G20 seeks to help poorest nations in post-COVID world

November 22, 2020 | 6:15 pm

BEIJING/DUBAI/WASHINGTON — Leaders of the 20 biggest economies on Saturday vowed to ensure a fair distribution of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, drugs and tests around the world and do what was needed to support poorer countries struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

“We will spare no effort to ensure their affordable and equitable access for all people, consistent with members’ commitments to incentivize innovation,” the leaders said in a draft G20 (Group of 20) communique seen by Reuters. “We recognize the role of extensive immunization as a global public good.”

The twin crises of the pandemic and an uneven, uncertain global recovery dominated the first day of a two-day summit under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia, which hands off the rotating presidency of the G20 to Italy next month.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has thrown the global economy into a deep recession this year, and efforts needed to underpin an economic rebound in 2021, were at the top of the agenda.

“We must work to create the conditions for affordable and equitable access to these tools for all peoples,” Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz said in his opening remarks.

G20 leaders are concerned that the pandemic might further deepen global divisions between the rich and the poor.

“We need to avoid at all costs a scenario of a two-speed world where only the richer can protect themselves against the virus and restart normal lives,” French President Emmanuel Macron told the summit.

To do that, the European Union (EU) urged G20 leaders quickly to put more money into a global project for vaccines, tests and therapeutics — called Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator — and its COVAX facility to distribute vaccines.

“At the G20 Summit I called for $4.5 billion to be invested in ACT Accelerator by the end of 2020, for procurement & delivery of COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines everywhere,” European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter.

“We need to show global solidarity,” she said.

Germany was contributing more than €500 million ($592.65 million) to the effort, Chancellor Angela Merkel told the G20, urging other countries to do their part, according to a text of her remarks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to provide Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to other countries and said Moscow was also preparing a second and third vaccine.

China, where the pandemic originated a year ago, also offered to cooperate on vaccines. China has five home-grown candidates for a vaccine undergoing the last phase of trials.

“China is willing to strengthen cooperation with other countries in the research and development, production, and distribution of vaccines,” President Xi Jinping told the G20 Summit.

“We will … offer help and support to other developing countries, and work hard to make vaccines a public good that citizens of all countries can use and can afford,” he said.

US President Donald Trump, who lost the US presidential election but has refused to concede to former Vice President Joe Biden, addressed G20 leaders briefly before going golfing. He discussed the need to work together to restore economic growth, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a summary released late on Saturday.

She made no mention of any US pledge to support the global vaccine distribution effort. One European source said Mr. Trump’s remarks were focused on what he described as an unprecedented US recovery and the US drive to develop its own vaccines.

PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE
To prepare for future outbreaks, the EU is proposing a treaty on pandemics. “An international treaty would help us respond more quickly and in a more coordinated manner,” European Council President Charles Michel told the G20.

While the global economy is recovering from the depths of the crisis, momentum is slowing in countries with resurgent infection rates and the pandemic is likely to leave deep scars, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report for the summit.

Especially vulnerable are poor and highly indebted countries, which are “on the precipice of financial ruin and escalating poverty, hunger and untold suffering,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday.

To address this, the G20 will endorse a plan to extend a freeze in debt service payments by the poorest countries to mid-2021 and endorse a common approach for dealing with debt problems beyond that, the draft communique said.

World Bank President David Malpass warned the G20 that failing to provide more permanent debt relief to some countries now could lead to increased poverty and a repeat of the disorderly defaults of the 1980s.

The G20 debt relief initiative has helped 46 countries defer $5.7 billion in debt service payments, but that is far short of the 73 countries that were eligible, and promised savings of around $12 billion. Private sector participation is seen as critical to ensuring broader use of the initiative.

Debt relief for Africa will be an important theme of the Italian presidency of the G20 in 2021. — Reuters

Moderna to charge gov’ts $25-$37 for COVID-19 vaccine — chief executive

November 22, 2020 | 6:14 pm

FRANKFURT — Moderna will charge governments between $25 and $37 per dose of its coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine candidate, depending on the amount ordered, Chief Executive Stephane Bancel told German weekly Welt am Sonntag (WamS).

“Our vaccine therefore costs about the same as a flu shot, which is between $10 and $50,” he was quoted as saying. On Monday, an EU official involved in the talks said the European Commission wanted to reach a deal with Moderna for the supply of millions of doses of its vaccine candidate for a price below $25 per dose.

“Nothing is signed yet, but we’re close to a deal with the EU Commission. We want to deliver to Europe and are in constructive talks,” Mr. Bancel told WamS, adding it was just a “matter of days” until a contract would be ready.

Moderna has said its experimental vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19, based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial, becoming the second developer to report results that far exceeded expectations after Pfizer and its partner BioNTech.

The EU has been in talks with Moderna for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine at least since July. — Reuters

Trump’s bid to overturn election stumbles as judge tosses Pennsylvania lawsuit

November 22, 2020 | 6:13 pm

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s desperate bid to overturn the US election was dealt a new setback on Saturday when a federal judge threw out his campaign’s attempt to invalidate millions of votes in Pennsylvania.

US District Court Judge Matthew Brann ruled that the Trump campaign’s efforts to stop Pennsylvania officials from certifying Democrat Joe Biden as the winner in the state was “unsupported by evidence.”

“This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations,” Mr. Brann wrote.

“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state,” he wrote.

The lawsuit sought to stop officials from certifying Mr. Biden’s victory in the state, arguing that some counties wrongly allowed voters to fix errors on their mail ballots.

Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said Mr. Trump had “exhausted all plausible legal options” to challenge the result in Pennsylvania. He called on Mr. Trump to concede the election and congratulated Mr. Biden on his victory.

Few other Republicans in Congress have called on Mr. Trump to concede.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers said they would appeal the ruling, with the hopes of quickly reaching the US Supreme Court.

“We are disappointed we did not at least get the opportunity to present our evidence at a hearing. Unfortunately the censorship continues,” Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a statement.

For Mr. Trump to have any hope of overturning the election, he needs to reverse the outcome in Pennsylvania, which is scheduled to be certified by state officials on Monday.

Democrats said Saturday’s scathing verdict was further proof that Mr. Trump’s accusations of fraud are baseless.

“Our country will not tolerate Mr. Trump’s attempt to reverse the results of an election that he decisively lost,” Biden spokesman Michael Gwin said in a statement.

Mr. Giuliani, who made his first courtroom appearance in 30 years for a hearing in the case on Tuesday, has floated a variety of conspiracy theories as the Trump team alleged that the election was marred by widespread voter fraud.

Mr. Trump did not directly address the ruling as he re-aired familiar grievances on Twitter. “Fake ballots, dead people voting, no Republican Poll Watchers allowed, & more!” he wrote.

Election officials across the country say there was no widespread fraud, and Mr. Trump’s own administration has called the election “the most secure in American history.”

Mr. Trump’s campaign and its allies have filed dozens of lawsuits across the country challenging the results.

They have had little success so far, and time is running out to build a case as some states have started formalizing results. In Pennsylvania, counties are due to file official results on Monday to the secretary of state, who will then certify the tallies. Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump by more than 81,000 votes in the state.

Benjamin Geffen of the Public Interest Law Center, who was involved in the case, said Saturday’s ruling showed Mr. Trump will not be able to overturn Mr. Biden’s Pennsylvania victory in court. “As far as litigation goes I believe this is the end of the line for them,” he said.

UNPRECEDENTED EFFORT
Mr. Trump is seeking to invalidate or change the election results through recounts and direct pressure on lawmakers in several states. He would need to prevail in at least three states to prevent Mr. Biden from being sworn in as president on Jan. 20 — an unprecedented action.

In Michigan, Republicans wrote to state authorities on Saturday asking them to wait 14 days to certify Mr. Biden’s victory to allow for an audit of ballots in Wayne County, which includes the majority-Black city of Detroit. The letter cited allegations of “irregularities” that have not been substantiated. Mr. Biden won 154,000 more votes than Mr. Trump in Michigan.

That effort faces long odds. A spokesperson for Michigan’s top election authority said state law does not allow for audits before the vote is certified, which is due to take place on Monday. Allegations of widespread fraud have been found to be baseless, the spokesperson said.

Two leading Republican Michigan lawmakers who came to Washington at Mr. Trump’s behest said after meeting him on Friday that they had no information that would change the outcome of the election in the state.

In Wisconsin, an official said poorly trained observers for the Trump campaign were slowing a partial recount by challenging every ballot and raising other objections.

“Observers are disruptive. They are asking question after question, telling the tabulators to stop, stop what they’re doing and that is out of line, that’s not acceptable,” Milwaukee County Clerk George Christianson told reporters.

A manual recount and audit in Georgia confirmed Mr. Biden on Friday as the winner in the southern state, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in nearly three decades.

The Trump campaign has two business days to request a recount in Georgia. Mr. Trump’s legal team has also said it plans a lawsuit in the state, but has not provided specifics. Mr. Trump’s accusations have continued to inflame his hard-core Republican base.

Mr. Biden, who has denounced Mr. Trump’s attempt to reverse the election results as “totally irresponsible,” spent Saturday meeting with transition advisers and attending church. Mr. Trump took part in a virtual summit of the 20 biggest world economies and then went to play golf at his club in Sterling, Virginia. — Reuters

Fed faces ill political winds as Biden prepares for White House

November 22, 2020 | 6:13 pm

THE US CONGRESS’ rapid response to the coronavirus pandemic in March was meant to unleash a $4 trillion fire hose of credit for a stricken economy, distributed broadly by the Federal Reserve to help firms and markets survive a once-in-a-century collapse.

But US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s decision on Thursday to end some of the US central bank’s core pandemic programs at the end of this year marked a return to more longstanding concerns among Republicans about the Fed’s influence over and reach into the economy, just as Democratic President-elect Joe Biden prepares to move into the White House.

The emergency lending facilities slated for the scrap heap were among the most novel and controversial established last spring at the urging of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in Washington.

The shuttering of the programs, which many analysts have credited for helping to blunt the economic pain of the pandemic, will push the Fed back behind a line many in the Republican party feel it never should have crossed.

And it’s a sign of the colder climate facing the central bank in the aftermath of the Nov. 3 presidential election, one that will test the relationships with lawmakers that Fed Chair Jerome Powell has worked hard to build in his first three years in the job.

“I expect there will now suddenly be Senate Republicans who suddenly criticize the Fed for credit market actions which both proved highly effective this year and had their support up until the election,” says Adam Posen, a former Bank of England policymaker who is now president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

“I would expect attacking the Fed for doing its job will play into right-wing conspiracy theories and risk damage to the institution.”

OLD CONCERNS ANEW
During much of President Donald Trump’s administration, Powell’s assiduous attention to cementing relationships on Capitol Hill appeared to pay off, insulating him from a hot-tempered president who installed him and later regretted it.

Powell’s monthly meeting calendars showed him blitzing the offices of members from both parties, and those interactions continued in virtual fashion this year after the coronavirus outbreak sidelined face-to-face visits.

Criticism of the Fed from lawmakers was fairly muted, even as Trump lashed out repeatedly and publicly at the central bank’s “boneheads” for not easing monetary policy as fast as he wanted. The Fed earlier this year cut interest rates to near zero and ramped up its bond-buying to bolster the economy.

Republicans, who control the Senate, also declined to ratify a string of Trump’s controversial picks to fill vacant seats at the central bank’s policymaking table.

Once the coronavirus crisis hit, they seemed willing to defer their concerns about the Fed’s growing balance sheet — now well above $7 trillion, and much larger than during the Obama administration, when Republicans took the Fed to task over its bond-buying after the 2007-2009 Great Recession.

And they expressed little concern as Fed policymakers have flagged their plans to begin to incorporate climate change risks into the central bank’s supervisory and monetary policymaking, or when Powell in August announced a new policy strategy that would aim for an inclusive definition of full employment.

Since the election, things have taken a turn.

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for a vote that would have paved the way for confirming Judy Shelton, a frequent Fed critic who was an economic adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, to a post on the central bank’s Board of Governors.

Though a few Republicans opposed her, the bid ultimately failed because of the absence of a pair of supportive Republican senators who had to go into quarantine due to exposure to COVID-19.

IRKED BY NEW PRIORITIES
Shelton’s confirmation now appears to be a long-shot. But the stage may be set for sharper criticism of the Fed by lawmakers, just as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations surge and cities and states impose new restrictions, potentially stalling the economic recovery or even sending it into a renewed downturn in coming months.

At the libertarian Cato Institute this week, former Republican lawmakers said it was time for Congress to review just what the Fed is up to in delving into areas beyond fighting inflation and too-high employment with interest rates.

“All of sudden now we have a Fed opining on climate change, we have a Fed opining on income inequality,” said Jeb Hensarling, a former chair of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee who often sparred with Fed officials. “Each of these steps lead to a more politicized Fed, which means by definition it is a less independent Fed.”

James Dorn, Cato’s vice president for monetary studies, also warned about mission creep.

“Instead of engaging in pure monetary policy, now they are moving into these other areas and are allocating credit,” he said.

During the current crisis, Mnuchin worked closely with Powell to establish the Fed’s emergency lending facilities, at times speaking many times a day as the two men hammered out details.

Ultimately, the programs used only a fraction of the $454 billion given to Treasury, and Mnuchin now says ending them simply carried out lawmakers’ intent and is “not a political issue.”

The Fed felt the programs provided psychological support for markets, and that will now be tested in corporate bond and other markets. — Reuters

Coca-cola beverages delivery within a click’s reach

November 22, 2020 | 12:01 am

Coca-Cola Philippines has extensively scaled up its e-commerce presence to better respond to consumers whose needs and shopping behavior have altered due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With transportation and mobility affected, the Company has ensured that it can continue to serve people with its portfolio of beverages just a few clicks away.

Coca-Cola’s e-commerce website www.CokeBeverages.ph was first launched in 2015. To meet the constraints of the pandemic and to adapt to homebound Filipinos’ needs, the Company accelerated its digital and e-commerce roadmap—strengthening existing infrastructure and opening new channels to connect with the market. Thus, demonstrating agility as a total beverage company, with consumers always top of mind.

Coca-Cola products have been accessible online through its e-commerce website — www.CokeBeverages.ph — since 2015. With the constraints of the pandemic, the Company ensures that its products remain available within a click’s reach by strengthening its existing platform and partnering with food aggregators and other e-commerce partners such as Grab, Lazada, Great Deals, Metromart, and Lalamart.

“Shoppers of all ages are ordering via their phones and computers, out of necessity. They are now purchasing differently, given the increased need in convenience,” said Kichi Roxas-Chua, Digital Shopping Marketing Manager of Coca-Cola Philippines. The Company observed that lockdowns in many areas in the country have triggered a digital buying wave, with the emergence of contactless shopping options including “click-and-collect” or curbside pickup, takeout, and delivery for restaurants, e-grocery shipments, and more.

Along with strengthening the capabilities of www.CokeBeverages.ph, the company has also ramped up collaborations with food aggregators and other e-commerce partners such as Grab, Lazada, Great Deals, Metromart, and Lalamart—maximizing ways to offer products while offering better deals to consumers, as with new packaging options like convenient multipacks and combos.

“Digital commerce is a fast-evolving space, and as a company, we have to be agile and quick to adapt and evolve—to meet new variables affecting the market, and most importantly to cater to our customers,” said Katie Li, Commercial Digital Marketing Manager of Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc. (CCBPI), the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country. She added that Coca-Cola is exploring various business models to further push e-commerce in the business-to-business (B2B) space.

Happiness on Demand

Coca-Cola’s strengthened digitalization includes its expanded home delivery service called Happiness on Demand (HOD), which allows consumers spanning Nueva Ecija to Metro Manila to Batangas to order Coca-Cola products via call or SMS and have it delivered straight to their doorstep.

Happiness on Demand had catered to a good mix of households and office spaces—but, from the initial impositions of community quarantine, the Company saw a massive shift of HOD’s primary market to households. Distribution channels, which had primarily catered to water deliveries, also needed to widen their scope, as more products from the portfolio saw more significant demand in online platforms. Joseph Crisol, Senior Manager of Emerging Channels at CCBPI shares “This market shift necessitated a quick recalibration of our Happiness on Demand business model to service multiple drop-off points, as well as the improvement of the logistics capacity of delivery partners. We had to ensure that we adapted quickly so we could provide a better service model for our partners and customers”.

Part of Coca-Cola’s strengthened digitalization is its expanded home delivery service, Happiness on Demand (HOD). Household consumers, from Nueva Ecija to Metro Manila to Batangas, can order Coca-Cola products via call or SMS and have it delivered straight to their doorstep.

Integral to this new system was building up the ability of partner distributors to adapt not only in the context of a widespread change of market behavior but also concerning the need for public safety measures. This approach also saw Coca-Cola subsidizing personal protective equipment to delivery partners, among other initiatives, as it helped partners recalibrate their processes for the new normal.

Additionally, the beverage brand has been working together with partners to boost their capabilities to adapt to the new normal, expanding product knowledge through understanding current market information and data, and purchase patterns and trends. With this, Coca-Cola’s partner distributors have harnessed the huge potential in the HOD market—and this has helped them further grow their business in an otherwise difficult time

With the Company’s digitization timeline accelerated, Coca-Cola is making sure that more efficiencies will be developed, and business models will be expanded geographically to reach more consumers across the country in the long-term.

For more information, visit www.CokeBeverages.ph. For Happiness on Demand inquiries and orders, please contact +632 8 813-2653 or SMART/PLDT Toll-Free Hotline: 1-1800-1888-2635; GLOBE Toll-Free Hotline: 1-800-888-2635.

50% of Filipinos must be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity vs COVID-19

November 20, 2020 | 7:20 pm

AT least half of the population needs to be vaccinated for the country to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a health official said.

"If we are talking about herd immunity, we need to reach 50% to 60% across the population so it's really important we expand the coverage," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario S. Vergeire said in an interview with ANC on Friday.

Herd immunity is when most of the population becomes immune from an infectious disease, either through vaccination or a previous infection, thus indirectly protecting those without immunization.

A Social Weather Stations survey released late Thursday indicates 66% of Filipinos are keen to get experimental COVID-19 vaccines.

The mobile phone survey, conducted September 17 to 20, shows that of the 66% Filipinos who are "willing to get the COVID-19 vaccine if it is available now” consists of 32% who would “definitely” get it and 34% who “probably would.”

Those unwilling are 31%.

Respondents of the non-commissioned survey were 1,249 adult Filipinos with data gathered through mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing.

The government earlier said it will procure 50 million doses, with priority to be given to frontline workers and indigents.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director General Rolando Enrique D. Domingo said on Friday that the President’s approval of protocols for the emergency use of coronavirus vaccines would mean it will be distributed and administered faster.

Mr. Enriquez, in a virtual briefing Friday, explained that the emergency use authorization (EUA) means vaccines could be approved for use before the projected 2021 second quarter timeline.

"Once we are given the authority to issue the EUA, the FDA will come up with the guidelines, the process," he said. He added that other countries have already issued such approval on certain vaccines.

The Palace on Thursday said President Rodrigo R. Duterte has approved "in principle" the vaccine emergency use and will soon be issuing an executive order, which will cut the approval process of vaccines to 21 days from the usual six months.

The Department of Health (DoH) reported 1,639 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total to 415,067, of which 31,805 or 7.7% are active cases.

The DoH also reported an additional 305 new recoveries, putting the tally at 375,237. Newly-reported deaths were 27 for a total of 8,025. Among the active cases, 84.7% were mild , 81.% asymptomatic, 4.5% critical, 2.4% severe, and 0.21% moderate. — Gillian M. Cortez

DICT seeks P2B emergency fund to fix digital infra damaged by typhoons

November 20, 2020 | 7:17 pm

THE Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has requested for an emergency fund of at least P2 billion to restore the country's digital infrastructure damaged by recent typhoons, a senator said on Friday.

“They have requested an emergency fund of P2 billion but it has not been acted upon yet. Maybe the national government is also waiting for the PDNA (Post-Disaster Needs Assessment) to be submitted,” Senator Panfilo M. Lacson said as he defended the DICT’s proposed budget for 2021 during Friday’s session.

Mr. Lacson said the department will provide the Senate with a copy of the PDNA.

“But as of now, there is no provision to reconstruct whatever damage is caused by the typhoons,” he said, responding to Sen. Franklin M. Drillon who called the situation “unusual” in his interpellation.

Meanwhile, the DICT proposed an increase in the penalties imposed on telecommunications companies that fail to deliver internet speeds at levels advertised.

Mr. Lacson said the DICT is recommending to increase the penalty to P2 million from P200 per day.

The DICT earlier requested an additional budget of P17 billion for its National Broadband Program, and another P3.6 billion for its free Wifi project. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

Gov’t drops required isolation area within aircraft for domestic flights

November 20, 2020 | 7:12 pm

AIRLINES will no longer be required to have an isolation area inside aircraft for domestic flights, the government’s task force against coronavirus said on Friday.

The latest resolution, signed Nov. 14, removed an earlier requirement for carriers to allot a portion for passengers who are suspected to be infected or sick due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases Spokesperson Harry L. Roque, in a statement on Friday, said the “decision is based on the grounds that guidelines were issued based on available information at the time, and that more information is now available on how COVID-19 is transmitted in closed settings.

The latest resolution also directs local government units to relax entry protocols for airline crew such as test-upon-arrival requirements during layovers or positionings “due to emergency situations which include typhoons, volcanic activities, diversions and emergency landings, and other similar unforeseen and time-sensitive evacuations.”

Foreign nationals entering the Philippines for business purposes are now permitted to enter the country based on certain types of visas.

“Foreign nationals with visas issued by the Bureau of Immigration pursuant to Section 9(d) of Commonwealth Act No. 613, as amended; and those with visas issued by the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan, Cagayan Economic Zone Authority and Clark Development Corporation may be allowed entry into the Philippines beginning November 1, 2020,” Mr. Roque said. — Gillian M. Cortez

National task force sends COVID team to Davao City as cases rise

November 20, 2020 | 7:01 pm

THE national task force on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response is sending a team to help manage the rising number of cases in Davao City.

Retired General Melquiades Feliciano, chief implementer for the COVID-19 response operations in the Visayas who handled the outbreaks in the cities of Cebu and Bacolod, is leading the Davao group.

Davao City has also been placed under a stricter quarantine level “effective immediately” until Nov. 30, based on a resolution signed Nov. 19 by the task force, according to Palace Spokesperson Harry L. Roque.

The resolution also directs the establishment of a One Hospital Command Center in the city along with the provision of additional medical supplies.

As of Nov. 19, the city had 1,874 active cases, more than triple the 539 as of Oct. 15. The city has recorded 5,520 COVID-19 cases, with 3,401 recoveries and 245 deaths.

Since the start of November, the city government has reimposed a 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, use of food-and-medicine pass to limit people’s movement, liquor ban, and strict border control. These measures will be in effect until Dec. 31. — Gillian M. Cortez

EU gives P60M aid for Typhoon Ulysses relief operations

November 20, 2020 | 6:53 pm

THE European Union (EU) is giving around P60 million in emergency relief aid to families affected by Typhoon Ulysses.

The funding will go to its humanitarian aid partners providing shelter, food assistance, and access to clean water and healthcare in the affected areas, the European External Action Service (EEAS) in Manila said in a press release on Friday.

Funds will be sourced from the EU’s Acute Large Emergency Response Tool (ALERT), which is used to respond to natural hazards in places where over 100,000 people or over half the population are affected. The response tool usually allocates funds within 24 to 48 hours of the emergency.

“The EU is scaling up its humanitarian assistance in the Philippines in response to the devastating typhoons that have hit the country over the past month,” European Commission Humanitarian Aid Philippine Head Arlynn Aquino said. “The additional contribution will help to get much-needed aid to the most vulnerable people to help them go through this difficult time”.

Typhoon Ulysses, with international name Vamco, was the 21st storm to hit the country this year and brought rainfall between 271 millimetres to 356 millimetres.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte has placed Luzon island under a state of calamity.

Ulysses has killed at least 73 people and injured 24 while 19 have been reported missing, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported on Friday.

The EU had previously set aside around P63 million in assistance funds to aid groups in the Philippines after Typhoon Rolly, with international name Goni and considered as the world’s strongest storm to hit land this year. — Jenina P. Ibañez

Akbayan denounces SC for ‘hands-off’ approach in Manila Bay’s artificial white sand project

November 20, 2020 | 6:45 pm

THE Supreme Court took a “hands-off approach” when it denied Akbayan’s motion to reprimand the Environment department for its controversial “white sand” project along the coast of Manila Bay, the party-list said in a statement on Friday.

“The Supreme Court has taken, quite sadly, a hands-off approach on an issue of transcendental importance. By denying our motion to intervene in the 2008 Manila Bay environmental protection case, it failed to help the public determine the safeness and sustainability of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR) dolomite sand dumping along the Manila Bay,” Akbayan Chair Emeritus Etta P. Rosales said in a statement.

“It lost the opportunity to protect the rights of Filipinos to a balanced and healthful ecology,” she said.

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Akbayan’s motion to “intervene with prayer” to hold the DENR in contempt for installing artificial white sand on a portion of Manila Bay.

“The Court held that it has not yet found any violation of the continuing mandamus amidst the quarterly reports submitted by the concerned agencies and the on-site ocular inspection conducted by the Manila Bay Advisory Committee (MBAC),” the SC said.

It explained that the project was not an “allied or related activity sanctioned by the writ, and this could hardly be objectively measured as a deviation from the government’s mandate.”

It added that the contention lies with the material used to carry the project out — the crushed dolomite.

“The Court held that the instant recourse is a challenge to the wisdom behind the use of the component dolomite, which is a factual issue not ordinarily entertained by the Court,” the high court said.

Akbayan said the high tribunal’s decision was “discouraging.” Public policy think-tank Infrawatch PH convenor Terry L. Ridon told BusinessWorld that the rejection of Akbayan’s petition was “unfortunate, but expected because of the procedural concerns on the petition.”

“This, however, does not preclude a full Writ of Kalikasan petition at a future time. A kalikasan petition will be more exhaustive than the dismissed petition,” Mr. Ridon said in an email message on Friday.

When earlier sought for comment on the artificial white sand project, DENR Secretary Roy A. Cimatu said the agency is “prepared to defend their decision.” — Angelica Y. Yang

Oral arguments on petitions vs anti-terror law set January

November 20, 2020 | 6:37 pm

THE Supreme Court has set January 19 as the start for the oral arguments on several petitions filed against the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.

According to the advisory issued on Friday, petitioners and respondents shall limit their arguments to whether or not the issues raised in the petitions involve an actual and justifiable controversy; whether a temporary restraining order or a status quo ante order should be issued; and whether Republic Act No. 11479 should be declared unconstitutional in its entirety if the court finds that the definition of terrorism as well as the powers of the Anti-Terrorism Council are constitutionally infirm.

The oral arguments will also be limited to whether petitioners have legal standing to sue and whether the petitioners' direct resort to the SC is proper.

The high court earlier scheduled Nov. 26 for a preliminary conference.

A total of 37 petitions have been filed against the law, which took effect July 22. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza