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Four teams to represent Philippines in PUBG Mobile regional finals

FOUR Philippine squads will be representing the country in the PUBG Mobile Club Open Fall Split 2020: SEA Wildcard (PMCO) regional finals after winning at the recently concluded PUBG Mobile Philippine National Championship (PPNC).

Out of the 192 squads that competed in the first-ever PUBG Mobile tournament in the Philippine Pro Gaming League (PPGL), the winning teams were led by national champions BERSERKER. Joining them were Blacklist International, Almost Evil Adrastos, and All-Star Team Puyat. They have earned the right to carry the flag against the rest of the Southeast Asian contingent. 

 The livestream of the PMCO Fall Split 2020: SEA Wildcard will be announced at a later date on the PUBG Mobile Esports (English) Facebook and YouTube pages.

“Synergizing with PUBG Mobile, Globe Telecom, and all the stakeholders for this event concretizes everything that Mineski stands for. Collaboration is the key to make impactful changes to the lives of every Filipino gamer, and to making esports the number one sport in the world. The PPGL will continue to provide more exciting opportunities in the years to come,” said Mineski Global CEO and founder Ronald Robins.

“At Globe, we are amazed by the evolution of gaming in the Philippines. We will continue to recreate ways to enable our Filipino Esports enthusiasts to further enhance their gaming experience,” said DC Dominguez, Head of Globe Games and Esports, the official partner of the PPGL.

A representative from PUBG Mobile shared that thanks to the partnership with Globe and Mineski Philippines, they have been able to provide an avenue for enthusiasts of PUBG Mobile with the first-ever PPNC held to resounding success by the PPGL. The PPNC aims to be an annual PUBG Mobile tournament.

The PPGL is an amateur and professional esports league co-owned and operated by Mineski Philippines and Globe Telecom. It is the largest multi-game league in the Philippines, delivering esports experience and gaming entertainment to Filipino gamers and communities for the last three years.

Ronaldo nets 100th international goal in Sweden win

STOCKHOLM — Cristiano Ronaldo rattled home a superb first-half free kick to become only the second male player to score 100 international goals as Portugal outclassed 10-man Sweden 2-0 in their Nations League A Group 3 game on Tuesday.

Portugal’s captain scored with a dipping set-piece effort just before halftime to join Ali Daei, who netted 109 times for Iran, on a century of goals.

The 35-year-old was a constant threat to Sweden’s back line in the early exchanges, hanging on the shoulder of the last defender before bursting forward to beat the offside trap, but Sweden goalkeeper Robin Olsen was equal to the task.

That all changed when Gustav Svensson received his second yellow card and was sent packing after a reckless challenge on Joao Moutinho on the edge of his own box just before halftime.

Ronaldo stepped up and smashed a dipping effort beyond the despairing dive of Olsen and just under the crossbar before breaking into a wide smile as he celebrated with his team mates.

Sweden were struggling to contain the visitors and Ronaldo struck again in the 73rd minute with another curling, dipping effort, this time from open play, to leave himself just eight goals short of Daei’s international scoring record.

Portugal’s Joao Moutinho credited the Swedes for making it difficult for them early on, but that all changed with the dismissal of Svensson.

“Of course the red card was good for us, we tried to circulate the ball to find spaces, and happily we scored two great goals from Ronaldo,” he said.

With two wins from two games Portugal top Group 3, ahead on goal difference of France, who beat Croatia 4-2, with the Swedes third and the Croatians bottom.

France meet Portugal in a top-of-the-table clash in Paris on Oct. 11, while Croatia host Sweden on the same date. — Reuters

PRURide organizers remain undeterred in seeing cycling vision through

THE ongoing coronavirus may have thrown a monkey wrench on their plans this year but organizers of PRURide PH remain undeterred in delivering on their vision for the sport of cycling in the country.

Originally set for March this year, the fourth edition of the marquee cycling event had to be cancelled over health and safety concerns because of the pandemic.

However, instead of dwelling too much on the what-could-have-beens, organizers instead decided to recalibrate their push, turning to the virtual platform to at least sustain the momentum PRURide PH, and cycling in general, has built in previous years.

So instead of a physical event, PRURide PH will be done virtually in November.

“From the physical, we will turn it to virtual. I definitely realized that you can also do so much when you go virtual in trying to mimic the physical,” said Allan Tumbaga, PRU Life UK vice-president and chief customer marketing officer, in Tuesday’s online Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum.

They are using the recently held My Prudential RideLondon as a model for the modified PRURide PH event.

One of the world’s biggest cycling festivals, RideLondon was successfully held virtually from Aug. 15-23 after the original one-day bike event was likewise cancelled due to the worldwide health crisis. It attracted around 11,000 participants, composed of professional and recreational cyclists from around 70 countries worldwide.

PRU Life UK employees Ryan Benguelo, Nelsi Rabe, Ryan Lamayo, and Marvin Pacis were among the finishers in this year’s RideLondon virtual race.

Mr. Tumbaga shared that they could have decided to scrap PRURide PH altogether this year but moved against it, seeing the current situation as still an opportunity to further their push for cycling to be a viable mode of transportation and platform to have an active and healthy lifestyle.

“This is really our passion; to push cycling. We have seen during this pandemic that a lot of people are using bikes to move around and we welcome that,” the Pru Life official said.

“Hopefully by pushing through with the event, even if it is just virtually, we can encourage more people to pick up cycling or keep their passion for it alive,” he added.

Registration for the November virtual cycling event is now ongoing over the health app Pulse, which can be downloaded for free on App Store and Play Store.

While the physical staging of PRURide PH will not take place this year, Mr. Tumbaga said they are hopeful that next year it will happen. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

Fired-up Zverev downs Coric to reach US Open semis

NEW YORK — German fifth seed Alexander Zverev survived a stern test of nerves to reach his second Grand Slam semi-final this year with a 1-6 7-6(5) 7-6(1) 6-3 victory over Croatian Borna Coric at the US Open on Tuesday.

After a slow start, Zverev raised his game as the match wore on and showed more poise in the crucial moments against the 27th seed to become the first German to reach the last four at the US Open since Boris Becker in 1995.

Coric made a flying start to the match and needed only 24 minutes to wrap up the first set during which he took advantage of 12 unforced errors from a flat Zverev.

But the German showed plenty of fight in the second set as he came back from a break down and overcame four double-faults, and 15 unforced errors to level the match by winning the tiebreak before unleashing an extended roar.

A fired-up Zverev was put to the test again in a pressure-packed third set where, after trading early breaks with Coric, he twice had to serve to stay in the set before going on to cruise through another tiebreak.

Zverev opened the fourth set in emphatic fashion as he sent a volley past Coric to take the opening game to love. He saved four break points in the fifth game for a 3-2 lead and then broke for a 5-3 cushion that sent him on his way to victory.

Up next for Zverev, who reached his first career Grand Slam semi-final at this year’s Australian Open, will be either Canadian Denis Shapovalov or Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta.  — Reuters

Osaka beats Rogers to reach US Open semis

NEW YORK — Naomi Osaka’s sharp serving and superior return game helped her past American Shelby Rogers 6-3 6-4 and into the semi-finals of the US Open on Tuesday as the Japanese continues her quest for a second title at Flushing Meadows.

Osaka, who was 0-3 lifetime against Rogers coming into the match, broke at love to take a 5-3 lead in the first set where Rogers hit 16 unforced errors to Osaka’s five and held serve to claim the set.

The fourth seeded Osaka broke again early in the second set for a 2-1 lead and sealed the win when Rogers dumped a forehand into the net on match point for her 28th unforced error.

“Honestly, I felt like she had the upper hand because I’d never beaten her and those memories are stuck in my head,” said the 22-year-old Osaka, who last faced Rogers in 2017.

“So, yeah, I consider this a little bit of revenge.”

Osaka once again had tape wrapped around her left thigh, but said it was just as a precaution.

Despite the loss Rogers will hold her head high after the 27-year-old saved four match points to defeat Petra Kvitova to reach her first U.S. Open quarter-final.

Next up for Osaka is in-form American Jennifer Brady, who beat Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva in straight sets earlier in the day.

“I think she’s a really amazing player, she has the variety that I wish I had so I’m a bit jealous,” Osaka said.

“But, yeah, she’s super nice and I think it’s going to be a really tough match and I think we’re both going to try our best.”

Osaka entered the court wearing a black mask with George Floyd’s name on it as part of her ongoing protest against racial injustice.

Floyd, a Black man, died in police custody in Minneapolis in May after an officer pinned him to the ground by his throat.  — Reuters

Antetokounmpo headlines All-Defensive team

DEFENSIVE Player of the Year Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks heads the NBA All-Defensive First Team, which was announced by the league on Tuesday night.

Antetokounmpo, who won the top defensive honor on Aug. 25, received 97 of 100 possible first-place votes in balloting performed by a panel of sportswriter and broadcasters. The forward received 195 votes.

Joining Antetokounmpo on the first team were Los Angeles Lakers power forward Anthony Davis (87 first-place votes, 187 points), Philadelphia 76ers guard Ben Simmons (88 and 185, respectively), Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (85, 180) and Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart (57, 152).

The first-team selection was the fourth for Gobert, who was Defensive Player of the Year in each of the previous two seasons.

The All-Defensive Second Team is comprised of Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard (33, 128), Milwaukee center Brook Lopez (3, 67), Miami Heat forward Bam Adebayo (7, 61), Clippers guard Patrick Beverley (15, 60) and Bucks guard Eric Bledsoe (7, 59).

Leonard has earned All-Defensive honors six times. He has been a first-team choice on three occasions. — Reuters

More than 1B people face displacement by 2050

LONDON — Rapid population growth, lack of access to food and water and increased exposure to natural disasters mean more than 1 billion people face being displaced by 2050, according to a new analysis of global ecological threats.

Compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a think-tank that produces annual terrorism and peace indexes, the Ecological Threat Register uses data from the United Nations and other sources to assess eight ecological threats and predict which countries and regions are most at risk.

With the world’s population forecast to rise to nearly 10 billion by 2050, intensifying the scramble for resources and fuelling conflict, the research shows as many as 1.2 billion people living in vulnerable areas of sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East may be forced to migrate by 2050.

By comparison, ecological factors and conflict led to the displacement of some 30 million people in 2019, the report said.

“This will have huge social and political impacts, not just in the developing world, but also in the developed, as mass displacement will lead to larger refugee flows to the most developed countries,” said Steve Killelea, IEP’s founder.

The register groups the threats into two broad categories: food insecurity, water scarcity and population growth in one; and natural disasters including floods, droughts, cyclones, rising sea levels and rising temperatures in the other.

The result is an analysis assessing how many threats each of some 150 countries faces and their capacity to withstand them.

While some, such as India and China, are most threatened by water scarcity in the coming decades, others like Pakistan, Iran, Mozambique, Kenya and Madagascar face a toxic combination of threats, as well as a diminishing ability to deal with them.

“These countries are broadly stable now but have high exposure to ecological threats and low and deteriorating ‘positive peace’, which means they are at higher risk of future collapse,” the 90-page analysis found.

Mr. Killelea said the world now has 60% less fresh water available than it did 50 years ago, while demand for food is forecast to rise by 50% in the next 30 years, driven in large part by the expansion of the middle class in Asia.

Those factors, combined with natural disasters that are only likely to increase in frequency because of climate change, mean even stable states are vulnerable by 2050.

The IEP said it hoped the register, which may become an annual analysis, would shape aid and development policies, with more emphasis and funding going towards climate-related impacts. — Reuters

Brave new words hint at a less democratic future

By Clara Ferreira Marques

IN POLITICS, language is a reliable indicator of the direction of travel. Today, rhetoric from the Republican Party convention in the US to India, and from Poland to Brazil, points away from liberal democracy. The change has rarely been swifter than in Hong Kong.

The markers of autocratic speech are globally apparent. There’s the divisive “us versus them” rhetoric, the ad hominem attacks, the inflammatory comments on dissenters and the fetishization of law and order, feeding on popular insecurities. There’s the personalization of politics. There is also, increasingly, the willingness to disregard fact. It’s in President Donald Trump’s convention speech — say, that the new US embassy in Jerusalem cost “less than $500,000” when the move will come to many times that —  but it’s elsewhere, too. In Hong Kong, police advanced an alternative account of one of the most well-documented attacks of the 2019 protests, despite video evidence, eye-witness accounts, and even the police’s own testimony to an inquiry.

An autocratic system doesn’t require the population to believe its leaders. It only requires them to believe nothing at all. Truth itself becomes debatable.

The underlying trend is well documented, and global. Research carried out by political scientists at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden suggests that in 2019, for the first time since 2001, democratic states and territories were no longer in the majority. There are more protest movements, most recently in Belarus, but for now more than a third of us live in nations that are becoming more autocratic; just 8% of the world’s population live in regimes going in the opposite direction.

The rhetoric is keeping up with the times in Hong Kong.

Government communiques in the former British colony used to be dry, factual and understated, a practice that continued after the 1997 handover to China. Even during the Occupy sit-in that paralyzed much of the central business district for over two months in 2014, official statements remained relatively sober. What remained of the technocratic language, though, has since disappeared fast.

Early in the 2019 demonstrations, Chief Executive Carrie Lam characterized protesters, perhaps in a clumsy effort to appear maternal, as spoiled children. By November, they were enemies of the people. That’s a denomination now expanded to opponents of a national security law, while medical professionals that have questioned a mass COVID-19 testing campaign are accused of smearing Beijing. As China tightens its grip, its vocabulary of hurt national feelings and threat is turning up in the territory. The once technocratic language of Hong Kong’s leaders has become more strident, emotional, subjective.

The trend began last year, most notably when a police official suggested a man beaten by officers in a taped attack was in fact a “yellow object.” Or when Lam denied police used excessive force to control demonstrations, despite footage and research showing the contrary. It went several steps further when Hong Kong police retold one of the most notorious incidents during last year’s protests. On July 21, 2019, an organized group of white-shirted men armed with canes and rods attacked commuters and anti-government protesters arriving back at a subway station in the territory’s northwest. A senior officer last month asserted that the attack wasn’t indiscriminate and instead described it as a clash between two groups. A pro-democracy lawmaker who says he called the police and was injured that night was arrested and accused of rioting.

None of these tactics are unique to Hong Kong. Siege mentality is common. Polish leader Andrzej Duda was re-elected in July after a campaign of dark national populism that baited minorities. India has not been immune to divisive tactics. The Kremlin is often similarly divorced from fact: President Vladimir Putin recently recast the history of the Second World War to absolve the Soviet Union and its behavior at the start of the conflict. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has outdone himself during COVID-19, dismissing the illness as “a little cold,” while promoting unproven miracle cures. This is the world of Trump’s alternative facts.

But in Hong Kong, this wasn’t the norm. The abrupt nature of the shift shows just how fast the city has gone from a hybrid political system with extensive civil liberties into something quite different — even if popular outrage over the subway incident, to pick an example, shows the shift is meeting resistance. Lee Morgenbesser at Griffith University in Australia, who studies authoritarianism, points out that the government has tried to recast the events of that evening without having full control of the media, or of information in the public domain, including on social media. The result is not flattering.

Eroding institutions and questioning facts unmoors us all, as philosopher Hannah Arendt pointed out half a century ago. Populations become disconnected, and cynical. They cease to trust. For Hong Kong, the cost is an erosion in freedom of speech and the independent judiciary, factors that have been fundamental in the territory’s economic success. Beijing’s hope is that Hong Kong will stop meddling with politics and get on with business. That may be wishful thinking.

BLOOMBERG OPINION

The business of proximity warning

 

With physical distancing among people now the norm, both as a matter of practice and under temporary government regulations, proximity warning systems are somewhat in fashion. Personally, I don’t think them to be absolutely necessary. However, some businesses appear to be sensing something that some of us don’t, and seems to be capitalizing on the situation.

I read with interest about a new “smart” helmet from China. It reads or measures the body temperatures of other people within seven meters of the person wearing the helmet. One news report indicated that the helmet, according to its maker, can “rapidly screen multiple individuals for high temperature” at a rate of about “200 people a minute with 96% accuracy.”

Referred to as a “wearable thermal detection device,” the helmet, through its visor’s “thermo-scan sensors,” measures or detects “high temperature” within a seven-meter radius. High temperature or fever is said to be among the common symptoms of those suffering from COVID-19. The helmet, its maker added, can also be linked to other COVID-19 tracking applications.

Even technology giants Apple and Google have gotten into proximity warning by developing a mobile phone-based “exposure notification” system that does not require a mobile “application.” This was reported in the MIT Technology Review by Charlotte Jee on Sept. 2. Jee also reported that four US states so far have signified intentions to use the system.

“Apple and Google have announced they are expanding their coronavirus exposure warning system so health agencies can take part without needing to create a customized app. It’s a significant upgrade to the system, which uses Bluetooth to work out if people have spent extended periods of time near each other and then notifies the close contacts of someone who tests positive for coronavirus,” Jee reported.

“In states or regions that have enabled the ‘Exposure Notifications Express’ tool, a prompt will flash up on phones with the latest version of Apple or Android’s operating system, informing the user that it’s available. Apple users just need to tap the screen to enable it. Android users will still have to download an app — however, the app is automatically generated for public health authorities by Google,” she added.

Jee also reported that this was a “promising development at a time when excitement around contact tracing apps has distinctly cooled. Anything that makes it easier for agencies to set up these apps should help boost adoption in the population at large, which is crucial if they are going to help break the chain of infections.”

When I checked my phones, the “Exposure Notifications” function has been made available since the most recent system update. It is simply a matter of turning on the function and I am good to go. Provided, however, that other phone owners also use the notification function; that government databases are updated; and that people I encounter mostly have updated phones.

Moreover, for the system to work, it requires the phone owner to actually use the exposure notification function or tracking app; 2.) keep his or her Bluetooth function “on” the whole time; and, 3.) submit or share a COVID-19 “diagnosis” using his or her phone. That is, if you are sick or have been infected, you should indicate so in the system, to inform others that you are sick, and that people should keep their distance.

And this, to me, is the weakness of the “Exposure Notifications” system or function. It is the same weakness of all other contact tracing and COVID-19 tracking mobile applications that have been launched since the start of the pandemic. And it is primarily because of these “requirements” that I reckon the sign up to such applications or systems have been somewhat limited. I doubt if any functioning system now has actually reached effective critical mass.

At this point, the use of the “Exposure Notifications” system is elective, and not compulsory or mandatory. How the eventual uptake will be with the Apple and Google function is still uncertain. There may also be concerns regarding individual privacy and data privacy, as some may find the system intrusive.

The other thing with proximity warnings, notification systems, and the Chinese-made helmet that measures high temperature, among other COVID-related monitoring and tracking systems, is that they can make a lot of people uneasy. And, success seems to be related to how widespread is mobile device use, and notification function or system use. In short, if people don’t have mobile phones, or don’t switch on the notification system or their Bluetooth function, then the initiative’s success will be limited.

I truly appreciate the value of the tracking and notification function, particularly the system’s ability to inform people that may have been exposed to others they were in proximity with at some point. But effectiveness will rely on people actually having a mobile phone; keeping it on as well as its Bluetooth function; using the exposure and notification function; and, the people’s and government agencies’ timely submission of correct data and diagnosis. This is a tall order.

As for the “wearable” helmet-thermometer, I doubt very much if people will start buying and wearing the helmet in public just so they can avoid people with high temperature or fever. Unless it is a “safety helmet” that is rated for use on motorcycles or in construction or manufacturing facilities, and the thermal sensor is just incidental.

One other possible use of the helmet is by security or health personnel in public places, to monitor crowds and identify those with fever. But we already have thermal scanners in airports and entrances to most if not all public places. So, having “hall monitors” wearing helmet scanners may be redundant. Moreover, under what law or regulation can these “hall monitors” actually pull aside and contain or detain people with fever or high temperature?

If we need to heavily rely on technology to tell us when and how to keep our distance from each other during this pandemic, then maybe we are in bigger trouble than we already are. Physical distancing should be a matter of practice for now, without or without technology, with or without regulation. Self-discipline to strictly adhere to health protocols may be more important than technology to keeping people safe and healthy.

 

Marvin Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippines Press Council

matort@yahoo.com

Declining jobs, rising debts

Among the pernicious results of the Philippine government’s strict and draconian lockdown policies for nearly six months now is the steep increase in unemployment rate, 17.7% last April and 10% last July, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The underemployment rate also remains high, 18.9% last April and 17.3% last July.

The Social Weather Station (SWS) Adult Joblessness survey (roughly equivalent to PSA’s unemployment + underemployment rates) for July 2020 also showed a steep increase to 45.5% from only 20% average for 2019.

So, is it worth celebrating the decline in unemployment rate to 10%?

Not really because many of our neighbors in the region did not even experience double-digit unemployment rates both in the first and second quarters of 2020. Even compared to European countries and North-South American countries that experienced 400+ COVID-19 deaths per million population (CDPMP), the Philippines, with only 36 CDPMP, has an “outlier” unemployment experience (see Table 1).


To “jumpstart growth,” the government has embarked on a series of huge borrowings and additional public spending, particularly the Bayanihan I law (which expired in June) and the upcoming Bayanihan II that is waiting for the President’s signature.

Governments around the world including the Philippines regardless of administrations are known for wasteful spending. They have little or no ability to generate fiscal surplus in periods of no crisis, pay back old debts so that when a real crisis comes, they will have more leeway to borrow again.

In 2016, the budget and borrowings made by the previous Aquino administration saw the outstanding public debt stock at P6 trillion. The next three years, 2017 to 2019, saw a big jump in expenditures and the budget deficit so that public debt has expanded by P1.64 trillion or P547 billion/year on average.

Big borrowings mean big interest payment: P361 billion in 2019, P421 billion this year, P531 billion in 2021, and P604 billion in 2022 (see Table 2).


The higher excise tax in petroleum products of P6/liter under the TRAIN law of 2017 has brought extra revenues of P30 billion/year to the government yet it sparked inflationary pressures and some political discontent in 2018-2019. But interest payments of P361 billion in 2019 — 12 times that of oil tax hike revenues — has not sparked any serious political discontent because the amount looks “abstract” despite its size.

I will discuss these numbers in detail plus many other data during my talk on macroeconomic outlook and how they impact the individuals and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) at the China Bank Savings (CBS) this Friday, Sept. 11. The bank also celebrated its 12th anniversary last Tuesday, Sept. 8.

There is a disconnect between two government policies — strict lockdowns that crippled if not killed many SMEs and created millions of new unemployed, versus big spending and borrowings purportedly to revive the crippled and dying businesses. This is similar to a bully who crippled an innocent person then gives him a wheelchair and says that the crippled person should thank the bully for the opportunity to move around via wheelchair.

Consumers and entrepreneurs cannot expect meaningful assistance from the government’s higher spending and borrowings. They are the wrong remedies for the wrong policies (strict, indefinite, no timetable lockdowns). The “animal spirit” of entrepreneurship and innovation must be unleashed. Government should learn to step back, have less regulation, less taxation (thanks to the CREATE bill), less business intervention and arbitrary policy reversals.

 

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

minimalgovernment@gmail.com

Stand-up and stand-in

 

FOR COMEDIANS, there is a category of performance called “stand-up.” It requires the entertainer to stand on a bare stage, sometimes a pub or a small theater, in front of the audience barely a foot away from him. He delivers lines which he hopes the audience will reward with laughter and applause. It’s the starkest type of performance, as there aren’t even jugglers to help. There’s just the stand-up performer who knows he’s dying when people aren’t even paying attention and just sipping their latte.

Stand-up leadership too entails showing up and taking charge. Nowadays, this includes a virtual presence in a digital town hall meeting or a video post servicing the constituency, like meeting returning overseas workers at the airport or thanking businessmen for their patriotism.

Does a video recording of a speech, limited to one’s own inner circle, count as standing up, even when sitting down? Sure, the circle laughs at the right places and applauds at the relevant narrative pause, like trained seals. Everything looks staged.

“Standing up” for or against something requires showing up and being part of a physical (ok, now also virtual) crowd in front of some symbolic backdrop like a TV station or a statue at the university. Presence and visibility are a badge of courage, especially in a fraught atmosphere where dissent is attacked and trolled.

Those who cannot stand up send a stand-in. The latter allows the designated person in charge to dodge an event. The representative makes excuses for his absence — he is just working from home.

Big-name stars, when required to jump off a burning building for a movie shoot, employ doubles to do the stunts. The stand-ins (or stuntmen) protect the lead actors from possible injury so they can have the less physical job of delivering lines to seduce the ladies — I prefer to be stirred, not shaken.

Protecting an important personage from threats has also given employment to look-alikes of political figures. Ceremonial attendance of events may allow the revered one to send a stand-in, especially now that everybody wears a mask. (His forehead looks broader.)

In Kurosawa’s 1980 film, Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior), a petty thief, because of his identical physical appearance, serves as a samurai warlord’s double for staged events, like tea ceremonies. The double is eventually made to take the warlord’s place when the latter’s death in battle is at first kept secret. The thief is trained to stand in for the warlord imitating his patented moves in battle. Only when the warlord’s forces regroup and strengthen is the double “allowed to die.”

The use of a stand-in has become a necessity for the busy and in-demand VIP for conferences or weddings. Why does the exalted one need to show up when a lesser being can take his place, even as the originally billed star stays on the program?

Given the limited supply of celebrities, even counting has-beens and formerly powerful people as possible guests of honor, the odds of a special guest showing up are tilted against the event organizers. Invitations are extended months in advance. Thus, a commitment to attend is too quickly given with little thought of possible conflicts or last-minute alternatives offering better food.

The spokesperson is a different kind of stand-in. The opinions he expresses hew to the party line, if there is one. There is no pretense that he is giving a personal opinion on any topic, except what he had for lunch. When he is asked to comment on a burning issue he has not discussed with his principal, he is evasive. (Until all the facts are in, we cannot comment on this issue.)

Stand-ins are often viewed with contempt. Why isn’t the revered one here? (Is he sick?)

In theater, an announcement is sometimes made just before the show that the main role for tonight will be performed by the understudy. Now and then, the stand-in is so outstanding that she is showered with many curtain calls. What if the stand-in turns out to be a better performer than the absent one? Well, the audience will just have to vote on that one.

 

Tony Samson is Chairman and CEO, TOUCH xda

ar.samson@yahoo.com

Letter to the Editor

THIS REFERS to a column piece entitled “A Ridiculous Requirement of the Insurance Commission” of Oscar P. Lagman, Jr., in his column, Musings, published in the July 6, 2020 issue of BusinessWorld, which was probably occasioned by his daughter’s experience.

We wish to clarify a few points to correct some misleading views and dispel misimpressions that the article might have engendered.

First, the 2017 Second National Risk Assessment (NRA) Report on Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (ML/TF) assigned to the Insurance Sector a threat or risk rating of medium. In fact, data gathered during the First and Second NRA show that the number of suspicious transaction reports (STRs) from the insurance industry had risen.

Second, home insurance may be used to launder criminally-obtained funds. A money launderer might seek to insure property in excess of its value. To give the appearance of legitimacy, a money launderer may be willing to lose 10-20%, the leaving the greater bulk of funds laundered.

Third, the AMLC has had many freeze and civil forfeiture cases predicated on such crimes as plunder, corruption, fraud and violations of the Securities Regulation Code, and illegal trafficking where insurance had been used to commit money laundering. Nobody should take it for granted that money launderers can and may use the insurance sector for their criminal ends.

Fourth, covered persons such as insurance companies, banks, securities dealers and jewelers, are required to conduct Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) pursuant to Republic Act No. 9160 or The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001, as amended (AMLA). This requirement is crucial for the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to combat ML/TF, as they provide profiling of customers, trace the flow of funds, establish linkages between and among criminal elements, detect money laundering and so on. The AMLA requires the supervising authorities, namely, the Insurance Commission, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to impose upon covered persons under their jurisdiction the submission the conduct of KYC and CDD of their clients.

Fifth, no covered person is exempted from conducting KYC and CDD. All customers, regardless of level of risk, economic or political clout and influence in society, must comply with KYC and CDD requirements. This situation is not peculiar to the Philippines; most countries, developed or not, with the possible exception of blacklisted jurisdictions like North Korea, adhere to this international standard to combat ML/TF. Powerful and influential people have been the subjects of money laundering cases, based on AMLA requirements. The AMLA is the great leveler.

The adverse consequence of laxity in these and other requirements under the AMLA is the rise in the incidence of domestic and international crimes involving the Philippines, and in business and financial costs (affecting inward remittances), and the decline of the Philippines’ credit worthiness in the international financial system, to name a few.

To sum up, the Insurance Commission’s requirements on AMLA compliance are not ridiculous. We hope these clarify the points that Lagman raised.

 

Very truly yours,
MEL GEORGIE B. RACELA
Executive Director
Anti-Money Laundering Council

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