answer on whether the country’s lockdowns were “worth it.” The costs and benefits can be clarified, but not measured completely. And values come into play: How many lives were saved can never be exactly equated with how many children’s development suffered.

Data can only bring society some of the answers. The rest we have to decide for ourselves.

 

James D. Long is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, co-founder of the Political Economy Forum, and host of the Neither Free Nor Fair? Podcast. Mark A. Smith is a professor of Political Science, University of Washington. Victor Menaldo is a professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, and co-founder of the Political Economy Forum.

What the crypto crowd doesn’t understand about economics

VECTORJUICE-FREEPIK

JUST LAST WEEK I argued that cryptocurrency is here to stay. Now I’d like to explain to some of my crypto friends why parts of the mainstream economics and financial world do not take them more seriously. To put it bluntly: Many of you do not understand monetary economics very well.

There are two common mistakes.

First, the dollar is not on the verge of collapse, nor will it be replaced by a crypto asset. The US is one of the world’s two largest economies and the center of the English-speaking world. It has the power to tax, the strongest network of alliances, and the most powerful military. Yes, it has printed a lot of dollars since 2008, but it also has taken steps to lower the speed at which those dollars circulate.

Rates of price inflation are likely to be higher for the next two years or so, but already some of the immediate inflationary pressures are abating; lumber prices, for instance, are now plummeting. Over a 10-year time horizon, the US government can borrow at a near-zero real rate of interest, hardly a sign of a doomed empire.

Nor is the US government about to go broke or on the brink of resorting to hyperinflation. The US debt-to-GDP ratio may well hit 200%, but the poorer and smaller nation of Japan is doing OK with similar debt levels. Keep in mind that national wealth, while difficult to estimate, may run as much as six to eight times higher than GDP. So, a 200% debt-to-income ratio could mean a debt-to-wealth ratio as low as 25%. That’s hardly the end of the world. Think of how comfortable you’d be if you paid off “only” 75% of your mortgage.

If anything, crypto is more likely to hurt the currencies of countries that are doing very poorly, such as Venezuela. Fiat currency won’t just go away, so over the long run crypto could actually boost the value of the dollar by stifling the rise of potential competitors.

A second point, oft neglected in the crypto community, is that crypto prices won’t continue to go up forever at high rates. It doesn’t matter whether money supply deflation is built into a crypto system, or that new and valuable uses will be discovered each year. At some point the market will figure out the value of crypto and incorporate that information into a high level of price for those assets. From then on, expected rates of return will be — dare I say — normal.

Compare the crypto market to the art market, which for a long time didn’t grasp the potential value of an Andy Warhol painting. For years, prices went up a lot. At this point, however, a liquid market remains, and the expected value of an investment in Warhol is not necessarily better or worse than the value of an investment in other well-known works of art.

It is an entirely defensible (albeit contested) view that the market still hasn’t appreciated the full value of crypto. This state of affairs may yet endure for some while, but it will not last for decades.

The irony is that so many of the arguments made by crypto types imply especially low pecuniary rates of return on crypto. To the extent crypto is useful as collateral or for liquidity purposes, people will be more willing to hold crypto at lower pecuniary rates of return, just as they are willing to hold cash, or just as the collateral uses for US Treasury bonds raise their price and lower their expected rates of return.

If we eventually arrive at a world in which equities are expected to rise by say 5% to 7% a year, and Bitcoin by say 1%, then that will be a sign crypto has made it. The more general point is that while crypto has been a highly unusual asset class for its entire history, it won’t act like an unusual asset class forever.

I do understand why crypto advocates may look askance at scoldings from mainstream monetary economists. Few economists have done much to advance or develop crypto ideas, and sometimes they have mocked them. Satoshi and Vitalik Buterin are not only significant innovators, but also the two most important monetary economists of our time. And whatever the long-run value of crypto will be, markets have been getting it wrong.

All that said, normalization — of crypto theory as well as value — is on its way. It will be less fun than the radical and topsy-turvy crypto status quo. But it is nonetheless something to celebrate.

BLOOMBERG OPINION

10 trends in lockdowns, COVID deaths, and vaccinations

As we are approaching 16 months of indefinite lockdown in many countries, what have we learned and not learned (and thus keep repeating the same wrong policies)?

I constructed a table using data from different official sources to come up with the discussions. The sources are:

1.) For GDP growth/contraction, the IMF World Economic Outlook 2021 database (https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo) for 2020 and Trading Economics (https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp-annual-growth-rate) for Q1 2021.

2.) For mobility restrictions, I downloaded the long Excel sheets per country from the Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports (GCCMR, https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/), with changes from the baseline period Jan. 3 to Feb. 6, 2020. The GCCMR covers six areas, but for brevity I chose two, Retail and Recreation (R&R, restaurants, cafes, malls, museums, cinemas) and Transit stations (TS, subway/MRT stations, seaports, taxi stands, highway rest stops, car rentals). Only China has no mobility data, very likely since the country does not allow Google to collect and/or publish the data.

3.) For COVID-19 deaths per million population (CDPMP), the data comes from Our World in Data (OWID, https://ourworldindata.org/) and Worldometers (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries).

4.) For vaccination rates (at least one dose given as percent of population), the data also comes from OWID (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country).

I choose to include data from the big economies in each continent, especially from East Asia.

Readers, please go through the numbers as you may discover other trends that I fail to discuss below.

The following can be observed from the above numbers.

1. The deep GDP contraction for many economies in 2020 was directly caused by strict lockdowns and mobility restrictions and not the virus per se. The same virus that originated from China has vastly different results in economic performance in other countries.

2. GDP contractions in the first quarter (Q1) of 2021 are mild and would point to the economic recovery of many countries by late 2021 as their lockdowns are more relaxed.

3. The Philippines has the most draconian mobility restrictions probably in the whole world in 2020 and 2021 in TS. It comes second to Argentina in R&R in 2020, and next to UK and France in 2021.

4. The Philippines was the worst performing economy in Asia in 2020 until the first quarter (Q1) of 2021, and was among the worst performers in the whole world. This was so not because of the virus but because of the strict lockdowns. Its CDPMP, or deaths per million population, by the end of 2020 was only 1/20th of Belgium, 1/13th of Spain, UK, and US.

5. There was a near double or more than double increase in CDPMP in the first six months of 2021 compared to the 10 months of the pandemic in 2020 in many countries. See in particular Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, the UK, France, Germany, the Philippines, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Israel, and Russia.

6. This further proves that the strict lockdowns of 2020 did not work in controlling new severe infections and deaths in 2021 as the virus naturally mutates.

7. Countries with high vaccination rates of 50% or more of total population showed a higher increase in CDPMP in 2021. See in particular Italy, the UK, France, Germany, and Belgium.

8. Asian countries with low vaccination rates of below 10% of total population showed still low CDPMP. See Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Also, Nigeria, which has Africa’s biggest economy and population.

9. Many doctors including those affiliated with the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH) are now getting more COVID-19 patients who are already vaccinated, antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) cases.

10. With the foregoing discussions, government should never consider mandatory vaccination, direct or indirect. Dr. Rafael Castillo, a famous Filipino cardiologist, member of the PRC Board of Medicine, has argued several times in his column in the Inquirer that “vaccination should be targeted and protective and not mass, injudicious vaccination — or, to put it bluntly, mass and potentially harmful vaccination.”

Viruses mutate, humans mutate too. Natural herd immunity among the young and healthy is as natural as gravity as shown in human survival and expansion despite many pandemic and virulent viruses in the past centuries and decades.

In addition, there are several cheap, generic, off-patent drugs that have been proven for decades to be safe and effective in anti-viral, anti-parasitic, anti-bacterial treatment for people who display symptoms, or as prophylaxis for the elderly and those with comorbidities. These include low-dose Ivermectin (approved since 1981, https://c19ivermectin.com/), or low-dose hydroxychloroquine (HCQ, approved since 1955, https://c19study.com/) plus zinc, vitamins C and D, sunlight, others to avoid hospitalization.

We are on the 16th month of endless mobility restrictions, with business and school closures, depriving children and the healthy elderly from going out to the parks, from eating in malls and enclosed restaurants. The economic and psychological damage to people is piling up with each passing month. It is time to lift the lockdown and business closures and give us back our constitutional rights, our human freedom of mobility and being productive.

 

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

minimalgovernment@gmail.com

Hong Kongs’s Apple Daily said to shut within days

HONG KONG — Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily will be forced to shut “in a matter of days” after authorities froze the company’s assets under a national security law, an adviser to jailed owner Jimmy Lai told Reuters on Monday.

The closure of Apple Daily would undermine the former British colony’s reputation as an open and free society and send a warning to other companies that could be accused of colluding with a foreign country, media advocacy groups said.

Next Digital, publisher of the top-selling 26-year-old newspaper, would hold a board meeting on Monday to discuss how to move forward after its lines of credit were frozen, the adviser, Mark Simon, said.

“Vendors tried to put money into our accounts and were rejected,” he said by phone from the United States.

“We thought we’d be able to make it to the end of the month. It’s just getting harder and harder. It’s essentially a matter of days.”

Apple Daily said on Sunday the freezing of its assets had left the liberal newspaper with cash for “a few weeks” for normal operations.”

Chief Editor Ryan Law, 47, and Chief Executive Cheung Kim-hung, 59, were denied bail on Saturday after being charged with collusion with a foreign country.

Three other executives were also arrested on Thursday when 500 police officers raided the newspaper’s offices, drawing condemnation from Western nations, global rights groups and the U.N. spokesperson for human rights.

Those three are still under investigation but were released from police detention.

Hong Kong and Chinese officials said press freedom cannot be used as a “shield” for those who commit crimes, and slammed the criticism as “meddling.”

‘WE CAN’T BANK’
In May, Reuters reported exclusively that Hong Kong’s security chief had sent letters to tycoon Mr. Lai and branches of HSBC and Citibank threatening up to seven years’ jail for any dealings with the billionaire’s accounts in the city.

A Hong Kong-based spokesperson for Citibank said at the time the bank did not comment on individual client accounts. HSBC declined to comment.

Authorities are also prosecuting three companies related to Apple Daily for alleged collusion with a foreign country and have frozen HK$18 million ($2.3 million) of their assets.

Mr. Simon told Reuters it had now become impossible to conduct banking operations in the global financial hub.

“We can’t bank. Some vendors tried to do that as a favor … and it was rejected.”

The newspaper has come under increasing pressure since owner and Beijing critic Mr. Lai, who is now in jail, was arrested under the national security law last August and has since had some of his assets frozen.

Apple Daily plans to ask the government’s Security Bureau to unfreeze the assets on Monday and failing that attempt, it may look to challenge the decision in court.

Mr. Simon said some reporters had received threatening phone calls from unknown sources.

“Our staff are now just worried about personal safety,” he said.

Police have said dozens of Apple Daily articles were suspected of violating the national security law, the first case in which authorities have cited media articles as potentially violating the legislation.

Mr. Simon said that based on his understanding from officers’ questioning of the executives, around 100 articles were under scrutiny.

“After all this is said and done, the business community is going to look up and recognize that a man’s company was gutted and stolen by a communist regime in Hong Kong,” he said. “That’s a big deal.” — Reuters

Dongguan becomes latest city in China to be hit by COVID-19 outbreak

BEIJING — The major manufacturing hub of Dongguan in China’s most populous province of Guangdong launched mass testing on Monday for the coronavirus and cordoned off communities after detecting its first infections in the current outbreak.

The Delta variant of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) has dominated infections in the provincial upsurge, the first time it has hit China. Seen by experts as highly transmissible, the variant was first identified in India.

Dongguan launched a citywide testing program on Monday, following two cases reported since last Friday. City authorities told residents not to leave, except for essential reasons.

Even then, those leaving must show negative test results within 48 hours of departure.

The southern province of Guangdong has reported 168 confirmed infections since May 21, with nearly 90% of them in its capital, Guangzhou.

But the cases are few compared with the rest of the world and previous outbreaks in China.

The northeastern region suffered more than 1,150 infections from late December to early February for the worst domestic outbreak after that in the central city of Wuhan, where the virus emerged in late 2019.

But Guangdong, a key entry point for travellers and cargo, has not taken any chances. Although its capital has reported no cases for two successive days, the province as a whole is still reporting new infections in the 31-day outbreak.

Chinese experts said Guangzhou’s fight against the Delta variant served as a warning for other cities not to get too complacent.

China reported 17 new confirmed mainland infections on Sunday, down from 23 a day earlier, its health authority said on Monday.

One of the new cases one was a local infection in Dongguan, while the rest were imported cases, the National Health Commission said.

The number of new asymptomatic infections fell to 19 from 20 a day earlier. China does not classify them as confirmed cases.

The tally of infections in mainland China stood at 91,604, with the death toll unchanged at 4,636. — Reuters

Vista Mall and Star Mall thriving in the new normal

Following safety protocols and wearing protective gear like face masks and face shields are quickly becoming a way of life for most Filipinos.

While these measures are needed to ensure the public’s health and safety, the new norm continues to affect how businesses operate.

“The early days of the pandemic were really difficult for everyone, and this was specially true for malls whose primary resource is people,” says Camille Villar, managing director of the Vista Land Commercial Division. “Vista Mall and Starmall locations, however, were in the unique position of being centers of community. This helped us quickly adapt and recognize where and how we could thrive by helping our communities manage the challenges of the pandemic.”

Using this as a guide, Vista Land was able to roll out several initiatives that not only provided conveniences to their customers but allowed the company to support their tenant partners as well.“To be able to thrive, we had to learn to pivot,” Camille adds.

And since the pandemic forced everyone to stay home, Vista Mall and Starmall partnered with logistics provider GetAll, also under the Villar Group of Companies, to establish a shopper service under a unified hotline. This shopper service is currently active across the entire 30-mall network of the Villar Group.

SAFETY GUARANTEED

As the economy is slowly picking up, the question of safety still looms heavy over commercial centers. Even with the vaccine rollout, keeping its customers and employees safe remains a top priority for Vista Mall and Starmalls.

In fact, Vista Mall and Starmalls locations recently received the “safety seal” from the Departments of Health, Labor, Interior and Local Government, Tourism, and Trade and Industry. This certification is a guarantee that Vista Mall and Starmall have met minimum public health standards set by the government in managing the pandemic in aid of the reopening of the economy.

The seal also gives shoppers peace of mind that they can shop and dine at Vista Mall and Starmalls anytime.

GET THE JAB DONE

Vista Mall and Starmalls are also proud participants in the government’s initiative to roll out the vaccine. In cooperation with the city and municipal governments of Las Pinas, Taguig, Dasmariñas, Tanza, and Bataan, five Vista Malls across the country are now official sites for the DOH-led vaccination efforts, improving accessibility to the vaccine not only for the community at large but for retail frontliners as well.

“We believe that the inoculation of everyone — in this case, especially our essential workers — is a key milestone on the road to our economic recovery from the impacts of COVID-19,” Villar points out. “Health — Especially the vaccine rollout — is a core personal advocacy of mine. Partnering with the DOH and our esteemed local governments to administer the vaccine is not only for us but for every family and worker affected by the pandemic. This effort is going to be of great help in ensuring families are better protected from COVID-19. We will be announcing more Vista Malls as vaccination sites as soon as possible” she discloses.

COMMUNITY-CENTERED

Vista Mall and Starmall continue the tradition of being involved members of their communities by putting the spotlight on local trade. In partnership with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry, the Villar chain of malls launched two initiatives: “Farm To Table AgriMarket” which supports local farmers, craftsmen, and Kalakal Community Market, which is currently in Vista Mall Sta. Rosa.

The Farm To Table AgriMarket showcases locally sourced fresh & frozen produce and handmade Filipino crafted goods from vendors all over the Philippines. The AgriMarket allows these businesses to reach out to a wider audience and introduce their quality products to more potential buyers. This opportunity does not only benefit the local vendors but also the customers by giving them access to locally and ethically sourced goods.

CELEBRATE WITH CARE

Filipinos still find ways to honor and celebrate family amid the pandemic. With the upcoming Father’s Day festivities, Vista Mall and Starmall celebrate daddy’s day with My Dad Rocks!, a collection of fun activities in keeping with the safety priorities of the pandemic. These include a virtual concert and fan meet with Silent Sanctuary, themed automotive displays, various deals and discounts from tenant partners, and a TikTok challenge for the digital young and young-at-heart.

For information about the many initiatives, Vista Mall and Starmall are implementing as they thrive in #NavigatingTheNewNormal, visit Vista Mall’s official Facebook Page at facebook.com/vistamallofficial, Starmall’s official Facebook Page at facebook.com/StarmallOfficial, or through the Vista Mall website at www.vistamalls.com.ph.

 

 

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