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Formidable

When James Harden was traded to the Nets in the middle of January, not a few quarters wondered how his arrival would affect chemistry. At the time, the black and white were treading dangerous waters, winning on the strength of a dominant offense while being pulled down by decidedly porous defense. And with wet-behind-the-ears bench tactician Steve Nash tasked to sort through the puzzle, speculation delved on how potential could be turned into practice. Meanwhile, their new acquisition had hitherto been conditioned to propel a system focused entirely on him. How would he be able to share the ball with two other All-Stars?

As things turned out, all the concern was for naught. Harden would not just share the ball well; he would share the ball splendidly. Evidently, his skill set — unquestionably elite — could be adapted to take full advantage of the available talent around him. Which he did as the Nets’ de facto point guard, an arrangement further fortified following the buy-in of the mercurial Kyrie Irving; triple-doubles came with ease, and wind accompanied the sterling numbers. They’ve gone 24 and nine since his arrival, and their 31-15 slate would most definitely have been better had they not suffered from significant loss of man-hours due to injury along the way.

In support of the aforesaid point, it bears noting that Kevin Durant, their best player by far, has been out due to a hamstring strain, with no definite date set for his return. He has played only one game in the last one and a half months, and yet the Nets keep pulling off victory after victory. Little wonder, then, that fans feel justified to cast moist eyes on the Larry O’Brien Trophy. And it certainly helps that the buyout market has likewise netted Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge, diminished frontliners but still capable of producing in limited minutes.

Bottom line, the Nets are formidable. Nash says they will be cautious with Durant, which could mean he won’t be burning rubber anytime soon. Then again, the real test is in the playoffs, and there’s every reason to believe they’ll have a complete roster by then. And if they don’t, well, there’s Harden to prop them up. As he boldly declared in the face of his string of outstanding performances, “I feel like I am the [Most Valuable Player]. It’s just that simple.” It’s not, actually, and his scorched-earth exit from the Rockets precludes him from winning the award. Still, his message is appreciated for what it stands: a scary declaration other contenders would do well to accept as fact.

 

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

Myanmar mourns bloodiest day since coup

ACROSS MYANMAR, opponents of the ruling junta on Sunday mourned the killings of at least 114 people by security forces in the bloodiest day since the military coup on Feb. 1, but vowed to keep protesting to end army rule.

Children were among those killed on Saturday, Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day, according to news reports and witnesses, in a crackdown that drew renewed Western criticism. The UN investigator said the army was carrying out “mass murder.”

“We salute our heroes who sacrificed lives during this revolution and We Must Win This REVOLUTION,” one of the main protest groups, the General Strike Committee of Nationalities (GSCN), posted on Facebook.

Saturday also brought some of the heaviest fighting since the coup between the army and the ethnic armed groups that control swathes of the country.

Military jets had killed at least three people in a raid on a village controlled by an armed group from the Karen minority, a civil society group said on Sunday, after the Karen National Union faction earlier said it had overrun an army post near the Thai border, killing 10 people. The airstrikes sent villagers fleeing into the jungle.

A junta spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment on the killings or the fighting.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, had said during a parade to mark Armed Forces Day that the military would protect the people and strive for democracy.

The Myanmar Now news portal said 114 people were killed across the country in crackdowns on the protests.

The dead included 40 people, one of them a 13-year-old girl, in Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay. At least 27 people were killed in the commercial hub Yangon, Myanmar Now said. Another 13-year-old was among the dead in the central Sagaing region.

Deaths were recorded from the Kachin region in the mountainous north to Taninthartharyi in the far south on the Andaman Sea — taking the overall number of civilians reported killed since the coup to more than 440.

‘THIS BLOODSHED IS HORRIFYING’
US Ambassador Thomas Vajda said on social media: “This bloodshed is horrifying,” adding “Myanmar’s people have spoken clearly: they do not want to live under military rule.”

The EU delegation to Myanmar said Saturday would “forever stay engraved as a day of terror and dishonor.”

The top military officer from the United States and nearly a dozen of his counterparts joined to condemn the killings by Myanmar’s army.

Their statement said that a professional military must follow international standards for conduct “and is responsible for protecting — not harming — the people it serves.”

UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said it was time for the world to take action — if not through the UN Security Council then through an international emergency summit. He said the junta should be cut off from funding, such as oil and gas revenues, and from access to weapons.

“Words of condemnation or concern are frankly ringing hollow to the people of Myanmar while the military junta commits mass murder against them,” he said in a statement.

“The  people of Myanmar need the world’s support. Words are not enough. It is past time for robust, coordinated action.”

Despite the Western condemnation, Myanmar’s junta has friends elsewhere.

Russia’s deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin attended Saturday’s military parade in Naypyitaw, having met senior junta leaders a day earlier.

Diplomats said eight countries — Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand — sent representatives, but Russia was the only one to send a minister to the parade on Armed Forces Day, which commemorates the start of the resistance to Japanese occupation in 1945.

Support from Russia and China, which has also refrained from criticism, is important for the junta as those two countries are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and can block potential UN actions.

The military has said it took power because November elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party were fraudulent, an assertion dismissed by the country’s election commission. Ms. Suu Kyi remains in detention at an undisclosed location and many other figures in her party are also in custody.

Myanmar’s embassy in London, which is under the control of junta opponents, said on Facebook that the ambassador met Ms. Suu Kyi’s son there on Thursday. Kim Aris had asked if the embassy could arrange a call with his mother, it said.

“Mr. Kim asked about his mother’s situation, and her health. He is obviously extremely worried,” it said, adding that the ambassador had already sent three requests to Myanmar’s capital and would send another reminder. — Reuters

COVID keeps spreading death where vaccines haven’t reached

IF YOU’RE LIVING in Israel, the US or the UK, where vaccination programs are rolling out with remarkable speed, glimpses of a post-pandemic future are starting to appear: Schools have mostly reopened, family gatherings are being planned and summer vacations may be just over the horizon.

But move away from this handful of rich countries, and a darker reality emerges: The virus is still rampaging around most of the planet, and uneven vaccine distribution poses a major public risk as variants emerge.

Since mid-March, COVID-19 deaths have started trending upward again worldwide even as the numbers improved in the US and UK, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Last week, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the unequal supply of vaccines “is not just a moral outrage, it is also economically and epidemiologically self defeating.”

Worldwide, half a billion vaccine doses have been administered, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. While shots have been given in some 140 countries, the vast majority have gone to developed nations that secured early doses by the hundreds of millions. That disparity risks prolonging the pandemic, even for places currently leading the vaccination race.

“We need to try to bridge the gap between the vaccine haves and vaccine have-nots to really meet the goals that we’re seeking to achieve in ending this pandemic and getting our economies running again,” Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview.

Covax, a facility that aims to distribute doses equitably around the globe, has started delivering shots to lower-income countries like Ivory Coast and Ghana, but the WHO has said more needs to be done. Here’s a look at how vaccine disparities and a resurgent virus are playing out in half-a-dozen countries.

ISRAEL
Israel’s economy has mostly reopened now that half the country is fully vaccinated and new cases are plunging.

People are flocking back to the restaurants and bars that survived the pandemic, crowding the country’s beaches and enjoying live concerts and football matches in the early days of spring.

Israel is still closed to foreign tourists out of concern the spread of variants could undermine its vaccination program. Still, some hotels say they’re fully booked for the Passover holiday, which will be celebrated without new restrictions on movement. That’s a switch from last year, when lockdowns were imposed over the period to avoid a spike in cases.

UK
The UK remains in a lockdown, but the government’s roadmap to reopening the economy has offered a pathway to normality for a population that’s being vaccinated faster than its European neighbors. The country recently passed the milestone of giving a first dose to more than half its adults. It set a daily record on March 20, inoculating almost 1.3% of the population on a single day. Hospitalizations also fell by more than a fifth from the week before, bringing some relief to the National Health Service. 

Schools have reopened and some employees are starting to return to offices in London’s financial districts, but residents won’t be able to eat at restaurants or buy non-essential goods in stores for another two weeks. Still, the government hopes to remove all lockdown restrictions, including allowing nightclubs to reopen, by June 21.

UNITED STATES.
The daily death toll has fallen steadily since mid-February as states pushed to speed vaccinations and balanced medical concerns with protests by anti-lockdown groups.

Yet disparities remain. While New Mexico has given at least one dose to over a third of its population, Georgia has just managed a fifth. The inequities are also present among racial groups: in 16 US states and Washington, DC, less than 10% of the Hispanic population has been vaccinated as of Wednesday — a milestone most states reached with White populations weeks ago. Still, more than a quarter of Americans have received their first vaccine dose.

Restaurants in New York City — once the pandemic’s American epicenter — can now operate at 50% capacity indoors, with many diners taking advantage of covered sidewalk seating in Manhattan. The city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has announced plans for a vaccination center on Broadway to inoculate theater-industry workers in preparation for a planned re-opening in September.

BRAZIL
About a year after the virus first arrived and two months after vaccinations began, Brazil is going through its worst stretch of the pandemic yet.

The vast Latin American nation reported 3,650 deaths on Friday, its highest daily toll. On Wednesday, it became just the second country after the US to record 300,000 fatalities. Since starting inoculations in mid-January, just 6% of the population has received a dose. The crisis has prompted neighbors to close borders, impose travel bans and require forced quarantines.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who long downplayed the coronavirus, has now promised to speed up vaccination efforts. The pathogen’s resurgence follows months of relatively lax rules, which included New Year’s celebrations and clandestine parties around the Carnival season in Rio de Janeiro. The upswing also coincided with the growing dominance of a more contagious strain discovered in the northern city of Manaus.

INDIA
India, a vaccine-making colossus key to supplying much of the world with low-cost shots, has struggled to immunize itself. Now the country of almost 1.4 billion is slowing exports to keep more doses at home after new infections climbed six-fold since February to more than 60,000 a day.

This week, the government expanded the rollout to everyone over the age of 45 and has allowed its huge network of private hospitals to charge a subsidized rate for the vaccines. Those moves have boosted immunization rates and may help Prime Minister Narendra Modi reach a target of inoculating 300 million Indians by August.

While India has been reluctant to reimpose lockdowns after a costly shutdown last year did little to halt the spread of the virus, there are increasing concerns that tighter restrictions may be needed.

ITALY
A year after it became Europe’s first virus hotspot, Italy has again been forced to impose a costly lockdown.

In the nation with the highest death toll in the European Union (EU), daily fatalities have been climbing since the start of the month as a highly contagious strain spreads across the country. Prime Minister Mario Draghi has been pressing the EU to lean on pharmaceutical companies to respect vaccine delivery commitments while warning that Italy will block exports by firms that breach contracts.

A general has been appointed as a new virus czar to speed up the vaccine rollout and make sure that all Italian regions keep up the pace. Mr. Draghi hopes to gradually ease Italy’s lockdown after the Easter holidays and to vaccinate 80% of citizens by the end of September. — Bloomberg

Vietnam Q1 foreign investments up 6.5%

HANOI — Vietnam received $4.1 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first three months (Q1) of 2021, up 6.5% from a year earlier, government data showed on Saturday.

FDI has been a key driver of Vietnam’s economic growth. Companies with investment from foreign firms account for about 70% of the southeast Asian country’s exports.

FDI pledges — which indicate the size of future FDI disbursements — rose 18.5% from a year earlier to $10.13 billion in the January-March period, the government said in a statement.

Of the pledges, 49.6% would go to manufacturing and processing, while 38.9% are to be invested in electricity distribution, it added.

Singapore was the top source of FDI pledges in the period, followed by Japan and South Korea. — Reuters

Philippines sends fighter aircraft over Chinese vessels in South China Sea

MANILA – The Philippine military is sending light fighter aircraft to fly over hundreds of Chinese vessels in disputed waters in the South China Sea, its defense minister said, as he repeated his demand the flotilla be withdrawn immediately.

International concern is growing over what the Philippines has described as a “swarming and threatening presence” of more than 200 Chinese vessels that Manila believes were manned by maritime militia.

The boats were moored at the Whitsun Reef within Manila’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone..

The Philippine military aircraft were sent daily to monitor the situation, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement late on Saturday.

Mr. Lorenzana said the military will also beef up its naval presence in the South China Sea to conduct “sovereignty patrols” and protect Filipino fishermen.

“Our air and sea assets are ready to protect our sovereignty and sovereign rights,” Mr. Lorenzana said.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has said the vessels at Whitsun Reef were fishing boats taking refuge from rough seas and that there were no militia aboard.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reaffirmed to China’s ambassador, Huang Xilian, the Philippines had won a landmark arbitration case in 2016, which made clear its sovereign entitlements amid rival claims by China, his spokesman said last week.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, China and Vietnam have competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, through which at least $3.4 trillion of annual trade passes. — Reuters

COVAX expects full vaccine supplies from India’s Serum in May, says UNICEF

NEW DELHI – A World Health Organization (WHO)-backed programme to supply coronavirus vaccines to poorer countries expects that the Serum Institute of India (SII) will resume full deliveries of the AstraZeneca shot to it in May, UNICEF said on Saturday.

“Deliveries of SII/AZ vaccine are expected to begin fully again by May, with catch-up deliveries to reach every participant’s full allocation up to May, accelerating thereafter,” a UNICEF spokeswoman told Reuters in an email.

The spokeswoman added that the programme, known as COVAX, was in talks with New Delhi to secure “some supply” in April too. COVAX was expecting a total of 90 million doses from SII in March and April, of which it has received about 28 million.

UNICEF is the distributing partner of the programme, run with the GAVI vaccine alliance.

India, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, said on Friday it would make domestic COVID-19 inoculations a priority as infections surge, and had told international buyers of its decision.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that India’s decision was “understandable” but that the WHO was in talks so it continues providing doses to other countries.

So far COVAX has delivered 32 million vaccine doses to 61 countries, but 36 countries still await vaccines to start inoculations, Tedros said. (Reporting by Krishna N. Das Editing by Frances Kerry)

How a desert wind blew $10 billion of global trade off course

The forecast for Tuesday, March 23, showed wind gusts of more than 40 miles per hour and sand storms sweeping through northern Egypt. Indeed, such weather is common in the Sinai desert at this time of year.

The Suez Canal—one of the most critical, yet precarious waterways on the planet—remained open. Ships were starting to form the daily convoy as the gusts picked up. One of the world’s biggest container vessels, the Ever Given, joined it. The decision would reverberate globally within hours.

By 7:40 a.m. local time, the megaship—loaded with containers that would stretch more than 120 kilometers (75 miles) end to end and carrying everything from frozen fish to furniture—was stuck. Its grounding would not only lay bare the intricacies of navigating a man-made trench of water in a vessel the size of the Eiffel Tower, but also the fragility of a global network of markets and economies that takes for granted the flow of goods through it.

Based on tracking data and dozens of interviews with people in the industry, what’s known is that the Ever Given started heading through the 300 meter-wide canal while at least one other ship decided to hold off due to the high winds. The Ever Given also didn’t employ tug boats, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, while the two slightly smaller container ships immediately ahead did.

Then there was the issue of how fast it was going. When the ship began to move toward the sand, it appeared to speed up, perhaps to correct itself, though it was too late and it almost collided with the bank. That served to then wedge the steel hull more deeply into the side of the canal. The gusts also would have compounded what’s considered by captains as one of the toughest water crossings in the world.

“You’re in for some white-knuckle rides,” said Andrew Kinsey, a former captain who has navigated a 300-meter cargo ship through the Suez and is now a senior marine risk consultant at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty. “It’s such a small canal, the winds are very rough and you have a really small margin for error and big consequences if errors happen.”

It wasn’t a situation where you couldn’t sail, even though wind was strong enough to close nearby ports. Some vessels used tugs or other assistance, others just passed through without incident.

At least one ship decided to delay the trip through the canal, though. The day before the Ever Given grounded, the Rasheeda was among the ships approaching the canal from the southern end. Mindful of the dangers of the coming sandstorm and laden with liquefied natural gas from Qatar, the captain decided not to enter the canal after discussion with other officials at Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which manages the ship, according to two people familiar with the situation.

The Suez Canal Authority said a lack of visibility in adverse weather led to the ship losing control and drifting. It hasn’t commented further. Taiwan-based Evergreen Line, the time charterer of the vessel, said by email the Ever Given “was grounded accidentally after deviating from its course due to suspected sudden strong wind.”

The manager of the ship, Benhard Schulte Shipmanagement, said initial investigations suggest the accident was due to the wind. An extensive investigation involving multi-agencies and parties is ongoing. It will include interviews with pilots onboard and all bridge personnel and other crew, said a company spokesman.

Meanwhile, the canal remains blocked and the latest reports from people familiar with rescue efforts suggest that will take until at least Wednesday.

A conduit for 12% of the world’s trade, an average of 50 ships pass through Suez every day in convoys that start in the early morning. The Ever Given started its journey soon after daybreak and picked up two local pilots from the Suez Canal Authority. They come onboard to supervise ships making the journey through the waterway that can take up to 12 hours. But the authority’s rules of navigation clearly spell out that the captain, shipowners and charterers remain responsible for accidents.

The Ever Given captain overseeing the bridge had made the journey through the Suez many times before and handled it through gusty wind, according to a former crew member. Shipping companies say that they use their top captains for Suez because of the delicate nature of the trip.

But what happened next left $10 billion worth of goods with nowhere to go with more than 300 ships carrying products across multiple industries now stuck in the gridlock.

The Ever Given lost its bearing and began turning to its starboard side around 5 miles into the mouth of canal. The 200,000-ton ship then careened to its port side, and soon moved sideways and ran aground, its bulbous red bow that juts out to cut efficiently through water firmly embedded in the sandy embankment.

“Here we have just a single vessel that’s out of place and yet it has impact on the entire maritime and global economy,” said Ian Ralby, chief executive officer of I.R. Consilium, a maritime law and security consulting firm that works with governments. “This ship—carrying exactly the kinds of things we rely on day to day—shows that the supply chains we rely on are so integrated and the margin for error is so thin.”

Those piecing together what caused the accident will undoubtedly look at speed. The ship’s last known speed was 13.5 knots at 7:28 a.m., 12 minutes before the grounding, according to Bloomberg data.

That would have surpassed the speed limit of about 7.6 knots (8.7 miles an hour) to 8.6 knots that is listed as the maximum speed vessels are “allowed to transit” through the canal, according to the Suez authority’s rules of navigation handbook posted on its website. Captains interviewed for this story said it can pay to increase the speed in the face of a strong wind to maneuver the ship better.

“Speeding up to a certain point is effective,” said Chris Gillard, who was captain of a 300-meter container ship that crossed the Suez monthly for nearly a decade until 2019. “More than that and it becomes counter effective because the bow will get sucked down deep into the water. Then, adding too much power does nothing but exacerbate the problem.”

Bloomberg data also show that the 300-meter Maersk Denver traveling behind the Ever Given also posted a top speed of 10.6 knots at 7:28 a.m. A spokesperson for Maersk in Denmark declined to comment. Ship captains and local pilots said it’s not unusual to travel through the canal around that speed despite the lower limit.

The Cosco Galaxy, a container ship marginally smaller than the Ever Given, was immediately ahead and appears to have travelled at a similar speed, though with a tugboat. The one ahead of the Cosco, the Al Nasriyah, also had an escort. The escorts are not mandatory, according to the Suez authority’s rules of navigation, though the authority can require it for ships if they deem it necessary.

“The biggest vessels often travel with a tugboat in close proximity, an escort boat, to facilitate the transit,” said Captain Theologos Gampierakis at commodity trading house Trafigura Group in Athens.

A cargo ship with containers stacked high like the Ever Given can be particularly hard to navigate since the ship’s hull and wall of containers can act as a huge sail, said Kinsey, the former captain, who made his last trip through Suez in 2006 .

“You might find yourself positioning the ship in one direction, and you’re actually moving in another direction,” said Kinsey. “There’s a very fine line between having enough speed to maneuver and not having too much speed that the air and hydrodynamics become unstable. Any deviation can get real bad real quick because it’s so tight.”

About 20 minutes after the incident, the first of two tugboats accompanying the vessels ahead of the Ever Given came back to push its port side in an effort to dislodge it, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Later, eight tugboats were deployed to push both sides of the container vessel, but to no avail.

On the ground, officials and investigators were sent to the embankment. Excavators tried to make a dent in helping to release it from the sandy embankment.

In a village 100 meters away from the stuck ship, the vessel looms on the skyline like a giant monument. Every day that it sits still makes it harder to extricate it, due to the sediment that’s being carried by the currents that will pack around the ship under the water, said Kinsey.

The accident will be a missed opportunity if the industry doesn’t adapt, he said. “There will be vessels larger than this one that will be going through the Suez,” he said. “The next incident will be worse.” – Bloomberg

Iran and China sign 25-year cooperation agreement

DUBAI – China and Iran, both subject to U.S. sanctions, signed a 25-year cooperation agreement on Saturday to strengthen their long-standing economic and political alliance.

“Relations between the two countries have now reached the level of strategic partnership and China seeks to comprehensively improve relations with Iran,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted by Iran’s state media as telling his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.

“Our relations with Iran will not be affected by the current situation, but will be permanent and strategic,” Wang said ahead of the televised signing ceremony.

“Iran decides independently on its relations with other countries and is not like some countries that change their position with one phone call.”

The accord brings Iran into China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure scheme intended to stretch from East Asia to Europe.

The project aims to significantly expand China’s economic and political influence, and has raised concerns in the United States.

China has spoken out often against U.S. sanctions on Iran and partly contested them. Zarif called it “a friend for hard times”.

Wang met President Hassan Rouhani ahead of the signing in Tehran. The agreement was expected to include Chinese investments in sectors such as energy and infrastructure.

Rouhani expressed appreciation of Beijing’s support for Iran’s position on its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, in which it agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

“Cooperation between the two countries is very important for the implementation of the nuclear accord and the fulfilment of obligations by European countries,” Rouhani said, according to his official website.

U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to revive talks with Iran on the nuclear deal abandoned in 2018 by his predecessor, Donald Trump in 2018. Tehran wants the sanctions that Trump imposed removed before any negotiations resume.

“Under the new administration, the Americans want to reconsider their policy and return to the nuclear accord, and China welcomes their move,” Wang said.

He also promised that China would provide more coronavirus vaccines to Iran, the Middle Eastern country worst-hit by the pandemic.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the agreement was a “road map” for trade and economic and transportation cooperation, with a special focus on both countries’ private sectors. – Reuters

Gov’t places Metro Manila under stricter lockdown for 1 week

Metro Manila and nearby provinces will once again be placed under the strictest form of lockdown starting Monday, as the country continues to see a surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte approved the recommendation of an inter-agency task force to place the National Capital Region (NCR) and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal under an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) from March 29 (Monday) to April 4 (Sunday), presidential spokesman Herminio L. Roque, Jr. told a televised press briefing on Saturday.

An 11-hour curfew, between 6 p.m. to 5 a.m., will be enforced in the so-called NCR Plus areas.

Gatherings of more than ten individuals will be prohibited during the week, Mr. Roque said. Religious gatherings will also be banned, even the Catholic community observes Holy Week.

“We want to take drastic measures because there’s a drastic threat. Drastic threats warrant drastic response,” Mr. Roque said.

The Health department reported 9,595 new coronavirus cases, bringing the number of active cases to 118,122 as of Saturday. The surge in COVID-19 infections is putting a strain on the healthcare system, as more hospitals announced they are no longer accepting COVID-19 patients and the utilization rate of intensive care unit (ICU) beds reached 73% in NCR.

Mr. Roque said the diminished capacity of hospitals within and outside NCR prompted the government to implement the most stringent lockdown. He also cited the increase in weekly attack rate, which already reached “more than 200%.”

“We are always data driven. Ang criteria natin for escalation is healthcare utilization rate at lumalabas po na it ay umabot po sa critical,” he said.

Mr. Roque said the one-week strict lockdown will have a “minimal” impact on the economy, as it falls during Holy Week when government and private offices as well as financial markets are closed on Maundy Thursday (April 1) and Good Friday (April 2).

The Philippine economy slumped to a record 9.5% in 2020 as it implemented one of the longest and most stringent lockdowns in the world.

Under the latest resolution adopted by the task force, workplaces and private and public establishments are mandated to retrofit their facilities to ensure adequate ventilation, Mr. Roque said.

Public and privates hospitals, healthcare services, manufacturers of medicine and medical supplies will be allowed to fully operate during the ECQ. Also allowed to operate at full capacity are agriculture and fishery sector workers, as well as delivery and courier services transporting food, medicine and other essential goods.

Malls will not be allowed to operate except for for essential stores such as supermarkets, pharmacies and hardware stores. Restaurants will be allowed to have take-out and delivery services.

Public transport would still be allowed to operate at lower capacity, subject to the guidelines to be issued by the Transportation department.

Construction projects would also be allowed to continue, subject to rules to be issued by the Public works department.

Private establishments providing essential goods and services will be allowed to operate at 50% capacity, Mr. Roque said, as well as media establishments and workers accredited by the Transportation department.

Only skeleton workforce will be allowed for dental and other health clinics, banks, capital markets, telecommunications firms, manufacturers of construction materials, water and energy companies, business process outsourcing (BPO) firms, printing presses, airlines and other industries, Mr. Roque said.

Companies that are allowed to operate are required to provide shuttle services for their workers, Mr. Roque said.

The Palace official said the country’s economic planners have committed to subsidize both working and non-working individuals. Details of the government’s cash-based interventions have yet to be finalized.

Meanwhile, simultaneous vaccination of health workers, senior citizens and persons with comorbidities would now be allowed.

The decision came after several chief executives jumped the coronavirus vaccination queue.

Duterte seeks higher pork imports with low tariff

President Rodrigo R. Duterte had asked Congress to increase the minimum access volume for pork imports this year by 350,000 metric tons, his spokesman said on Friday.

The increase was on top of the 54,210 metric tons of pork imports under a lower tariff rate, presidential  spokesman Herminio  L. Roque, Jr. said in a statement.

“This is to immediately augment the supply of pork, stabilize increasing prices and address the pressing issues on food security,” he added.

The Agriculture department earlier recommended the reduction of tariffs for pork imports to 5% from 30% under the minimum access volume quota for six months amid an African Swine Fever outbreak. The rate will be increased to 10% in the next six months.

It also proposed to expand the minimum access volume to 400,000 MT from 54,000 MT due to rising prices.It also proposed to cut to 15% from 40% the tariff for imports beyond the quota.

The Senate this month adopted a resolution asking the President to declare a state of calamity due to the African Swine Fever and reject the recommendation of the Agriculture department to increase the minimum access volume for pork imports.

“Increasing the MAV and decreasing tariff, proposed ironically by the DA itself, would further derail the recovery of the hog industry, if not kill the local industry altogether,” according to the resolution. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

Duterte vetoes tax reform bill clauses

President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Friday vetoed nine sections of a bill that seeks to cut corporate income tax and reform the Philippine incentive system, including the expanded coverage of properties exempted from value-added tax (VAT).

He vetoed a section increasing the threshold of low-cost housing eligible for VAT exemption to P4.3 million from P2.5 million.

“This will benefit even those not originally targeted for the VAT-exemption — those who can actually afford proper housing,” Mr. Duterte said in his veto message, a copy of which was provided by Albay Rep. Jose Ma. Clemente S. Salceda.

“This results in a tax exemption that is highly distortive and exacts a heavy price on the tax-paying community. The provision is also prone to abuse, as properties can be parceled into lots so that their individual values fall within the VAT-exempt threshold,” he added.

Mr. Duterte said the provision would result in an estimated revenue loss worth P155.3 billion from 2020 to 2030.

He also vetoed a section allowing incumbent and future Presidents to exempt an investment promotion agency from the coverage of Republic Act 11534 or the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act.

‘POLITICAL TOOL’

The provision “disregards the huge steps we have taken to rationalize our fiscal incentive system,” Mr. Duterte said. “It could become a highly political tool that could allow subsequent Presidents to dismantle decades of studies, disregard discussions based on empirical evidence, and even subvert the will of Congress itself.”

The law will lower corporate income tax for local small businesses to 20% from 30%. The tax rate for all other companies, meanwhile, will be reduced gradually to 25% starting July 2020 and will be cut further by a percentage point each year from 2023 to 2027 until it reaches 20%.

The law will also streamline the country’s fiscal incentive system to make it time-bound, performance-based and transparent.

“After more than 20 years of deliberations on the countless versions filed in Congress, corporate income tax reform and fiscal incentives rationalization has finally come to fruition,” Mr. Duterte said. “It comes at an opportune time, since it will serve as a fiscal relief and recovery measure for Filipino businesses still suffering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The law will result in P251 billion in foregone revenue in the first two years, or P1 trillion worth of tax relief for a decade.

The so-called CREATE Act will be the guiding document for much of Philippine business and industry in the next decades, Mr. Duterte said in his veto message.

“With over P600 billion in tax relief for job creation in the next five years, we lay our faith and invest in Filipino businesses for them to reinvigorate the economy, create more quality jobs and generate more revenues for the government to tide us along these trying times,” he added.

Mr. Duterte also vetoed a section allowing the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to grant tax refunds even without going through an audit, within 90 days. Mr. Duterte said this could force the BIR to haphazardly grant tax refunds or deny an application that was not properly assessed due to the short deadline.

He likewise vetoed a section excluding the value of land and working capital under the description of investment capital in determining projects and programs eligible for tax perks before the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB).

Mr. Duterte also vetoed the proposed special income tax rate for local businesses with less than P500 million in capital, saying the incentive is too generous.

He said he wanted to provide a level playing field for small businesses that are not registered, which makes up the majority of micro and small enterprises in the country.

Mr. Duterte also vetoed a section to provide a 10-year extension, on top of the additional 14 to 17 years that companies enjoy even if they engage in the same activity. This is “fiscally irresponsible and utterly unfair” to taxpayers and other firms not enjoying the same perks, he said.

“My principle on this matter is simple: Only new activities and projects deserve new incentives,” he added.

He also rejected a proposal to limit the FIRB’s monitoring powers to companies and investment promotion agencies with a capital of more than P1 billion. He said the oversight function would neither result in delays nor create another layer in the approval process.

An item that identifies which economic sectors would be covered was also removed since the law should remain flexible.

Mr. Duterte likewise rejected a line that automatically approved a tax incentive application if not acted upon within 20 days, saying it was contrary to the goal to grant or deny tax perks based on merit.

World Bank cuts Philippine growth outlook

The World Bank cut its economic growth forecast for the Philippines to 5.5% this year, citing high coronavirus cases, a slow vaccination program and lackluster government spending.

“The Philippines struggles with COVID-19, which affects growth directly by requiring a very tough response which has imposed a big cost on the economy,” Aaditya Mattoo, the World Bank’s chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific, told a news briefing on Friday.

“The Philippines has been less successful in transitioning away from shutdowns to a more efficient containment strategy,” she added.

The bank lowered its 2021 growth outlook from the 5.9% estimate it gave in January and 6.2% in June, based on a report released on Friday.

The bank raised the growth outlook for next year to 6.3% from 6% in January, and projected a 6.2% expansion in 2023.

These projections were both lower than the Philippine government’s growth targets of 6.5-7.5% this year and 8-10% next year.

The expected Philippine growth number this year was the fifth highest in East Asia and the Pacific. China would probably lead the economic recovery with an estimated 8.1% growth this year, the World Bank said.

Philippine economic output plunged by 9.5% last year, the largest drop since World War II amid a coronavirus pandemic.

Coronavirus infections have surged in the past weeks even as the government started rolling out its vaccination program this month.

The World Bank said countries that relied heavily on stringent lockdown measures such as the Philippines and Indonesia had fared worse than other economies that used effective test-based strategies.

The bank gave an average 66 stringency score for the country’s lockdowns, the second-highest in the region after China’s 68.

It said the Philippines’ vaccination program had been lagging behind its peers, coupled with lingering concerns over the vaccine efficacy among its population.

Government fiscal response was “conservative” and the government had been underspending due to weak implementation of programs, it added.

“In the Philippines, growth is expected to recover in the medium term, contingent on an improved external environment, a successful vaccination program and the loosening of movement restrictions,” according to the bank’s report.

It said an efficient vaccination program should be a priority to reduce the high number of deaths and ease the pressure on struggling healthcare systems.

It said the state had enough fiscal space to support growth but funding supply is constrained by the health crisis and threats of natural disasters.

The World Bank expects economic growth to average at 6.7% and general government revenues at 17.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP) from 2021 to 2025.

It also expects the country’s fiscal deficit at an average 6.4% of the economy during the period, general government debt at 56.4% of GDP, a current account deficit at 2% of GDP and the volume of external financing needs equivalent to 1.5% of the economy.

Also on Friday, Moody’s Analytics said the Philippine economy was in a “worrisome” state given rising consumer prices, rising coronavirus cases and a slow vaccination rollout.

“Elevated inflation, a large output gap, a recent resurgence of COVID-19 infections and limited vaccine availability are all reasons for concern,” Moody’s Analytics economist Katrina Ell said in a e-mailed note.

She said the current state supports the decision of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to keep benchmark interest rates at record lows despite high inflation. But a second-round of inflation spike was a concern, she added.

The Monetary Board on Thursday kept the overnight reverse repurchase rate at an all-time low of 2%, as predicted by 19 economists in a BusinessWorld poll last week. Rates for the overnight lending and deposit facilities were also kept at 2.5% and 1.5%, respectively.

“We expect the central bank will keep current monetary settings on hold in 2021 and that further policy support will come from more targeted fiscal measures as the economy weathers a slower-than-expected recovery this year,” Ms. Ell said.

The government tightened restrictions in Metro Manila and nearby provinces to curb a fresh surge in coronavirus infections.

Moody’s Analytics kept its growth outlook for the Philippines at 6.3% this year.

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