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Gov’t promises to send OFWs to their hometowns

THE GOVERNMENT has vowed to send to their home provinces in the next three days about 24,000 returning overseas Filipino workers (OFW) stuck in the capital after a forced quarantine.

“President Rodrigo R. Duterte ordered us to send them home because they’ve undergone a 14-day quarantine and they tested negative,” Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III told DZMM radio in Filipino on Monday.

The Filipinos were not immediately sent home because their clearances got delayed.

“Within three days, we will try to send the 24,000 workers home by land and by air,” he added.

Presidential spokesman Harry L. Roque told DZRH radio that Mr. Duterte had given the Labor and Health departments and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) a week to send all quarantined OFWs home.

The workers have been overstaying in quarantine facilities and some of them have complained about the clearance delays.

The government expects 44,000 more Filipino workers to arrive from abroad by June. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has helped about 29,000 of them to come home.

The last batch of returning Filipinos included 91 workers from India who arrived on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Senator Franklin M. Drilon said OWWA should tap its P20-billion trust fund to provide livelihood assistance to returning Filipinos.

“The OWWA in particular is not doing its best to assist our OFWs,” the lawmaker said in a statement. “It has a P20-B trust fund sitting in banks which it can use to provide livelihood assistance to displaced OFWs.” — Charmaine A. Tadalan

Nationwide round-up

Health chief still has President’s trust, says spokesperson

HEALTH SECRETARY FRANCISCO T. DUQUE III — WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/NEWS5EVERYWHERE/

“WE all serve at the pleasure of the President.” This was the statement of Palace Spokesperson Harry L. Roque in a briefing on Monday when asked about the reported looming exit of Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III. “Wala akong alam sa artikulo na iyan (I don’t know anything about that article)… We all serve at the pleasure of the President. Kung nawalan po ng tiwala ang Presidente (If the President loses trust), anytime, any Cabinet member can be removed,” Mr. Roque said. A report by the Philippine Star on Monday said the President is scouting for a replacement of Mr. Duque, citing several sources, including a Cabinet secretary. Mr. Duque has been under fire from the Senate and other sectors for his handling of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis, with issues over overpriced equipment and his statement that the country is already on the second wave of infections. Mr. Duque previously served as Health secretary under the administration of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. — Gillian M. Cortez

PhilHealth defends COVID-19 testing rates

PHILIPPINE Health Insurance Corp.’s (PhilHealth) top official defended the rates set for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing, and said the packages paid to medical facilities are expected to become lower in the next few months. In a briefing on Monday, PhilHealth President Ricardo C. Morales said there is no overpricing of its packages, citing that different rates were determined based on prevailing prices at the time these were set. The Senate, in a hearing held last week, flagged PhilHealth’s alleged overpriced COVID-19 test packages. “At that time, mayroon din kaming (we had a package) cost (of) P2,700 for test kits that were donated. So, it was a range of costs of P8,000 (if) bought by the hospital to P2,700, donated. So, market forces ang nag-di-determine niyan,” he said. Mr. Morales also said that the package rates are expected to decrease as testing capacity increases with the accreditation of more facilities and availability of supplies. “Ang mga presyo ngayon at pagdating ng July or October makikita natin na bababa further (The prices now and when July or October comes, we will see it go down),” he said. PhilHealth, a government-owned corporation, has hired a third party agency to help determine case rates that will be adjusted. “It is not PhilHealth alone that is doing these calculations, as I’ve said we have an outside independent agency helping PhilHeath,” he said. — Gillian M. Cortez

Online child exploitation cases triple during lockdown

CASES of online sexual exploitation of children almost tripled since the lockdown was imposed to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Department of Justice (DoJ) reported on Monday. The DoJ said child online exploitation from March to May 2020 reached 279,166 from 76,561 in the same period last year. The report is based on the CyberTipline Report (CTRs) operated by non-profit firm National Center for Missing Exploited Children (NCMEC). “The aforesaid increase in NCMEC CTRs is attributable to the fact that during the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine), strict home quarantine is observed in all households, and internet usage surges as people stay home,” the report read. The DoJ said it will evaluate what are considered as priority reports and these will be endorsed to law enforcement agencies. The DoJ-Office of Cybercrime (OCC) had a dialogue with internet service providers in March to discuss compliance on the installation of available technology to block or filter any form of child pornography. “They know that such a legal obligation is automatically read into their franchises and permits to operate. And they realize, more than anyone, that without such technology, this trend of victimization of children who are the most vulnerable among us will remain unabated,” DoJ-OCC Undersecretary-in-Charge Markk L. Perete said through Viber. DoJ said while there is currently no law in the Philippines that penalizes online sexual exploitation of children and charges are filed based on Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, R.A. No. 7610 or the Special Protection of Children Against Child Abuse, among others. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

Lawmaker asks gov’t to allow motorcycle back riding among household members

A LAWMAKER has joined calls for government to allow back riding among family and household members, citing that motorcycles are “by and large the motor vehicle of the poor, low-income, and lower middle income segments of our society.” Ako-Bicol Rep. Alfredo A. Garbin, Jr., in a position paper addressed to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) handling coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response, said, “Consider also the motorcycle riders whose passengers are members of their own household are already in close physical contact even before they ride their motorcycle. Denying them the necessity of riding the motorcycle together because they do not observe the one meter physical distancing rule does not make logical sense and does not apply to them.” Several local government officials have asked IATF to lift the single-rider policy under the quarantine rules as motorcycles are the primary or only mode of transport for many areas. “Allowing others to return to work and travel to and from school while they, the poor and disadvantaged remain banned from using their own means of transportation is clear discrimination of the poor and disadvantaged,” Mr. Garbin said. — Genshen L. Espedido

Muslim commission to recommend reopening of mosques

THE National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) is planning to recommend the reopening of mosques as the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases adjusts guidelines under the less stringent general community quarantine (GCQ) policy. NCMF Secretary Saidamen B. Pangarungan said in a briefing Monday that he will make this recommendation in the next meeting of the task force. “We have a meeting tomorrow in Malacañang with IATF. We are likely to recommend the reopening of the mosques, especially in those areas with GCQ,” he said. Religious ceremonies and gatherings are allowed under the GCQ rules, but participants are limited to a maximum of five persons. For areas under modified GCQ, the maximum number is 10. The NCMF secretary noted that while it is part of Islamic rules to pray shoulder to shoulder during worship in mosques, Muslim leaders can issue adjusted guidelines in consideration of concerns over coronavirus transmission. “I think we can relax this rule and practice social distancing,” Mr. Pangarungan said. — Gillian M. Cortez

It’s a small world after all

And what I mean by small is being a small business. I was just listening to a webinar by top-notch supply chain executives, and, to quote one of the speakers (Tonet Rivera, formerly of Mead Johnson), he said: SMEs rock! I was tickled pink and wish he saw me raise my hand for a high five.

The other panelist, my PASIA idol Charlie Villaseñor, was more direct: “Many SMEs will collapse as well as medium and big companies,” Charlie says. Uh-oh I thought, “where are the scale up advocates?” Now everyone is saying, it’s good to be small.

I must admit I used to feel insecure talking with and listening to executives whose only solution was Scale: “If a business is not scale-able, it will not be profitable or worth the effort,” they used to say. I would keep quiet because I never planned to scale up ECHOstore, our little social enterprise. I told my partners, we would have a few stores and then go online, and retire. Now, it’s not happening in succession, but is happening simultaneously. I feel retired, we are online and I am managing a store… the way we started 12 years ago.

Be proud you are small. Here’s why:

1. Small is nimble and agile. You do not have many layers in the organization. It’s you and the rest of the staff. No thick middles.

2. Small can accept change easily. It’s just you, a few partners and your customers.

3. Small can accept failure and rise again. You are not a public company. You do not need to explain to shareholders in a general meeting and see your stocks take a nosedive.

4. Small is now the sustainable model.

So MSMEs, rise up. We can do this!!! Count the number of times we fell and brushed our knees and started to walk again.

And to those who thought Scale was the answer to everything, it’s time to eat humble pie and start to downscale.

The new NORM will be:

1. LOCAVORISM — We have been talking about buying local since Day One. Buy supplies from as local a source as possible. It’s not cost alone, it’s helping small businesses have a steady market. (We are now buying locally sourced ingredients because imports will be difficult to sustain.)

2. SHORTER SUPPLY CHAIN — Now you know who is cooking what and where; they know the farmer who will deliver their vegetables (Ex: farmer Rafael Teraoka Dacones to a customer in Manila.)

3. TRANSPARENCY — Prices will be a clear deal between seller and buyer. Who pays for delivery? May I return bad fruits and replace them? Gladly, sellers do!

4. HYPERLOCAL “PUSH” MARKETS — They show you their products and you need not search online. You find them on Viber chats of your community groups.

5. SLOW FOOD — It’s happening now. Processed food and fast food are hit hard and people are forced to cook at home, discovering their old recipes, teaching their kids how to eat well.

6. PLANT YOUR OWN FOOD — People thought we were nuts to plant our own food 10 years ago. Now, the very agency tasked with food security is asking us to plant, plant, plant.

So, let’s embrace this change, from large scale to small scale. From impossibility to possibilities. And be mighty proud, you are small.

Welcome to our new small world.

This article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines or the MAP.

 

Pacita “Chit” U. Juan is a member of the MAP Inclusive Growth Committee, is President of the Philippine Coffee Board, Inc., and runs a social enterprise called ECHOstore.

map@map.org.ph

pujuan29@gmail.com

http://map.org.ph

Dismounting the tiger

In my column of Feb. 14, 2017, I wrote, “When the chapter on the Duterte presidency is written, would there be a group perhaps known as the Marco Polo 3 (Finance Secretary Dominguez, who is said to have a stake in Marco Polo Hotel in Davao, NEDA Director General Pernia, and Budget Secretary Diokno) or a DU30 Dozen?” It was my way of asking subtly if the Duterte chapter in Philippine history would have the equivalent of Hyatt 10 or of Craven Eleven.

Philippine history’s chapters on the Joseph Estrada and Gloria Arroyo presidencies include accounts on groups known as the Craven Eleven, the infamous 11 senators who chose to hang on to the coattails of President Estrada even when his extensive involvement in illegal gambling had been exposed, and the Hyatt 10, the intrepid 10 members of President Arroyo’s Cabinet who got together at the Hyatt Regency Hotel to declare their collective resignation from the Cabinet when her attempt to influence the results of the 2004 presidential election was uncovered.

I raised the question back in 2017 when then-Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said that Cabinet members who did not agree with the President’s policies or directives must resign. “I just reminded the secretaries that they are the alter ego of the President. Now, if they don’t agree with the President, they might as well tender their resignation,” Mr. Alvarez asserted.

The statement was in reaction to Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo sending to Congress a position paper opposing an administration proposal to lower the minimum age of criminal liability. Ms. Taguiwalo did not resign in spite of her strong opposition to one of President Duterte’s pet bills.

Some political pundits referred to her clinging to her Cabinet post as a case of riding the tiger. That was in reference to the Chinese proverb that “he who rides the tiger is afraid to dismount or finds it hard to get off it.”

I did not find Ms. Taguiwalo’s remaining at her post as a case of riding the tiger. She did not withdraw her opposition to the lowering of the criminal age of criminal liability. Besides, she was not in the Cabinet at the pleasure of the President. She was a nominee of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), a coalition of leftist political parties. The President accepted her and two other NDFP-affiliated persons into his Cabinet to gain the support of the NDFP.

But when skirmishes between Communist rebels and government troops erupted in remote areas, the détente between President Duterte and the NDFP turned volatile, leading eventually to the President’s political allies in the Commission on Appointments rejecting Ms. Taguiwalo’s appointment as Social Welfare Secretary.

The issue of staying in the Cabinet while opposing the President’s stance came up again the following year. When Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority) head Ernesto Pernia told the Senate that a shift to federalism could wreak havoc on the Philippine economy, Charter Change Consultative Committee member Fr. Ranhilio Aquino said, “If (Duterte) favors federalism, let him sack Dominguez and Pernia or command them to keep their traps shut. Freedom of expression does not apply to Cabinet officials in respect to policy.”

Mr. Dominguez got back at Fr. Aquino by stating that “such attitude would not enrich the level of discourse on the proposed Constitution.” Ms. Taguiwalo, Mr. Dominguez, and Mr. Pernia considered it their duty to give the President their best advice, especially if he has an opposite view. They were not going to be toadies to the President. They were not appointed to the Cabinet because of their personal relationship to the President.

Mr. Dominguez, Ms. Taguiwalo, and Mr. Pernia were chosen for their respective positions in the Cabinet because of their expertise in their area of responsibility, expertise gained through intensive training and extensive experience, although Mr. Dominguez is both a townmate and former classmate of Mr. Duterte.

In his third State of the Nation Address, President. Duterte admitted that it was hard for him to let go of his friends. He said he values friendship but it also has limits. “I have friends and political supporters whom I appointed to public office and then dismissed or caused to resign.”

The President said that though in reference to his friends who have been tainted with corruption. However, he also called on his friends to help him in his cause to maintain their friendships. “This is a lonely place I am hemmed in. Do not make it lonelier by forcing me to end our friendship because you gave me the reason to end it. It pains me to end the loss of friendships,” he said.

It looks like the Duterte chapter in Philippine history would have no equivalent of a Hyatt 10. NEDA’s Pernia resigned on April 17, citing differences in philosophy with other Cabinet officials. “This is due partly to personal reasons and partly to differences in development philosophy with a few of my fellow Cabinet members,” said he.

Actually, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Eliseo Rio, Jr. was the first member of the Duterte Cabinet to resign on his own volition. He filed his letter of resignation on Jan. 31, giving as reason his conflict with other officials in the department. “I cannot work with the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries. I’m supposed to be Undersecretary of Operations, but they are not involving me in decisions. Operations and intelligence work are very close, so whatever intel we get, Operations must be involved. I might as well get out, the salary being given to me would be a waste.”

Mr. Rio also questioned the need for a ₱400-million confidential fund for the agency in 2019. “As far as I’m concerned, DICT does not need any confidential funds. It is not our mandate to conduct surveillance and intelligence activities,” Rio said.

However, Mr. Rio said that if the President turned down his resignation, he would accept the position of Head of National Broadband Plan Backbone and Free Wi-Fi Internet Access in Public Places offered to him by DICT Secretary Gregorio Honasan. In a way, he hesitated to get off the tiger. The President finally accepted his resignation last week. I ask, did he dismount the tiger or did he choose to stay on the tiger but was thrown off?

Anyway, indications are the Duterte chapter in Philippine history would include mention of a DU30 Dozen or even DU30 Dozens. There are still many individuals in the Duterte Cabinet who serve at the pleasure of the President, having been appointed to their positions simply because they were schoolmates, provincemates, or whatever. Either they openly hail the President’s policies and programs or hold their peace, as Mr. Alvarez and Fr. Aquino suggested, to remain in the Cabinet. They go along with the President lest they draw the wrath of a man with the reputation of a cold-blooded punisher. They are afraid to dismount the tiger.

But as John F. Kennedy said on his inauguration as president of the United States, “Remember that in the past those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”

 

Oscar P. Lagman, Jr. is a retired corporate executive, business consultant, and management professor. He has been a politicized citizen since his college days in the late 1950s.

Ramadan in lockdown: the habits we break, the values we relearn

By Nina Rayana Bahjin-Imlan

MUSLIM FILIPINOS certainly met this year’s Ramadan with exuberance, but the lockdowns brought new concerns especially to those who are economically disenfranchised to begin with.

Residents in Muslim enclaves in Metro Manila hardly afforded iftars (meals to break the fast). They say relief goods from local governments ran out even before Ramadan. Without public transportation, some walked miles to access food, and since they could not afford to stockpile, some did this every day. It was a different level of hardship altogether for those who fasted.

It was heartbreaking to worship in place and limit social interaction. Some questioned the fatwah (religious decree) of the Darul Ifta’ and the memorandum order of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos suspending taraweeh or nighttime prayers in congregations, particularly in areas like Sultan Mastura in Maguindanao and other municipalities in the Bangsamoro with zero reported COVID-19 cases. Reports of violations arose.

The recent Critical Events Monitoring System (CEMS) report of International Alert Philippines indicates that ISIS-affiliated groups had threatened Lanao del Sur mayors with attacks if the ban continued. The organization noted that threat groups could prey on the deflected attention of the State and launch opportunistic attacks. This projection played out in the killing of two soldiers manning a quarantine checkpoint in Datu Hoffer, Maguindanao by ISIS-affiliated gunmen on May 4. Alert’s CEMS further notes a regrouping of ISIS forces in the Bukidnon-Lanao-Maguindanao corridor. Likewise, retaliation against individuals who were seen as disrespectful of faith and traditions in their implementation of quarantine measures are possible.

The quarantine posed many difficulties and anxieties to those who observed Ramadan, as it did to everyone across the country. Remarkably, though, overcoming challenges is the essence of Ramadan. To fast in the holy month is an intense moral training to break bad habits and develop character. To a Muslim, abstaining from eating and drinking, from telling lies and acting in anger, help develop self-restraint and inculcates patience, gratitude, and compassion.

The lockdown calls us to do the same. It is also about learning from our daily challenges and adversities, to empathize and be one with the poor and the oppressed, speak truth to power, and move forward with universal values of equality, peace, and human dignity we all share regardless of religion.

There is merit in involving people in finding solutions together and cooperation is better fostered with stakeholdership, not by force and fear. Islam calls this important governance concept shura, which requires that decisions made by and for Muslim societies include those who are affected. Shura is mentioned in the Qur’an as a praiseworthy activity, one that our government can replicate in its crisis response.

To be sure, the COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing lockdowns have not always been about protracted issues, we also witnessed collective action and solidarity at its best. Members of International Alert’s youth network in the Bangsamoro, for one, localized and uploaded instructional materials on how to pray taraweeh. Not only did their guide help fellow Muslims observe their faith even in solitude, it contributed to minimizing the risk of spreading the virus and igniting tensions and violence by discouraging violations.

Just as fasting in Ramadan is a test, so too is this lockdown. Just as Ramadan allows us to reflect on what the less fortunate are going through, so too should this lockdown. The celebration of Eid’l Fitr marking the end of Ramadan poses an opportunity for reflection on the huge challenge ahead of us and for the re-examination of values to strengthen and habits to shed, as we live the “new normal.” In this period of massive humanitarian and health crisis, we need to continue to look out for each other.

 

Nina Rayana Bahjin-Imlan is the Senior Project Officer for Youth and Women of International Alert Philippines, a peacebuilding organization that brings people across divides to solve the root causes of conflict and build lasting peace.

How safe are pets from coronavirus?

By Faye Flam

BACK in mid-April, I took my 13-year-old cat to the vet for some tests. They told me his chronic heart disease had worsened, but it was nothing alarming. His condition started to deteriorate a few days later, ultimately leading to a 3 a.m. trip to the emergency room on April 27. The emergency veterinarians told me his blood readings were baffling; X-rays showed blood clots in his lungs. He died later that day.

At first it just seemed like one more sad thing to cope with during this time of COVID-19 — then, last week, I got a call from virologist David Sanders of Purdue University. He wanted to tell me about a new paper showing COVID-19 infections in cats. He said it looked like high-quality work, and it could have important implications for the spread of the virus. I started to wonder whether my own cat had picked up COVID-19 while waiting with other cats for his checkup at the vet’s.

The anecdotes about COVID-19 infecting cats at first seemed like a sideshow. But now, scientists have determined that the virus spreads readily among cats. That means scientists will need to start doing epidemiological studies on other species to understand and control this virus.

University of Wisconsin biologist Peter Halfmann, a co-author on the cat paper, says his research was inspired by anecdotes they’d heard — the most striking one being that a caretaker apparently infected multiple tigers at the Bronx Zoo. They were worried about cats in shelters, veterinary clinics, and humane societies.

They set out to investigate with an experiment, the results of which have recently been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. They infected three cats with COVID-19 and paired each with a virus-free cat. These partner cats tested positive on day three, day five, and day six. None of the cats developed any symptoms of the illness, he says. But the disease could be dangerous to a cat that is older and had comorbidities, like his own cat. And, I thought, like mine.

This raises questions about animal-to-animal transmission, and human-animal transmission since, of course, humans are animals, too.

Tony Goldberg, a professor of epidemiology and veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin, said that it’s not uncommon for diseases to bounce around between species. Ferrets are often victims of human flu viruses, for example. When people bring sick ferrets to the vet, they often appear to have the same cough and runny nose as their pets.

Sometimes a virus can be deadlier to another species than it is to us — just as SARS-CoV-2 is likely deadlier to us than to the animal it came from. For example, Goldberg recently published a preprint paper warning that great apes have the same cell receptor we do that allows the virus into our cells. In a news article in Science, he warns of the serious danger COVID-19 might pose to endangered great apes.

Other coronaviruses have spread to chimpanzees and killed them, even though they only gave humans a mild cold. Camels became an integral part of the MERS crisis, and civet cats tested positive for SARS in China.

The civet cats story shows another risk for animals: that humans will blame and victimize them. That’s happened before, as noted in David Quammen’s book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. In the chapter on the 2003 SARS epidemic, he describes how the Chinese health authorities originally thought, probably wrongly, that people had gotten the disease from a civet cat.

“More than a thousand captive civets were suffocated, burned, boiled, electrocuted and drowned,” writes Quammen. “It was like a Medieval pogrom against satanic cats.”

Further work showed it was a different animal altogether — a tiny brown bat — that harbored the original SARS virus.

Similarly, early on COVID-19 was associated with an armadillo-like animal called a pangolin, but Goldberg says pangolins did not give us this disease. The association comes from the fact that pangolins carry a different coronavirus that has one part that’s nearly identical to SARS-CoV-2. Goldberg says pangolins are gentle creatures who need more positive press. “We shouldn’t start persecuting pangolins,” he says. Bats are now the prime suspect as the source of COVID-19.

Figuring out the role any animal plays in a human virus is difficult. The exact role of civets in SARS is still unclear; some people think they may have played some part in the spread of the disease even if they weren’t the primary hosts.

While there’s clearly a lot of uncertainty here, Halfmann said I wasn’t crazy to worry that my cat died from COVID-19, and that it would be possible to pick it up at a veterinary clinic. Neither the cat nor I had been anywhere else for days.

He says it might be smart to keep cats indoors, and for veterinarians to take precautions to protect their patients from spreading the virus to each other. And he says that the cats may more easily transmit the virus to other cats than to humans. Any threat they or other animals pose to us is likely very small compared to the threat we could pose to them.

 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

China’s trillions toward tech won’t buy dominance

By Anjani Trivedi

BIG SPENDING numbers are being thrown around in China, once again. This time, it’s trillions of yuan of fiscal stimulus on all things tech. The plans are bold and vague: China wants to bring technology into its mainstream infrastructure buildout and, in the process, heave the economy out of a gloom due only partly to the coronavirus.

But will this move the needle for China to achieve some kind of technological dominance? Or increase jobs, or boost favored companies? Not as much as the numbers would suggest, and possibly very little. A country covered in 5G networks makes for a tech-savvy society; it’s less clear that this money will boost industrial innovation or even productivity.

Over the next few years, national-level plans include injecting more than 2.5 trillion yuan ($352 billion) into over 550,000 base stations, a key building block of 5G infrastructure, and 500 billion yuan into ultra-high-voltage power. Local governments have ideas, too. They want data centers and cloud computing projects, among other things. Jiangsu is looking for faster connectivity for smart medical care, smart transportation and, well, all things smart. Shanghai’s City Action Plan alone is supposed to total 270 billion yuan.

By 2025, China will have invested an estimated $1.4 trillion. According to a work report released Friday in conjunction with the start of the National People’s Congress, the government plans to prioritize “new infrastructure and new urbanization initiatives” to boost consumption and growth. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts have said that new infrastructure sectors could total 2 trillion yuan ($281 billion) this year, and twice that in 2021.

Funding is being secured through special bonds and big banks. The Shanghai provincial administration, for instance, plans to get more than 40% of its needs from capital markets, and the rest from central government funds and special loans. Thousands of funds have been set up in various industries since 2018, and some goals were set forth in previous plans.

Policymakers are aggressively driving the fiscal stimulus narrative through this new infrastructure lens. Building big things is a tried and true fallback in China, from the nation’s own road-and-rail networks to its most important soft-power foreign policy, the belt-and-road initiative to connect the globe in a physical network for trade.

It’s less obvious that this will work for technology. The reality is that the central-government approved projects add up to only around 10% of infrastructure spending and 3% of total fixed asset investment. The plans lack the focus or evidence of expertise to show quite how China would achieve technological dominance. Thousands more charging stations for electric cars won’t change the fact that the country has been unable to produce a top-of-the-line electric vehicle, and demand for what’s on offer has tanked without subsidies.

With their revenues barely growing, China’s telecom giants seem reluctant to allocate capital expenditures toward the bold 5G vision. China Mobile Ltd. Chairman Yang Jie said on a March earnings call that capex won’t be expanding much despite the company being at the outset of a three-year peak period for 5G investments. Analysts had expected it to grow by more than 20%, compared to the actual 8.4%.

Laying this new foundation for the economy, which includes incorporating artificial intelligence into rail transit and utilities, requires time, not just pledged capital. It’s hard to see the returns any time soon, compared to investments on old infrastructure. These projects are less labor intensive, so there’s no corresponding whack at the post-virus jobless rate that would help demand. State-led firms that could boast big profits from sales of cement and machinery on the back of building projects, for instance, can’t reap money as visibly from being more connected.

Spending the old way isn’t paying off like it used to, either. Sectors such as automobiles and materials, big beneficiaries of subsidies and state funding, have seen returns on invested capital fall. The massive push over the years gave China the Shanghai maglev and a vast network of trains and roads. But much debt remains and several of those projects still don’t make money. Add in balance-sheet pressures and spending constraints, and every yuan of credit becomes less effective.

There’s also expertise to consider. Technological dominance may require research more than 5G poles. China’s problem with wide-scale innovation remains the same as it has been for years: It always comes from the top down. Beijing has determined and shaped who the players will be. Good examples are the 2006 innovative society plan and Made in China 2025, published in 2015, that intended to transform industries and manufacturing, and have had mixed results.

China is unlikely to get the boost from tech spending that it needs to solve present-day problems, especially in the flux of the post-COVID-19 era. Ultimately, the country will just fall back on what it knows best: property, cars, roads, and industrial parks. The economy is still run by construction, real estate, and manufacturing. Investors should think again before bringing in anything but caution.

 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

Woods and Manning win in charity golf match

LOS ANGELES — Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning held off a late challenge to beat Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady in a charity golf match in Florida on Sunday that raised $20 million for COVID-19 relief efforts.

Woods, a 15-time major champion, and two-time Super Bowl winner Manning jumped out to a three-hole lead on the front nine at the Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound.

While Woods’s booming drives and Manning’s solid putting saw the pair dominate the early holes, five-time major winner Mickelson and Brady won the 11th and 14th to shave the lead to one.

However, they were unable to force extra holes after Woods delivered a dagger putt on 18 as darkness descended on his home course.

The shot of the day came from Brady on the seventh when he holed out from the fairway just after National Basketball Association great Charles Barkley, working as a commentator, had been giving the quarterback a hard time for his ice cold start.

“Shut your mouth, Chuck,” Brady said with a smile.

But Brady, who joined Tampa Bay in March after 20 years with New England, had little time to revel in the moment.

After giving a short speech where he told his wife and kids he loved them the six-time Super Bowl winner then split the seat of his pants while retrieving the ball from the cup.

Woods, who lost to Mickelson in a $9-million winner-take-all challenge in 2018, congratulated Manning and Brady for their performance in the team match play event, dubbed The Match: Champions for Charity.

“We all came together and were able to raise $20 million for those that have been so severely affected,” Woods said.

“I take my hat off to Tom and Peyton. This is our arena, this is what we do for a living. I couldn’t imagine going on the field and do what they do,” he added with a laugh.

The competition comes 2-1/2 weeks before the PGA Tour plans to resume its season on June 11 at Colonial.

Woods last competed in February and then withdrew from a number of tournaments with a back injury before the PGA Tour decided to cancel a slew of events because of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

He has said he is healthy and will be ready to go when the Tour resumes.

Mickelson finished third in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in early February and missed the cut in his next two starts.

Manning, who played for the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos, retired in 2016 as the NFL’s all-time leader in passing touchdowns and yards and is the only five-time winner of the league’s Most Valuable Player award. — Reuters

PBA working to get back into the swing of things amid COVID-19

WHILE resumption of action in the Philippine Basketball Association is still to be determined, the league as an organization is steadily working to get back its operations further humming amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

In the last couple of weeks, the PBA, led by Commissioner Willie Marcial, has been crafting guidelines for its use under the “new normal” brought about by COVID-19.

Said guidelines are in accordance with the plans of the government, specifically that of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).

“Slowly the plans of the government moving forward are being made known and the PBA is looking at that and working around it,” said Mr. Marcial.

The PBA decided to suspend the season on March 11, just three days after opening Season 45 as mitigating measures against the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19, including discouraging mass gatherings, were raised by the government in Luzon and other areas of the country.

The league was angling to reopen the proceedings in April but with conditions not permitting such, the PBA decided to move the reopening further back, reserving final decision on the fate of the season in August, hoping that by that time there will be a clearer picture on the COVID-19 situation in the country.

Recently, the IATF endorsed the Philippine Sports Institute’s recommendations for the conduct of sports under the matrix entitled “Framework Tool for Reintroducing Sport in a COVID-19 Environment.”

Under it certain non-contact sports and activities like walking, running, golf and tennis are already allowed but for sports like basketball and volleyball, their full conduct is still prohibited.

It, however, opened the possibility of eventually opening up things for said sports and others, provided certain conditions are met, including the lifting of any form of quarantine.

Mr. Marcial said it is something that they are hoping to happen so that the push to returning to normal gets to another plane.

“Under the GCQ (General Community Quarantine), gathering of small groups are allowed so maybe team workouts of four or five players per session can start,” the commissioner said, underscoring the need to observe social distancing as well as proper sanitation and health protocols amid COVID-19.

A Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine is currently in effect in Metro Manila until May 31.

In the league office, meanwhile, employees last week were reportedly set to undergo COVID-19 testing to ensure their safety and welfare as well as those who would deal with them.

The PBA is aiming to resume normal league operations in the next two weeks. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

Basketball HOF making changes to ensure safe induction ceremony

ENSHRINEMENT ceremonies at the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame are set for Aug. 29, but they could be rescheduled amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Boston Globe reported that officials there are considering alternate dates in October or next spring and also are implementing protocols to make the ceremony safe when it does happen.

John Doleva, CEO of the Hall of Fame, told the newspaper that the ceremony will move from Symphony Hall in Springfield, Massachisetts, to the nearby MassMutual Center. With a capacity of about 8,300 — or three times that of Symphony Hall — the MassMutual Center can offer attendees space for social distancing.

The Class of 2020 is made up of players Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Tamika Catchings, coaches Eddie Sutton, Rudy Tomjanovich, Kim Mulkey and Barbara Stevens, and contributor Patrick Baumann.

Bryant, Sutton and Baumann will be honored posthumously.

Doleva said the 2020 group will be enshrined on its own and not in a combined ceremony, as the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has chosen to do. Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons and Larry Walker will be inducted on July 25, 2021, in Cooperstown, New York, alongside any new members elected as part of the Hall of Fame Class of 2021, instead of this July.

“I do want to make it very clear we will have a separate event for the class of 2020 because of the notoriety of that class and, frankly, every class deserves its own recognition,” Doleva said of the basketball inductees. “There is a potential next calendar year that we could have two enshrinements.”

No decision will be made on rescheduling the August ceremony until Hall of Fame officials see whether the event even could be held under Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s six-step reopening plan, Doleva said. — Reuters

Tackling, sparring allowed in next stage for Britain’s elite athletes

LONDON — Soccer players will be able to tackle in close-contact training, and boxers spar with partners, in the next step towards Britain’s elite athletes returning to live sport after the COVID-19 lockdown, guidance published on Monday said.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) guidance spelled out the second part of a five-stage framework to enable athletes to get match fit before any top-level competition resumes.

“Stage Two training can be described as the resumption of close-contact training where pairs, small groups and/or teams will be able to interact in much closer contact,” it said.

Examples given include close quarters coaching, combat sports sparring, team sports tackling and the sharing of technical equipment such as balls, gloves and pads.

“The progression of training into Stage Two is vital to prepare fully for the return of competitive sporting fixtures in many sports,” added the document.

“Close contact training is required to replicate match formations and conditions, so that the sport-specific demands can be placed on the body, mind and senses.”

Premier League soccer players have returned to non-contact training in small groups with their clubs while respecting social distancing guidelines. Some have already expressed concerns, however.

The league was halted in mid-March but under “Project Restart” hopes to get going again in June without spectators.

Stage One for returning to unrestricted elite competition was set out on May 13, and must be completed before embarking on the next phase.

The guidance said close contact training will be allowed only when sports bodies, clubs and teams deem conditions right to do so, following consultation with athletes, coaches and support staff.

Under stage two, athletes will still have to keep their distance before and after training and time spent closer than two meters in training should be kept to “a reasonable minimum.”

“The exemption on social distancing is for the period of actual training itself but not to activities which are peripheral,” it spelled out.

“In particular there should be no opportunity for social distancing to be breached between training clusters or between different sports.”

The guidance also said there should be no resumption of Stage Two training without a documented risk assessment and risk mitigation strategy. — Reuters

Helping athletes maintain physical fitness during a pandemic

Keeping one’s normal routine and prioritizing mealtimes help in maintaining physical fitness amid COVID-19. — HERBALIFE PHILIPPINES FACEBOOK PAGE

AS IS THE CASE for most people in this time of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, athletes, too, are having their struggles and challenges with outside activities limited, including maintaining their physical fitness.

With that in mind, global brand Herbalife Nutrition, through its director for Sports Performance and Education Dr. Dana Ryan, has come up with some tips for athletes as they work to stay in their game both physically and mentally during the pandemic.

First of these is keeping one’s normal routine and prioritizing mealtimes.

Dr. Ryan and her team underscored the need not to go off track in maintaining one’s routine even as they said that limitations that COVID-19 has presented make this a challenge.

This means waking up at the same time every morning, eating breakfast as you normally would, getting your training in, and allowing enough time for recovery.

They also emphasized the importance of putting the right nutrition in your body throughout the day as this maintains muscle mass and energy to keep up with your goals.

Protein, they said, for one is essential to build and maintain muscle mass. It also provides the building blocks that help us build antibodies to fight off infections, benefitting our immune systems.

Another tip for athletes is stepping up hydration.

As one spends more time at home, the experts said there is a tendency not to drink as much water as needed, which would not help as being dehydrated can negatively impact one’s performance as an athlete.

Properly hydrating is an easy habit that can have a huge impact on keeping your body in top shape and should allow one to be ready once there is a semblance of normalcy.

Training outside when possible should also help, Dr. Ryan said.

While it can be challenging with lockdown restrictions in place or not having an outdoor space at home, it is important to try and get outside in the middle of the day when the sun is optimal.

Doing so ensures an athlete is getting enough vitamin D, which studies show affects sports performance inflammation, recovery and plays a huge role in supporting immunity, especially for respiratory viruses.

Adequate levels of vitamin D are important as well for mood, which is also to be monitored as one spends more time inside the house.

Then there is the need to stay mentally connected, be it with teammates, family and friends.

Social media can be a huge tool for this, they said. Apart from being able to reach out to others and create positive impact, online challenges and competitions are also a great reminder that everybody is in this fight together, even if physical distance is much in effect. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

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