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Olympic hopeful Nesthy Petecio rues lost time to train

WITH her push to book a spot in the rescheduled Olympic Games in Tokyo greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, national boxing team member Nesthy Petecio laments the lost opportunity, but vows to make up for it as she gears up to resume full training and preparation.

One of the country’s top bets in the sport, Ms. Petecio, 28, had a chance to qualify outright for the Games last March in the Asian qualifiers in Jordan but fell short after bowing out in the quarterfinals.

Despite that, she is still determined to make it to Tokyo, looking to do well in the final world Olympic qualifier in Paris in June.

Ms. Petecio, however, admitted that the long pandemic-forced break from training by the national team has made her push tougher.

“Had our training continued last year, it would have been a big help. Unfortunately, our training stopped for months. I went six months, I think, without [the ideal] training [needed],” said Ms. Petecio in Filipino on The Chasedown television program last Saturday.

She went on to say that she managed to train with her teammates and coaches virtually, and later on got to put in some individual work in a community gym in her hometown of Digos, Davao Del Sur, but Ms. Petecio said nothing beats a sustained face-to-face training with the entire team.

It is something she intends to take full advantage of in the scheduled “bubble” training they will be having at the INSPIRE Sports Academy in Calamba, Laguna, set to begin this weekend.

The bubble is geared towards helping the boxing, taekwondo, and karate teams get back in the swing of training as they make a late push to qualify for the Olympics in July.

The teams will be holed up in the facility in a controlled environment, under strict health and safety protocols to guard against the spread of the coronavirus.

“I’m excited to get back to training in the bubble. Immediate concern is to shed the pounds I gained in the past months and be back in game shape,” said the featherweight fighter.

“I don’t see any problem going back to training. I’m ready to put in the work and my coaches know that. I really want to get a slot in the Olympics. So if I have to triple work to achieve it, I will do that,” she added.

Prior to having it tough in 2020, Ms. Petecio had a banner 2019, winning gold medals in the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships and Southeast Asian Games.

Filipino athletes who have qualified so far for the Tokyo Games are boxers Eumir Felix Marcial and Irish Magno, pole-vaulter EJ Obiena, and gymnast Caloy Yulo.

Local sports officials are targeting to send at least 15 athletes for this year’s Olympics. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

Sports tourism movers and shakers honored recently

DESPITE activities and various affairs rendered limited by the coronavirus, organizers of the Philippine Sports Tourism Awards (PSTA) still got to stage the fourth edition of the event, honoring movers and shakers of the industry.

Recently held at Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga, the PSTA, organized by Selrahco Management and Consultancy Services, honored various organizations and personalities for their contribution to the sports tourism sector for the year 2019.

Leading the awardees were Metro Pacific Investments Corp. Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan and Dumaguete City Mayor Felipe Remollo, who were named the year’s top sports tourism personalities in the private and government sectors, respectively.

Other winners were People’s Television Network (news coverage), Philippine Airlines (air carrier), Run With Me of Resorts World Manila (charity event), Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines (event sponsorship), The Mansion Boutique Hotel and Villas (hotel), Triathlon Association of the Philippines (sports association), Tinman Ilocos Norte (domestic event), Ironman 70.3 (international event), and Sunrise Events, Inc. (private organizer).

Also part of the winner’s circle in the government sector were Dumaguete City (event organizer), Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (destination marketing), Clark Development Corp. (top destination), and New Clark City (sports venue).

PSTA chairman and founder Charles Lim said in a release that while they could have opted to postpone the handing out of the awards, they deemed it important to show that notwithstanding the challenges that 2020 presented with the pandemic, there is still hope for a bounce back for the sector and that events can be successfully staged provided the proper protocols are followed.

“This event happening in Clark shows we have gone an extra mile to practice safety protocols. PSTA could not just let the year pass without recognizing the efforts of athletes, event organizers, local governments, tourism officials, and private individuals who have made 2019 a bumper year for sports and tourism,” he said.

Mr. Lim went on to say that it was also fitting that the event happened in Clark, which is one of the places in the country proving resilient and conducive for sports tourism amid the pandemic.

Citing the Philippine Basketball Association, which successfully held its tournament bubble in the area last year, Mr. Lim said it shows what the area offers and bodes well for the sports tourism sector.

“These trailblazing initiatives, which promote health and safety in an unprecedented time, are a good sign to where the sports tourism sector is headed this 2021.”

First held in 2016, the PSTA is jointly organized by stakeholders both from the government and private sector and designed to recognize events, destinations, local government units, national sports association, private companies and event organizers that have contributed to the growth of the local sports tourism industry.

It is also geared towards inspiring local players to further step up their game in pushing the Philippines as a top sports tourism destination in the world.

The latest PSTA was supported by Clark Development Corp. (CDC), the City of Mabalacat, Smart Communications, Universal Robina Corp., and Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

A Tokyo emergency will be a bad omen for the world’s 2021

THERE’S MORE at stake in Tokyo’s prospective emergency measures to contain the coronavirus than the fate of the metropolis’s great bars and restaurants. Bullish scenarios for a muscular global economic rebound may have to be reassessed.

The International Monetary Fund has penciled in world growth of 5.2%, and a 6.9% boost for Asia. Morgan Stanley predicted a global gain of 6.4%. But Japan may be heading for a renewed contraction after Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday he’s considering declaring a state of emergency in the capital and surrounding districts. The steps may slice 0.7% from gross domestic product each month they are in force, according to Bloomberg Economics.

It’s not a leap to see Japan return to recession. Growth lost altitude toward the end of last year; retail sales plummeted in November and Tokyo consumer prices slid the most in a decade.   

The dour start to 2021 in the world’s third-largest economy jars with the rosy projections for a global expansion that began to proliferate late last year. What happens in Japan matters to the rest of the world. Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures would almost qualify for Group of Eight membership if they were a country. While China is the main game in Asia, Japan isn’t too far behind. The country remains a big exporter and an important source of foreign investment to the rest of the world. Global economic trends tend to start in the country — from population decline to property busts, from too-low inflation to quantitative easing.

As renewed lockdowns and climbing coronavirus infections greet the new year, how Japan emerges from the pandemic will be a lesson — or omen — for the rest of the world’s leading economies.

Suga’s likely emergency declaration probably won’t be draconian. There’s little he can do without cooperation from provincial officials, a product of constraints in Japan’s political system that can be traced to reconstruction from World War II. Suga can’t clear the streets, for example, as some of his counterparts in the UK, France, and Southeast Asia can. Restaurants are likely to be asked to close early, and work-from-home further encouraged. Governors will have more authority to request that folks and firms go along with stricter curbs, but they will still have very little power to enforce them, Scott Seaman, Asia director at Eurasia Group, said in a note.    

This doesn’t mean the prime minister’s move will lack potency. It will provide important cues for a citizenry that tends to value social cohesion and prioritize the interests of the community over those of the individual. One of the first things that hit me in Japan during a two-year assignment around the turn of the century was how common it was for people to wear masks if they had a sniffle. In this, too, Japan was ahead of the pack.

For all Japan’s fiscal and monetary firepower, Suga hasn’t caught a break since he succeeded Shinzo Abe in September. He’s been a captive of events, and lacks his own electoral mandate. The parliament’s five-year term ends in October, and the popularity of the Liberal Democratic Party government is sagging. In theory, getting to grips with COVID would strengthen Suga — both within the LDP and at the ballot box. But such is Suga’s poor hand that a jump in infections might be an ally as much as a foe. Until COVID-19 appears to be contained, no leader is going to look good. What internal LDP contender would want the job now anyway? As well as getting the blame, whoever sits in the corner office can’t really get out in the country to test campaign themes until the disease abates.

It’s not only Suga who is stuck. Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan (BoJ), is casting about for new ideas on monetary policy. In December, Kuroda said the BoJ would undertake an assessment of its policies, which have been focused on controlling the yield on 10-year government bonds, and keeping the benchmark interest-rate negative. Curiously, he sounds like he wants to keep both. So what’s the review all about? The BoJ probably wants to widen the scope of yield fluctuations around the level of zero. But you don’t need a three-month review to accomplish that. It’s possible Kuroda had in mind a formula that might eventually establish conditions under which exit from mega-easy money might occur, or equally, allow him to go the other way and deepen his commitment to stimulus. The way bad news is piling up, greater easing looks the most appropriate route.

It’s a very unhappy new year for Japan’s political and economic leaders — and maybe for the rest of us. 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

Training for the jobs of the future

As we start 2021, COVID-19 is still with us, along with the many changes it has prompted in the way we do things. Many parents are still doing work from home, as children also do school from home. Public transportation is still limited, and people are still encouraged to just stay home unless in need of essential goods or services. Many places and business have remained closed.

The focus now is on the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines, with the national government as well as numerous local governments all looking for ways and means to bring them in. But given financial and logistical concerns, at best, a semblance of a mass vaccination program will probably start only towards the end of the year.

Meantime, life goes on for many of us.

What the future holds, nobody really knows. But, judging from what has occurred so far, and the possibility of other pandemics in the future, it is interesting how some analysts now view the future of work. I came across recently a blog published by the International Monetary Fund, which highlighted the “The Jobs of Tomorrow” report by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Presented by Saadia Zahidi, managing director at WEF and head of its Center for the New Economy and Society, the report discussed what jobs will emerge and which ones will go in the future, in light of the “effect of pandemic-related disruptions placed in the broader context of longer-term technology trends.”

The report “maps the jobs and skills of the future, tracking the pace of change based on surveys of business leaders and human resource strategists from around the world.” Its five key findings for its Winter 2020 report were as follows:

• The workforce is automating faster than expected, displacing 85 million jobs in the next five years.

• The robot revolution will create 97 million new jobs.

• In 2025, analytical thinking, creativity, and flexibility will be among the most sought-after skills.

• The most competitive businesses will focus on upgrading their workers’ skills.

• Remote work is here to stay.

The report forecasts increasing demand for data analysts and scientists, AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning specialists, big data specialists, digital marketing and strategy specialists, and process automation specialists. Decreasing demand is seen for data entry clerks, administrative and executive secretaries, accounting and bookkeeping and payroll clerks, accountants and auditors, and assembly and factory workers.

“Automation, in tandem with the COVID-19 recession, is creating a ‘double-disruption’ scenario for workers. Companies’ adoption of technology will transform tasks, jobs, and skills by 2025… Five years from now, employers will divide work between humans and machines roughly equally,” the report says. It notes that businesses are set to reduce their workforce because of technology integration and expand their use of contractors for task-specialized work.

The WEF report also says “new roles will emerge across the care economy in technology fields and in content creation careers. The emerging professions reflect the greater demand for green economy jobs; roles at the forefront of the data and AI economy; and new roles in engineering, cloud computing, and product development.”

It adds, “The up-and-coming jobs highlight the continuing importance of human interaction in the new economy through roles in the care economy; in marketing, sales, and content production; and in roles that depend on the ability to work with different types of people from different backgrounds.”

Of course, one can only wonder whether these forecasts will actually come through. After all, COVID-19 has taught us that the world can suddenly change, practically overnight. And there is no telling if another pandemic, or similar world-changing event, will hit us again in the next few years. However, there are signs that changes to the workforce are inevitable.

Based on WEF’s survey of businesses, an overwhelming majority says they are “set to rapidly digitalize work processes, including a significant expansion of remote working,” and that there is “potential to move 44% of their workforce to operate remotely.”

But most businesses are also bracing for negative impact on worker productivity, and will thus help workers adapt.

WEF also says the “relative importance of skills sets is evolving,” and that employers are seen to favor or prioritize critical thinking and analysis, problem-solving, self-management, and technology use and development over physical abilities, core literacies, and management and communication of activities.

WEF also notes that even in past surveys, employers already noted the “growing importance” of critical thinking, analysis, and problem solving. But now, they also see the significance of “self-management, active learning, resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility.” Ever-changing and dynamic business conditions are obviously driving these changes in skills sets.

What is crucial, moving forward, is how businesses and perhaps the government can help people adapt to these changes and capably address the needs and demands of the times. As WEF notes, businesses must invest in upgrading their people’s skills if they wish to remain competitive. The report notes that “for workers set to remain in their roles over the next five years, nearly half will need retraining for their core skills.”

“The public sector [also] needs to provide stronger support for reskilling and upskilling of at-risk or displaced workers… [It] must provide incentives for investment in the markets and jobs of tomorrow, offer stronger safety nets for displaced workers during job transitions, and tackle long-delayed improvements of education and training systems,” WEF adds.

This, I believe, is something that policymakers should start looking into urgently. What we have programmed thus far may not be enough. While we can pour more public money into reskilling, perhaps it will be more practical for the state to instead incentivize businesses to invest in reskilling their people, and to put more capital into the education and training of people for the jobs of tomorrow.

 

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

matort@yahoo.com

Welcoming a new year

I WILL TRY to avoid using the word “positive” when referring to my outlook for 2021. It causes people to walk away with a look of dread. No use clarifying it’s not a medical term but an optimistic view of the coming year. How could it not be better than 2020?

Love it or hate it, this is our country. I will not allow others, including fellow countrymen living abroad, to denigrate it. It may be among the worst performing economies to get through the pandemic in terms of GDP drops. (Okay, it’s the last in class in the region.) The only way to go is up, or not farther down.

I will endeavor to think of the country’s good side to anyone who will listen.

There are nice tourist spots opening up slowly and mall parking tightening up. I will mention these in Zoom parties where Topic A, after the status of relatives in hospitals, seems to be — what’s wrong with us? I don’t need to share charts to show the not-so-V-shaped recovery.

Every company has unpleasant people and pushy clients (they are not always right). I will keep in mind that despicable people have mothers who love (or at least tolerate) them and bosses who hired them at a premium. Even with the rise of in-person meetings, with no more muting and canceling of videos, it doesn’t hurt to smile at them without looking pained.

If good fortune is the lot of others, I wish them well. Their pronounced contentment and new SUV has no effect on my self-esteem. This comes from within, needing no confirmation on how others are doing better. There are always a few who are worse off. Where are they now?

The last words that will escape my lips are — why don’t you lose weight? If people enjoy dessert, even after a test showing high blood sugar (it’s still within the upper normal range) it’s their life. People who brag about successful diet programs are bores — leave my fruit cake alone.

I will keep my sense of humor and find absurdity where I can. While I admit to being irritated by troll farms and the fake news and conspiracy theories they churn out, I will not be distracted by them. Do I need to read the posts of irritating but industrious pessimists in my Viber group?

Even if January is just a continuation of time, the artificial divide of a new calendar marks the turning of a new page. Decisions that have been deferred in the last year now need to be taken up and resolved. Okay, we can start building that new house now. (Do we still have the funds?)

With the vaccine within hailing distance (Over here, Nurse), there is reason to be cheerful. No mistakes have been made yet, no bad investments committed in the coming year. Even if it’s just a psychological reboot, as time is continuous and not really refreshed after midnight of the last day of the year of the plague, the feeling of being in control again can be reassuring. Self-delusion is the key to happiness.

Economists call the market optimism that a new year brings as the “January Effect.” It gives a boost of energy, a sense of temporary invincibility that 2021 will somehow be different in a positive (oops, that word again) way. The start of a new fiscal year is mildly intoxicating. It must be the alcohol from the small parties in the open air.

One now seldom sees the old representation of the bent old man exiting the scene wearing the sash of the old year (how did he get so ancient-looking in one year?) and a baby, sometimes with a horn, crawling confidently forward as the personification of the New Year. This analogue representation of the old and the new in the once favorite calendar or diary corporate giveaway has become obsolete.

Companies don’t even give away desk diaries anymore. Your phone has all your records, appointments, and pictures of memorable afternoons.

The New Year is a continuation of our life as a mini-series. This one has no ads, few villains, and no misfortunes too difficult to overcome. (Okay, there may be exceptions.) Perhaps, next year the face masks will be off, and we can see once more the faces of friends and people in the malls. Will they now be smiling?

 

Tony Samson is Chairman and CEO, TOUCH xda

ar.samson@yahoo.com

Dozens of HK activists arrested under security law as crackdown intensifies

REUTERS

HONG KONG — Hong Kong (HK) police arrested dozens of leading democratic activists on Wednesday on suspicion of violating the city’s controversial security law in the biggest crackdown yet against the opposition camp since Beijing imposed the law in 2020.

The dawn swoop of the most prominent pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong was tied to an unofficial, independently organized vote in July 2020 to select opposition candidates for a since-postponed legislative election.

As part of the operation, police also searched the offices of a pollster and a law firm and went to the offices of media outlets Apple Daily, Stand News, and Inmediahk, according to local media.

The mass arrests, confirmed by the Democratic Party and individual social media accounts of dozens of other activists and politicians arrested, will further raise alarm that Hong Kong has taken a swift authoritarian turn.

The crackdown since the June 2020 imposition of the new security law, which critics say crushes wide-ranging freedoms, places China further on a collision course with the United States just as Joe Biden prepares to take over the presidency.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Biden’s pick for secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Twitter the arrests were “an assault on those bravely advocating for universal rights.”

“The Biden-Harris administration will stand with the people of Hong Kong and against Beijing’s crackdown on democracy.”

The arrests, which local media said amounted to more than 50 former lawmakers, activists and people involved in organizing the 2020 primary, included James To, Lam Cheuk-ting, Benny Tai and Lester Shum.

At the time, the local government and Beijing warned the unprecedented unofficial vote may violate the new law, saying a campaign to win a majority in Hong Kong’s 70-seat legislature with the purpose of blocking government proposals to increase pressure for democratic reforms could be seen as subversive.

That reasoning was cited by police when making the Wednesday arrests, according to the Democratic Party’s Facebook page and other social media accounts of those arrested.

Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The legislative election was due in September last year but was postponed, with authorities citing coronavirus risks. It is unclear who could run for the opposition in any future polls following the mass arrests.

Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the raids and arrests showed Chinese authorities were now “removing the remaining veneer of democracy in the city.”

Local media said the police operation included searches of the offices of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (HKPORI) which helped organize the primaries. The organizers destroyed the data of the more than 600,000 people who voted immediately after ending the count.

Public broadcaster RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) said American lawyer John Clancey was arrested during a raid of law firm Ho, Tse, Wai & Partners.  

DISQUALIFICATIONS, EXILE
The security law punishes what China broadly defines as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in jail. When the law was introduced, authorities said it would only target a very small group of people in the former British colony of 7.5 million.

Authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing say it is vital to plug gaping holes in national security defences exposed by months of sometimes violent anti-government and anti-China protests that rocked the global financial hub in 2019.

Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy unavailable elsewhere in China when it returned to Beijing rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” agreement.

In response to the law, Washington imposed sanctions on Hong Kong and Beijing officials and several countries suspended extradition treaties.

Since the imposition of the security law, leading pro-democracy activists such as media tycoon Jimmy Lai have been arrested, some democratic lawmakers have been disqualified, activists have fled into exile, and protest slogans and songs have been declared illegal.

“The suppression of political freedom and freedom of speech by the national security law has risen to another level,” said Nathan Law, an activist who fled to Britain.

“Hong Kong people must remember this hatred. Anyone who is still defending the national security law and making peace is the enemy of Hong Kong people.”

Joshua Wong, 24, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent democracy activists, was one of more than a dozen young, more confrontational politicians who outshone the old guard in the unofficial democratic primaries in 2020.

Mr. Wong’s Twitter and Facebook accounts said his house was raided by police on Wednesday morning.

Mr. Wong was jailed last year on separate charges for organizing and inciting an unlawful assembly during the 2019 anti-government protests. — Reuters

N.Korea’s Kim says economic plan failed ‘tremendously’

SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his five-year economic plan had failed to meet its goals “on almost every sector” as he kicked off a congress of the ruling Workers’ Party, state media KCNA reported on Wednesday.

The rare political gathering, which Kim last hosted in 2016, has drawn international attention as he is expected to unveil a new five-year economic plan and address inter-Korean ties and foreign policy. The congress, attended by 4,750 delegates and 2,000 spectators, comes just two weeks before US President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

In his opening speech, Mr. Kim said the country had achieved a “miraculous victory” by bolstering its power and global prestige since the last meeting, referring to military advances that culminated in successful tests in 2017 of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the US mainland and a series of meetings with US President Donald Trump.

But the five-year economic strategy he set forth in 2016 had failed to deliver, he said, urging North Korea’s greater self-reliance.

“The strategy was due last year but it tremendously fell short of goals on almost every sector,” Mr. Kim said, according to KCNA.

In his 2016 plan, Mr. Kim called for accelerating economic growth and expanding domestic sources of energy, including nuclear power, to boost electricity supplies. He also underscored the “byungjin” policy of parallel development of nuclear weapons and the economy.

While consolidating power with a series of military provocations and ruthless purges, Mr. Kim has been trying to build a “man of the people” persona by openly admitting some of his failures — once a taboo in a country that reveres an errorless, godlike leader.

Mr. Kim was even seen shedding tears as he thanked people for their sacrifices at a military parade in October.

“He seems to have made a strategic decision to admit economic failure as he can also blame the coronavirus,” said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy in Seoul.

“By doing so, he would also seek to cement his image as a people-loving leader.”  

On the pandemic, Mr. Kim lauded party workers for ensuring “stable situations against the coronavirus from beginning to end.”

“They had resolutely overcome difficulties in the face of an unprecedentedly prolonged, unparalleled global health crisis,” he added.

North Korea has not officially confirmed any coronavirus infections, although it reported thousands of “suspected cases” to the World Health Organization (WHO).

South Korean authorities have said an outbreak in the North cannot be ruled out as it had active trade and people movement with China before closing its border last January. —  Reuters

Video-on-demand subscriptions to reach two billion by 2025

Traditional broadcasters and hybrid monetization to drive growth

There will be nearly two billion active global on-demand video service subscriptions by 2025—a 65% increase over the end of 2020—according to a report released this January by Juniper Research, an analyst house specializing in digital technology market research. 

Driving this growth are traditional broadcasters who foray into streaming services to extend their reach and compete with online video players such as Amazon Prime Video.

Increased competition is also driving innovation of over-the-top (OTT) monetization models. An OTT is a streaming media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. Traditional monetization models include TVoD/PPV (Transactional Video on Demand/Pay-Per-View) or SVoD (Subscription Video on Demand). Viewers either paid a one-time fee to watch, download, or rent content in Apple iTunes, Amazon Video, and Google Play, or monthly subscriptions with streaming service providers like Netflix.

In the Philippines, revenue in the Video-on-Demand segment is projected to reach $158 million this year, according to Statista, a provider of market and consumer data. SVoD is the largest segment of the market, with a projected market volume of $101 million for the same period. 

HYBRID MONETIZATION
Titled OTT TV & Video Streaming: Evolving Trends, Future Strategies & Market Forecasts 2020–2025 Research, the Juniper Research paper reported that traditional broadcasters are turning to hybrid services, or a combination of subscription- and advertising-supported monetization. It forecasts 273 million users of hybrid OTT TV subscription services by 2025, up from 115 million last year. It also anticipates these services to account for $1.4 billion in advertising spend in 2025.

“Thanks to this high level of market saturation, streaming providers need to keep their offerings competitive to retain subscribers,” said research co-author Nicholas Hunt in a press release. “Hybrid monetization is one way that Video on Demand (VOD) providers can keep their offerings low-cost, and therefore less likely to be dropped.”

An example of a hybrid service is the bundling monetization model, which Disney+ uses. It bundles its content together with ESPN, National Geographic, and other content producers. 

Mobile network operators such as T-Mobile, meanwhile, have been bundling Netflix for free for its family plan subscribers since 2017. 

Local providers offer similar bundled packages: Globe Telecom’s GoWATCH bundle includes video apps and sites such as YouTube, Netflix, Viu, and NBA League Pass. Smart, for its part, offers video streaming via its Video Every Day promo that includes YouTube, iflix, iWant, NBA League Pass, and Cignal Play. 

Streaming service providers are also expected to integrate hybrid monetization models further into their business plans. Providers will look beyond the subscription-only, ad-free model to hybrid monetization that offers a range of options to the consumer and a variety of revenue streams. 

NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock, for one, utilizes a hybrid monetization approach with its three tiers of service. The Free tier has a section of the content of the upper two tiers with targeted user advertising. The middle tier, Peacock Premium, has advertising but with the full library of content. The upper tier, Peacock Premium Plus, has the full library without ads. 

As Peacock’s chairman, Matthew Strauss, said in the report, “There was this belief in the industry that people did not want advertising or did not like advertising. That just is not true. Free, ad-supported content plays to our strength, and that has been where we focused.” — Patricia B. Mirasol 

China’s bottled-water king is now richer than Warren Buffett

Zhong Shanshan, chairman of Nongfu Spring Co., a bottled-water company that’s ubiquitous in China, dethroned India’s Mukesh Ambani as Asia’s wealthiest person last week and is close to entering the rarefied realm of individuals worth more than $100 billion. Image via Nongfu Spring

Zhong Shanshan is setting new wealth records.

The chairman of Nongfu Spring Co., a bottled-water company that’s ubiquitous in China, is now richer than Warren Buffett as his fortune surged $13.5 billion to $91.7 billion since the start of the year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Mr. Zhong, 66, is now the sixth-wealthiest person on the planet. Nongfu shares jumped 18% in the first two trading days of 2021, taking the advance since their September listing to 200%.

It’s only the second time a Chinese national has broken into the world’s Top 10—property tycoon Wang Jianlin hit No. 8 in 2015—and no one from the mainland has ever ranked this high on Bloomberg’s wealth index since it launched in 2012.

Nicknamed locally as the “Lone Wolf” for avoiding involvement in clubby business groups or politics, Mr. Zhong also took vaccine maker Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co. public in April. The stock has soared more than 2,500%.

Mr. Zhong dethroned India’s Mukesh Ambani as Asia’s wealthiest person last week and is close to entering the rarefied realm of individuals worth more than $100 billion. Mr. Buffett is outside that group with an $86.2 billion fortune, but the Berkshire Hathway Inc. founder has given away more than $37 billion of stock since 2006.

Investors are snapping up Chinese consumer shares as the country demonstrates it’s recovering from COVID-19, while analysts have grown increasingly bullish on Nongfu.

Mr. Zhong has also helped four relatives become billionaires. His younger sister, Zhong Xiaoxiao, and three of his wife’s siblings each hold a 1.4% stake in Nongfu worth $1.3 billion, based on the ownership listed in the company’s prospectus from last year. The firm has produced dozens of millionaires, including more of Mr. Zhong’s relatives and employees.

While COVID-19 upended much of the global economy in 2020, it was a good year for the world’s ultra-rich. The 500 wealthiest people added $1.8 trillion to their fortunes and were worth a combined $7.6 trillion by year-end. Mr. Zhong, the biggest winner from Asia, amassed more than $71 billion, the most after Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk and Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos.

One notable exception is Jack Ma, until recently Asia’s richest person. He’s not been seen in public since Chinese regulators torpedoed Ant Group Co.’s $35 million initial public offering. His net worth has dropped about $10 billion since October and he’s now the world’s 25th-richest person. — Venus Feng and Pei Yi Mak/Bloomberg

Globe Subsidiary, Cascadeo, Wins Managed Services Provider of the Year

Globe’s recently acquired professional and managed services arm, Cascadeo, won Managed Services Provider (MSP) of the Year at the Channel Partner Insight Innovation Awards 2020.

“Whether it’s in the US or in the Philippines, Cascadeo sets the benchmark that today’s best services are powered digitally,” shared Peter Maquera, Cascadeo CEO and Senior Vice President for Globe Business. “We’re proud of Cascadeo’s recent achievement. Globe’s investment in the company strengthens its cloud-based services, enabling more customers to benefit from the Cloud. We’re fortunate that we embraced it early on. And now, we’re driven to share the successes we’ve gained with our enterprise clients.”

Despite the pandemic, Globe was able to complete its acquisition of Cascadeo in November 2020.  Globe Business has been working in tandem with Cascadeo to help enterprises build the necessary infrastructure for a digitally-driven future. Apart from playing a key role in providing Globe clients with cloud managed services, Cascadeo also lends its expertise in cloud-based products.

“On behalf of the Cascadeo family, we’re glad to be selected MSP of the Year. This is tremendous validation for our customer-client, AIOps-first approach to the Cloud and on-premise managed services. The cascadeo.io platform is our secret sauce and the crown jewel, allowing us to deliver AI-assisted operations to companies large and small,” shared Jared Reimer, Cascadeo President and Co-Founder.

Globe and Cascadeo’s cloud-enabled operations allowed the company to quickly transition to 100 percent remote work despite the pandemic.

Together with Globe, the leading MSP continues to invest in cascadeo.io—an award-winning managed services solution that includes 24/7 expert support, round-the-clock monitoring and incident response ensuring businesses remain online, operational, and scalable.

By leveraging on Amazon Web Services and other artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, the platform studies a company’s normal operational patterns and detects issues in a customer’s cloud environment to avoid service-impacting incidents.

Globe Business, together with Cascadeo, is looking towards a promising future for Philippine enterprises as the Cloud propels digital transformation, with a 14.96% growth from 2019 to 2020 according to International Data Corporation.

Maquera explained, “Our growth spurred by the Cloud is an experience that we can’t help but share with our customers. We’ve achieved amazing results and we want to replicate the same throughout the country by offering businesses complete flexibility in costs, scalability when it comes to building cloud infrastructure, insights gathered by intelligent solutions, and expertise from dedicated teams.”

Future-proof your business with Globe Cloud Solutions. Contact your Globe Business Account Manager to learn more. You may also visit our website to learn more about Cascadeo and the rest of our cloud services.

WHO recommends two doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine within 21–28 days

With jabs in limited supply as production ramps up, the World Health Organization has been examining how they can be used most effectively. Image via Reuters

GENEVA/ZURICH — People should get two doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine within 21–28 days, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, as many countries struggled to administer the jabs that can ward off the COVID-19 virus.

Many are experiencing intensifying pressure on their health services due to surging coronavirus cases and the emergence of new variants that appear to spread more easily.

Governments are introducing new lockdown measures to halt the spread while facing massive demand for vaccines which are seen as the best way out of the global health crisis.

But with jabs in limited supply as production ramps up, the WHO has been examining how they can be used most effectively.

“We deliberated and came out with the following recommendation: two doses of this (Pfizer) vaccine within 21–28 days,” Alejandro Cravioto, chairman of WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), told an online news briefing.

The panel said countries should have leeway to spread out shots over six weeks so that more people at higher risk of illness can get them.

“SAGE made a provision for countries in exceptional circumstances of (Pfizer) vaccine supply constraints to delay the administration of the second dose for a few weeks in order to maximize the number of individuals benefiting from a first dose,” Mr. Cravioto said.

He added: “I think we have to be a bit open to these types of decisions which countries have to make according to their own epidemiological situations.”

More than 85 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and around 1.85 million have died, according to a Reuters tally.

SPACING DOSES
SAGE executive Joachim Hombach said spacing out the two Pfizer inoculations could be acceptable for countries unable to implement the main recommendation. “The JCI, the recommending body of the UK, has given more flexibility up to 12 weeks in consideration of the specific circumstances that the country is currently facing,” he said.

“We … totally acknowledge that countries may see needs to be even more flexible in terms of administration of the second dose. But it is important to note that there is very little … empirical data from the trials that underpin this type of recommendation,” he added.

Given the limited supply of vaccines at present, Mr. Cravioto said SAGE did not recommend the Pfizer jab for international travelers as a priority unless they were in a very high-risk group, such as the elderly and those with pre-existing ailments.

Kate O’Brien, a WHO immunization expert, said there was a robust discussion at SAGE about the trade-off between adhering strictly to standard dosing in clinical trials and allowing for a broader use of vaccine as first doses, thus risking delay in getting the second dose out to some people.

Alluding to delays in rolling out inoculations, she said: “Nobody expected this to be easy and we are starting to see where the road bumps are and where we need to make adjustments.”

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said he was “very disappointed” that China had not authorized entry of an international mission to examine the origins of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019. — Emma Farge and John Revill/Reuters

Why is Bitcoin’s price at an all-time high? And how is its value determined?

Bitcoin continues to trade close to its all-time high reached this month. Its price is now around US$34,000—up about 77% over the past month and 305% over the past year.

First launched in 2009 as a digital currency, Bitcoin was for a while used as digital money on the fringes of the economy.

It has since become mainstream. Today, it’s used almost exclusively as a kind of “digital gold.” That is to say, a scarce digital asset.

In response to the risk of economic collapse due to COVID, governments around the world have flooded global markets with money created by central banks, in order to boost spending and help save the economy.

But increasing the supply of money erodes its value and leads people to look for inflation-resistant assets to hold. In this climate, Bitcoin has become a hedge against looming inflation and poor returns on other types of assets.

WHAT IS BITCOIN?

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has a current circulating supply of 18,590,300 bitcoins and a maximum supply of 21,000,000.

This limit is hard-coded into the Bitcoin protocol and can’t be changed. It creates artificial scarcity, which ensures the digital money increases in value over time.

Whereas government-issued currencies such as the Australian dollar can have their supply increased at will by central banks, Bitcoin has a fixed supply that can’t be inflated by political decisions.

Bitcoin is predominantly traded on online cryptocurrency exchanges, but can also be sent, received and stored in “digital wallets” on specific hardware or smartphone applications.

But perhaps the most groundbreaking aspect of the Bitcoin network is that it draws on the work of cryptographers and computer scientists to exist as a blockchain-based digital currency.

A public blockchain is an “immutable” database, which means the record of transaction history can’t be changed.

A FUNCTIONAL AND DECENTRALIZED DIGITAL CURRENCY

Bitcoin is “decentralized.” In other words, it functions via a dispersed peer-to-peer network, rather than through a central authority such as a central bank.

And it does this through the participation of Bitcoin “miners.” This is anyone who chooses to run software to validate Bitcoin transactions on the blockchain. Typically, these people are actively engaged with cryptocurrency.

They are rewarded with bitcoins, more of which are created every 10 minutes. But the reward paid to miners halves every four years.

This gradual reduction was encoded into the network by creator Satoshi Nakamoto, who designed it this way to mimic the process of extracting actual gold—easier at first, but harder with time.

While several have laid claim to it, the true identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto (a psuedonym) has never been confirmed. His last written post on the forum bitcointalk.org was on December 12, 2010. 

Bitocoin miners today earn 6.25 bitcoins for every block mined, down from 50 bitcoins in the early years. This creates an incentive to get involved early, as scarcity increases with time.

Because of this, the price is expected to rise to meet demand. But because future scarcity is known in advance (predictable at four-year intervals), the halving events tend to already be priced in.

Therefore, massive surges and falls in price typically reflect changing demand conditions, such as a growing number of new institutional investors. More and more public companies are now investing in bitcoin.

But what function does Bitcoin provide for society that has people so invested?

WHY DOES BITCOIN MATTER?

There are a few possible explanations as to why Bitcoin is now deemed significant by so many people.

  • It’s a “safe” asset

In the face of global uncertainty, buying bitcoins is a way for people to diversify their assets. Its market value can be compared to that of another go-to asset that shines in times of trouble: gold.

Amid the turmoil of a global pandemic, an unconventional US presidential handover, and geopolitical power shifts the world over, it’s possible more people view gold and Bitcoin as better alternatives to dollars.

  • It ties into privacy-oriented ideologies

Bitcoin (and cryptocurrency in general) is not politically and ideologically neutral. It was born of the internet era, one plagued with grave concerns for privacy.

Bitcoin’s intellectual and ideological origins are in the “cypherpunk” movement of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Records of online forums show it was advocated for as an anonymous digital currency that allowed people to interact online without being tracked by governments or corporations, offering an alternative for anyone who distrusts the Federal central banking system.

Perhaps the overt rise of digital surveillance in response to the COVID pandemic has further stoked fears about online privacy and security—again piquing the public’s interest in Bitcoin’s potential.

WHY IS BITCOIN BOOMING?

Bitcoin’s recent boom in value comes down to a combination of three factors: ideology, social sentiment, and hope.

But although these are variable factors, this doesn’t discredit the significance of the digital economy, interest in the technology as it matures and the influence of institutional investors in cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is in an upward market trend, also known as “bull market” territory.

It was designed to increase in value over time through the rules Nakamoto wrote into its software code — which Bitcoin’s most outspoken advocates, known as “maximalists,” vehemently defend.

IMAGINING NEW FUTURES

From a larger frame of reference, decentralized cryptocurrencies allow new ways to coordinate without the need for a central arbiter.

And decentralized blockchain-based networks don’t just enable digital money. Similar to ordinary smartphone apps, software developers around the world are building decentralized applications (DApps) on top of Bitcoin and other blockchain protocols.

They have introduced other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, which are also open platforms for the public.

Other DApps include decentralized financial (DeFi) tools for prediction markets, cryptocurrency borrowing and lending, investing, and crowdfunding.

Nakamoto’s audacious experiment in digital currency is working as intended. And what really deserves attention now is what this means for our digital, physical, and social futures. — Jason Potts and Kelsie Nabben/The Conversation

 

Jason Potts is a Professor of Economics at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. 

Kelsie Nabben is a Researcher/PhD candidate, RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub/Digital Ethnography Research Centre, RMIT University.

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