JOEL Embiid scored a playoff-career-high 40 points and grabbed 13 rebounds Tuesday as the host Philadelphia 76ers evened their Eastern Conference semifinal series with a 118-102 victory over the Atlanta Hawks in Game 2.
Once again, Embiid was questionable to play shortly before tip-off due to a small lateral meniscus tear in his right knee.
Tobias Harris added 22 points and Seth Curry had 21, including five 3-pointers, for the Sixers. Shake Milton scored 14 points in 14 minutes off the bench.
Philadelphia’s reserves were held scoreless in the first half but came through with 26 points in the second.
Trae Young put up 21 points and 11 assists for the Hawks. Danilo Gallinari had 21 points and nine rebounds, and Kevin Huerter added a playoff-career-high 20. Bogdan Bogdanović scored 14 points while Clint Capela had 10.
Hawks forward De’Andre Hunter missed his second straight game because of right knee soreness.
Game 3 in the best-of-seven series will be played on Friday in Atlanta.
The Sixers came out strong and moved ahead 23-6. The Hawks stayed patient, chipped away and closed within 37-35 midway through the second quarter.
Embiid soon capped a 9-0 run with a short jumper in the lane and the Sixers led by 11 with 4:52 remaining in the half.
Gallinari dropped in a 3-pointer with 2.7 seconds left and the Hawks trailed only 57-55 at half time.
Harris scored 18 points before the break, and Embiid added 16 points but had three fouls by halftime. Huerter and Gallinari each had 15 first-half points for Atlanta.
When Embiid hit a trey from the wing with 7:12 to go in the third quarter, the Sixers led 73-63.
The Hawks mounted a rally and cut the deficit to 79-78 with 3:46 left in the third after a difficult 3-pointer by Bogdanović. With just over two minutes left, the Hawks took their first lead at 80-79 after a pair of Young free throws.
Milton led a charge late in the third quarter, and sank a deep trey in the last second period as the Sixers took a 91-84 advantage.
Milton and Dwight Howard keyed a quick 11-0 spurt to open the fourth and the lead quickly was extended to 18. Milton capped the run with a 3-pointer that put the Sixers up 102-84 with 9:45 to go.
Atlanta’s John Collins grabbed an offensive rebound and scored with 8:25 left to get the Hawks within 104-88. Collins finished with a team-high 10 rebounds.
The Hawks committed 18 turnovers that resulted in 28 Philadelphia points. Atlanta managed just seven points off nine Sixers giveaways, one game after Philadelphia turned it over 19 times. — Reuters
DONOVAN Mitchell scored 32 of his 45 points in the second half as the Utah Jazz rallied to defeat the Los Angeles Clippers (112-109) Tuesday night in Salt Lake City to take a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals.
After the Jazz made a big comeback in the second half to take a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter — after trailing by as many as 14 — the Clippers rallied late to put themselves in a position to force overtime.
Utah’s defense, however, denied them that opportunity. Rudy Gobert, the favorite to win a third Defensive Player of the Year award, blocked Marcus Morris’ last-second 3-point attempt after the Jazz defense denied Kawhi Leonard and Paul George from getting a good look in the final 15 seconds.
The Jazz took the early series lead despite the absence of All-Star point guard Mike Conley, who was sidelined due to a strained right hamstring. Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is scheduled for Thursday in Salt Lake City.
Along with Mitchell, Bojan Bogdanović and Jordan Clarkson helped pick up the offensive slack for Utah with 18 points apiece. Joe Ingles added eight points with seven assists, while Mitchell also dished out five dimes.
Gobert finished with 10 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks, including the game-saver.
Leonard led the Clippers with 23 points and George added 20 points and 10 boards, but neither player shot well. Leonard made only 9 of 19 shots while George went 4-for-17. Luke Kennard played a big role in helping LA stay in the game despite its stars not shining as brightly as normal, coming off the bench to score 18 points.
The Jazz had five days of rest since defeating the Memphis Grizzlies 4-1 in the first round, and they looked rusty for much of the first half. Meanwhile, the Clippers were only two days removed from an emotional Game 7 win over the Dallas Mavericks, and they came out strong in the first two quarters.
With Jazz minority owner Dwyane Wade giving him pointers from the front row, Mitchell exploded in the third quarter to help Utah turn things around after the Clippers took a 60-47 half time lead. Mitchell scored 16 points in the period, including the first 10 points for the Jazz, and helped Utah retake the lead at 72-71 on a fastbreak with a pass to Royce O’Neale.
The Jazz used back-to-back 3-pointers by Mitchell and Clarkson to take a six-point lead in the fourth quarter, eventually building it to 10.
The beginning of this series began as bizarrely as the Clippers’ last series in which home teams lost the first six games. Utah jumped out to a 10-2 run and seemed to be fine without Conley. That didn’t last long, though. The Jazz suffered an extended drought as the Clippers went on a 22-2 run to go up 24-12.
Utah ended up trailing 25-18 at the end of the first quarter after hitting just 5 of 28 shots.
The Clippers continued the pressure in the second quarter, taking a 13-point halftime lead thanks to some sizzling shooting from beyond the arc (11-for-23). L.A. held that big advantage despite a combined 3-of-13 shooting half by George and Leonard.
Kennard led the Clippers in first-half scoring with 11 points. — Reuters
“Poor people are poor because they don’t know how to save.” — a grave misconception. What if I told you that research has shown that the poor constantly save? This is the focus of my column today.
As a quick wrap up on the past three weeks discussing some findings of a research project on the financial habits of Filipino migrants in Paris, most of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds which pushed them to migrate in the first place, I pointed out three things that the literature tells us about the financial strategies of the poor. First was that group lending and borrowing replicates sophisticated economically driven tools of financial institutions for monitoring and default risk mitigation. Second is that women are great money managers, both in microfinance and remittance studies, because being financially included empowers their decision-making, and, finally, the poor have a diversity of financial needs and because of this, they are pushed to create complex portfolios and relationships to manage these. Most surprisingly: the poor hate indebtedness and constantly save.
As Microfinance evolved, customers began using the microloans less exclusively for setting up businesses and more towards their needs like paying for school fees or health services and consumption in general. This led to a proliferation of products like micro-insurance and micro-savings. Further, the initial goal of making every poor household entrepreneurial largely shifted into addressing the vulnerability of the poor, creating a change in purpose of the loans and of the microfinance mission in general going away from microcredit. Studies have shown that combining microcredit with micro-insurance has a significant effect on empowering the poor and creates a more sustainable path out of poverty. This is because the main concern of the poor is cashflow management rather than investments in assets.
Collins et al. (2009) in a landmark study of 250 poor households in Bangladesh echoed this point. The authors found that the poor engage in frequent, small-scale transactions that do not follow their income pattern. So, imagine this: in the span of days or a week — at one point, a poor person must buy food, at another point, they must repay debt, at another, they collect debt someone owes to them, with interest income. They may also pay school fees, which is a form of investment, pay rent or amortization for a house, vehicle, or appliance, work overtime to pay off leaves they owe to their employers, or even put money in a paluwagan or a group savings scheme with their friends, which is quite like a bank account with zero interest really. These are all complex financial transactions which require skill and efficiency and planning, and, most interestingly: the act of saving. The only problem is, the savings disappear in a few days or even hours.
The poor use a portfolio approach wherein well-thought-out partial solutions are sought rather than one major solution. At any one time, the average poor household has a collection of financial relationships on-the-go. They use financial intermediation — they decide to either save (to store past income that can be spent at a later date) or to borrow (to take advantage, now, against future income) via transactions with family, neighbors, moneylenders, and saving clubs, constituting a set of formal, semiformal, and informal financial providers — that can fairly be described as a portfolio. Every household in the 250-strong sample, even the very poorest, held both savings and debt of some sort. No household used fewer than four types of instruments during the year and they used this several hundred times in a year.
Instead of long-term goals of asset accumulation, which tends to be the objective of higher income households, the main objective of the poor is cashflow management. Being able to manage immediate needs is a precondition for considering long-term ambitions. Even if the poor person’s behavior was characterized by frequent, small-scale transactions that do not follow their income pattern, such behavior was rational and thought-out.
Further, we know from the lessons of microfinance over the years, that indebtedness is all the more difficult when one is poor. Some studies have shown that indebtedness has cognitive effects. In a couple of high-profile cases in India, the pressure of repayments and extremely high interest rates led to suicides. The poor who have a much more unreliable stream of income had less psychological capacity to live with debt and this became their “jail.” They would sacrifice the money they would use for eating to meet debt repayments.
In talking with my interviewees in Paris, I found that the migrants tended to either clearly write down their debts or recall them in their heads every day because they are not only expected to repay the debt but also in a form of reciprocity, they are expected to be able to provide help in the future to the person who had helped them. This thus creates not only reputational pressure but also social pressure to repay in the future. Some persons preferred to take a debt that cost more in the form of interest so as not to have this pressure and to avoid the ruining of relationships. However, being indebted is not a choice but a necessity in their lives, a necessity they hate.
The bottom line of the financial behaviors of the poor: they are some of the most sophisticated money managers you will ever meet — adept in saving, believers in insurance, and conscient of their debts. They have the innate capacity for proper wealth management, if only they had the resources and the tools available to play with.n
References:
Collins, D., Morduch, J., Rutherford, S., & Ruthven, O. 2009. Portfolios of the poor: how the world’s poor live on $2 a day: Princeton University Press.
Other references are available upon request.
Daniela “Danie” Luz Laurel is a business journalist and anchor-producer of BusinessWorld Live on One News, formerly Bloomberg TV Philippines. Prior to this, she was a permanent professor of Finance at IÉSEG School of Management in Paris and maintains teaching affiliations at IÉSEG and the Ateneo School of Government. She has also worked as an investment banker in The Netherlands. Ms. Laurel holds a Ph.D. in Management Engineering with concentrations in Finance and Accounting from the Politecnico di Milano in Italy and an MBA from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
As things are nowadays, one cannot help but get the impression that the middle class will soon be a thing of the past. And not because the segment has levelled up. It is more like the reverse, with the pandemic dragging down the economy, and the middle class along with it. The same goes for private schools catering particularly to the middle class, given new tax rules.
It is obvious that any increase in income tax on schools will eventually result in higher tuition. And this can make education less accessible to people. In the same way that more government funding for the poor now, including free education, can result in more debt, which can eventually become more taxes in the future. A budget deficit today is a debt tomorrow, and a new or higher tax the day after. No free lunches.
To me, rightly or wrongly, whether for-profit or otherwise, schools’ income should be taxed at a rate lower than other industries for the simple reason that we need more quality schools that can devote sufficient resources to deliver quality service. There are not enough quality public schools in the country to accommodate all those of school age. And, the government has barely enough resources to level up the entire public school system. We need good private schools to help out.
But schools cannot always be non-profit. They need to be sufficiently prosperous to continue pursuing their mandate. Unlike the government, they cannot survive on budget deficits. Having just enough to cover annual expenses does not leave much for investing in improving faculty and facilities. It takes money to provide quality service.
So, to increase their income tax rate just because they are making money appears to be contrary to the philosophy of encouraging and supporting educational institutions in pursuing their social mandate. Yes, the government needs money. However, the government burden to finance public education can also be eased by allowing private schools to thrive. Free public schooling for the have-nots, while those who have a little more can opt to go elsewhere.
It is in this line that I support the petition of for-profit private schools to be allowed to also avail themselves of tax relief in the next three years. Many private schools have been struggling, not only because of the pandemic since 2020 but also because of free tuition in public schools and state colleges and universities since 2018.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), under Revenue Regulation 5-2021, reportedly bars for-profit private schools from applying the 1% income tax rate from July 2020 until July 2023, as a form of economic relief. This relief was supposedly reserved only for non-profit schools. Instead, for-profit schools should be taxed at 25%, according to the BIR, from the present 10%.
Bills have been filed both at the House of Representatives and the Senate to clarify the matter, and to allow private schools tax relief. However, it will take time before either of these bills actually get through. Congress is now in recess and will not reopen until late July. And, it remains unclear whether the bills on taxes on schools will be prioritized in the legislative calendar.
A tax on school income should go down and not up, to help make quality education even more accessible to a greater number of people. Given the stiff competition among private schools for enrollment, I am inclined to think that any tax savings can be passed on to students in the form of lower tuition. Even if only from now until July 2023, as a form of economic relief. Otherwise, to insist on raising the tax now will just make the middle-class dream of a better life even harder to achieve.
Three years ago, I took a position against completely removing tuition payments in state colleges and universities. I believed in the argument that this could do more harm than good, as it would make the entry to state colleges more competitive. And that this competitiveness would benefit more the rich and better-educated students from cities rather than poorer graduates of rural schools.
I also noted that without any tuition, states colleges and universities would have limited funding to improve faculty and facilities. Schools would also have to rely more on grants and donations to maintain service quality. But such funding has become even more difficult to come by now given the pandemic. More money is going to healthcare support now than education.
And then there would be increasing pressure on the National Government to subsidize public education through higher taxes and fees, at the expense of other public services. And the pressure would continue as the population grew. The cost of education will be borne by all taxpayers through new taxes or higher taxes, such as the higher tax on private schools themselves.
The burden of education, and financing education, will shift primarily to the government. But, is it in a position to shoulder this burden long-term? The sustainability of the “free” education program will depend on fiscal balance. And any adverse implications on state finances, such as those brought about by the ongoing pandemic, will have adverse consequences on state-sponsored education. A situation can arise where a number of state colleges will eventually have to limit enrollment if not shut down because the government lacks the money for them.
Many smaller private schools have reportedly closed in the last three years, after having lost students and teachers to the public school system. With the pandemic, and the economy in the doldrums, expect even more students to quit private schools and move to local public schools. Dwindling enrollment, a cap on tuition increase, and higher taxes can result in more private school closures.
In the future, one will have to go to either an expensive, highly taxed school that only the rich can afford, or go to a public school to get an education. Affordable private schools for the middle class will no longer exist. Only private schools for the wealthy are going to survive. While the over-extended public-school system will have to take in more than it can accommodate. Expect a tragic outcome from this.
Marvin Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippine Press Council
PLDT PRESIDENT, CEO, AND CHAIRMAN MANUEL V. PANGILINAN
By Manuel V. Pangilinan
(Longtime PLDT President, CEO, and Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan gave this speech on June 8 at the PLDT 2021 annual stockholders’ meeting.)
PLDT PRESIDENT, CEO, AND CHAIRMAN MANUEL V. PANGILINAN
I BEGIN my remarks today by saying how proud I am of thousands of our frontliners on what they accomplished last year in the teeth of the pandemic — our network build, installs and repair, sales force and storefront staff, our account managers.
2020 was an exceptionally difficult year for all of us, especially those who lost their loved ones.
But it was also an exceptional year for PLDT — in what we achieved collectively, and how we were transformed for the better by this pandemic. As you can see from our financial and operating results, PLDT not only survived, but thrived, last year.
That said, no matter how robust our profits may be in any year, we must stay keenly focused on serving our customers, especially during crises — keeping families connected, entertained, and educated; enabling businesses to operate at home or in the office; ensuring healthcare is delivered to those who need it — and simply being a source of strength amidst extraordinary adversity and affliction.
LOOKING BACK When I first became president of PLDT 23 years ago, it was in some ways the fulfillment of my young hopes and ambition. As early as 1999, we spoke about convergence — the coming together of telecoms, media, and the internet — creating a singularly unique experience of communicating.
The world has turned over many times since then, but my hopes and goals have neither diminished nor vanished. In fact, the convergence concept we discussed then has become a verdict of history today.
You will also recall that it was a time when telecommunications was a simple business model — a single product business — which was voice. More than 90% of PLDT’s revenues then were driven by voice. One would assume that the job of PLDT president in 1999 was easy, because the business was simple, and PLDT still was a virtual monopoly.
But technology changed all that rapidly in the short span of 20 years. The changes were phenomenal, but problematic. For one, our revenues have seen consequential changes. Now, 76% of our revenues are data and broadband, and voice accounts for a mere 20%. At the same time, our company has become infinitely more complicated — the coverage and complexity of our networks immense, the range of our products and plans, and customer care and experience awesome.
ONCE MORE WITH FEELING Let me now bring you forward, to 2015.
About 66 months ago — at a time of trauma and decline for PLDT, the duties of the CEO fell upon me once again. And again, I asked for your prayers, and God’s help, that we might bring our company back to the premiere position it once held — by fixing our networks and making them the best in the country, transforming our business processes from legacy to digital, fortifying our management bench, and, most critically, uniting our people in a single purpose, and igniting that purpose with passion.My primordial goal as CEO was rejuvenation of PLDT as the foremost telco in the country.
I would be less than honest with you if I say that I knew from the start what to do, where PLDT should be going. Rather, I had my own dark nights of doubt and long days of despondency. But because we came together as one, hope was nurtured. And we healed. We are now a stronger company, establishing historic high revenues and EBITDA these past five years. And as the only integrated telco, we have re-created our dominant position across product lines.
HANDING OVER At the end of this meeting, I will have discharged my final duty as president and CEO of PLDT I’ve asked Al Panlilio to succeed me in this position. My first words would be to declare my support to him.
This decision is made less difficult by the knowledge that Al, with his long experience with PLDT and his competent qualities, would be able to take my place forthwith, without interruption or detriment to the progress of PLDT.
Indeed, there are moments in the lives of corporations, and even in our own lives, where change becomes appropriate, even inevitable.
I now lay down my charge. I will continue to be your chairman and, as such I will always follow the affairs and fortunes of our company with profound interest.If I can be of service to Al and his team at any time, I shall not fail to help.
THE FUTURE — EXPECTATIONS In the past 23 years, I’ve seen firsthand the ordeals and triumphs of this company.
The P40-billion debt re-structuring of Piltel in 1999, PLDT’s liquidity issues in 2001 exacerbated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York; our acquisition of Sun Cellular in 2011; our loss of leadership in the wireless business starting 2015 — these are just some of the many consequential milestones of PLDT’s storied tapestry.
We’ve seen them all — and prevailed.
So let me say this to conclude — it has been an unparalleled privilege to have served you and this company as your CEO.It has indeed been a remarkable walk with destiny.
Let us therefore confidently face the future as we did the past— resolute to do our duty well, resolute to uphold our values by deed and by word, resolute to attain our highest goals.
I look forward to a great future for PLDT — where our accomplishments will match our service, our passion with our purpose.
I look forward to a PLDT dauntless in facing crises of the worst kind as we did with COVID, fearless in embracing opportunities for innovation or expansion — resolute in preserving the ground we have retaken: never again shall we yield.
I look forward to a PLDT which earns the respect of its peers in business, the keen interest of investors, and the patronage of our customers and communities.
In closing, I wish all of you to be safe and well. In next year’s annual meeting, I hope we can all be together in one place in person. May God bless PLDT. May God bless our country.
ONCE CONSIDERED a stage performance aimed at a slightly inebriated male audience in a dark bar, pole dancing has become a fitness program. With a pole in one’s bedroom, this gym routine can be enhanced with mirrors and music, with no need for provocative movements. Then it does not need to be performed with much skill, only diligent effort and sweat, yet another form of working out from home.
The slithering, sliding, and lifting with upper body strength needed for the “flag pole” position, with the body parallel to the ceiling require determination, and can lead to dangerous slips.
Such exertions are emulated by participants in another type of frenzied activity, like poll dancing. At this juncture when formal campaigning is still disallowed, the players merely strut their stuff.
The background music is set by the surveys.
Wannabes throw their names into the mix, even if they’re just “thinking about it.” They may even express demure denials — I still have a young family to take care of. Other endorsers are assigned to publicly express support to persuade the reluctant candidate to at least consider the possibility. (Is he nodding his head?)
The status of “frontrunner” is vested only by surveys that track declared or undeclared candidates for national office. True, these surveys are not as binding as the US primaries are for the contenders for a party’s nomination.
The frontrunners as the election draws nearer (just 10 months away) enjoy many advantages.
They can draw on the best team of strategists, political analysts, think tanks, and provincial allies who control local vote-getting machines and ruling dynasties. The cape of “winnability” is like a magnet attracting iron filings. The frontrunner needs to publicly turn away those who want to help but may harm the campaign with their past history, still being scrubbed clean — there was a communist threat that needed to be addressed.
Financial support sits on the sidelines until a pattern of ranking emerges. When it does, the money goes to the front of the line. This manifest affinity of funding the frontrunner translates into a widening circle of support. The donor-beneficiary relationship is tilted in favor of the leading candidate as survey results do not require any promises in exchange for support. It is the donor (rarely anonymous) who feels he is paying an entrance fee to get into the big tent.
The difficulties of tail-enders multiply as they drop in the survey ratings.
Support dries up. The first-class talents in the campaign move elsewhere, maybe back to their day jobs. Troll farms have been parceled out to the front of the line. It is harder to make appointments with the fat cats who seem to be tied up in perpetual meetings. (The boss is free to see you sometime in June of next year.)
The laggard is no longer newsworthy. There are gripes and attacks on popularity politics — maybe I don’t smile enough? In radio interviews, their assertions can be grating as the interviewee doesn’t even wait to be asked a question as he launches into the unfairness of the process. The assertion of having the best qualification for the job is greeted with a polite yawn — if you’re so great, why are you at the end of the survey line?
Naturally, the proxies of the “asterisk” (less than one percent of respondents) group who are touted in TV interviews as “resource persons” or “political analysts” try to discredit the methodology of the survey even without having seen the questionnaire — why did they include “my client” in the category of running mate? He is running for the top post. The attempt to throw doubt on the survey mechanics is hoped to erode the benefits of being frontrunner.
It’s possible that survey top-notchers don’t always end up winning. More often though, the tail-enders in the bottom quartile fail to improve their electoral chances either, even as possible running mates. They drop out of the whole political conversation.
At this point, visibility, interviews, quotes on safe topics like the vaccination rollout, and strutting (with social distancing) are all the campaigning process allows. Like any spectator sport, such performances do not always attract interest, except for those leading the pack.
And then for the laggards, it’s a matter of waiting for the next survey and making a decision to quit… for health reasons.
COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) sequencing in Singapore has revealed the emergence of the delta variant as the country’s major local virus strain, underscoring the highly infectious nature of the mutation that has proliferated globally since its first detection in India.
Of these cases as of May 31, 449 have been found to be caused by variants of concern, among which 428 were infections of the delta strain, said the country’s health ministry. The next largest group was nine cases linked to the beta mutation that first emerged in South Africa.
The “current understanding” is that some variants, including the delta mutation, “are more transmissible,” a spokesperson for Singapore’s health ministry said on Tuesday in a response to questions from Bloomberg News. “Studies are ongoing to get a more complete understanding of these variants and we will adjust our strategies as more information is made available.”
Singapore is a rare example of a country that sequences all its COVID-19 cases and its data provides the most thorough glimpse yet of how the delta variant, also known as B.1.617.2, spreads more rapidly. The strain has been identified in more than 60 countries over the past six months since its discovery in India, and concerns are growing that it may extend the pandemic in some places.
A spike in infections in the UK, fueled by the variant, has prompted Britain to reconsider plans for a total reopening later this month, despite a large vaccine uptake among its population.
Delta has also been linked to unusual symptoms like hearing loss and blood clots leading to gangrene, suggesting its impact may be more severe than other strains. In England and Scotland, early evidence suggests it carries a higher risk of hospitalization.
Singapore reacted aggressively to the flareup linked to the variant by barring visitors from India in April and extending quarantines at government-designated facilities. It has also limited gatherings to two people, moved school lessons online and barred dining-in last month to slow spread.
The country’s authorities only found four locally transmitted coronavirus infections on Tuesday, extending a streak of low daily counts since the start of the week. Yet only one of the four cases was linked to earlier infections while three were untraceable, showing the difficulty faced in completely eradicating the recent outbreak.
The decline in cases comes ahead of a possible easing of restrictions after June 13. Meanwhile, the pace of Singapore’s immunization drive has been hampered by limited vaccine supplies, with the government stretching out the interval between doses to six to eight weeks in order to cover more people with a first shot. — Bloomberg
SEOUL — South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party said on Wednesday it was trying to regain public trust by asking 12 lawmakers to leave the party over a property scandal that has alienated voters.
The insider land trading scandal, alongside skyrocketing home prices and deepening inequality, has contributed to President Moon Jae-in’s approval ratings plunging to record lows and his party’s abject defeat in key mayoral elections in April.
Offering a public apology last week, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said 20 people had been arrested and 529 referred to prosecutors, including 90 members of the parliament and high-level and local government officials, as part of an intra-agency investigation.
And on Tuesday, the ruling party said a state watchdog had found that 12 of its MPs or their families were suspected of unlawful property dealings, and had advised them to withdraw their membership.
Six agreed to leave saying they would return after clearing their names, while three rejected the request, claiming innocence. The other three said they will cooperate with the investigation, without elaborating.
Many Koreans have expressed disgust over the scandal with the taunt “naeronambul”, which translates to: “If I do it, it’s a romance. If you do it, it’s adultery.”.
Mounting disillusion with the government could threaten Mr. Moon’s efforts to achieve policy goals, and has left the party in need of an image make-over before next year’s presidential election.
Speaking on Wednesday, Democratic Party chairman Song Young-gil said the decision to ask the MPs to leave was not a disciplinary action but a step that had to be taken prior to a formal investigation, which is needed to regain public trust.
“It’s an inevitable measure to relieve people’s distrust over the ‘naeronambul’ attitude and the property issue,” he told a televised meeting. “It’s heartbreaking, but a desperate attempt for change.” — Reuters
Architect’s perspective courtesy of Cebu Landmasters
Architect’s perspective courtesy of Cebu Landmasters
Cebu Landmasters Inc. (CLI) and consortium El Camino Developers, Inc., topped off its P3.5 billion high-end residential tower, 38 Park Avenue, in a virtual ceremony on June 8. Located in Metro Cebu’s Cebu IT Park, it is the first phase of the three-phased mixed-use development within a 1.2-hectare property.
The residential condominium evokes New York-inspired living, said Roberto D. Gothong, chief executive officer of project partner Gothong Southern Properties. He added that its location in The Plaza at Park Avenue, a green open retail park, is reminiscent of Fifth Avenue, home to New York’s Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building.
The project was envisioned among friends, said Mr. Gothong, referring to the Gothong, Almario, King, and Soberano families of Cebu. “This was conceived in a walking trip in Europe, along the Camino trail in Santiago de Compostela,” Mr. Gothong said at the virtual event. “Nature can really work wonders to the imagination.”
The tower has 38 residential floors housing 764 units,broken down as follows: 459 studio units, 230 one-bedroom units, 56 two-bedroom units, 11 three-bedroom units, and 8 penthouse units. All units have been laid out around an atrium that infuses the entire development with light, according to top architectural firm Aidea Philippines and international design consultant Callison RTKL. Among the features are a Sky Club on the 26th and 28th floors, eight elevators, three-level basement parking, and a high-ceilinged lobby each in the east and west wings.
“As of today, we are 97% sold,” said Jose Franco B. Soberano, director, executive vice president, and chief operating officer of CLI, at the same event. “There are less than 30 units available left.”
When the pandemic struck, construction was at the 22nd floor. Work continued throughout the various lockdowns and strict compliance to health and safety protocols — including on-site medical support — resulted in zero coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)cases. The third-party construction workers were also provided meals, accommodation, and weekly allowances on top of daily wages.
Mr. Soberano added that early investors have already been rewarded, as the value of the property has risen to P200,000 per square meter from the pre-selling price of less than P120,000. “We are targeting to turn over the first batch of units by the end of this year,” he said. “The Cebu property market remains to be one of the bright spots in the region with sustained demand and highly resilient property values.”— Patricia B. Mirasol
The Dumagat Remontado, the indigenous people of Daraitan, Rizal, have been sharing their produce to 10 of Manila’s community pantries since they started sprouting in the capital mid-April.
The response is a show of solidarity with the urban poor and a sign of the broken food system, said Rhea Jane Pescador-Mallari, Greenpeace Southeast Asia–Philippines campaigner.
Greenpeace Philippines, through the agricultural advocacy group PAKISAMA (Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka), has been supporting the initiative by facilitating the supply, delivery, and distribution of the Dumagat IPs’ produce.
“Greenpeace supports this initiative in order to show a proof of concept on the viability and benefits of shorter value chains, by linking community pantries with indigenous peoples, local ecological farmers, and the urban poor,” she told BusinessWorld in an e-mail interview.
Among the pantries that source some of their supplies from the Dumagat Remontado farmers are those in Pinagbuhatan, Pasig; Tondo; West Crame, San Juan; as well as the zero-waste Mother Earth Foundation pantry in Tinajeros, Malabon. All produce is packaged and distributed in reusable bags.
The first community pantry was set up in Maginhawa Street, Quezon City, this April. On a cart piled with vegetables, eggs, and non-food items was a cardboard sign with the message, “Maginhawa Community Pantry. Magbigay ayon sa kakayahan, kumuha batay sa pangangailangan” (Give what you can, take what you need).” The idea soon spread and inspired similar pantries all over the country and in Timor-Leste.
“PAKISAMA saw this as an opportunity to show that farmers are essential to our way of life. They saw how this initiative can challenge the status quo on how our food systems work where community pantries can directly source out from farmers,” said Ms. Mallari.
While Greenpeace believes that the emergence of community pantries reflects the inadequacies of government, not all support this view. “And I beg to disagree that community pantries reflect the inadequacies of government. All over the world, many governments were not prepared for COVID-19, and are presently hard pressed to sufficiently cover all the needs of their people,” said BusinessWorld columnist Marvin A. Tort in a recent Opinion piece. — Patricia B. Mirasol
Microsoft launched the first Asia-Pacific cybersecurity council to build a strong, coordinated response against cybercrime in the region.
The Asia Pacific Public Sector Cyber Security Executive Council consists of 15 policy makers from seven countries, including the Philippines, who will boost public-private partnerships in cybersecurity, address cyber threats, and share solutions.
“Cybersecurity is an important national agenda that cannot rely solely on the back of an IT (information technology) team,” said Dato’ Ts. Dr. Haji Amirudin Abdul Wahab, chief executive officer of CyberSecurity Malaysia and one of the council’s founding members, during a cybersecurity panel in the Microsoft APAC Public Sector Summit this May.
Cybercrime causes trillions of dollars in financial losses and operational impacts to individual and business victims. According to Microsoft’s Security Endpoint Threat Report in 2019, the Asia-Pacific region experienced malware attacks 1.6 times higher and ransomware attacks 1.7 times higher than the rest of the world.
In the Philippines, internet security firm Kaspersky reported that ransomware attacks on small and medium businesses in the declined by 15.17% in 2020; it qualified, however, that the dip was due to a shift to quality rather than quantity — meaning more aggressive and targeted attacks.
“The collective intelligence amongst the APAC nations is paramount to jointly share best practices and strategies that will enable us to resolve cybersecurity challenges at a faster pace and a more proactive manner,” said ChangHee Yun, a principal researcher of Korea’s National Information Society Agency. The coalition, he added, can help members get ahead of the perpetrators and establish higher standards for the cybersecurity eco-system.
A forum for government agencies, state leaders, and cybersecurity industry advisors will allow the council to share their experiences and knowledge relating to cyber threats. Microsoft said that this will build on existing efforts to strengthen partnerships through the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise. — Brontë H. Lacsamana
As more consumers go online for banking and other financial transactions, new research from TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) found that fraudsters are ramping up their efforts in the financial services industry. When comparing the last four months of 2020 (Sept. 1 – Dec. 31) and the first four months of 2021 (Jan. 1 – May 1), the company found the percentage of suspected digital fraud attempts[1] coming from the Philippines in financial services increased 50%, the highest among all industries analyzed. Globally, the rate of digital financial services fraud attempts increased 149%.
Across industries, the rate of suspected digital fraud attempts globally rose 24% when comparing the first four months of 2021 with the last four months of 2020. The percentage of digital fraud attempts coming from the Philippines increased 19% during the same time period.
TransUnion monitors digital fraud attempts reported by businesses in varied industries such as communities, financial services, gambling, gaming, retail, and telecommunications, among others. The conclusions are based on intelligence from billions of transactions and more than 40,000 websites and apps contained in its flagship identity proofing, risk-based authentication and fraud analytics solution suite – TransUnion TruValidate™.
“The rate of fraud attempts was up globally and especially in the financial services industry because fraudsters understand this is where the most high-value transactions are taking place. While this industry is traditionally known for in-person transactions, fraudsters have recognized its rapid digital acceleration and are trying to capitalize,” said TransUnion Philippines President and CEO Pia Arellano. “We are seeing more financial services organizations implement fraud prevention solutions with some success, though our findings make it clear that this is not the time to relax. As the economy begins to open up and perform better, businesses need to do even more to ensure they are providing a secure marketplace that offers friction-right experiences to consumers.”
Examining Fraud Types and Their Impact on Industries
TransUnion analyzed industries with the highest increases and declines in the percent of suspected digital fraud attempts against them, comparing the periods of Sept. 1-Dec. 31, 2020 and Jan. 1-May 1, 2021.
Top Suspected Digital Fraud Rate Attempt Increases and Declines by Industry
Industry
Suspected Fraud Percentage Change Coming from the Philippines
Top Type of Fraud Globally
Largest Percentage Increases
Financial Services
50.39%
True Identity Theft
Travel & Leisure
31.50%
Credit Card Fraud
Communities (online dating, forums, etc.)
10.16%
Profile Misrepresentation
Largest Percentage Declines
Logistics
-60.50%
Shipping Fraud
Telecommunications
-28.60%
True Identity Theft
Retail
-27.42%
Promotion Abuse
Interestingly, the telecommunications and logistics industries recorded the two largest declines during this period. TransUnion’s March 2021 assessment, which analyzed the pre- and post-pandemic declaration periods (March 11, 2019-March 10, 2020 and March 11, 2020-March 10, 2021), found the opposite with telecommunications and logistics having the two largest suspected digital fraud rate increases between the periods respectively. Financial services had the third highest increase in the rate of suspected digital fraud during the March analysis, and jumped to the top spot this time.
TransUnion defines true identity theft, the top type of digital fraud in financial services, as the consumer using a stolen identity (from a victim who is a real person) to commit fraud. The second and third type of digital fraud most reported by TransUnion financial services customers are first-party application fraud and account takeover, respectively.
First-party application fraud is when a consumer refuses to repay legitimately incurred debts and/or falsely claims to be a victim of identity fraud to evade debt. Account takeover is when someone other than the owner of an account uses the account without permission, indicating that the account has been maliciously compromised.
“An interesting dynamic is playing out where we are seeing other industries facing far fewer suspected fraud attempts than what has been observed in financial services. In some cases, as in logistics and retail, we are seeing a decline in the rate of such fraud attempts,” said Arellano. “The key takeaway for businesses is that fraudsters do not treat every industry equally. They often pick and choose an industry to focus on based on the time of year or what businesses are seeing more transactional activity. For example, in the Philippines, the rate of suspected digital fraud attempts originating from it against online communities like dating sites and forums increased by 10% whereas the global average decreased 4%.At times, fraud attempts are conducted at random simply to determine if businesses are prepared to meet their challenges. In this critical time, it pays to be one step ahead.”
More information about TransUnion’s insights and solutions can be found here.
[1] The percent or rate of suspected or risky fraudulent digital transaction attempts are those that TransUnion’s customers either denied or reviewed due to fraudulent indicators compared to all transactions it assessed for fraud
