Inexpensive chicken was supposed to be the pick of the proteins in the pandemic. But suppliers with a greater focus on beef are outperforming those that rely more on poultry.
US and Brazilian chicken producers have been struggling amid oversupply, weak prices and sluggish consumption, with analysts saying a production cut may be needed to prop up prices and defend margins. Beef suppliers have benefited from comparatively stronger demand and prices.
In the US, meat production has recovered from virus disruptions, meaning supplies are outstripping demand amid still sluggish food-service sales. With beef output back to normal, the red meat is likely to compete with chicken for grocery-store sales.
“We are going to have this flood of red meat coming into the market,” said Peter Galbo, an analyst at Bank of America, adding that retail features for beef are expected to rise “dramatically” this autumn.
Meanwhile chicken prices are too low and demand too weak to justify advertisements that can help generate sales.
Sanderson Farms Inc., the third-biggest US chicken producer, estimated last week its total production in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 will fall 5% from a year earlier. CEO Joe Sanderson predicted “lower demand during the holiday season for all of our products.”
In top chicken exporter Brazil lower output or higher prices may be inevitable to cover a sharp rise in feed costs, said Ricardo Santin, head of exporter group ABPA.
Local corn and soy-meal prices are at all-time highs amid strong demand and local currency weakness that boosts the appeal for exports. Corn prices should stay high amid tight supplies this year, according to Ana Luiza Lodi, an analyst at StoneX in Campinas. The government is considering exempting imports from tariffs to lower costs. Almost 80% of the cost of producing birds comes from feed in the country.
Brazilian poultry companies face weakness in both export and local sales. Traditional buyers such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have reduced imports substantially this year. Export prices in August fell 20% from a year earlier.
China is the exception, with Brazil’s exports to the Asian nation climbing 28% this year. But China represents just 17% of Brazilian chicken exports. It’s a different situation in beef, with shipments breaking records this year due to China, which accounts for almost 60% of Brazilian exports.
While a slump in the Brazilian real, boosts export revenues in local currency, that hasn’t been enough to offset higher costs, squeezing exporters’ margins since May, according to Cesar de Castro Alves, an agriculture consultant at Itau BBA. In August, chicken production margins were negative 5%.
The local market hasn’t been helping, with consumption steady despite lower prices. Chicken’s discount to beef has never been bigger. While food-service demand is showing some green shoots, restaurant sales are still low and schools remained closed.
“Brazil’s chicken sector is at a crossroads, with producers increasing output amid a weak export demand and rising costs,” Mr. Alves, from Itau BBA, said in a telephone interview. Producers need lower supply in order to lift prices and return to profitability, he said. — Bloomberg
The novel coronavirus seemed like a distant problem in Boisar, a small factory town about two hours from Mumbai, until Daniel Tribhuvan died.
The 35-year-old tutor started feeling feverish in April, while bringing his father home from a chemotherapy appointment in the Indian financial capital. When a test confirmed Tribhuvan was infected, the local health system’s reaction was shambolic. After he checked into a public hospital, the first thing they did was try to pawn him off to a private facility in Mumbai. The ambulance turned around halfway when they discovered he couldn’t pay. Back at the public hospital, a doctor didn’t see him for three days, and when an elderly man occupying a bed nearby died, his body wasn’t collected for 12 hours. After a week, Tribhuvan’s blood-oxygen levels were dangerously low. He died on May 17, becoming Boisar’s first confirmed fatality from COVID-19.
“I think he would have survived if the system was good,” Samuel Tribhuvan, Daniel’s older brother, said in a recent interview at Boisar’s local administrative office, inside a rundown building that also houses a liquor store and a portrait studio. “This is the worst place where we could get the coronavirus.”
Six months after the start of the pandemic—as the developed world tries to restore some semblance of normalcy—the virus is arriving with a vengeance in India’s vast hinterland, where 70% of its more than 1.3 billion citizens live. The country is now adding more than 80,000 confirmed infections per day, with about 71,000 deaths so far, numbers experts say are likely being under-counted. On Monday it galloped past Brazil to become the world’s second-biggest outbreak, a sobering preview of what could happen once the coronavirus spreads in earnest across other poor, densely populated places from Nigeria to Myanmar. With such a vast reservoir of potential hosts and minimal ability to contain infections, it seems inevitable that India will at some point overtake the US to have the most cases globally.
The result is likely to be a human and economic catastrophe, risking untold numbers of deaths and the reversal of years of rising incomes and living standards—developments that helped lift millions of people from grinding poverty into something like the middle class. The broader effects won’t be confined to the subcontinent.
With a gross domestic product last year of almost $3 trillion, India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and a crucial node in global supply chains. Despite the troubled state of its own medical system, it is by far the largest producer of both vaccines and the generic drugs that healthcare systems around the world rely upon. And with Asia’s economic giant, China, turning increasingly inwards, companies from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to Facebook Inc. had been investing heavily in India, betting on its rising consumer market. India’s trouble containing the virus, therefore, could weigh on any global recovery from the coronavirus—either epidemiological or economic.
With infections gathering pace, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing criticism for not doing more to help the state and local-level officials on the front lines of fighting the virus, who face an excruciating choice. Failing to stop its spread could mean the collapse of already-fragile healthcare systems, potentially leaving thousands to die untreated. But the distancing measures that most experts see as essential to doing so will worsen an economic contraction that’s already among the world’s most severe, making it even more difficult for India to resume its progress toward broader prosperity and hampering the global recovery. That could ultimately cause just as many deaths, whether from malnutrition, other infectious diseases, or even suicide.
As the virus spreads throughout India, “the most immediate thing that will happen is people will die,” said Vivekanand Jha, executive director of the Indian branch of the Sydney-based George Institute for Global Health. “The second is that the people who have not died will lose their livelihoods.”
When Mr. Modi announced, on March 24, that his government would institute the broadest coronavirus lockdown in the world, many experts were impressed. Officially, there were only about 500 cases in India at the time, mainly in large cities and traceable to travelers from abroad. Stamping out the virus—or at least keeping it from spreading into the vast and vulnerable countryside—by decisively interrupting daily life for the entire nation seemed like a laudable goal.
But the dense slums that house large numbers of the urban poor proved particularly hospitable to the spread of the highly contagious pathogen. Meaningful social distancing was often impossible, while infections could spread widely before coming to the attention of healthcare workers. Government efforts largely failed to match the scale of the problem, with testing and contact tracing typically one step behind the virus. While officials procured ventilators, constructed field hospitals, and even converted train carriages into makeshift isolation units, hospitals in Mumbai and New Delhi were still overwhelmed. Patients were turned away for lack of beds and bodies were left unattended in corridors, conditions that developed-world cities like Milan managed to avoid at even the worst points in their outbreaks.
With infections gathering pace, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing criticism for not doing more to help the state and local-level officials on the front lines of fighting the virus, who face an excruciating choice. Failing to stop its spread could mean the collapse of already-fragile healthcare systems, potentially leaving thousands to die untreated. But the distancing measures that most experts see as essential to doing so will worsen an economic contraction that’s already among the world’s most severe, making it even more difficult for India to resume its progress toward broader prosperity and hampering the global recovery.
Meanwhile the economic toll of the lockdown, which Mr. Modi extended repeatedly as new case numbers remained stubbornly high, was mounting. GDP contracted by almost 24% between April and June, throwing more than 120 million people out of work. Unlike in the US and Europe, there was little financial support available. The Reserve Bank of India’s index of consumer confidence collapsed in May, and then plunged to an all-time low in July, the most recent survey. For some, the situation was desperate. Five weeks into the lockdown, which was enforced by police and barred most people from leaving their homes except for groceries and medical care, a survey of rural households by Oxfam found that half had cut back on the number of meals they ate, and a quarter had been forced to ask others for food.
The biggest impact was on the millions of people from rural areas who staff factories, sell snacks, shine shoes, and do odd jobs of all kinds in India’s major cities. Dependent on daily wages to survive, many found themselves with no place to sleep and nothing to eat after their jobs disappeared, leaving them little choice but to return to their home towns. With trains and buses halted by the lockdown, some had to simply walk, forming columns on highways that were reminiscent of Partition, the bloody separation of India and Pakistan in 1947—and almost certainly spreading the virus across the countryside.
Faced with such desperation, Mr. Modi had little choice but to end the lockdown in early June, even as infections continued to rise. The “unlock,” as it came to be known, saw even more of these migrant workers return to their villages, seeding the new outbreaks now being seen in ever more remote parts of the country.
India has a large and innovative healthcare industry, but private operators are focused on big cities and the wealthier patients who live in them. In rural areas, medical care falls to the creaking public health system, which is often absurdly under-resourced.
Built on the side of a dirt highway in the Khair sub-district of Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s poorest states, a two-story community health center serves as the main source of care for a population of about 225,000. The modest facility has no intensive care unit, and when Bloomberg News visited early this month, its six oxygen cylinders had all been designated for use in ambulances. About 60 COVID-19 patients were in home isolation in Khair at the time; if one of them took a turn for the worse, the best the clinic could offer would be a ride to the nearest city, an hour’s drive away. “The district administration is trying to create new centers,” said Shailendra Kumar, the clinic’s manager. But for now, the increasing number of infected people in Khair can only hope the virus doesn’t hit them hard.
Uttar Pradesh has more than 200 million inhabitants, making it India’s most populous state. But its rural health system is the most understaffed in the country, with just 2.7 doctors for every 100,000 people. (The rate in the U.S. is a little under 10 times higher.) The numbers elsewhere aren’t much better. Only 40 percent of India’s physicians work in the countryside, even though it’s home to more than two-thirds of the population.
In the district that contains Boisar, the town where Tribhuvan died, “we do not have enough manpower to cater to this population,” Abhijit Khandare, a state health officer, said in an interview at a local community center. “We pulled manpower from other villages” to deal with spikes in Covid-19 cases, he said, “but now the other villages are affected too.”
In an attempt to fill the gap, local officials are even pressing teachers into service as healthcare aides. Schools remain closed due to the pandemic, but they provide a ready source of educated workers who are known in the community, an important factor in gaining trust. Last week, about 50 of them gathered in a brightly painted Boisar meeting room for a day of training. They were told their primary job would be to execute a strategy pioneered in Dharavi, a Mumbai slum where the virus was successfully brought under control in June.
The teachers would be going door-to-door through the district, asking whether anyone in a home had symptoms and referring those who did for testing. In addition to breaking chains of transmission, the goal is to get infected people treated early, avoiding the common problem of severely ill patients arriving too late for doctors to be able to help. The group had spent the day seated on plastic chairs in front of a panel of public health workers, being instructed on how to read an oximeter and social-distancing strategies for people who live in tight quarters.
While masks have become commonplace across India, physical distancing largely hasn’t, despite regular government campaigns and official reminders. In the countryside, markets where farmers and merchants gather to do business are still packed with people, and day laborers pile together into the back of small trucks to travel to job sites. Tea stalls and corner stores are doing little to prevent crowds forming.
In part, this may be a function of complacency about the dangers of COVID-19. With case numbers exploding, Mr. Modi’s government has been emphasizing India’s fatality rate—which at about 1.75% is among the lowest in the world—as evidence that it’s managing the disease successfully. Experts are skeptical, however, that deaths are being counted comprehensively, and even if they are, the relative youth of India’s population compared with virus hotspots like Italy or Florida is a likelier explanation. Relatively lax attitudes to distancing could also owe something to the fact that, even in a worst-case scenario, the coronavirus is just one on a long list of diseases that can kill a person in rural parts of the subcontinent. Some 79,000 Indians died last year from tuberculosis, an infection that’s now relatively rare in the developed world. A mother dies in childbirth roughly every 20 minutes. Even leprosy is still an active problem.
Meanwhile, fear of impoverishment is starting to outstrip fear of COVID-19, a trend exacerbated as migrant workers return to the cities. The lockdown and economic slump means many poor families have suffered a double blow: the loss of remittances, plus more mouths to feed at home.
Until the lockdown, 22-year-old Manoj Kumar earned about 14,000 rupees ($191) a month making car seats at a factory outside Delhi, sending almost everything he earned back to his family. But Mr. Kumar’s job disappeared in March and now he’s back in his village, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the capital, in a one-room house with nine other family members. The only person with a job is his mother, who earns about 6,000 rupees monthly as a part-time health worker. To survive, the family has had to borrow money at rates as high as 30%.
“Everyone is scared of corona,” Mr. Kumar said, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his home, where the family had used rows of low red bricks to demarcate the kitchen and a tiny sitting area. “We live in fear, but how long can we go on like this?”
The impact of this kind of financial strain is beginning to ripple across society. Delhi is recording higher rates of petty crime, while one mental health expert estimated suicides may have soared by as much as 70% nationwide. Unwanted pregnancies have spiked, child labor is on the rise, and activists warn that the scarcity of opportunity is intensifying caste and religious prejudices. That all of these trends derive, at least in part, from the response to the coronavirus, rather than the pathogen itself, highlights the precariousness of India’s situation. It’s one likely to play out elsewhere as the pandemic’s epicenter shifts to poorer nations, where the challenges of containing the virus will dwarf those of countries like the US—and likely drag on the developed world’s ultimate recovery as well.
“Our concern here is the large population with limited resources to combat it—but that’s also a concern for the rest of the world,” said K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India in New Delhi. “No country is safe until every country is safe. The virus can surge anywhere and then spring up anywhere else because the world is connected.” — Bloomberg
Bus operators in need of capital to modernize their fleet may avail of a new lending program being offered by the Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK)
The state-owned bank has initially earmarked P3 billion for its I-RESCUE for BUS Transport (Interim REhabilitation Support to Cushion Unfavorably-affected Enterprises by Covid-19 for Better Urban Services Transport) Lending Program. This targets public transport cooperatives and corporations for the purchase of modern public utility buses,insupport of the Metro Manila Bus Modernization Program of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).
“The I-RESCUE for BUS Transport Lending Program offers responsive financing to PUB operators to invest in new buses equipped with the latest innovative technology. This also forms part of LANDBANK’s support to the DOTr and LTFRB towards building a modernized transport system that provides commuters with safe, reliable, and convenient transportation services,” LANDBANK President and CEO Cecilia C. Borromeo said.
Qualified enterprises may borrowup to eighty percent (80%) of the acquisition cost of the PUB, at an affordablefixed interest rate of 5% per annum for the first three (3) years—payable up to a maximum of seven (7) years, inclusive of the two-year grace period on principal.
The DOTr launched the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program in 2017, with the goal of making the country’s public transportation system efficient and environmentally friendly. The program calls for the phasing out not just buses but also jeepneys and other public utility vehicles that are at least 15 years old and replacing them with safer, more comfortable, and more environmentally-friendly alternatives
LANDBANK will make available the I-RESCUE for BUS Transport Lending Program until December 31, 2021.
Interested borrowers may contact the nearest open LANDBANK Lending Center or Branch nationwide, or call LANDBANK’s customer service hotline at (02) 8-405-7000 or at PLDT Domestic Toll Free 1-800-10-405-7000.
For more updates, please Follow, Like and Share the official LANDBANK Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts (@landbankofficial), Twitter (@LBP_Official), or visit the LANDBANK website (www.landbank.com).
When Maryse Fourcade takes a stroll near her home in Paris, she can see the Eiffel Tower, the Mirabeau bridge immortalized in poetry and song, and—less romantically—a concrete factory.
The operator of the plant, Swiss-headquartered construction giant Lafarge Holcim, has been accused of tipping industrial waste into the Seine river from this factory, and another further up the river.
The firm says it is taking immediate action to make sure the incidents don’t happen again.
The accusations are part of a broader tension between different ideas about what sort of city Paris should be: a beautiful, tranquil haven for residents and tourists, or a thriving global capital with a vibrant economy.
“We don’t understand what this factory is doing in front of a historical monument, the Mirabeau bridge, which… is next to the Eiffel Tower and in the middle of thousands of residents, walkers, runners, families,” Ms. Fourcade said of the Lafarge plant near her home.
A spokesman for the Paris prosecutor’s office said a probe has been opened after video footage emerged of a Lafarge cement mixer at its site on Paris’s Bercy quay discharging a white liquid into the river.
Waste has also been dumped into the river from the Lafarge site near the Mirabeau bridge on at least two occasions this year, according to photographs shown to Reuters by Ms. Fourcade, a member of a campaign group seeking the closure of the plant.
One photograph, which she said was taken on June 9 this year, showed a Lafarge cement mixer discharging water from its mixer into the river, leaving a slick in the water.
In a statement, Francois Petry, the head of Lafarge Holcim France said: “We take these isolated incidents that took place in two of our sites by La Seine very seriously.”
He said the firm was no longer working with a driver involved in one of the incidents—he did not specify which one—and that he had personally reminded employees and contractors about complying with company standards.
All the firm’s Paris sites will undergo an audit, and a re-training program has been launched, Mr. Petry said. — Reuters
As part of their digitization efforts, Pilmico Foods Corporation (Pilmico), one of the country’s top feeds and flour producers, has partnered with Shopee to make their products more accessible to the market.
The community quarantine measures implemented amid the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a shift in people’s buying habits. As going out became less of an option, more people turned to online platforms for all their needs, ranging from groceries and personal items to pet food and poultry necessities.
“We started this partnership with Shopee in May 2020, because we saw their platform’s potential in expanding the current reach of our products,” said Joeben Gamatero, II, Pilmico’s Vice President for Branding and Marketing. “With Shopee’s strong consumer base and engaging promotions like the 9.9 Super Shopping Day Sale, we see how this partnership will make top-quality products more accessible for them. As households continue to adjust to the new normal, we want to be there — bringing quality products that are conveniently available to our consumers,” he added.
Pilmico is one of the hundreds of merchants joining Shopee’s 9.9 Super Shopping Day, a platform-wide event featuring promos, discounts, and other offers across many product categories. The Aboitiz-owned food and agribusiness unit offers its Salto Gamefowl feeds, Maxime dog food, and animal health products available for deliveries nationwide.
Maxime dog food and Salto Gamefowl feeds, together with Pilmico’s animal health products, are included in Shopee’s 9.9 Super Shopping Day sale. Consumers can grab promos, discounts, and free shipping offers at https://shopee.ph/pilmico_official.
Shopee Philippines is one of the top online shopping markets in Southeast Asia. As a brand, it has dominated the mobile app-based shopping market with over 200 million app downloads, with almost equal amount of active users, as of press time.
Martin Yu, Associate Director at Shopee Philippines, said, “The 9.9 Super Shopping Day reflects our ongoing commitment to support businesses by offering a platform to increase their online sales amid a challenging retail environment. It’s one of the many reasons why many brands choose Shopee as their preferred e-commerce partner to build a scalable and sustainable business. We are excited to team up with a household name like Pilmico and continue to provide brands with the support of their need to achieve greater success on Shopee.”
9.9 Super Shopping Day
The 9.9 Super Shopping Day runs until September 9, 2020. It will feature exciting promotions like free shipping with ₱0 minimum spend, daily flash deals for as low as ₱9, and bigger discounts when shoppers use ShopeePay. Consumers will also get huge discounts up to 90% off on leading brands, win exciting prizes via in-app games and many more.
For more information on the Shopee 9.9 Super Shopping Day, please visit https://shopee.ph/m/99.
For more details on the Pilmico products available at the Shopee 9.9 sale, you may visit their Shopee Mall page (https://shopee.ph/pilmico_official).
Boston-based Demand Science Group has acquired a majority stake in Cobena Business Analytics & Strategy, one of the country’s leading data science and business intelligence companies.
Francis del Val, President & CEO of Cobena, will continue to lead the organization as Global CEO, and together with John Paul Vergara, Cobena’s Chief Analytics Officer, will sit in the board of the newly formed entity.
Demand Science Group is the parent company of PureB2B, a leading global provider of full-funnel lead and demand generation for B2B technology companies.
“Adding Cobena to our platform of companies furthers our innovative capability to help B2B technology organizations thrive in the age of big data and grow their revenue,” said Peter Cannone, CEO of DSG. “The talented Cobena team, through its expertise and powerful data science tools, help customers understand their current data and predict their company's future.This insight delivers significant competitive advantage and enables them to stay on top of their game.” Philippines-based Cobena was founded in 2016, and was recognized in 2019 by APAC Business Insights as one of the fastest growing business intelligence companies.
As for Cobena, del Val says, “ We are very pleased to be joining the Demand Sciences Group. Over the past four years, Cobena has demonstrated that by combining creativity and data, we can come up with breakthrough innovation to solve some of the toughest business problems. We are excited to bring Cobena’s ‘whole brained approach’ to data sciences to the world stage. By leveraging on DSG’s vast network of clients, we are looking forward to developing AI powered platforms to help drive growth and performance in this period of great uncertainty in business. “
MANUFACTURERS are asking the government to review trade laws to protect local industries from the influx of “cheaper and substandard” imported goods into the Philippines.
The Federation of Philippine Industries, Inc. (FPI), in letters to President Rodrigo R. Duterte and the Trade department, asked for a review of safeguard measures, anti-dumping laws, and countervailing laws amid what it described as “desperate times.”
“Local industries are also battling a different kind of pandemic, and this is COVID-19 in the form of dumping of goods, so we need to review our policies and stop deciding on trade issues like we are still in the old normal. The least we prepare, the worst it will hit us. Philippine businesses are also in danger of ending up in incinerators,” FPI President Jesus L. Arranza said in a statement on Monday.
Anti-dumping tariffs are placed on goods that are considered as priced below fair market value, and countervailing duties are placed on subsidized goods.
FPI noted businesses from other countries, subsidized by their own governments, may seek out Philippine markets to offset lost sales in their own markets due to the pandemic.
The business group said other countries have been boosting exports and protecting their own local manufacturers, citing the growth of exports from China and the United States.
“In July, China’s merchandise shipments went up 7.2%. The US, on the other hand, saw its total exports climb 9.4%,” FPI said.
Mr. Arranza said it will re-launch its campaign for consumers to buy local goods, noting that the Trade department’s “Buy Local, Go Local” campaign can help producers and manufacturers whose businesses suffered during the pandemic.
“There are less activities, less demands and we therefore fear that this will worsen the influx of imported goods, including substandard products, in the country because other nations will want to get a share of that dwindling global market,” he said.
The Trade department was unable to give a comment on the FPI’s letter as of press time.
Meanwhile, the Board of Investments (BoI) is urging Philippine public and private organizations to buy locally made personal protective equipment (PPE) as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues.
According to its data, Philippine manufacturers can now produce 60 million face masks a month, compared to six million in January. They expect this to increase to 66.4 million before the end of 2020.
Philippine manufacturers also produce 3.2 million pieces of medical-grade coveralls per month, along with 6,050 ventilators and 60,000 infrared thermometers. Some electronic manufacturers repurposed their operations to produce face masks and thermometers.
“Locally produced PPE has not only helped out in the fight against COVID-19, but helps Philippine manufacturers stay afloat amid the economic impact of the pandemic, protecting thousands of jobs for ordinary Filipinos,” BoI said in a press release on Monday.
Firms under the Confederation of Philippine Manufacturers of PPE (CPMP) have asked the government to increase demand for locally made products, instead of favoring their imported counterparts. CPMP had also asked the government for tax breaks, asking them to instead apply the taxes on importers. — Jenina P. Ibañez
Bank lending growth continued to slow in July, the central bank said. — PHILIPPINE STAR/MICHAEL VARCAS
BANGKO SENTRAL ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno expects credit growth to pick up by yearend, as consumer and business confidence is restored with easing lockdown measures over the next few months.
In an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel on Monday, Mr. Diokno said the slower loan growth seen in July is “understandable” considering the economy is still dealing with a health crisis.
“We are slowly opening up and I think we are confident that consumers will start buying over the next few months. Also the producers, as they ramp up their production capacity, they might need more money for these capital or maybe expand their plans,” the BSP chief said.
Preliminary data released by the BSP showed bank lending growth stood at 6.7% year on year in July, the slowest pace of expansion since May 2010 when it rose by 5%.
“If you’re into manufacturing and you have excess capacity, there is no need for you to go to the bank and borrow, right? And so because of the pandemic and the lockdown, there’s not much production but it’s picking up…. The same thing with the consumers…. The consumers now prefer things that are really essential. They don’t have demand for luxury goods. And so there is also maybe no need for them to use their credit card for example, which is unsecured consumer loan,” Mr. Diokno said.
Mr. Diokno said banks are also still in the process of reviewing their loan portfolio.
“There are some winners and losers in this pandemic. And so, (lenders) are at this time trying to allocate funds. Some of them are providing for provisioning. Maybe some soured loans going forward and things like that. Everybody’s now in an adjustment mode. The slowdown in lending is understandable,” he said.
The banking industry’s nonperforming loan (NPL) ratio stood at 2.53% as of end-June, higher than the 2.43% in May and the 2.1% logged a year ago, BSP data showed. With this, lenders have increased provisions for credit losses by 48.5% year on year to P300.3 billion in June.
The BSP expects NPL ratio of the banking industry to rise to around 4.6% by end-December 2020 due to the crisis.
Amid record-low interest rates, analysts said consumer and business confidence have been battered by the pandemic which will continue to affect bank lending growth.
“Despite the relatively low cost of borrowing, it’s pretty hard to attract investors because of the unstable business environment. Investors just like consumers lose trust in the economy,” Colegio de San Juan de Letran Graduate School Dean Emmanuel J. Lopez said in a text message.
Banks are thinking twice about issuing loans, which have affected cash flows of consumers and businesses, according to Ateneo de Manila University economist Alvin P. Ang.
“Banks need to make money. If they do not have confidence that borrowers can pay, they will not lend,” he said in a text message.
The central bank has already slashed key rates by 175 basis points this year to support the economy amid the impact of the pandemic. This has brought down the overnight reverse repurchase, lending, and deposit facilities to record lows of 2.25%, 2.75%, and 1.75%, respectively. — Luz Wendy T. Noble
KIM REMOLINO, a silver medalist triathlete in the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games last year, has had to train on a home treadmill for months after Manila and other provinces were locked down in mid-March to contain a coronavirus pandemic.
His monthly stipend also had to be cut in half to P12,000 as the government channels its resources to anti-pandemic efforts. International sporting events were canceled, while localones have been suspended until a vaccine is found.
“It’s disappointing because we haven’t sustained our momentum from the SEA Games,” Mr. Remolino said via Zoom Cloud Meetings. “There was a feeling of regret that our allowances had to be slashed, but I realized it had to be done because of the pandemic.”
Sports facilities nationwide have been converted into quarantine areas for coronavirus patients, as hospitals were overwhelmed by rising cases of the virus that has sickened more than 237,000 and killed almost 4,000 people in the Philippines.
Traditionally the cheer of the town, the local sporting community had to take a backseat as the government focused on the battle against the pandemic.
Among the canceled events were the Palarong Pambansa in May and the 10th ASEAN Para Games, which the country was supposed to host this year.
Collegiate such as the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) were forced to cancel the remainder of their seasons early this year. Their reopening is uncertain.
The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) suspended its Season 45 in March but was seeking to reopen in October, while the Philippines Football League, Philippine SuperLiga and Premier Volleyball League have yet to start their tournaments.
“The sporting community has suffered,” Francis Diaz, dean of the University of the Philippines College of Human Kinetics, said in an online interview. “The effects are also felt by other sports-related industries such as fitness gyms and sports equipment shops.”
BUDGET CUTS The budgets for sports activities and programs have been cut, while the revenue of commercial leagues tumbled.
More than 5,000 workers of the NCAA, including athletes and coaches, have been affected by the pandemic as schools also cut their budgets for sports. The school system also faces revenue cuts as a number of students opted not to enroll this year.
“That’s for all schools in all sports in the NCAA,” Vic Calvo, athletic moderator of the Colegio de San Juan de Letran and chairman of the NCAA Management Committee, told an online forum last month.
“We depend on enrollment for our budget,” he said. “If the budget is cut, sports is the first victim. Some schools cut their budget considerably across-the-board.”
Stephen Fernandez, a former Olympian and Sports Development director at the College of Saint Benilde, said they had to recalibrate their sports program, with many athletes sent home as the college enforces a full online learning term.
“Scholarships are intact but athletic recruitment is suspended until further notice,” he said. “Things are better now but it was hard and tough in the beginning. Some athletes got confused and suffered anxieties because of uncertainties,” he added.
The coronavirus did not spare the UAAP, home to local big universities, with some member schools cutting costs.
“We are lucky in UP because as a state university we were not affected in terms of giving support to our athletes,” Mr. Diaz said. “I cannot say the same for the other universities, some of which were forced to shut down some of their varsity teams,” he added.
The prolonged season suspension is costing the PBA at least P30 million a month, according to PBA Commissioner Willie Marcial. The amount is only for the league office and excludes losses of individual teams.
“We are losing income from gate receipts, television and sponsorships while we continue to pay our personnel,” he said. “It is what it is. Even other businesses are experiencing this. Good thing we have some savings from which salaries can be drawn,” he added.
National athletes’ allowances also had to be slashed by 50% after the government realigned P1.37 billion of the local sports commission’s budget toward anti-coronavirus efforts.
“This is a hard decision to make, but one that is needed so we can continue caring for our athletes longer,” PSC Chairman William Ramirez said earlier.
“I think the athletes are adapting to the situation,” Mr. Diaz said. “They can handle the hardships that COVID-19 entails. Of course, everybody has to adjust under the new normal.”
Mr. Remolino, mentioned at the outset, said the global health crisis has been an eye-opener for him, teaching him about the importance of planning.
“One of the lessons I learned is that sports is not forever and we really have to have a fallback,” said Mr. Remolino, who’s studying to become a civil engineer. “Some athletes put all their efforts in sports to support their family, and in a snap it is being taken away from them by the pandemic.”
“We need to have a positive mindset, remain forward-looking and continue to improve despite the not-so-ideal situation. The important thing right now is our safety.”
AT FIRST, the new Avengers video game from Square Enix Holdings, Co. is disconcerting, like watching a Tony Stark or Captain America impersonator at a children’s birthday party. After more than a decade of memorable performances from Robert Downey, Jr. and Chris Evans in Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel movies, the video game adaptation feels out of place.
But the game, Marvel’s Avengers, is a pleasant surprise. It allows players to pummel enemies using superheroes from an alternate dimension of the ubiquitous comic book franchise. I’ve played around five hours of the game, which is out on Friday, and had a lot of fun so far. Developer Crystal Dynamics Inc. has sculpted a version of the superheroes that’s lovely once you’ve gotten over the fact that they’re not quite the A-listers you’re used to seeing.
Besides, the best character hasn’t been in a single Marvel movie yet: Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, a teenage girl granted superpowers after a cataclysmic accident. Khan is a self-confessed fangirl of the other Avengers, which makes for some charming dialogue as she works to bring them all back together.
For a long time, video games based on comic books and movies were the dregs of the industry. The projects were rushed to hit movie deadlines and often poorly received. The website Eurogamer described the 2008 Iron Man game, released alongside the movie, as “a singularly unpleasant experience.”
In recent years, the landscape has changed. Publishers have shifted away from movie release tie-ins and invested big money into making top-notch games. The beloved Arkham series gave new life to Batman throughout the early 2010s, while Sony Corp.’s critically acclaimed Spider-Man sold more than 13 million copies following its 2018 release and became the best-selling superhero game of all time. Last month, AT&T, Inc.’s Warner Bros. unveiled Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which have both built buzz.
Marvel’s Avengers appears primed for a big entrance. A beta version of the game, playable for fans last month, became the most downloaded beta in PlayStation history. Critical reception has been good, although some reviewers have dinged the game’s missions for feeling repetitive. What’s clear is that Marvel’s Avengers is striving for quality and not the bargain bin at Target.
And there’s room for improvement. Marvel’s Avenger is the latest example of what the industry has coined “games as a service,” or video games that can be updated over time with new content, sometimes for an extra fee. Heroes like Hawkeye and Black Panther will be added to the game for free in future months, while players can dish out cash to get fancy new outfits for their characters. (One beloved fighter, Spider-Man, will be exclusive to PlayStation, which has been unpopular with those playing on the Xbox or PC.)
Comic book video games still have a long way to go before catching up with the Marvel film juggernaut, but this new Avengers game will move the genre a little closer. — Bloomberg
THE former electricity provider of Iloilo City filed on Monday an anti-competition complaint against the city’s present power utility.
Embattled distribution utility Panay Electric Co., Inc. (PECO) said it filed with the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) a complaint against Razon-led MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) for allegedly prohibiting competition in electricity distribution in the city.
“As soon as it was granted a franchise, it saw the opportunity of handicapping or disabling possible competition from competing with it, and of course, the most probable competitor would be PECO, being the existing distribution facility in Iloilo at that time,” PECO Legal Counsel Estrella C. Elamparo said in a virtual briefing on Monday.
The company alleged that the new distribution utility exhibited “predatory, anti-competitive” behavior, thus violating the provisions and principles enshrined in the Philippine Constitution, the Philippine Competition Act, and the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA).
MORE Power now runs Iloilo City’s distribution system after President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed a measure granting its franchise for 25 years in February.
Since then, it took over PECO’s power facilities via eminent domain which a Mandaluyong court later found “unconstitutional.” The company then asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Iloilo Regional Trial Court’s decision which affirmed the takeover.
“Instead of putting up their own system, it chose to take over instead all the assets of its only potential competitor,” Ms. Elamparo said.
On Friday, consumer group Koalisyon Bantay Kuryente, which the PECO counsel also assisted, filed with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) a complaint against MORE Power for overcharging customers for system losses and exceeding the regulator’s mandated limit for billing the said charge.
PECO followed with a manifestation, claiming that the utility increased its system loss charges in May and July to 76 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and 66 centavos/kWh, respectively, from April’s 47 centavos/kWh.
The increase represented an overcharging of around P25 million from Iloilo consumers with 55,000 megawatt-hours of usage, it claimed.
Moreover, PECO slapped a libel and cyberlibel charges against Francis Gentoral, the executive director of the Iloilo Economic Development (ILED) Foundation. The business group recently published a media statement claiming that the former has overbilled consumers in the past and caused numerous investors to flee the city.
The publication reached out to ILED Foundation for a reaction, but it has yet to respond as of press time.
“We are fighting for our rights and to stop ILED Foundation from tarnishing the reputation of PECO,” Ms. Elamparo said.
FILM producer and Philippine film industry stalwart Maria Azucena “Marichu” Vera-Perez Maceda, affectionately known as Manay Ichu, passed at the age of 77 on Sept. 7 due to “an ongoing illness.”
The announcement of her death was made via radio station DZBB where actress and DZBB anchor Ali Sotto said that Ms. Maceda had long been suffering from an illness.
Ms. Sotto, a close friend of Ms. Maceda, said that the family is asking for privacy at this time.
“She has been ill for a long time, she was just fighting very hard. For the past few days, so many prayed for her healing but God, in His wisdom, decided to bring her home,” Ms. Sotto said.
Her passing was confirmed by her nephew, Congressman Christopher de Venecia, son of Ms. Maceda’s sister, Gina de Venecia, in a Facebook post.
“Mami-miss kita nang tahasan Mama Tutu. Isang haligi sa industriya ng pelikulang Pilipino na nag-alaga at nag-aruga sa akin sa aking paglaki, hanggang sa aking pagtanda. Mahal na mahal ka namin,” said Mr. De Venecia. “Ipagpapatuloy namin ang iyong nasimulan at ang legacy ng Vera Perez family.” (I miss you greatly, Mama Tutu. You are a pillar of the Philippine film industry who took care of and nurtured me from childhood to adulthood. We love you dearly…. We will continue what you started and the legacy of the Vera Perez family.)
Born on Dec. 23, 1942, Ms. Maceda was the daughter of Azucena Vera-Perez and Jose R. Perez, the owners of one of the first film production companies in the Philippines: Sampaguita Pictures. Sampaguita Pictures was a behemoth of the film industry at the time, having produced some of the biggest productions from the 1930s to the 1970s.
She was married to former Senate President Ernesto M. Maceda who passed away in 2016.
As someone who from a young age had been exposed to how cinema is made, Ms. Maceda developed a passion for it and worked as both a film producer and a patron of the industry. She was instrumental in the creation of several film organizations in the country including the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), the Movie Workers Welfare Fund (Mowelfund), the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), the Film Academy of the Philippines (FAP), the Philippine Motion Pictures Producers Association (PMPPA), and the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines (ECP).
As a producer, she produced films such as Batch ‘81 (1982), directed by Mike de Leon, and Dyesebel (1978), by Anthony Taylor. Her Internet Movie Database (IMDb) page lists nine credits as producer, 29 credits for the costume and wardrobe department, and six credits as a writer. Some of the films she wrote screenplays for are Always in My Heart (1971) by Mar S. Torres and Just Married ‘Do Not Disturb’ (1972) also directed by Mar S. Torres.
“Remember that aside from being an art form, this is basically a business, so you have to at least break even so you can recover your investment and produce the second film… Never make a film solely to satisfy yourself. Make your film for a wide audience,” Ms. Maceda said in a 2018 speech after she was named as a “Mother of Philippine Cinema” by the FDCP.
“Love your craft and love the industry. Don’t expect anything back aside from your investment of course. Don’t expect that they will love you immediately. One day, the love you gave will come back to you like what happened to me,” she added.
Film industry stalwarts took to social media to express their condolences at her passing. “Your kindness and love for Filipino cinema make you immortal in our hearts,” wrote film director and writer Jose Javier (Joey) Reyes on Facebook. “Rest in God’s embrace. We will miss you very much Manay Marichu Maceda,” wrote producer and manager Girlie Rodis in a Facebook post.
Ms. Maceda is survived by her five sons, Emmanuel, Ernesto, Jr., Erwin, Edmond, and Edward, and several grandchildren. — Zsarlene B. Chua
Sports facilities nationwide have been converted into quarantine areas for coronavirus patients, as hospitals were overwhelmed by rising cases of the virus that has sickened more than 237,000 and killed almost 4,000 people in the Philippines.