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Chulani, co-founder of Ronda Pilipinas, passes away at 45

MOE Chulani, who co-founded Ronda Pilipinas with Dino Araneta, passed away yesterday due to cardiac arrest.

He was 45 years old.

Chulani was the driving force behind the LBC Ronda Pilipinas, which staged its 10th anniversary race in March last year.

He was also a member of the PhilCycling board and a former team manager of the Pasig Pirates of the defunct Metropolitan Basketball League.

National team stalwarts Ronald Oranza, George Oconer, and Jan Paul Morales are among the products of Ronda Pilipinas.

“He’s a loss in the cycling community. He’s very dedicated in cycling,” said Philippine Olympic Committee and PhilCycling president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino.

No fans for Lightning, Raptors due to COVID surge

THE Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Raptors will play without fans in their home arena until at least Feb. 5 because of a surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the Tampa, Florida area.

The Lightning plays at Amalie Arena in Tampa, and have been joined there to start this season by the Raptors because of issues entering and exiting Canada amid the pandemic.

Vinik Sports Group, LLC, the parent company of the Lightning and the arena, announced the temporary fan ban in a statement on Saturday, adding “the organization will reassess the numbers with local health and government officials in the coming weeks before making any subsequent decisions.”

“We have worked tirelessly, putting every safety measure possible in place at Amalie Arena,” said Steve Griggs, the Vinik CEO. “However, as we review current data and COVID-19 modeling for the next few weeks in the Tampa Bay area, we do not believe it is prudent to admit fans inside the arena at this time.”

The Raptors have played three games in their Florida home with a limited number of fans. The Stanley Cup champion Lightning is scheduled to open their season at home against the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday, and about 4,000 fans were expected — less than 25% capacity.

Florida reported a record high 125,937 cases this week, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center. In Hillsborough County, where Tampa is located, cases have risen 20.03 percent over the past 14 days, the county reported.

Super Bowl LV is scheduled to be played on Feb. 7 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. Stadium capacity for the game has yet to be announced. — Reuters

Depleted lineups

Head coach Doc Rivers was most certainly being disingenuous when he called attention to the National Basketball Association’s decision to push through with the Sixers’ homestand against the Nuggets yesterday. “I don’t think we should [play], but it’s not for me to express that,” he argued. He just did, of course, with his convenient sidestep enabling him to steer clear of possible sanction from the Commissioner’s Office for speaking his mind on a development that, for all his protestation, followed standing health and safety protocols.

Not that Rivers was wrong in his assessment. Point guard Seth Curry’s positive test late last week triggered quarantine measures that sidelined eight players, but the subsequent clearance of three of the eight appeared to give the Sixers enough bodies for the set-to. Unfortunately, injuries to stalwarts Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons left them with seven and compelled them to activate otherwise-unavailable Mike Scott on paper. The turn of events prompted the bench tactician to “worry about player health on the floor.”

As things turned out, the Sixers saw no injuries, but had to ride three rookies hard en route to an unsurprising setback. Isaiah Joe, Tyrese Maxey, and Dakota Mathias wound up burning rubber for 45, 44, and 41 minutes, respectively, while regular starter Danny Green saw action for 36. Little wonder, then, that they failed to keep up as the contest progressed. A slight lead late in the second quarter turned into a double-digit deficit early in the third, and they got no closer until the final buzzer.

For pundits, Rivers’ lament is but a reflection of the harsh realities of getting a season under way amid a pandemic. If there’s anything yesterday showed, it’s that the NBA is bent on pushing through with its schedule as best it can, and willing to postpone matches only in the extreme. Operating in a bubble environment may be ideal in light of the still-spiking number of novel coronavirus nationwide, but logistical and cost considerations make the plan untenable at best.

Thusly, there will be more instances of teams penciling in losses as depleted lineups take to the floor. The hope is that the Sixers’ plight was but an offshoot of the increased interaction over the holidays, and that social distancing would once again rule as the calendar moves farther away from the turn of the year. Then again, uncertainty reigns and nothing can be etched in stone.

 

Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.

Farm Consolidation: Saving the Filipino taxpayer P18 billion

The Philippines has secured a loan of $370 million intended to finance SPLIT (Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) program to subdivide Collective Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) into individual titles. The Collective CLOAS cover 1.36 million hectares of the 4.9m hectares awarded by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). It covers 750 thousand agrarian reform beneficiaries in 78 provinces.

There is a good reason to be dissatisfied with Collective CLOAS — the beneficiaries do not have secure land titles which facilitate many formal transactions; they have little incentive to adopt in-place technologies (such as irrigation) and new cultivation (say, tree planting) since one’s parcel today may be someone else’s tomorrow. A participating beneficiary under Collective CLOA cannot put his parcel up as collateral for a crop loan. No real property tax payment is made by beneficiaries without titles. Collective ownership is the open door to the tragedy of the commons. Financing will thus mostly come from informal lenders who are willing to accept risky usufruct payment in case of loan default. Needless to add, informal lending comes at an exorbitant interest rate which guarantees continued poverty.

It is hoped that when individual titles are finally constituted, beneficiary behavior will change towards greater productivity. But hard evidence that beneficiaries with individual land titles behave significantly differently is still scant for the Philippines. The evidence to the contrary are from foreign climes where CARP strictures do not apply (see e.g., Galang 2020). And there are reasons to believe that the behavior of titled small holders will not be any different here. First of all, access to formal banking sector financing at a lower interest rate will still be hampered because ownership of more than five hectares of farm land by banks or by anybody is legally prohibited by the  Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL). Banks will not accept as collateral titles to lands they cannot own in case of loan default. So titled small holders still have to resort to informal lenders. Since technology adoption is costly and risky and cannot be home-financed away from the formal banking sector, no significant technology adoption will be forthcoming. This is an interesting area for research: the hypothesis being that, given the land ownership ceiling by CARP, titled small holders and as well as individual CLOA holders will fare no better than collective CLOA holders in terms of access to formal bank financing and overall land productivity!

A suggestion to this effect is clear from the result of the survey by the Philippine Statistical Research and Training Institute Survey (PSRTI, 2016) of agrarian reform beneficiaries (also cited to by Galang 2020, p. 15): the average farm income and average total household income of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) under Collective CLOAs are actually higher than the average farm income and total household income of ARBs under individual CLOAs! Galang’s own results contradict those of the PSRTI so the jury on the benefit of titled parcelization for which we are spending P17 billion is still out.

The biggest problem in the agricultural farm sector today is that most farms are too small to be economically viable and private capital is fleeing the sector because of the uncertainty and scale limitations imposed by CARP. Private capital will not weigh in when competitive scale requires hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hectares and none is available. As a result, the farm sector has become the ward of the state and/or of the informal lenders when it comes to capital. A prescription for persistent poverty!

Consolidation is now the byword in Asian agriculture (see, e.g., Le Thanh K 2017). The romantic Jeffersonian notion of small independent yeoman farmers, the cradle of virtue and morality, is now very costly baggage from the past. The People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia have programs to consolidate small landholdings into bigger more viable farm enterprises to attract formal sector financing and young and more dynamic actors to replace aging or dead farmers (see, e.g., Fabella, 2014). As usual, the Philippines, being more mired than most to old dead ideas is, to paraphrase Alexander Pope, “the last to put the old aside.” In 2021, aided and abetted by the World Bank, we are digging deeper into the old rabbit hole of parcelization which CARPER (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms or the Republic Act No. 9700) of 2009 explicitly mandated.

Former LANDBANK President Alex Buenaventura was ahead of his time in trying to make LANDBANK the intermediary between foreign investors and local ARBs to engender larger estates where ARB family members are first on line for hiring. But Buenaventura was fired before the program could meaningfully take off. Do not expect the private investors to do the consolidating: they would like to sign a long-term lease contract with one — repeat, one — credible consolidator like the Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) which will first iron out all the kinks with the ARBs and fashion a contract that protects the security of tenure and rights of farmers and their children. And the most convenient jump-off point for consolidation is lands awarded under Collective CLOAS.

Parcelization and titling is costly and painstaking because it involves much more than a cadastral survey. Stakeholders and claimants will dispute who gets what parcel. Features such as closeness to water, distance from the road, mabato or mabuhangin (rocky or sandy soil), all have profound economic implications for farming. In the process of parceling and titling, some, rightly feeling envy, will instigate roadblocks.

Unequal outcomes for households was why Deng Xiaoping was booted out by Mao Zedong in the 1960s in the wake of the Great Leap Forward debacle. That is why the government needs a P17-billion loan from the Wolf Bank to negotiate the parcelization route.

An alternative route to higher productivity is just to offer the whole consolidated Collective CLOA-covered farm for lease to a private firm. A consolidated area of 1,000 hectares from 1,000 ARBs may go for P25,000 per hectare per year and every farm household in the list gets an equal and riskless P25,000 per year, the equivalent of much more in risky returns. Equal allocation is what economists call “envy-free.” On top of that, the family members get hiring priority for stable jobs that open up. The 1,000 hectares will produce much more as a single unit than when cultivated as separate 1,000 one-hectare units (see Adamopoulos and Restucia 2018 for how shrinking farm size due to CARP reduced farm productivity). Formal bank financing will now flock the land. A LANDBANK or NDC can do this service.

LANDBANK writes long-term contracts with ARBs specifying their and their children’s rights and obligations and the private firm pays the land rental directly to LANDBANK with which LANDBANK pays the listed ARBs their rental claims and the real property tax to the municipality. If one reflects on this seriously, one realizes that this is no more than the famous Coase theorem in action.

And, voila, the Filipino taxpayer saves 17 billion!

References:

Galang, M. 2020. “Boosting agricultural productivity through parcelization of collective Certificate of Land Ownership Awards” PIDS Discussion Paper Series 2020-26.

Philippine Statistical Research and Training Institute Survey of Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries. 2016

Adamopoulos, Tasso and Diego Restuccia. 2019. “Land reform and productivity: A quantitative analysis with micro data,” NBER working papers 25780, National Bureau of Economic Research Inc.

Fabella R. 2014. “Luizhuan: Small steps to farm efficiency,” Businessworld Introspective, Dec. 16, 2014.

Le Thanh K. 2017. “Amending policies and laws to speed up land accumulation,” Vietnam Law and Legal Forum, Sept. 10, 2017 http://vietnamlawmagazine.vn/amending-policies-and-laws-to-speed-up-Land-accumulation-6044.html

The author thanks the FEF Agriculture Team for hints and comments. Errors are the author’s alone.

 

Raul V. Fabella is a retired professor of the UP School of Economics, a member of the National Academy of Science and Technology and an honorary professor of the Asian Institute of Management. He gets his dopamine fix from bicycling and tending flowers with wife, Teena.

Gilda Cordero Fernando: The Rabble-Rouser

This is how Wikipedia introduces the rabble-rouser: “Gilda Cordero-Fernando (June 4, 1930 – August 27, 2020) was a Filipino writer, visual artist, fashion designer and publisher.”

Yes, Gilda or GCF was all that. But her life was richer, more complex than how Wikipedia describes her.

I had already written an essay for GCF more than 10 years ago, which was triggered by childhood memories. I described the essay as an unpublished eulogy for the living, which Gilda liked. It was a personal piece; it was about my connection with her and her family.

Upon her death, I submitted the untitled piece to the Philippine Daily Inquirer for publication. The Inquirer titled it “How I never returned Gilda Cordero Fernando’s book” (Oct. 18, 2020).

In different ways, GCF touched my life. I cannot forget, for example, how she comforted me upon the passing away of my wife Mae. A few weeks after Mae’s passing in end-August 2015, Gilda invited me, my mom Paula, sister Sanâ, and cousin Bobbie for a repast at her home. Her piece of advice, which she emphasized by repeating it, was: “Find an amusement, but never remarry.”

This time, I thought of seizing the opportunity to write about another dimension of GCF’s persona, which Wikipedia has missed.

After Christmas day, I received two separate messages from activist friends, Niva Gonzales and Lisa Dacanay. Niva and Lisa are among the organizers of the Ganito Tayo Noon (“This is how we were before”). Called GTN for short, Ganito Tayo Noon is an annual homecoming of activists who fought the Marcos dictatorship.

Niva and Lisa requested me to do a one-minute recorded tribute for GCF. A fixture of the GTN homecoming is a parangal (honor) to the anti-dictatorship activists who passed away in the previous year. Because of the pandemic, this year’s GTN homecoming was done through Zoom. Alex Padilla (a human rights lawyer and most competent, most honest retired civil servant) hosted the previous GTN events at the sprawling family compound in Antipolo.

A one-minute oral tribute for GCF, even if limited to her politics, could not fully capture who she was. But it was understandable to have a short tribute in light of the program’s time constraint and the fact that close to 40 departed activists were honored.

To make up for this limitation, I opted to write a longer written version of my tribute to GCF.

GCF was a superwoman. She had multiple identities. She was a storyteller, an essayist and columnist, a publisher and chronicler of Philippine life and culture, a 20th century ilustrada, a foodie, a bohemian, an organizer of out-of-this-world events, a theater producer, a visual artist, a fashion designer and even a fashion model for Bench, an antiquarian and art collector, a modern and kookie mom, a lola Mad, a second mom, and the crush of boys of my generation.

But I save for last what the GTN comrades would like to hear: GCF was a rabble-rouser. Yes, being a rabble-rouser is how her children proudly describe her.

She was a natural rebel. But no one but GCF herself could fully explain her development as a political activist. I asked GCF’s second son and my classmate Mol about this. Said Mol: “I do not remember… any semblance of an epiphany of my mom towards left-leaning or progressive persuasion. Kung baga, kinagisnan ko ganoon na siya (In other words, since I remember she had always been that way). Maybe it’s the DNA.”

I agree with Mol that one explanation is the DNA. The children of Gilda are likewise rebels in different forms and circumstances. Bey, the eldest son who passed more than two decades ago, was a student activist. He was a student leader representing the radical movement at the University of the Philippines. He was at the thick of the fight against the dictatorship in the early years of martial law. (Bey, as a fratman of Scintilla Juris, was also at the frontline of the rumbles, fighting his dad’s Sigma Rho fraternity, which was labeled reactionary then.)

Mol also said that his mom’s “early association with Manila’s literati likely fueled” her activism. After all, the intellectuals tend to be left and radical.

Mol’s “conjecture” is consistent with what his mom wrote in The Last Full Moon: Essays on my Life (2005): That she joined the protest movement because the writers and artists were there.

The title of a chapter in The Last Full Moon affirms the status of GCF as rebel: “Woman’s place is in the struggle.” In this chapter, GCF said: “Of the groups, the left, which I chose to join, was by far the most aggressive.” She explained her choice: “Perhaps I was tired of being a corporate wife, of having to fit into a mold of dressing smartly, swilling cocktails, and talking shallow. I felt at home in the protest movement….”

But GCF being a rabble-rouser was a different sort. Although she described the left as aggressive, she was far from being one. She found the slogans of the left like “lansagin” (dismantle)  and “ibagsak” (overthrow) “downright awful,” “artless,” and “humorless.”

GCF, the rabble-rouser, was relaxed, pleasant, fun loving, crazy, and adventurous. And her thinking was out of the box. Thanks to her, she refreshed the left’s image and made it look hip. An example of her creativity and kookiness was how she transformed a fashion show into a political statement on the state of the nation.

Reminiscent of the wit and irreverence of the First Propaganda Movement, GCF created the enigmatic Los Enemigos, which mocked the Marcoses and the dictatorship. She made political satire popular.

At a time when we are again fighting a repressive regime, arguably a regime more virulent than the Marcos dictatorship, GCF’s legacy serves to move us.

The left’s strategy and tactics are exhausted. Here, GCF reminds us to be creative and innovative. GCF inspires us to reimagine.

Remember GCF’s fighting words: “Go forth into the world and fight your just fight.”

 

Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III coordinates the Action for Economic Reforms.

www.aer.ph

PHL included among emerging powerhouse economies

According to the UK-based Center for Economics and Business Research, five ASEAN economies are poised to become economic powerhouses within 15 years. You will be happy to know that the Philippines is included in this list despite the economic blow of the pandemic. Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand have also made it to the magic 30 of largest economies by 2035.

Vietnam, the overachiever of the last two years, is seen to make the biggest gains in the next 15 years. The socialist nation is seen to jump 18 places from the 37th largest economy today to the 19th by 2035. Malaysia follows with a 12 place leap from 40th to 28th place. The Philippines is forecast to advance by 10 places from 32nd to 22nd place. Indonesia will jump by seven places from 15th to 7th place. Thailand will move four places up from 25th to 21st place.

By the year 2035, five ASEAN nations will be part of the world’s 30 largest economies, two countries shy of the European Union. Asia, collectively, will have 12 countries represented in the magic 30, making it the world’s most robust economic bloc.

What is driving ASEAN’s growth? Each nation has a unique story to tell.

Vietnam. A package of economic reforms under the Doi Moi program transformed Vietnam from a centrally planned economy to a market-driven, socialist state rooted in manufacturing.

In just 35 years (1986-2021), Vietnam made the transition from an economy reliant on subsistence farming to one that is newly industrialized. This was done by embracing trade liberalization, domestic deregulation, the aggressive pursuit of foreign direct investments, and massive investments in infrastructure and human capital.

From the get go, Vietnam sought to be the manufacturing center of Asia since it is the fastest way to modernize the nation whilst achieving economic prosperity. Manufacturing also has the capacity to absorb the millions of workers migrating away from agriculture.

The Vietnamese government was astute by creating the ideal conditions for manufacturing enterprises to thrive. Special attention was given to infrastructure and logistics, energy, telecommunications, and easing bureaucratic red tape.

The years between 2008 to 2018 were Vietnam’s golden decade. Its economy grew by an average of 6.07%, peaking in 2018 when it clocked-in growth of 7.1%. Unemployment fell to 2.2% in 2018 due to the continued influx of factories migrating away from China.

Malaysia. In 1971, Malaysia launched its New Economic Policy (NEP) designed to eradicate poverty and unite the country’s multi-ethnic society. NEP lasted for 20 years.

The Malaysian economy grew by an impressive 7.22% from 1971 to 1990. Investors from America, Europe, and Japan flocked to Malaysia for its relatively modern infrastructure and strategic position between Singapore and Thailand. Malaysia became a hub for textile manufacturing, electronics, modular furniture, and appliances. It also became a leading exporter of palm oil, rubber, petroleum, natural gas, and hardwood.

Under the command of PM Mahathir Mohamad, the National Development Policy (NDP) was formulated and launched in 1991. Its objective was to energize Malaysian industries to climb the value chain whilst making wealth more inclusive for all. It was in this era that Malaysia became a force in electronics, machineries and computers, and chemicals.

The NDP was replaced by the National Vision Policy (NVP) in 2001. The NVP aimed to transform Malaysia into a high income economy that specialized in finance, tourism, and high technology. The NVP has been generally successful but fell short of elevating the country to a high-income economy.

Indonesia. Our neighbor to the south is the largest economy in Southeast Asia. They have done well since the turn of the century having slashed poverty rates by half since 1999 and posting an average growth rate of 4.8% in the last two decades. Its enormous population and rising wealth have attracted foreign investors in droves.

Although Indonesia’s economy has become increasingly driven by manufacturing, they are still reliant on exports of crude oil, natural gas, rubber, coffee, coca and palm oil. They have done well in the use of their natural resources.

The growth of the Indonesian economy has trailed that of Vietnam and the Philippines due to infrastructure bottlenecks. To this end, President Joko Widodo put in place a multi-billion infrastructure program since 2014. From 2020 to 2024, however, Indonesia plans to spend a whopping $412 billion to modernize its infrastructure. This will give the country the bandwidth for higher growth.

Thailand. Despite sporadic political unrest, the Thai economy has managed to grow by an average of 4.01% over the last 20 years.

From an agricultural economy, Thailand rapidly developed into a manufacturing economy in the 1970s to the ‘90s specializing in textiles, light industries, and food processing. The 2000s saw Thailand migrate to big industries such as auto manufacturing and electronics. The Buddhist country aims to be a specialist in innovation and high technology in the next decade.

In 2019, Thai exports amounted to $245 billion, nearly half of its GDP. It is also the region’s tourism behemoth, having attracted 38.2 million visitors (No. 8 in the world) in 2019. Tourism revenues account for 17.7% of GDP.

Philippines. Unlike its ASEAN peers, the Philippine economy is driven by the service sector, not by manufacturing. It is among the world leaders in business process outsourcing and will continue to be so for the next 15 years, according to the Center for Economics and Business Research.

Massive infrastructure spending coupled with OFW remittances have fueled consumer spending. This, too, drives the economy.

By virtue of its young, English-speaking population, the Philippines is seen to continue its upward trajectory in the service sector all the way to 2035, albeit performing below its true potential.

Analysts believe that the Philippines can still become a player in heavy industries and technology if it is able to sort-out the impediments to attracting foreign capital. This includes an uncompetitive tax structure (the CREATE bill needs to be passed), shortage in PEZA industrial zones, bureaucratic red tape, expensive power costs, and the constitutional negative list for foreigners.

In addition, the Philippines has not leveraged on its natural resources the way its neighbors have. Despite its massive resources, the contribution of the mining industry to the economy is minuscule at only one-sixth of 1% of GDP. Ironically, the Philippines sits on the third largest cache of mineral resources in the world which includes gold, copper, nickel, limestone, marble, and chromite. All things told, its mineral resources are worth over a trillion US dollars in today’s prices. Since the massive closure of mines in 2017, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has installed more than enough safety measures to ensure responsible mining. A presidential go signal is all it takes to unlock the potentials of the mining industry.

Also untapped is the Philippine’s maritime resources. Unknown to many, the Philippines has the fifth largest coastline at 36,289 kilometers; its maritime domain is massive at 2.2 million square kilometers; it is the world’s second largest provider of shipping crew and officers; it is (was) the fourth largest global shipbuilder (counting Hanjin); the Philippine Rise (Benham Rise) has an estimated reserve of 55.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 5.4 billion barrels of oil; plus, the Philippine archipelago sits in the center of the world richest fishing grounds. These resources remain largely untapped.

With the right economic policy, the Philippines can be a significant player in international shipping, ship building and repair, ports and shipyards, logistics services, seafarers and crewing, maritime insurance, fisheries and aquaculture and offshore energy exploration, among others. Collectively, this is referred to as the “Blue Economy.”

The Philippines is by no means short of natural resources or talent to usher-in an age of rapid prosperity. What it is in shortage of is a leader with a clear vision, a plan, and the political will to realize it. Let’s hope that our next leaders in 2022 institutes reforms to make the country perform to its full potential.

 

Andrew J. Masigan is an economist

andrew_rs6@yahoo.com

Twitter @aj_masigan

COVID-19 tames Competition

I have not worn lipstick for nine months now. I cannot. Lipstick will only smudge under a face mask. Lots of clothes, shoes, bags, and jewelry, fake and real, have been lying around unused. No occasion to show these off. What did I need all those for — before this protracted quarantine against the persistent COVID-19 pandemic?

“Packaging” would be the answer, in a classroom MBA case study of the ripple effects of the coronavirus pandemic on comparative socio-economic and political competition arenas. In economics, “Competition” is the effort by which limited goods and services are differentiated to achieve the optimum marketing mix of Price, Product, Promotion and Place (the “Four P’s”). “Packaging,” (which falls under “Product” and “Promotion”) would be a big contributor to that subliminal perception and actual final acceptance of the product.

So, when can I wear lipstick again? Perhaps when an approved vaccine is available in the country, and I am convinced enough to have myself vaccinated. But I will still have to wear a face mask even after vaccination, because I can still be a “spreader” of the virus to others who might still be vulnerable, or I could even be re-infected, on the X-percentage of the vaccine’s declared failure possibility. Ay naku! Will I ever wear lipstick again?

COVID-19 has reined in Competition in many ways. Perhaps the vaccine issue is the most revealing of how competition has changed among countries and their epidemiologists now fighting for market share for this, whilst carefully packaging themselves as altruistically responsive to the urgent human need for protection against the terrible coronavirus. But then again, we must not cast aspersions on social consciousness versus economic opportunity.

It is just that the end game of a competitive race is the winning of the trust of the “buyer.” On Teleradyo last week, anchor Tony Velasquez collated texted responses to the question, “Will you or will you not have yourself vaccinated when the vaccine is available, and why?” The answers were predominantly “No” and “Not now,” close to the surveys floated around that only 25% of Filipinos will readily opt for vaccination (as reported by CNN Philippines on Jan. 5). One response read out by Velasquez stood out with its very telling one-liner: No to “SinoVac” (a Chinese vaccine). Others simply declared their lack of trust in a “Made in China” vaccine.

News broke out at year-end that there was “clandestine inoculation (later established to be sometime September 2020) of President Rodrigo Duterte’s close-in security detail (PSG) with a vaccine for COVID-19 not yet authorized by local regulators” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, Jan. 2, 2021). “Government officials eventually admitted the vaccine for COVID-19 was developed by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm… (whose) vaccine has not yet been approved by the FDA for use in the country,” the Inquirer reported.

The New York Times (NYT) (Dec. 30, 2020) reported the approval of the state-owned Sinopharm’s vaccine after Phase 3 trials but still without official results, with 30 million Chinese to be vaccinated by mid-February, when hundreds of millions are expected to travel for the Lunar New Year holiday. (Does that mean the Filipino PSG, who were vaccinated in September 2020, were inoculated with the Sinopharm vaccine much ahead of the Chinese people, even before approval in December by the Chinese government for its own vaccine? For clarification.)

The NYT said that “at 79% efficacy, the Sinopharm vaccine’s results show that it is less effective than others that have been approved in other countries. Two other coronavirus vaccines, made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, have been shown to have an efficacy rate of about 95%. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has received authorization in more than 40 countries. Moderna’s vaccine has been authorized in the United States, and other countries are evaluating its trial results. Russia has announced that its Sputnik V vaccine has an efficacy rate of 91% and has begun a mass vaccination campaign.”

There goes Trust, and the mangling of otherwise-legitimate competition in what should be a level playing field in a free market, considering that the vaccine is a demand-skewed product — an urgent need — in the perilous imbalance caused by the fearsome pandemic. Pity the anxious people!

Soon after the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, the intergovernmental United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) worried about the coronavirus crisis wreaking havoc on markets the world over. “The pandemic’s sweeping economic impact has left governments balancing between defending competition, so prices do not become prohibitive, and granting exemptions to competition rules to ensure the survival of entire economic sectors,” the UN News said on April 8, 2020. UNCTAD exhorted collaboration instead of competition of markets, pointing at the marketing and selling of basic needs of food, clothing and shelter, and health needs for medicine, treatment and hospitalization/confinement. The development of a vaccine against the fiercely virulent and highly contagious COVID-19 has been the international showcase for the prescribed “collaborative competition” in the “New Now” forced by the pandemic.

One good thing going for the New Now is that enhanced information technology has made more people know facts and figures close to real time and have access to organized archives of background data relevant to the present and possibly indicative of the future. But are we close to the utopian perfect information and perfect equilibrium in the abstraction of economics? No, fake news won’t let it happen.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warned that “in a time of high fears, uncertainties and unknowns, there is fertile ground for fabrications to flourish and grow. The big risk is that any single falsehood that gains traction can negate the significance of a body of true facts.” Some have capitalized on the pandemic, to spread disinformation for the purposes of advancing their own agendas, the UNESCO said. “The motives for spreading disinformation are many, and include political aims, self-promotion, and attracting attention as part of a business model. Those who do so, play on emotions, fears, prejudices and ignorance, and claim to bring meaning and certainty to a reality that is complex, challenging and fast-changing.” So, who and what can we trust?

Belief and trust of the public are the end goals of market competition. But in the restraints and constraints of the pandemic many of the rules of the game are changed, with the classic “willing buyer and willing seller” weighing heavily on the buyer who has little choice but to trust and believe because of need. And so we see old businesses floundering and new businesses, often small and entrepreneurial, rising. Products sell, without the strategized “four P’s” of marketing — Price (buyers will pay for what they need); Product (alternatives to what cannot be sourced will do); Promotions (no expensive advertising needed, word of mouth and social media is free); and Place (online delivery is even at the buyer’s cost).

For me, I can do without wearing lipstick, really. Forget about “packaging” myself for the competitive market out there to be beautiful and “forever 21.” Until and maybe even after a WHO-approved and FDA-tested vaccine is available in the country, and I would have decided to be vaccinated, I will wear my mask.

What you (don’t) see is what you get.

 

Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.

ahcylagan@yahoo.com

Democrats to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump

WASHINGTON — Democratic-led efforts to impeach US President Donald Trump for a historic second time gained momentum over the weekend, although it looked far from certain whether enough Republicans would back the move with just days left in his term.

Democratic members of the House of Representatives will introduce articles of impeachment on Monday after Mr. Trump encouraged his supporters to storm the US Capitol on Wednesday, Representative Ted Lieu said on Twitter.

The California Democrat, who helped draft the charges, said the articles had drawn 190 co-sponsors by Saturday night. As of Saturday afternoon, no Republicans had signed on, Mr. Lieu’s spokeswoman said.

“We have videos of the speech where (Mr. Trump) incites the mob. We have videos of the mob violently attacking the Capitol. This isn’t a close call,” Mr. Lieu tweeted Saturday night.

Mr. Trump initially praised his supporters at the Capitol but later condemned their violence in a video. The decision to call for calm came at the urging of senior aides, some arguing he could face removal from office or legal liability, sources told Reuters.

Impeachment by the Democratic-led House, equivalent to an indictment, would trigger an unprecedented second trial in the Republican-controled Senate, which cleared him during his first trial over allegations that he threatened US national security.

Two previous presidents were impeached but were also acquitted in the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal when it became clear he would be removed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also asked members to draft legislation aimed at invoking the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which allows for stripping the powers from a president unable to fulfill the duties of the office.

The intensifying effort to oust Trump has drawn scattered support from Republicans, whose party has been divided by the president’s actions. Democrats have pressed Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, but he has opposed the idea, an adviser said.

CNN reported late Saturday that the vice president had not ruled out invoking the 25th Amendment, citing a source close to him, but that some in Mr. Pence’s team worried any effort to remove Mr. Trump could provoke the president to more rash behavior that might put the country at risk.

A Pence spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Saturday.

SCATTERED REPUBLICAN SUPPORT FOR REMOVAL
A small but growing number of Republican lawmakers have joined calls for Mr. Trump to step down, and several high-ranking administration officials have resigned in protest.

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said Friday that Mr. Trump should resign immediately and suggested she would consider leaving the party if Republicans cannot part from him. Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania told Fox News on Saturday that Mr. Trump had “committed impeachable offenses” but declined to commit to voting to remove him.

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a frequent Trump critic, told CBS News he would “definitely consider” impeachment because the president “disregarded his oath of office.”

But other key Trump allies, including Senator Lindsey Graham and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, have urged Democrats to shelve any impeachment effort in the name of unity. “Impeaching President Donald Trump with 12 days remaining in his presidency would only serve to further divide the country,” said White House spokesman Judd Deere.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, has suggested any trial would likely occur after Mr. Trump’s term ends, when Democrats will take control of the Senate thanks to victories in two Georgia runoff elections last week.

If found guilty after leaving office, Mr. Trump would still lose benefits enjoyed by ex-presidents, such as security and pension, and he would be barred from running for a second term.

But a Senate conviction requires a two-third majority, which would take at least 17 Republican votes.

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden has not taken a position on Mr. Trump’s impeachment, saying he will leave it to Congress to decide. Since losing the Nov. 3 election, Mr. Trump has falsely claimed he was the victim of widespread fraud. — Reuters

Indonesia finds body parts, debris, detects emergency signal of crashed airplane

JAKARTA — Indonesia detected signals on Sunday that could come from a flight recorder of a Sriwijaya Air jet that crashed into the sea after taking off from the capital Jakarta, as human body parts and suspected pieces of the plane were retrieved. The Boeing 737-500 with 62 passengers and crew was headed to Pontianak in West Kalimantan before it disappeared on Saturday from radar screens four minutes after takeoff.

The crash is the first major airline incident in Indonesia since the crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max in 2018 that killed all 189 passengers and crew. That plane also crashed into the Java Sea soon after takeoff from Soekarno-Hatta airport.

“We have detected signals in two points. This could be the black box — we will investigate,” Bagus Puruhito, chief of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, told reporters aboard a military ship.

Indonesian Navy official Wahyudin Arif told iNEWS that they have found suspected pieces of the plane fuselage of about one meter (three feet) in length, part of a tyre and human body parts.

Media reports said body parts had been taken to a police hospital for identification.

Search teams and fishermen earlier retrieved other debris and a section of an emergency chute believed to come from the jet in the seas off Jakarta.

“I am optimistic we will find (the plane) soon,” Henri Alfiandi, an assistant to the chief of staff of the Indonesian Air Force, told a news briefing.

Muhammad Yassin, director of the POLAIR marine police, told local media the search is focussing on the outer ring of the Laki and Lancang islands off the Jakarta coast. The sea in this area is about 20 to 23 meters (65-75 feet) deep.

A diver involved in the search and rescue operation told Kompas TV his team had an underwater metal detector and a pinger locator to pick up signals for the plane’s two black boxes.

The Indonesian meteorological agency warned of a risk of heavy rain and strong winds that could hamper the search and rescue efforts.

The Sriwijaya Air plane was a nearly 27-year-old Boeing 737-500, much older than Boeing’s problem-plagued 737 MAX model. Older 737 models are widely flown and do not have the system implicated in the MAX safety crisis.

“We are in contact with our airline customer and stand ready to support them during this difficult time,” Boeing said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the crew, passengers, and their families.” Distraught relatives waited in Pontianak about 740 km (460 miles) from Jakarta for news of their loved ones. At Jakarta’s main airport a crisis center was set up for relatives.

Founded in 2003, Jakarta-based Sriwijaya Air group flies largely within Indonesia. The budget airline has had a solid safety record, with no onboard casualties in four incidents recorded on the Aviation Safety Network database.

In 2007, the European Union (EU) banned all Indonesian airlines following a series of crashes and reports of deteriorating oversight and maintenance since deregulation in the late 1990s. The restrictions were fully lifted in 2018.

Between 2007 and 2016, the US Federal Aviation Administration lowered its Indonesia safety evaluation to Category 2, meaning its regulatory system was inadequate. — Reuters

Pope Francis to have COVID-19 vaccine, says it is the ethical choice for everyone

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis said on Saturday he planned to be vaccinated against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as early as next week and urged everyone to get a shot, to protect not only their own lives but those of others.

“I believe that ethically everyone should take the vaccine,” the Pope said in an interview with TV station Canale 5. “It is an ethical choice because you are gambling with your health, with your life, but you are also gambling with the lives of others.”

Vatican City, the smallest independent county in the world, home to about 450 people including Pope Francis, has said it will shortly launch its own vaccination campaign against the coronavirus.

“Next week,” the Pope said, “we will start doing it here, in the Vatican, and I have booked myself in. It must be done.”

Pope Francis, 84, had part of one lung removed during an illness when he was a young man in his native Argentina, making him potentially vulnerable to the disease.

Vatican City last week said it expected to receive enough COVID-19 vaccine doses in the following days to inoculate all of its residents and its workers who live beyond its walls in Rome.

As part of its vaccination plan, the Vatican said it had bought an ultra-cold refrigerator to store doses, suggesting it will use the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which must be stored at about minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit).

As excerpts of the interview were released, the official Vatican News website reported that the pope’s personal doctor, Fabrizio Soccorsi, had died of complications from COVID-19.

Soccorsi, 78, was in hospital and was being treated for cancer. He had been the pope’s doctor since 2015. — Reuters

Historic snow storm kills 4 in Madrid

MADRID — A storm in Spain killed four people, paralyzed travel and blanketed the capital Madrid in so much snow on Saturday that skiers took to the main Gran Via thoroughfare.

Forecasters warned of more havoc next week after Storm Filomena brought the heaviest snowfall in decades across central Spain.

In the Madrid area, rescuers reached 1,500 people trapped in cars, while on the usually traffic-clogged Gran Via, residents snowboarded and pelted each other with snowballs as well as ski.

“It is astonishing, we have never seen anything like it before,” said Marcos, 30.

One man and a woman in a car drowned after a river burst near Malaga in the south, while two homeless people froze to death in Madrid and Calatayud in the east, officials said.

“I want to reiterate the government’s call for maximum caution in the face of the evolution of the weather in the next few hours,” tweeted Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Julian Morcillo, of the State Metereological Agency (AEMET), said temperatures would plunge to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) next week, bringing dangerous ice.

Between 20-30 cm of snow fell in Madrid, making it the heaviest there since 1971, he added.

The capital’s Barajas airport was shut from Friday night, while nationwide, more than 650 roads were blocked.

“No solutions today,” sighed Christopher, a Norwegian national living in Spain, stuck with his car on a road after an aborted attempt to reach a flight for Chile.

“I have been stuck here without water or any other help,” added Patricia Manzanares, in her car on Madrid’s M-40 motorway since 7 p.m. on Friday. — Reuters

Singapore to legislate on contact-trace data use for crimes

Singapore’s government plans to create urgent legislation to formalize the use of virus contact-tracing data in investigations of serious crimes.

Legislation will be introduced in the next sitting of parliament in February to limit the use of the data to probes of seven categories of serious crimes, the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office said in a statement Friday. Those will include murder, terrorism, kidnapping, and serious sexual offenses, it said.

The move comes amid concerns over privacy issues in the city-state’s TraceTogether contact-tracing program designed to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.

“We acknowledge our error in not stating that data from TraceTogether is not exempt from the Criminal Procedure Code,” the office said.

TraceTogether is being used by 78% of Singapore’s population. According to its website, the program does not collect data about individual GPS locations, Wifi, or mobile networks being used. But a clause about data being only used to contact trace people exposed to the coronavirus was removed and replaced with a statement noting that police “can obtain any data, including TraceTogether data, for criminal investigations.”

“The government was unequivocal last year that the data would only be used for contact tracing and public health,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. It should “return to the original purpose of TraceTogether by firewalling that program’s data from police, prosecutors, and the criminal justice system,” he said.

Gerald Giam, a lawmaker for the opposition Workers’ Party, posted this week on Facebook that it’s “ill-advised” that the government hasn’t ruled out the use of TraceTogether data for criminal investigations.

“It is not in the public interest to completely deny the Police access to such data, when the safety of the public or the proper conduct of justice is at stake,” the office said in the statement. The country has already used it to investigate a murder case. — Ann Koh/Bloomberg

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