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Body wants motorcycle pilot program extended

A TRANSPORTATION department body has recommended a six-month extension of a pilot program for motorcycles as public transport.

The extension seeks to involve more players and legalize the operation of two-wheeled vehicles as public utility vehicles, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

The original six-month pilot program will expire on Dec. 26.

The use of motorcycle taxis is being pilot-tested in Metro Manila and Cebu City upon the recommendation of the department, which set guidelines on fares, speed limits and safety gears.

The Land Transportation and Traffic Code does not recognize single motorcycles to operate for public transport.

A commuters’ group has asked a Quezon City court to stop five motorcycle taxi companies from operating, accusing them of being fly-by-night operators that expose their customers to undue risks.

Lawyers for Commuter Safety and Protection (LCSP) asked the trial court to stop We Move Things Philippines, Inc. (Joyride), Habal Rides Corp., I-Sabay, Sampa-Dala Corp. and Trans-Serve Corp.

The transport agency formed a technical working group in December last year to address calls to include the two-wheeled vehicle as a legal transportation mode. — Arjay L. Balinbin

Agencies unite against poverty

GOVERNMENT agencies have signed a pact to create programs that will combat involuntary hunger among Filipino children.

The agencies signed a memorandum of understanding for the Enhanced Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty program.

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Alexei B. Nograles said 9.5% or about 2.3 million families reported having experienced involuntary hunger in the first quarter.

“Children are especially vulnerable. It both saddens and angers us that this is happening, and we should do concrete steps to address this problem,” Mr. Nograles said.

The program will be implemented in 32 provinces identified as priority beneficiaries and will carry out “feeding programs, credit support and skills training for community-based organizations.”

It will also conduct nutrition education, build agriculture and technology infrastructure, food hubs and technical and research training, among other things. — Gillian M. Cortez

Learning how to think

One of my first jobs right after college was teaching in a Franciscan missionary school in Baybay, Leyte. All of my schooling was done in private schools run by foreign missionaries; and since English was also a prime lingua franca within my family, it seems to me that I not only spoke in English, I thought in English.

It was, of course, a shock to discover that English was in fact, a foreign language among most of my students. Hardly any home in Baybay had an English-language newspaper, if any newspaper at all, and so the most powerful medium of public information was radio, which in general broadcast in Cebuano except for some soap operas which were broadcast in their original Tagalog. Besides, newspapers came too late in the afternoon, and so to get the news, people in Baybay tended to depend on radio. Television at the time had not yet reached the place.

Since I was primarily an English grammar and literature specialist, I decided to give my high school students special reading programs of magazines (e.g., Reader’s Digest, Time, and Newsweek magazines which I took to Baybay from my parents’ home in Cebu City). I also conducted Saturday morning classes on a voluntary basis. And amazingly, the few students who were able to take the time to attend the special English language reading and conversation exercises really did make progress in their English language skills. I even drilled them on diction, using the International Phonetic Alphabet which my teacher in Maryknoll had taught us. I noticed how much more self-confident the kids became as they became more skilled in the international language. Besides, it made it easier for them to study their textbooks which were in English.

In fact, we were able to put up a school paper in English; plus, eventually, a dramatics club. The kids won declamation and spelling contests conducted at a provincial level. And these victories motivated them even more to excel in their English language skill. From these high school kids, one became a university president and a Philippine expert on indigenous trees, and another won “The Most Outstanding Carolinian” award when she went to college in Cebu City.

Although I was not a “licensed” teacher since it was not required in private schools, I realized how much dedication and commitment to the students’ learning can help to enhance learning. Fortunately, I did not have to spend on board and lodging since I stayed with an aunt in Baybay, and my mother supplemented my meagre income whenever I came home to Cebu. Also, at the time, I had lots of energy to spare.

But I also learned a lot from my students. First of all, I learned to think and speak in Cebuano, which had not been my mother tongue since my migratory family was a mixture of Tagalog, Waray, and Chinese. As I learned to think and speak in Cebuano, it seems to me, I interacted more effectively with my teenage students, and we learned more from one another.

Certainly, The Teacher is one of the key factors in enhancing our educational system, in addition to infrastructure. Ensuring that we get the best and the brightest to be teachers even if just during their younger years will, it seems to me, help a lot. Of course, that also means teachers should get as much as, or more than we pay our cops and soldiers.

I guess one of the reasons for the resiliency of the Filipinos, and why we adapt so easily to other cultures when we are overseas, is that we really are multi-lingual from childhood. We learn our tribal language at home, Filipino from mass media, English from textbooks and some mass media. It makes me think of our culture as The Tinikling dance, for which we have become renowned.

I guess it will help if we recognize this from the outset in our educational system as a reality. Language goes with a culture; and so it takes more than grammar lessons to learn it.

When I was teaching at AIM, an international graduate school of business and management where the language of instruction is English, the Filipinos tended to outdo their foreign counterparts who struggled with the language, especially spoken English, for a trimester or two. However, once they had caught up and become confident enough to participate in class debates, the highly disciplined foreigners often outdid the locals. The Indonesians, Koreans, Thais, and even the Singaporeans and Malaysians at the time were determined to master the English language which had become the international language, especially of business.

One of the realizations for me as a teacher is that one has to think about education in terms of a Learning Methodology, not a teaching methodology. We have to be learner centered. Second, especially in this day of the internet and Google, what is important is thinking skills, rather than knowledge which is constantly evolving and can be independently acquired.

We need to simplify and to focus on what Education Secretary Leonor Briones refers to as “curricula.” Perhaps in the earlier years of elementary education we should focus on sharpening learners’ basic skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic plus how to independently obtain and understand knowledge. Studying and thinking skills are key to human development. And the reality is that English has become the international language.

We have to do all these while being self-aware that we are not native English speakers, but it will be to our advantage to become skillful in reading, writing, and speaking this international language. Being conscious that it is a foreign language and culture, we are less likely to be confused as to who we are today.

 

Teresa S. AbesamiS was professor at the Asian Institute of Management and a Fellow of the Development Academy of the Philippines.

tsabesamis0114@yahoo.com

Pat pat, slap slap

The 30th Southeast Games hosted by the Philippines will end on Dec. 11 with a spectacular show, if we are to base our expectations on the opening ceremony. But more than that, as the host country we will have set a new record in terms of the medal harvest — well ahead of runner-up Indonesia, and the other participating countries, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos, and Timor Leste (listed according to the number of medals won).

As of this writing, with still a few days of competition left, the Philippine sports contingents have already won 113 golds, 86 silvers, and 90 bronzes compared to Indonesia’s 66 golds, 63 silvers, and 79 bronzes (Thailand also has 66 golds and 79 bronzes, but only 62 silvers).

In the last three places are Laos with no gold, five silvers, and 19 bronzes; Brunei which managed to win a gold plus five silvers and six bronzes; and Timor Leste with two bronzes.

We Pinoys know how it feels to return home from an international sports competition with not much to show for our efforts. The best the Philippines has won in the Olympics have been two silver medals, both for boxing. Anthony Villanueva won a silver in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and Mansueto Velasco won a silver at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. In Barcelona, boxer Roel Velasco won a bronze medal. Leopoldo Serrantes won a bronze, also for boxing in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

According to Wikipedia, the Philippines first participated in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Then, in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, swimmer Teofilo Yldefonso, representing the Philippine Commonwealth under the United States, won a bronze medal in the 200-meter breaststroke event. Yldefonso won another bronze at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Filipino athletes won two more bronze medals in Los Angeles.

The Philippines has never won an Olympic gold, but a person of Filipino descent won two gold medals as a member of the US diving team in the London Olympics in 1948. Victoria Manalo Draves (she married her coach, Lyle Draves) was the first woman to win gold medals for both the 10-meter platform and the three-meter springboard events.

And so the quest for an Olympic gold medal continues. The bountiful medal harvest in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games augers well for Philippine sports — if we do not allow the relative success to go to our heads. In other words, if we do not pat ourselves on the back too much.

In an earlier column, I recalled the advice of a German friend to the effect that if we do something bad, we should slap ourselves on the face. And when we do something praise-worthy, we should pat ourselves on the back.

The 2019 SEA Games started out with the organizers deserving to be slapped. The performances of our athletes are fully deserving of pats on the back.

But not so fast!

You see, being the top gold medal winner in Southeast Asia, while something to pat ourselves on the back for, still falls far short of the standards of the Olympics, and even of the Asian Games.

Consider the current Olympic and world records in the running events. In the 100-meter sprint, which is said to mark the fastest human on the planet, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt set the record of 9.69 seconds. In comparison, the Asian Games record is 9.92 seconds while the fastest recorded in the SEA Games is 10.17 seconds.

Bolt also holds the Olympic record for the 200-meter dash at 19.30 seconds. The Asian Games record is 20.14 seconds while the SEA Games mark is 20.69 seconds.

The men’s 400-meter Olympic record of 43.49 seconds was set by Michael Johnson of the US at the 1996 Atlanta Games. The Asian Games record is 44.46 seconds and the SEA Games mark is 46 seconds, established by Kunanon Sukkaew of Thailand.

The holder of the record for the 800-meter run is Vebjorn Rodal of Norway with 1:42.58. The Asian Games mark is 1:45.45 while the SEA Games record is 1:48.29 held by Samson Villabuoy of Malaysia.

The 1,500-meter record is held by Noah Ngeny of Kenya at 3:32.07. Compare that to the 3:45.31 in the SEA Games held by Nguyen Dinh Curong of Vietnam and the 3:36.43 record in the Asian Games.

Among the Philippines’ women runners, SEA Games gold medal winner Kristina Knott set a record of 23.01 for the 200-meter dash while Lydia de Vega of Gintong Alay fame had 11.28 in the 100-meter sprint in the 1987 SEA Games.

Compare those times to those set by Florence Griffith-Joyner: 10.62 seconds in the 100-meter sprint in the 1988 Seoul Olympics and 21.77 seconds in the 200-meter dash.

In other words, our athletes, as good as they already are, still have some scrambling to do to hit Olympic standards.

Said to be the fastest runner in the Philippines is Eduardo Buenavista of South Cotabato. He holds a record of 8:40.77 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. The men’s Olympic record is 8:03.28 set by Conseslus Kirputo of Kenya in 2016 and the women’s record is 8:58.81 set by Gulnara Galkina of Russia in 2008.

The only Filipino athlete in the 2019 SEA Games who holds a world record is gymnast Carlos Yulo who won a gold and a bronze at the World Artistic Gymnastics championship in Stuttgart, Germany. Expectedly, Yulo has reaped gold medals in the SEA Games.

One should point out that Yulo has been studying and training in Japan, where some of the finest gymnasts in the world are raised. This tells us that our homegrown athletes and gold medal winners could benefit from coaching and training in the sports centers of the world.

The Philippine sports associations, while deserving of pats on the back for the impressive performance of our athletes in the 2019 SEA Games, should not rest on the regional laurels won. There is a whole world left to conquer and the performance of our athletes deserve more than passing praise.

They need the support of the government and the major corporations that have committed themselves to winning that elusive Olympic gold.

Those who rest on the SEA Games gold medal harvest deserve to slap themselves.

 

Greg B. Macabenta is an advertising and communications man shuttling between San Francisco and Manila and providing unique insights on issues from both perspectives.

gregmacabenta@hotmail.com

Management’s guide to probationary employment

The never-ending tug of war between management prerogative and labor rights has long been recognized in our jurisdiction. While it may be true that the constitutional bias has always been in favor of the working class, it cannot be denied that management also has its own rights which are limited by labor laws, as well as principles of equity and substantial justice.

Management prerogative is the employer’s inherent right to regulate all aspects of employment including the right to: hire, assign and transfer work, control the time, place and manner of work, discipline, and to dismiss.

In the exercise of the management’s power to hire, the employee, as a general rule, is considered as a regular employee entitled to security of tenure. However, management may exercise its prerogative to halt the employee’s regularization and in the meantime, place him under probation. This allows the employer to assess whether the employee was able to adequately perform his duties which is the inherent and implied standard for a probationary employee to be regularized.

Probationary employment refers to an arrangement where the probationary employee is hired on a trial basis to afford the employer an opportunity to observe the fitness of a probationary employee while at work, and to ascertain whether he will become a proper and efficient employee.

PROBATIONARY EMPLOYEES MUST BE INFORMED OF THE STANDARDS OF REGULARIZATION
For a probationary employment to be valid, a probationary employee must be apprised, at the time he is hired, of the standards by which he will qualify as a regular employee.

Article 296 (formerly, 281) of the Labor Code states that “Probationary employment shall not exceed six months from the date the employee started working, unless it is covered by an apprenticeship agreement stipulating a longer period. The services of an employee who has been engaged on a probationary basis may be terminated for a just cause or when he fails to qualify as a regular employee in accordance with reasonable standards made known by the employer to the employee at the time of his engagement. An employee who is allowed to work after a probationary period shall be considered a regular employee.”

Thus, at the onset of the engagement, the employee must be apprised of his probationary status and the reasonable standards which he must meet in order to be regularized. Otherwise, he will be considered a regular employee. For instance, if the employer informs the newly hired employee that he will be “under observation for six months,” the employee will still be considered as a regular employee since the standards in order to obtain regular status was not clearly conveyed to him.

As a general rule, therefore, the employee must be informed of the reasonable standards to qualify for regular employment. The exception arguably is when the job is self-descriptive such as maids, cooks, drivers, or messengers.

LENGTH OF PROBATIONARY PERIOD MAY BE SHORTENED OR EXTENDED
Aside from informing the definite standards, the employer must also inform the employee of the length of the probationary period. The law, which states that “probationary employment shall not exceed six months,” provides for a maximum period which may be shortened by the employer’s waiver. However, employees who continue to be employed beyond the said period ceases to be probationary employees and become regular employees. Parenthetically, the Supreme Court interpreted six months as equivalent to 180 days.

Nevertheless, this does not mean that the law strictly prohibits the extension of probationary period beyond the six-month period. This can be extended as long as the employer provides sufficient justification and there is mutual consent.

DISMISSAL OF PROBATIONARY EMPLOYEES
It must be noted that the employer need not keep the probationary employee in its employ if cause/s for dismissal is/are present. Thus, a probationary employee may be dismissed at any time before expiration of the six months as long as it is for a just or authorized cause under Articles 297 and 298 (formerly, 282 and 283) of the Labor Code, as amended.

The difference between regular and probationary employees is that the latter may also be dismissed for another ground — failure to qualify as a regular employee based on the reasonable standards conveyed to him at the time of his engagement.

PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS IN DISMISSING AN EMPLOYEE WHO FAILED TO MEET THE STANDARDS
Section 2, Rule I, Book VI of the Implementing Rules of the Labor Code provides that if the termination is brought by the failure of an employee to meet the standards of the employer in the case of probationary employment, it shall be sufficient that a written notice is served to the employee within a reasonable time from the effective date of termination. Thus, the twin notice and hearing requirements for just cause dismissals are not required since the employee, at the outset of his engagement, knows that he will be under observation and his performance would be under his superior’s scrutiny.

While the Constitution and the Labor Code are inclined to favor the working class, both do not however overlook the indispensable role and rights of management. After all, management is the hen or goose which lays the golden egg.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. This article is for general informational and educational purposes only and not offered as and does not constitute legal advice or legal opinion.

 

Zyra G. Montefolca is an Associate of the Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz Law Offices (ACCRALAW), Davao Branch. (6382) 224-0996

zgmontefolca@accralaw.com

You reap what you sow

“Reaping what you sow,” a quote attributed to the Christian apostle Paul, is about action and consequences. It strikes at the core of the message of Secretary Roy Cimatu of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) when he addressed top government officials and leaders of industry who came together in a forum organized by The Stratbase Group to share in the global crusade to sustain the environment and help save the future of mankind.

The story embarks upon the handling of a man-made problem: waste. “We are in the middle of a garbage crisis,” said Mr. Cimatu. Statistics from the Ocean Conservancy indicate that the Philippines is ranked third after China and Indonesia in terms of contributing to ocean litter. According to Mr. Cimatu, the Philippines generates some 7 million metric tons of plastic waste annually, while about half a million metric tons becomes marine debris. He added that the waste generation baseline for 2019 of 58,000 cubic meters has already been surpassed. The disturbing part is that much of this will eventually be found in the sea. A considerable amount of this garbage is plastic waste that will find its way into the food chain for the fish that, in turn, people will consume.

Plastic as a global industry began in 1907 following the invention in the US of the first synthetic plastic called Bakelite. The name “plastic” itself came from the Greek word plastikos, which means “capable of being shaped or molded.” With the expansion of mass production technologies and the spread of a “throw-away” culture, plastic has become a short-cut to business growth. The Philippine economy itself has evolved somewhat into a “sachet” economy. Globally, practically all tools and gadgets contain plastic components. But plastic has also taken its toll on the environment and public health.

Against this backdrop, the DENR has taken the lead in working with the Philippine Senate and the House of Representatives to address the problem. One of the specific concrete responses being studied is that of Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR.

EPR is a practice where a manufacturer takes back the product it produced after the item itself has outgrown its usefulness. The scheme revolves around the “Polluter Pays Principle,” which requires that the responsibility of the producer be extended up until the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle. In other words, the manufacturer assumes the burden of disposal and recycling.

EPR is widely practiced in Europe because laws, regulations, and systems are in place. In Asia, Japan is heavily involved in it as well. However, the rest of Asia has a lot to work on.

While the Philippines does not officially have an EPR system in place yet, some companies have been practicing it in some form since the 1970s. Among these are companies that produce car batteries. When a buyer makes a purchase of a car battery, the seller offers a trade-in incentive by way of a rebate.

However, with the rise of online retail sales today, the practice of EPR has met with some complications. With the bulk of unbranded retail products traded online and produced overseas, it becomes difficult to require local manufacturers to undertake EPR knowing that others can get away as freeloaders.

The call of Senator Cynthia Villar to involve the private sector and other stakeholders in this initiative drives home the importance of shifting from a linear model to a circular one to keep resources in circulation for as long as possible, get the maximum value, and generate outputs from it. This means that instead of just banning the use of plastics, it would make better sense if the government involved the participation of citizens and industries while encouraging the establishment of more plastic recycling plants under the basic formula of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.”

Fortunately, more people and businesses are actively taking the lead as environment champions. Among these are Coca-Cola Philippines with its “World Without Waste” program; Unilever Philippines with its “Zero Waste to Nature” program, “All Things Hair Refillery” refilling and recycling hubs, and “Misis Walastik” post-consumer sachet waste program; and Maynilad’s tree planting programs, recovery of 700 million liters of water through the rehabilitation of water pipes, and the conversion of plastic waste into school chairs for use in public schools, done in partnership with the Villar Sipag Foundation.

Even the city of Manila has an incentivized collection program for flexible plastic waste under the “May Pera sa Basura” initiative of Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno Domagoso. In addition, through Unilever’s Office and Factory Solid Waste Management Program, waste generated from their factories and offices are either eliminated at the source or recycled off-site by DENR-accredited waste haulers.

Hopefully, more private sector participants will be able to join as industry champions. However, it is important to emphasize that no single player should be solely responsible for addressing this issue. Everyone is culpable in this matter. If people continue to wantonly dispose of their waste and disregard the law, then it will just be a hopeless, vicious cycle.

It is high time for everyone — may they be from the government, the private sector, the academe, or civil society — to pro-actively collaborate and take responsibility in managing our waste. No single player possesses all the relevant resources, knowledge, skills, connections, and other valuable assets, hence the need to help each other out for the greater good.

It would benefit us all if everyone does his or her share in this crusade towards environment sustainability. After all, the future we save may just be our own.

 

Venice Isabelle Rañosa is a Research Manager at Stratbase ADR Institute.

Paul Volcker was a remarkable public servant

By Mervyn King

WITH THE passing of Paul Volcker, a true public servant has departed. Mentor and role model to so many, Paul exhibited wisdom and longevity in equal measure. His contributions to central banking, and economic policy-making more generally, were truly extraordinary.

I first met Paul in 1991 just after I joined the Bank of England. During one of his frequent visits to London (where he’d studied at the London School of Economics) he asked Marjorie Deane of The Economist to arrange a dinner. At the end of the evening Paul, as host, was determined to pay the bill. But he carried neither cash nor cards, only a check book — and dollar checks at that. Unfortunately, the restaurant wouldn’t accept a dollar payment, so I paid with a sterling credit card and Paul gave me a US check. This suited me fine because as a new recruit I’d just applied for an account at the Bank of England and been asked, rather sniffily, how I intended to open it. What better way than by depositing a check from the celebrated former chairman of the Federal Reserve?

I luxuriated in this coup for two weeks. Then I received a letter from the chief cashier’s office saying the check had bounced. It turned out that Paul had forgotten to date it. Should I write — to Paul Volcker, for heaven’s sake — pointing out that his check had bounced, or just accept the loss? After some thought, I hit upon the solution, and sufficient time has passed, I hope, for me to say what it was without fear of prosecution. I dated the check myself and returned it to the Bank of England, where it was accepted without question. The episode taught me a lifelong lesson: To be effective, regulation should focus on substance not form.

As a bank regulator, Paul showed that personal authority and moral courage were far more valuable than any number of sophisticated calculations of capital requirements. He was deeply skeptical of sophistry, and this served him and the US well. For as long as I can remember he pointed to the fragmentation of the US regulatory system, which enables banks to play off one regulator against another and undermines the authorities’ ability to shame institutions into behaving properly. He bemoaned this fragmentation to the end. An appropriate memorial would be a presidential and congressional alliance to unify the US regulatory structure.

As Paul described in his memoir, Keeping At It, personal friendships in the international monetary arena greatly facilitated the system’s operation — something I came to see for myself. For Paul, the dismantling of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates (an inevitable break-up, given the differences between the domestic policies of participating nations) was a “searing experience.” America’s unilateral action put friendships abroad under strain, but behind the scenes during those dark days of tariffs and wage and price controls, Paul maintained relationships that soothed the feelings of betrayal.

The Smithsonian Agreement of December 1971 tried to substitute a dollar standard for the gold standard. It didn’t last long. In March 1973 exchange rates were floated. The following decade was one of high and volatile inflation, which ended with the adoption of policies to limit domestic monetary growth. Volcker established his reputation at the Fed as an inflation fighter between 1979 and 1983, when short-term interest rates rose to more than 20% and double-digit inflation was conquered. That episode did more than anything to convince people of the need for the Fed’s independence. And it proved how vital it is for central bank heads, in particular, to resist political pressure, often from the very top. Few have been able to withstand the kind of pressure that Paul shrugged off in his successful battle against inflation.

Volcker’s life after the Fed gave new meaning to the phrase “portfolio career.” Rarely can one person have had more commissions and committees named after him. The Independent Committee of Eminent Persons investigation into how Swiss banks handled funds of Holocaust victims was challenge enough. But it was followed by the investigation into alleged corruption in the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program, and the chairmanship of the independent review into the World Bank’s Department of Institutional Integrity (which was tasked to weed out corruption in the use of Bank funds). He led the Trilateral Commission and the G30 group of senior monetary and finance officials. Throw in his work on accounting standards and numerous charities, and you see why Paul had too little time to indulge his fondness for fly-fishing.

In 2008 President Barack Obama brought him back into government to advise on reform of financial regulation. Paul’s deep belief that banks shouldn’t speculate with other people’s money led to the proposal to separate proprietary trading from commercial banking — the “Volcker rule.” The lobbyists got to work immediately, but the spirit of the rule will survive and, I predict, will return in full after the next crisis.

In his final years, Paul returned to the central theme of his career and set up the Volcker Alliance to foster better management in government. There’s no worthier cause: The prevailing paralysis in both Britain and America testify to the need not just for better political leadership, but also for greater competence and wisdom in the civil service.

Integrity was the watchword of Paul’s career. Toward the end of his life, he wrote that Washington had become “dominated by wealth and lobbyists who are joined at the hip with the Congress and too many officials. I stay away.” Few in the public arena are as committed as he was to resist the temptations afforded when finance meets politics.

Paul Volcker’s integrity and courage should stand as an inspiration to central bankers and public servants everywhere.

 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

Four-year doping ban on athletes should scare all Russians

By Leonid Bershidsky

NOT EVEN a four-year ban on competing under the national flag and hosting major athletic competitions can force Russia — that is, its political leadership and sports functionaries — to admit they’ve done anything wrong. That’s a warning not just to athletes, but to all Russians: They’re hostages to their leaders’ bungling, pig-headedness, and siege mentality.

The ban was imposed on Monday by the executive committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). This was expected after WADA discovered earlier this year that the database of a Moscow anti-doping lab, handed over to it for inspection, had been altered to erase positive test results. WADA compared the database to an earlier version, handed over by a whistle-blower, likely the lab’s former head, Grigory Rodchenkov, who lives in the US under witness protection.

Ever since the alterations had been discovered, Russian sports officials have maintained that Rodchenkov made the changes himself, because he’d retained the ability to administer the database remotely for some time after his 2015 departure from Russia. But not even the current head of the Russian anti-doping agency, Yuri Ganus, believes this: WADA has shown him that some alterations were made as late as this year.

In other words, all the doping bans imposed on Russian sports since 2017 haven’t made it clear to those who tampered with the database that the time for cheating was over. There are other signs that certain Russian sports federations and coaches haven’t gotten the message: Late last month, the Athletics Integrity Unit, an anti-doping body formed by the International Association of Athletics Federations, charged Russia with obstructing an investigation into a high jumper’s avoidance of doping tests.

WADA’s ban is tougher than the sanctions previously imposed on Russian athletes and sports officials by WADA, international federations and the International Olympic Committee. Russians already had to compete under a neutral flag at the winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, last year and at a number of other major events. At the 2017 athletics world championship, Russian athletes were even banned from painting their fingernails the colors of the national flag. But now, all sports federations have been told to ban the Russian flag and anthem and to transfer events awarded to Russia elsewhere, unless that’s “legally or practically impossible.”

That means Russia may lose three world championships it’s set to host — volleyball in 2022, ice hockey in 2023, and water sports in 2025. The Russian national team will be forced to wear some kind of neutral jerseys at the 2022 soccer World Cup in Qatar. Russia, however, will be able to stage its allotted share of games in the Euro 2020 soccer championships because that’s a regional tournament, not a global one.

Even to be allowed to compete “for themselves” rather than their country, Russian athletes will need an absolutely clean doping record, and their entries in the infamous Moscow lab database cannot have been altered. Tests for them will be especially rigorous.

But for the clean Russian athletes, too, the next four years will be dismal, and not just because they won’t be able to wave the flag. Sponsorship deals from outside Russia will be hard to come by. To be able to attract sponsors, some athletes will be tempted to change their nationality. Others will clench their teeth and go on, including high jump world champion Maria Lasitskene.

“What happened today is a disgrace,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’ve never intended to change nationality, and I won’t do it now. I’ll keep proving that Russian athletes are alive, even in a neutral status. I’ve done that in recent years, too. All that bothers me is that athletes are alone in their struggle, and the leaders of our sports defend us in words only.”

The words flowed freely after the WADA decision. Pyotr Tolstoy, deputy speaker of the Russian parliament, said Russia shouldn’t have agreed to compete under a neutral flag in Pyeongchang. “Today’s decision is just the continuation of that tendency toward excluding Russian competitors from international sports,” he said.

Some Russian sports figures and functionaries have called for organizing alternative sports events — say, BRICS games for athletes from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

But neither the indignation at supposed Western hostility nor the frantic search for alternatives to globally recognized competition does anything for someone like Lasitskene, who has proved time and time again that she doesn’t use forbidden substances, or for the inspired Russian national soccer team that surprised the nation by its fighting spirit at the 2018 World Cup. The only practical help these athletes can expect from the Russian sports officials takes the form of appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland — a tack Yuri Ganus considers doomed to failure.

Essentially, by refusing to confess to tampering with the database and submitting unadulterated results and test samples to WADA, Russian sports officials, and with them the Kremlin, have decided to wait out whatever sanctions are imposed. That’s a high price to pay for President Vladimir Putin’s short-lived triumph at the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, the $50-billion extravaganza where Russia won the most medals — and where the doping scandal began.

The Kremlin is playing the same waiting game with regard to sanctions imposed on it for depredations against Ukraine. It would rather have businesses endure funding and trade restrictions than admit ever having been in the wrong.

But in a way, the sports scandal is worse. Putin and his underlings in the sports hierarchy essentially have decided to shrug off the damage to the athletic careers of specific people who are Russia’s pride and glory, because in their view, admitting guilt for obvious shenanigans would be more damaging to the country’s reputation.

Russians without Olympic ambitions should have no illusions: If their lives, careers, hopes ever come into conflict with the need to protect the state from the slightest inconvenience, they, too, will be sacrificed in the blink of an eye.

 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

UPS launches new service enhancements to bolster Asian businesses

Global logistics leader UPS announced a series of service enhancements that will benefit up to 1.4 million postal codes across 41 countries and territories in the Asia Pacific region, opening opportunities for businesses to develop more resilient supply chain strategies as they look within the region for growth.

“Asia is an incredibly dynamic, evolving region, and trade in the region is helping to power the global economy—whether it’s through increased consumption in emerging economies such as Vietnam and the Philippines, or through supply chains that weave their way through the region and around the world,” said Ross McCullough, President, UPS Asia Pacific Region.

“Businesses need greater agility to respond to the needs of customers and the market with more precision than before, and UPS is helping them to achieve this with faster transit times, a broader service footprint and a balanced portfolio of services.”

The following enhancements are poised to deliver increased flexibility for businesses and support greater demand in the region:

  • Day-definite guarantee with one day faster transit time for UPS Worldwide Expedited service within Asia, enabling the majority of businesses in the region to enjoy delivery in two business days with a guaranteed delivery date
  • Improved geographic reach of UPS Worldwide Express® services with time-definite deliveries for international shipments to 205 new postal codes in Indonesia, Korea and Taiwan
  • Reduced transit time by one day for businesses exporting from Northern Malaysia to major territories in Asia, Europe and the US; from Northern Thailand to Europe and the US; and from major territories in Asia to China with UPS Worldwide Express® Saver service
  • Expansion of UPS Marketplace Shipping to 10 additional Asian markets, offering businesses an automated way to process their e-marketplace orders by streamlining the order management and shipping processes, and reaching more end-customers in other parts of the world

“With service improvements such as guaranteed delivery timing and shorter transit time for UPS Worldwide Expedited®, most businesses shipping within Asia will now have their shipments delivered in as little as two business days,” McCullough added. “This offers an end-to-end service alternative for freight forwarding shippers in the region looking for a scalable solution as they venture into new markets.”

“Shopping online is the new normal in the Philippines, and consumers are spoiled for choice when it comes to options for where to buy,” said UPS Philippines Managing Director Chris Buono. “In order to be competitive internationally, many online retailers need to have a presence across many different platforms and manage orders from several marketplaces, which can be a headache. Marketplace Shipping helps solve that problem.

“Combined with the launch of enhancements that reduce and guarantee transit times and expand geographic reach, UPS is helping businesses in the Philippines make the most of future export growth to expand their customer base around the region and beyond.”

These enhancements build upon a number of major investments UPS made in its network across the region earlier this year, including: increasing its Shenzhen Asia Pacific Air Hub’s processing capacity by 50%; expanding the reach of UPS Worldwide Express® morning services to reach Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea; extending pick-up times by up to five hours for export shipments from China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea; and commencing Saturday pick-up services in the U.S., enabling import shipments destined for eight markets in Asia to be delivered one day earlier than before. 

Trade deficit narrows in October

The country’s trade-in-goods recorded a lower deficit in October as imports continued to decline while exports were flat, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported this morning.

The value of merchandise exports went up 0.1% annually to $6.32 billion in October from $6.31 billion a year ago. This was a turnaround from the 1.2% decline recorded in September, albeit slower than the 6.7% growth in October 2018.

On the other hand, import payments fell 10.8% year-on-year to $9.57 billion in October, slightly faster than the 10.5% decline seen in September, but a reversal from the 26.2% growth seen in October 2018. The latest reading marked the seventh consecutive month of decline for imports.

October’s trade deficit figured at $3.25 billion, compared to a $4.42-billion gap in the same month last year.

To date, export receipts were up 0.03% to $58.96 billion from $58.94 billion in 2018’s comparable 10 months. This remained below the two-percent target set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) for 2019.

Meanwhile, the merchandise import bill declined by 4.3% to $90.22 billion on a cumulative basis against the DBCC’s seven-percent target set for the year.

That brought the year-to-date trade balance to a $31.26-billion deficit, smaller than the $35.29-billion gap in January-October 2018.

The United States was the Philippines’ top export market in October with a 17% market share at $1.07 billion followed by Japan’s 15.4% ($971.68 million) and Hong Kong’s 14% ($882.79 million) market shares.

Meanwhile, China was the country’s top source of imports with a 21.8% share in October ($2.08 billion) followed by 9.7% and 7.2% market shares of Japan ($925.69 million) and South Korea ($686.34 million), respectively. — Carmina Angelica V. Olano

IBM pilots its P-TECH program, prepping Filipino students for the future of work

On August 12, two sections of sixty Grade 11 students at Taguig City University piloted a comprehensive new curriculum aimed at preparing them for the future of “new collar jobs”—opportunities opening up in tech’s fastest growing fields.

The program is called P-TECH, and is an IBM initiative designed to complement the K-12 system. P-TECH maps the skills that are needed in the tech world today within a flexible iterative framework, allowing for enough leeway to keep pace with rapid changes in technologies and workplaces.

P-TECH, or Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools, was conceived by IBM in 2011 as a means to fill the world’s skills gaps. Partnering with public schools, P-TECH spans grades 9 to 14 and brings together the most salient elements of high school, college, and career. There are currently 200 P-TECH schools with more than 100,000 students in 18 countries.

IBM Corporate Citizenship Manager Andrea Escalona shares that all students graduate with a high school diploma plus an associate degree in computer technology, which then enables them to either secure a position in the STEM industry or continue on to higher education studies.

Enthusiastic about their future prospects

“I think the status quo of our education curriculum is not enough to produce an efficient workforce for the future… the P-TECH program is different because it holistically enhances the full potential of students,” said Samantha Cruz, a Grade 11 student that joined IBM’s pilot.

A perk of being a P-TECH student is the opportunity to participate in enriching activities such as mentoring sessions, company visits, and educational discussions. One such activity, a series of TED Talk-like events dubbed P-TECH Talks, kick-started last Thursday with conversations surrounding cybersecurity and fake news.

In the Internet of Me, a module on data privacy and cybersecurity awareness, IBM mentor Raymond Josef Lara discussed how data is the world’s “new natural resource” and thus how important it is to protect one’s personal information, especially online. His presentation included preventive measures against common types of hacking. This was followed by Rappler journalist Vernice Tantuco’s discussion on how to spot fake news, covering tips on reverse imaging and debunking misleading posts.

P-TECH has been received with appreciation both by the students of the pilot school and their parents. Among its six tenets are its cost-free enrollment plus being first in line for job interviews at IBM.

Mont Cedric Murillo, another student enrolled in the program said, “I have an interest in art and technology, so I want to be a graphic designer. I think with the help of P-TECH my dream of achieving that is just one step away.”

Agnes Africa, Country Manager for Corporate Social Responsibility, adds that they hope to eventually scale the P-TECH model nationwide. Since sustainability is a major consideration, they are keen on collaborating with local government units that are earnest about their respective education programs.

PHL human dev’t improves but lags

By Mark T. Amoguis
Senior Researcher

THE PHILIPPINES remained at the bottom half of an index that tracks human development across economies despite an improvement in overall score, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Report 2019, titled “Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: Inequalities in human development in the 21st century,” placed the Philippines 106th out of 189 economies in 2018, with a Human Development Index (HDI) score of 0.712 on a 0-1 scale wherein the latter reflects the best performance.

The Philippines’ ranking in 2018 steadied from 2017 even as its latest HDI score was higher than 0.709 previously.

The Philippines’ HDI score compared to 0.686 for “developing countries,” 0.741 for East Asia and the Pacific, and to the global average of 0.731.

The HDI is a summary measure in three key dimensions of human development, namely: a long healthy life (life expectancy), access to knowledge (expected years and mean years of schooling), and a decent standard of living (per capita gross national income).

The UNDP cautioned that the latest data, which include HDI values and ranks, are not comparable to those published in earlier editions as “national and international agencies continually improve their data series.” Instead, UNDP provided a historical “interpolated consistent data” to enable comparability.

The latest report estimated the Philippines’ average annual HDI growth at 0.67% from 1990 to 2018, broken down to 0.67% from 1990-2000, 0.62% in the period 2000-2010 and 0.73% in 2010-2018.

Meanwhile, the inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI), which accounts for “inequality in distribution of each dimension across the population” pulled the Philippines’ score in 2018 down to 0.582 from the unadjusted 0.712.

According to the UNDP, the IHDI matches HDI when inequality does not exist, but falls below the HDI as inequality rises.

Aside from the overall ranking, economies are also grouped into four “tiers” of development: “very high” (with an HDI of at least 0.800), “high” (0.700-0.799), “medium” (0.550-0.699), and “low” (below 0.550).

This puts the Philippines’ HDI in the “high” category with the likes of Thailand (steady at 77th in 2018 from 2017, with an HDI score of 0.765), China (85th from 86th with a 0.758 HDI score), Mongolia (92nd from 94th with 0.735), and Indonesia (steady at 111th, 0.707).

Southeast Asian economies that were counted among those with “very high” HDI were Singapore (steady in ninth spot, 0.935), Brunei (steady at 43rd, 0.845) and Malaysia (steady at 61st, 0.804).

Meanwhile, those in the “medium” category were Vietnam (steady at 118th in 2018, with an HDI score of 0.693), Timor-Leste (steady at 131st with 0.626), Laos (steady at 140th, 0.604), Myanmar (145th from 146th, 0.584) and Cambodia (146th from 145th with a score of 0.581).

The latest edition’s top-performing economy was Norway, followed by Switzerland and Ireland in second and third places, respectively. Tied at fourth place were Hong Kong and Germany.

“The government needs to focus not just on the infrastructure development, but also, and most especially, on people development,” said UnionBank of the Philippines, Inc. Chief Economist Ruben Carlo O. Asuncion in an e-mail.

“Addressing unemployment among the youth and population management are key issues moving forward.”

How does Philippines’ human development compare with that of its peers?

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