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Singapore expatriates seeking to pay lower rents

SINGAPORE expats are often envied for their generous pay packets but facing the prospect of salary cuts as the coronavirus batters businesses, some are tightening their belts and asking for lower rent.

Clarence Foo, a real estate agent at APAC Realty Ltd. unit ERA, has come across seven such cases over the past month — the highest number of requests he’s received during his seven-year career. Four were successful.

One was an American woman who texted Mr. Foo last week. In her message, she said she had just been informed of a 20% drop in pay effective from May 1 until July 31, after which her employer will reassess the company’s financial health.

The executive, in her 30s, is leasing a one-bedroom apartment at Tanjong Pagar, near Singapore’s financial district, for S$3,400 ($2,400) a month. She was granted a rent reduction of S$250 a month, or around 7%.

“At first glance, it isn’t a lot. But over three months, the duration of her pay cut, it’s a substantial saving,” Mr. Foo said.

Singapore is expected to sink deeper into recession this year as it extends a partial lockdown, now into its fifth week. Wages will take a bigger hit than jobs as businesses try to cut costs in an economy bracing for a sharp contraction, the central bank said last month.

While the government has unveiled a range of support measures, most are aimed at Singapore citizens. More than S$7 billion was paid out to employers in April to co-fund the wages of over 1.9 million local workers, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said earlier this week. Some levy waivers and rebates have also been provided to help firms meet their obligations to foreign employees.

The city-state has one of the world’s most expensive property markets. Residential rents surged to a three-year high last year, with prices boosted by strong overseas demand. Rentals of private residential properties increased by 1.1% in the first quarter, government data show.

In Singapore, the rental market is typically dominated by people from overseas. There’s very high local home ownership and around 80% of Singaporeans reside not in private condominiums but in housing development board flats.

Lester Chen is another real estate agent who is dealing with rent reduction requests from expats. One, living in an apartment in Sentosa Cove, a residential area on an island off Singapore’s south coast, managed to get his rent lowered by 20%.

Some landlords hold out because the types of apartments they own are in short supply or because that rental income goes toward paying their own mortgage.

For those who do acquiesce, they’re often “willing to close one eye because at least they get some income instead of ending up empty handed,” Mr. Chen, from Singapore Realtors, Inc., said.

Not always, though.

Last month, a British man asked for a reduction of 50% on his two-bedroom inner city apartment, which costs S$8,000 a month.

“The landlord was shocked,” Chen said. “There’s no way he’s going to accept such a steep cut.” — Bloomberg

Banks tap BSP rediscount window

BANKS CONTINUED to tap the central bank’s rediscount window in April in a bid to boost liquidity during the lockdown.

Peso rediscount loans totaled P13.842 billion in April, data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Monday showed. This is higher than the P6.858 billion tapped from the loan facility in March.

However, rediscount loans last month were lower than the P21.424 billion seen in April 2019.

From the year thus far, cumulative peso rediscount borrowings hit P20.7 billion, lower than the P73.724 billion seen in January to April 2019.

Banks only started to tap the rediscount facility this year in March, with the last loans before that month taken out in October last year.

The rediscount window allows banks to tap additional money supply by posting their collectibles from clients as collaterals.

Lenders can use the fresh cash — whether in peso, dollar or yen — to disburse more loans for corporate or retail clients and service unexpected withdrawals.

The BSP said the majority or 67.32% of the loans from March to April were utilized to fund other credits. This credit for capital asset expenditures (62.66%) and permanent working capital (13.87%).

Meanwhile, commercial credits made up 23.47% of total rediscounting loans, which were utilized for importation (14.2%) and trading (9.27%) of goods.

The extended lockdown situation in April may have caused lenders to tap the rediscount facility, according to Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. Chief Economist Michael L. Ricafort.

“The peso rediscounting facility may have been tapped more by some banks at the early part of the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) to better service the requirements of both depositing and borrowing clients,” Mr. Ricafort said in an e-mail.

Mr. Ricafort said the central bank’s rediscount facility will continue to be attractive for banks at a time of continued business disruption and economic contraction.

“There is still a chance to see further increase in banks’ availments of the BSP rediscounting facility in the coming months, as one of the means to increase loans to businesses at least to weather the lockdowns and also help spur more investments,” he said.

The country’s economic output contracted by 0.2% in the first quarter, a first since the three percent contraction in the fourth quarter of 1998.

Economic managers now expect flat growth to a drop of up to 1% in gross domestic product this year, from a 6.5-7.5% target before the pandemic. This follows the six percent growth notched last year based on 2018 prices.

MAY RATES
Meanwhile, for this month, peso rediscount loans will have an effective rate of 3.25%, which is the current lending rate set by the BSP, regardless of whether loans mature after 1-90 days, 91-180 days, or 181-360 days.

“The temporary reduction of the term spread on peso rediscounting loans relative to the overnight lending rate to zero shall be effective until May 19, subject to further extension as may be approved by the Monetary Board,” the BSP said.

On the other hand, dollar-denominated loans will have a rate of 2.98813% for those maturing at three months or less; 3.42013% for those maturing within a 91- to 180-day period; and 4.28413% for those with a tenor of 181-360 days.

For yen credit lines, rates start at 2.429% for 1-90 day loans; 2.861% for 91-day to 180-day loans; and 3.725% for 181-day to 360-day loans.

The rate for the Exporters’ Dollar and Yen Rediscount Facility are based on the 90-day London Inter-Bank Offered Rate plus a spread depending on the term of the loan. — L.W.T. Noble

Understanding the value of small things

VIDEO GAME REVIEW
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories
Sony PlayStation 4/Nintendo Switch

To argue that Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories has an interesting backstory would be an understatement. Originally supposed to be offered for the Sony PlayStation 3, it found itself stuck in development hell after the 2011 earthquake in Tōhoku, Japan. Similarities between the natural calamity and its premise all but secured its place in the dustbin of history as abandonware — until, that is, popular demand brought it back to the public eye. The renewed interest spurred chief producer Kazuma Kujo to acquire rights to the title under Granzella, his new company based in Ishikawa. Working with former Irem staff, he finally managed to steer the project to fruition a full nine years after its initial release date.

In Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories, players are caught in the center of a massive earthquake, and must do everything in their power to escape from the city as soon as they can. It sets an extremely simple objective, but the manner in which the objective can be met is anything but: in-game interactions are aplenty, and quests are a requisite to progression. A fair number give off a very Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-type feel, tossing the ball in the players’ court and giving them choice after choice in advancing towards the given quests’ desired outcomes. Success in such quests, and the choices made therein, ultimately determine the fate of the players and the characters they meet en route.

Structurally, Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories sounds all well and good. That said, the quests themselves can get rather bland. They feel generic on occasion, as if Granzella needed padding to fill out the game’s length. Meanwhile, the unique ones are held back by their incongruous tone. Not that they’re terribly written; rather, their structure and predisposition for dry humor clash heavily with the game’s serious bent at the outset. Parenthetically, it isn’t helped by relatively subpar graphics that show its age, with stiff animations and drab backgrounds weighing it down.

For all its seeming frailties, however, Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories winds up being extremely hard to put down. Similar to, say, Shenmue, Sega’s flawed opus, it can be hard to play in the face of its insistence on minute choices. At the same time, it remains strangely compelling in how its designs blend together. Players may find themselves struggling with strict mechanics and far-from-intuitive controls, and still they’ll wind up appreciating the strength of its convictions. Its audio-visual presentation won’t win prizes, especially when negotiated on a PlayStation 4 Pro, but it proves to be a guilty pleasure in any case.

No doubt, the appeal of Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories lies in its capacity to distinguish itself from its predecessors. While part of the Zettai Zetsumei Toshi series, it eschews the bombast and over-the-top inclinations of its siblings. In fact, it goes in the opposite direction. It dares to be different by highlighting the devil in the details. As with the aforementioned Shenmue, it stubbornly insists on being personal; small decisions have lasting consequences. Thus, players are compelled to appreciate its nuances and see the symphony it tries to create from a seemingly unrelated cacophony of events.

By the usual metrics, Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is far from perfect. It’s artistically a generation behind and technically wanting, with frame drops particularly evident on an undocked Nintendo Switch. In the final analysis, however, it possesses something most other programming marvels lack: a beating heart. It calls to the senses in a way few titles do, especially in this day and age of industrial proficiency. In other words, it’s being itself — getting players to stop and smell the roses and, in the process, to understand the value of small things in seeing the bigness of life.

THE GOOD:

• Interesting game design, with seemingly mundane player choices determining story arcs

• Compels player to see the trees instead of the forest

• Nostalgic look and feel

THE BAD:

• Dry humor takes some getting used to

• Mediocre graphics that show their age

• Fairly simple story and quest progression

RATING: 8/10

POSTSCRIPT: Capcom has been on a roll of late, with such notables as Monster Hunter World and Devil May Cry 5 proving to be critical and commercial hits. And with last year’s Resident Evil 2 remake likewise making waves, not a few quarters have justifiably looked to Resident Evil 3’s release with heightened expectations. While technically a remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, the direction the Osaka-based publisher, along with creative partners K2, Redworks, and M-Two, took through its three years in development all but made it a new game. Most notably, crucial elements from its source material were removed, and designs of the characters and settings reimagined, to promote its pronounced bias for action.

In Resident Evil 3, players take control of Jill Valentine, one of the few members of the STARS team who survived the Spencer mansion incident in the Arklay Mountains. Its premise is the same as the original: She’s stalked by a killing machine designed to hunt her down and silence her, and she must use her wits, her training, and what weapons she has at her disposal to stay alive in Raccoon City. In practice, it plays similarly as well: She has access to the same arsenal, and she’s able to traverse the same locations. And for all the attention it pays to action in combat, it thankfully retains the oppressive atmosphere fans of the survival horror franchise have come to consider as standard.

Indeed, zombies still stalk the streets, and the series’ more dangerous creatures — from the skittering Drain Deimos to the notorious Hunters — lie just out of sight. Resident Evil 3 likewise retains the dodge-roll function, Nemesis’ constant interference in Jill’s plans, and even the Carlos segments. At first glance, Capcom has seemingly both made a faithful remake and updated facets for the contemporary crowd. Which does make the whole experience worthwhile. It’s visually stunning, thematically engaging, and technically impressive. And, by all accounts, it ticks off the requisite boxes of a game veterans of, and newcomers to, the genre will enjoy.

That said, players who remember the original may have some qualms about the changes Resident Evil 3 makes. For example, the Carlos portions are much longer in nature and duration. Meanwhile, others in the original — among them the graveyard and the clock tower segments — have been reduced or cut out entirely; in their places are old locations that have been expanded. Another notable change: The Gravedigger boss in the graveyard portion has been excised, and a completely new boss, with a unique set of gimmicks, has been put in its place.

The changes aside, Resident Evil 3 has a few glaring problems, most specifically in regard to its length and replay value. The first run figures to take upwards of seven hours to complete, but successive play-throughs will be shorter. While not a problem in and of itself, it becomes cause for concern given the absence of “The Mercenaries — Operation: Mad Jackal,” the much-lauded mini-game in the original. True, it tries to fill the gap by having two extra difficulty settings in Nightmare and Inferno. Then again, they succeed in little more than ramping up the challenge; they do little in encouraging players to finish the game more than a few times. Which, all things considered, may leave those who enjoy extra modes and extra content wanting for more.

Still, Resident Evil 3 is worth playing through. It may not be as good a remake as Resident Evil 2, but it nonetheless pulls its weight as a worthy update to a highly regarded title.

THE GOOD:

• A grounded and interesting take on Jill Valentine

• Graphically impressive while still playing smoothly

• Able to consistently provide tension and dread even as it ramps up the stakes

• Additional difficulty settings (with two of four initially locked until completion)

THE BAD:

• Missing “The Mercenaries — Operation: Mad Jackal” mode

• Changes sequences from the original, making it feel more like a reimagining than a remake

RATING: 9/10

THE LAST WORD: Wunderling makes no pretensions and openly admits its sources of inspiration, Super Mario Bros. in particular. Nonetheless, it earns significant style points for turning the platforming genre inside out. Instead of crafting a story that has the principal character don hero colors, it shifts the spotlight to a low-level minion in the Vegetable Kingdom entrusted by the sorceress Kohirabi, the main enemy boss, to guard prisoner Princess Pea against the rescue efforts of the Carrot Man. For this purpose, the underling (or, rather, wunderling) is given the special ability to jump, albeit with one problem: there can be no stopping or changing direction, thus requiring advance planning for progression.

As modest as the goals may be, Wunderling works, and how. If anything, it thrives precisely because of its desire to keep controls at a minimum. Players start with the use of only one button, and its level designs are structured accordingly. Soon enough, the unlocking of more moves will require more buttons on rotation. Still, at no time will it necessitate the use of more than one hand. In this regard, the 16-bit pixel art style and accompanying music by Oscar Sidoff Rydelius (also known as Ratvader) of Anthill fame complement its simplicity.

Stages are linear in nature, although completionists will want to explore seemingly unimportant side paths for hidden treasures. Be forewarned, though: Wunderling needs to keep grabbing golden flowers along the way in order to stay alive. Over a hundred levels are on offer all told, but there is no danger of ennui setting in given the game’s escalating difficulty. Death is unavoidable, but the presence of checkpoints and the relatively small size of the levels prevents frustration from setting in.

On the whole, Wunderling is tailor-made for the Nintendo Switch. It’s a great title on the go, a well-thought-out production boasting of an original story (by Alex Faciane, co-creator of the Let’s Play show Super Beard Bros.) long on humor and gameplay with the capacity to be appreciated in bits and pieces. At $14.99, it’s a decided steal, a gem of an indie guaranteed to engross.

THE GOOD:

• Original story

• Progressively challenging but fair

• No learning curve

• 16-bit audio-visual feast

THE BAD:

• May be an acquired taste

• Keys required to unlock gates can be missed, thus requiring restarts

• Backgrounds can be basic

RATING: 8/10

$200 USD cash coupons offered by HUAWEI CLOUD

HUAWEI CLOUD (International) has an interesting treat for Huawei users out there as it currently offers $200 USD cash coupons that they can use for any order amount.

Every day from 9 a.m. Beijing time (GMT +8:00), HUAWEI CLOUD offers a certain number of such coupons on a first-come, first-served basis.

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Upon entering the site, click ‘Get Now’ to claim the cash coupon. If you click ‘Get Now’ as a visitor, you will be required to sign in first.

The cash coupon can be used for purchasing pay-per-use resources or yearly/monthly packages. Buyers can use it for a range of our popular products, including HUAWEI CLOUD Server, EIP, EVS, and databases.

Users must first complete their account configuration as required by HUAWEI CLOUD and bind a credit card to their account in order to use the cash coupon.

For pay-per-use resources, the cash coupon amount will be automatically deducted from the user’s bill.

Users must set their Billing Mode for Pay-per-use. Upon confirming the order, click Next. If messages similar to the following displays afterwards, the purchase has succeeded.

Pay-per-use resources charge every hour and preferentially use this cash coupon to pay the bill.

For a yearly or monthly resource package, on the other hand, users should select the cash coupon on the payment page. Configure the resources desired to purchase, confirm the order, and go to the payment page. Then, after selecting the cash coupon, click Pay.

If no cash coupons are selected, users will have to pay the full price.

Within the validity period, the cash coupon can be used for multiple orders, as long as its amount is not used up.

HUAWEI CLOUD users can also check their cash coupon on the Coupons and Discounts page of their billing center.

The cash coupon is only available for accounts registered within the Asia Pacific region. For more information about applicable regions, see the terms and guidelines on the cash coupon page.

 

For inquiries or any unexpected issues about the cash coupon, contact HUAWEI CLOUD’s customer service at [+852-800-931-122].

More solutions to be featured on Huawei’s webinars

While coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is disrupting our world, it nonetheless drives the technology sector to work on solutions that can help communities and organizations as they go through this crisis. Such innovations have been explored by Huawei in its current series of webinars titled HUAWEI CLOUD LIVE.

Last April, HUAWEI CLOUD LIVE featured artificial intelligence-assisted screening solutions for medical imaging, drug screening, and nucleic acid testing, which are aptly fit in the continuing fight against COVID-19.

This May, the HUAWEI CLOUD LIVE webinar series will highlight more interesting and promising solutions.

Virus detection and monitoring powered by 5G, cloud computing

On May 8 at 3 to 4 p.m. (Manila time), HUAWEI CLOUD LIVE will showcase the innovations of GrandOmics Biosciences that aim to aid in combatting COVID-19. The Beijing-based sequencing company has leveraged portable third-generation genetic sequencing technology to build a virus detection and monitoring system based on whole genome sequencing. Such technologies are seen to greatly provide scientific support for decision-making in fighting against the pandemic.

Wu Xin, chief technology officer of GrandOmics Biosciences, will expound on this topic.

Secure work-from-home solutions

On May 14 at 3 to 4 p.m. (Manila time), keeping remote work safe through Sage 300 business management solutions, will be the focus of the next webinar.

The panel for this webinar include Charles Cheng, director of product development at Sage Asia, a leading supplier of accounting and business management software to small- and medium-sized businesses; Nancy Yan Juan, vice president of partner alliance department (Asia Pacific) at Huawei; and Raja Gunasekaran, technical manager at NETMARKS Singapore, a network infrastructure services provider in Singapore and throughout Asia.

Making cloud work for enterprises

Ensuring efficient telecommuting for enterprises through HUAWEI CLOUD Database will be discussed on May 21 at 3 to 4 p.m. (Manila time). HUAWEI CLOUD Database collaborates with Huawei’s one-stop teamwork platform, WeLink, to ensure enterprise data on the cloud is stable and reliable, and so help make telecommuting easy and efficient.

The speaker for this webinar is Michael Ma, HUAWEI CLOUD’s database chief solution architect.

 

Learn more about HUAWEI CLOUD LIVE and register in advance by visiting this link (https://bit.ly/2Lf6NUA)

In addition to watching HUAWEI CLOUD LIVE, each newly registered user can also get a free HUAWEI CLOUD service coupon of US$200 by clicking this link (https://bit.ly/2WjVMYo)

How PSEi member stocks performed — May 11, 2020

Here’s a quick glance at how PSEi stocks fared on Monday, May 11, 2020.

Stocks up on hopes of relaxed lockdown measures

LOCAL SHARES closed higher on Monday as investors expect positive news from the government regarding the easing of lockdown measures at the end of this week.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) picked up 45.99 points or 0.81% to end at 5,667.93. The broader all shares index also grew 22.44 points or 0.65% to 3,426.24.

“Local shares traded higher as investors optimistically awaited the decision of Malacañang regarding the possible lifting or even easing of the lockdown after May 15,” Regina Capital Development Corp. Head of Sales Luis A. Limlingan said in a mobile message.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte was expected to make an announcement last night on whether they will relax or extend the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region. Metro Manila mayors were divided on whether to recommend an extension or lifting of the ECQ as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) still lingers.

Despite this, investors were “hopeful that more economic restrictions will be eased especially in our top economically productive regions,” Philstocks Financial, Inc. Senior Research Analyst Japhet Louis O. Tantiangco said via text.

“The easing of restrictions would help mitigate the economic losses we are incurring this second quarter which are already expected to be deeper than the first quarter,” he added.

The market opened yesterday with some selling, which pulled the PSEi to a low of 5,627.19. It eventually rallied and hit a high of 5,681.68 before closing at 5,667.93.

Value turnover was lower at P4.54 billion from P5.86 billion in the previous session. Some 480.05 million issues switched hands.

Most sectoral indices ended with gains, led by industrials, which climbed 178.77 points or 2.44% to 7,505.56. AAA Southeast Equities, Inc. Research Head Christopher John Mangun said this can be attributed to shares in Universal Robina Corp., Jollibee Foods Corp. and Manila Electric Co., which increased 4.88%, 3.31% and 1.35%, respectively.

Mining and oil rose 67.67 points or 1.49% to 4,588.52; financials added 11.98 points or 1.04% to 1,160.06; holding firms advanced 46.68 points or 0.84% to 5,578.95; and property climbed 2.78 points or 0.09% to 2,937.75.

The sole decliner was the services index, which shed 6.30 points or 0.47% to 1,316.38.

Advancers outnumbered decliners, 90 against 80, while 55 names ended unchanged.

Net foreign outflows expanded to P871.52 million yesterday from P771.19 million in the last session.

“Retail investors were active (yesterday) with increased volatility in several second-liners and speculative issues. Confirmation of the lifting of the ECQ will send the PSEi higher and perhaps allow it to test its resistance before the end of the week,” Mr. Mangun said. — Denise A. Valdez

COVID-19 wreaks havoc on a number of industries

In order to prevent the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 from spreading uncontrollably all over the land, the country’s health authorities recommended the imposition of social or physical distancing. To ensure the strict observance of the physical distancing protocol, the national government, on the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), ordered the closure of certain establishments while the quarantine was in force.

The government directive virtually shut down the tourism industry, which consists of several segments: Accommodation or Lodging, Restaurants and Bars, Land Transportation or Tours, and Recreation Facilities or Resorts. All segments are heavy in personal contact interaction or face-to-face interaction between provider of service and customer. While the closure of these amenities is only for the duration of the enhanced community quarantine, many of them would eventually close down permanently due to the sharp decline in patronage as the IATF strongly recommends the continued observance of physical distancing even after the lifting of the lockdown.

Even without any directive from the IATF, the fear of contracting COVID-19 from a service provider who might be an asymptomatic carrier will deter people from availing themselves of the pleasures of tourist destinations. That would be unfortunate as the country was counting on the tourism industry to serve as the catalyst of the country’s economy, for which reason both the public and private sectors had invested heavily in the development of the infrastructure required by the booming industry.

The outbreak of COVID-19 caused the suspension of the frenzied building of roads, bridges, airports, seaports, hotels, and recreational facilities. The expected prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 does not portend the resumption of frenzied building of tourism-related infrastructure, maybe not even a soft resumption of it.

Even restaurants that do not cater to tourists will experience considerable loss of business as well. Fear of contracting COVID-19 not only from the establishment’s personnel but from other customers will deter people from eating in those places. Severely affected would be the fast-food type food outlets where customers can share tables or are often back-to-back as tables are set close to each other to accommodate more customers.

Food courts in malls and cafeterias in office buildings will have fewer dine-in or table-served customers and will have to downsize their operations. Convenience stores that serve ready-to-eat meals will most probably discontinue that part of their business due to much reduced patronage.

Many of these food outlets will be converted into take-out counters or take-off points for delivery service — that is if they do not decide to cease operations.

The decline of the restaurant industry will have a domino effect on industries with close links to the industry. Suppliers of raw materials and consumables (table napkins, food bags, etc.), labor contractors, security agencies, other service providers (maintenance, garbage disposal, laundry, etc.) will lose considerable business.

Shoppers follow social distancing guidelines as they line up outside 168 supermarket in Divisoria to buy essentials for their families on April 2. — PHILIPPINE STAR/EDD GUMBAN

The physical distancing protocol will have a great impact on industries that rely heavily on face-to-face interaction. Among these are personal care services such as beauty salons, reducing clinics, fitness centers, and massage parlors. For fear of being infected by the service provider, instructor, or attendant, many regular clients will opt for self-service.

The avoidance of physical contact with other people will also have an impact on establishments that normally draw a large number of customers like department stores, supermarkets, and school/office supplies stores. They will no longer draw window shoppers and consequently lose the impulse buyers among them.

As I had written in my April 14 column, movie houses, live-show theaters, and concert halls will suffer a sharp fall in ticket sales as people would not want to be seated less than six feet away from another person for fear of being infected with SARS-CoV-2 by them. Likewise, sports arenas will draw much fewer spectators even if men’s basketball, whether pro or college, or women’s volleyball, also whether pro or college, is the billed event.

I wonder how the premier hospitals in Metro Manila and prominent physicians will observe the physical distancing rule in the hospitals’ patient waiting halls or in the physician’s office. Physicians have their consulting hours posted on their door or shown in their calling card and prescription pad. But they usually come one hour later than the supposed start of their consulting time. This is deliberate so that their patients fill up the waiting areas before they (the physicians) come. When they have arrived, their secretary calls in the patient one after the other. There is no time gap between patient consultations. A gap of 10 to 15 minutes could mean the loss of a consultation fee worth P1,000.

Public transportation was already chaotic before the imposition of physical distancing rules. The new normal in public transportation may paralyze the entire system. With fewer passengers allowed, and an increase in fare totally unacceptable to the riding public, jeepney and bus operators will incur tremendous losses, forcing many of them to cease operations. That would throw out into the streets hundreds of commuters, which in turn would disrupt commerce. Neither the Metro Manila Development Authority nor the national government is financially and administratively capable of taking over the metropolitan transport system. Both failed miserably in rehabilitating the light railway system. The disruption of commerce in the National Capital Region would approximate the impact on the economy of the imposition of the enhanced community quarantine in Metro Manila.

I am not hopeful at all that the Duterte Administration will be able to extricate the country from the economic mess it has placed the country in, especially with the only independent-minded economist, National Economic Development Authority Director-General Ernesto Pernia (University of California, Berkeley PhD) now gone from the Duterte Cabinet.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno, is also a trained economist, with an MA from Johns Hopkins and a PhD from Syracuse. But his many stints in government during the presidencies of Cory Aquino, Joseph Estrada, and Rodrigo Duterte have turned him into a wily politician. Remember his unforgettable statement in 2017 as Budget Secretary, “The budget is a political tool to reward administration allies and punish political enemies. If you’re with us, then you get something. If you’re not with us, then you don’t get something.” When he was writing a column in this paper, he repeatedly wrote that the use of the budget by President Benigno Aquino III as a political tool had a deleterious effect on the economy.

 

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

Anatomy of a lockdown

When the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) was first put in place, the most nagging question in everybody’s mind was “up to when will the ECQ be?” Or, to be more realistic about it, “when do we start relaxing the ECQ?”

The answer to that question would have been easier to arrive at had we known from the start the ECQ’s objective. But because this was not clearly spelled out, we deduced that since other countries are doing the same to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), and that the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan City, had successfully contained the virus by way of a lockdown, then the ECQ is the way to go.

It might be worthwhile recalling that during the time COVID-19 was rampaging all over Wuhan City and Hubei province, the World Health Organization (WHO) never suggested to China to do a lockdown; it recommended instead social distancing, proper hygiene, and adequate testing. The stringent lockdown was the sole decision of the Chinese government. So, in a way, it was a bold experiment that succeeded. Other countries or cities like South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong opted for a different approach but they too managed to contain COVID-19. Their mode of control is by way of massive testing, contact tracing, isolation of suspected carriers, and immediate medical intervention.

Since we did not prepare early enough to follow the South Korean model, we have no choice but to pursue the Chinese model. The consequence of adapting the Chinese model is that, unlike the South Korean model, our economy will suffer a big hit from the ECQ.

Why was China successful with its lockdown?

For one, it has an authoritarian government. It can order the citizenry to follow without question. It can mobilize the army to make sure everybody follows the government directives. It can command army personnel to deliver the food and other necessities directly to the people in their homes.

For another, it didn’t have to contend with millions of informal settlers surrounding Wuhan. It also helped that its economy is the second largest in the world; it can afford to provide the supply requirements of the entire province of about 60 million inhabitants effortlessly.

It is worth mentioning, too, that Hubei province does not belong to the top five richest provinces in China, unlike Guangdong and Jiangsu. If it were such, would China have done the same severe lockdown and risk choking the whole economy as we are doing in Metro Manila and other top cities of the country?

After the authorities enforced the ECQ, health experts insisted that we must first flatten the curve before we can lift the restrictions. This means ensuring the number of persons being infected, and those consequently succumbing to COVID-19, does not spike. Otherwise, it will put too much pressure on our health workers and could lead to the total collapse of our health system.

That assertion seems logical. But when the ECQ’s original deadline was about to expire, we still had not instituted enough testing to be confident about where the curve was or where it would be in the weeks to come. Why this was the case was a deep mystery; and since we don’t know where the curve was, our decision on whether to proceed or to terminate the ECQ was based on pure guesswork.

Some experts opined that the decision to extend or to lift the ECQ was a difficult call. If you extend, the economy suffers, affecting not just the livelihood of our citizenry but the very survival of the marginalized sector of society. To lift the ECQ prematurely, on the other hand, means more deaths from infection.

In the final analysis, however, choosing between the two options would have been easier if only we did two things first: one, if we took stock of our resources or the amount of funds we have plus the amount of funds we can borrow without imperiling the economy; and two, we computed the amount needed to feed people who don’t have the money to buy food, the amount necessary to strengthen our health and medical infrastructure to cope with any rise in the number of patients, and the amount required to revive the economy later.

If, for example, given our resources and expected expenditures, we can only tolerate the ECQ for two months, then that ought to be our limit. Even if the curve has not yet flattened, we don’t have the luxury of prolonging the ECQ because doing so would either starve our people or weaken our health and medical systems or sign the economy’s death warrant.

How much would it cost to feed half of our population of 110 million (roughly the number of Filipinos who will need food assistance)?

At an average cost of P200 a day, it will amount to a staggering P330 billion a month, and that’s for food alone. It doesn’t consider yet the logistical requisites or the other basic requirements of the poor, such as water, electricity, medicine, etc. No wonder, many of our people complained that they have not received any assistance from the government. The amount approved by Congress for the sustenance of the needy populace is simply not enough.

As far as the funds to be allotted for our health and medical infrastructures as well as for the economic stimulus are concerned, initial reports from our legislators and the NEDA suggest it will run into the hundreds of billion pesos.

The key variable expense in combating COVID-19 is food assistance. Limiting the duration of the ECQ by just a week can save P82 billion that can then be redirected to the health component. The huge savings can fund the hiring of more health workers, increasing their salaries (the 25% increase given so far is negligible given the risks they are taking — It should be doubled, at least) and subsidizing or completely covering the hospital expenses of COVID-19 patients needing confinement (even the middle-class cringe at this huge unbudgeted expense).

While we are on the topic of government resources, we must consider likewise the grim fact that while expenses will continue piling up, revenues will nosedive. Even if we immediately open the economy, income will likely come in trickles. The hospitality business (hotels, restaurants, airlines, etc.), for example, will take months, if not years, to pick up. Remittances, especially from OFWs, will dry up. Many MSMEs will not be able to reopen for business. Even the country’s top 1,000 corporations will not be immune to the economic downturn. The longer the ECQ, the longer it will take for the economy to gain traction and get back its footing.

In combating COVID-19, our twin goals should be to mitigate the spread of the virus without slaughtering the economy.

There is one serious apprehension with adapting the strategy of “flattening the curve” to address COVID-19.

What if we do flatten the curve but we get hit by a second wave or a third wave of infection? Do we resort to the ECQ again and feed the poor using government funds? Where are we going to get the funds for this kind of protracted warfare?

The worst thing that could happen to us is to blindly use ECQ to address COVID-19 and wait for the curve to flatten only to realize that the virus is still there, and we don’t have enough resources left to feed our people or to re-energize an economy that has gone moribund.

To put ourselves in such a helpless situation would be a terrible tragedy!

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

 

Edgardo C. Amistad is the Chair of the MAP AgriBusiness Committee and the former President of the UCPB-CIIF Finance and Development Corporation.

map@map.org.ph

edgardo.amistad@yahoo.com

http://map.org.ph

Governance of fear

“All models are wrong, but some are useful,” declared the statistician George Box.

Forty-nine days under quarantine, and authorities remain in a quandary on the best way to address the myriad of issues created by the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019): how do we contain the spread of the virus? Is social/ physical distancing producing the intended effect of “flattening the curve”? What is the best way to help the most vulnerable groups during the lockdown? Can the health system manage the influx of patients? How do we balance the need of the economy and the need to continue with the social-physical distancing? Will there be a second wave of infection after we lift the lockdown? There are no guaranteed answers to these questions. At best, what we have are projections based on mathematical models. The problem, however, is that if data is insufficient and/or inaccurate, mathematical models will be unable to churn out useful guesstimates.

What is clear during this entire period of quarantine is that everyone is afraid. We are all fearful of a threat that is unseen and undefeated. In the absence of a vaccine, everyone is vulnerable to getting infected. Thus, the biggest challenge to people in authority is, how do you run a state under threat of pandemic. How do you manage the affairs of the country if the threat is unseen, and a solution is still not available? In a state of conflict or war, the enemy is identified, and strategies can be devised to defeat the opposing force and protect the population. The current situation, however, is far more challenging since the carriers of the threat are the very same people that the state is supposed to protect.

When an entire population is afraid, those in authority are expected to manage fear — they are expected to lead and appease people’s anxiousness, and prevent fear from escalating into an “artificially heightened apprehension” (Robert Higgs, 2005) and spiral into chaos.

Regulatory systems are put in place. We’ve seen this early on when the government imposed the community quarantine, closed the airports, suspended commercial operations, suspended work, and regulated the mobility of people through the social/physical distancing. The goal is to stop the spread of the virus and give the health care system breathing space by spacing the number of affected persons over time. While the goal is noble, the regulations have consequences.

Intentionally or not, the government has reinforced and reproduced fear. By mobilizing the police and the military to manage the regulatory measures, the government has reframed the pandemic from being a health catastrophe to become an “enemy-centered problem” that needs to be defeated. The government has “securitized” the problem. Binaries are created — between the infected and the not-infected people; between government forces and the population; between the “ECQ” (enhanced community quarantine) areas and the “GCQ” (general community quarantine) areas; between those who follow the dictates of the government and those who criticize government actions. The discursive space where collective assessment and action is shrinking by the day. Submission to government imposition is now being equated with being nationalistic and criticizing government is being labelled as being unpatriotic.

The enemy-centered thinking is reflected in the terminology used: “persons under monitoring (PUM),” “persons under investigation (PUI),” “suspect case,” “probable case” are terms reminiscent of police investigations. The enemy-centered thinking is also reflected on how government responds to the problem — the checkpoints, quarantine and lockdowns, the very stringent interpretation of some police and Barangay officials regarding the use of face masks, and recently, the (narrow) interpretation of some officials that individual rights are trumped by collective welfare. The government is falling into the trap of resorting more on punitive action due to its fear of the uncertain. Intentionally or not, fear is being leveraged by those in authority. The government has emphasized the vulnerability of people instead of capitalizing on the collective capacity of citizens to address the problem. The government presents itself as the protector against the invisible enemy instead of enabling citizens and communities to address the problem.

But the basic motives of the leaders and the governed are different. If the government puts a premium on regulation and obedience, communities put a premium on their day-to-day existence. While the term “herd immunity” is often mentioned as a health terminology, people cannot be likened to a “herd” politically. No matter how much the government imposes rules, hungry people will find ways to move around if not totally discard the rules.

In other words, there is also a “peak” or a breaking point of how much people can tolerate and follow the strict regulation imposed by the state. Fear of the uncertain (virus) will be replaced by fear of hunger when supplies begin to dry up. When hunger growls stronger than the fear of COVID-19 virus, such a situation can begin to turn ugly. And we are already seeing the beginning of such situations: as of April 21, the PNP has reported 136,517 ECQ violators (GMA News).

When an ECQ “violation” is interpreted differently by different localities, the possibility of abuse increases. So our already overcrowded jails will be over-burdened further with ECQ violators.

What then? Echoing what has been said before by colleagues, the government must present a clear plan to get us out of this situation. It must harness the collective capacity of its citizens rather than addressing the problem alone. One thing we have also realized in the current situation is that while people are afraid, there is also a well-spring of courage in each one that moves people to help, sometimes even at the risk of one’s safety. Rather than governing people’s fear, the government must manage fear and transform it into a positive force.

A clear and sound plan on health, economy, and security based on inputs, data, and even mathematical models must be formulated. And it must be done now.

 

Jennifer Santiago Oreta is the Director of the Ateneo Initiative on South East Asian Studies, and an Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Science of the Ateneo de Manila University. She is also the Executive Director of the civil society organization Human Security Advocates.

An ode to the humble balcony

By Bernardo Zacka

MY TODDLER and I have a new favorite activity: craning our necks to catch a glimpse of the neighbors. Since we have been instructed to stay at home in our apartment in a triple-decker in Somerville, Mass., we have gotten quite good at it.

If we place ourselves at the bottom left corner of the living room window around 6 p.m., and press our cheeks hard against the glass, we might just catch them staring blankly at the empty street. The other day, our eyes met across the driveway, yet there was none of the usual awkwardness — being stared at felt more like a relief than an invasion. Before the pandemic, I had never spoken to them, but right now even these stolen glances feel like a precious form of contact.

When I first saw the videos coming from Italy under lockdown, with people quarantined in their apartments connecting through music, my first reaction was one of awe. My second was one of longing for the architectural element that made these gatherings possible: the balcony.

By suspending ordinary social life, the pandemic is teaching us to value what we normally take for granted. For those like me who grew up around the Mediterranean, the balcony is a fact of life — one so woven into the fabric of our cities as to be practically invisible. How I wish I had one now.

As a child growing up in Beirut, it was on the balcony that we celebrated birthdays, that I read my first novels, and that I watched my parents play endless games of backgammon. As an adult returning home for the summer, that is where my feet carry me to sip a coffee, crack open a beer, or smoke a narghile — always in the company of others in surrounding buildings who appear to be doing the same. Even now, with the city brought to a standstill by COVID-19 and a suffocating financial crisis, Beirutis are turning to their balconies for momentary respite and gestures of solidarity.

The genius of the balcony is to assemble people who live within proximity, but who are otherwise strangers, around a common world of events, experiences and issues. The balcony is fulfilling this role to great acclaim today, but that is what it does, silently, in ordinary times.

A balcony is a strip of private property suspended over public space. On a balcony, one is outside, yet at home; exposed, yet secluded. This ambivalence manifests in Beirut in the use of a distinctive sartorial code. The balcony is the domain of the nightgown and the undershirt: items too revealing for the street, yet modest enough to be worn at a distance.

As an intermediary space, the balcony supports a distinctive type of reserved sociability. Its contiguity with the dwelling facilitates access to city life just as easily as it enables withdrawal from it. In my district of Beirut, where most buildings are five or six stories high, the balcony is close enough to the street to greet someone down below, but just too far to hold a prolonged conversation; close enough to witness a dispute, far enough not to have to get personally involved. It offers company without the demands of intimacy.

In the late 1950s, the Dutch architect Aldo Van Eyck used the term “threshold” to designate physical spaces — such as porches, stoops, and balconies — that connect various spatial and psychological registers within the city. Van Eyck thought of such spaces as forming an in-between realm, mediating the encounter between distinct environments, sharing characteristics with each, without dissolving into either.

Van Eyck saw thresholds not just as sites of passage, but as places of dwelling. Such spaces are appealing, he thought, because they capture something fundamental about our inclinations. When confronted with a choice between two options like individual/collective, open/closed, order/chaos, our reaction is often one of ambivalence: we want to linger at the boundary, sampling a bit of both. In this in-between realm, we feel at home and are inclined to stop and loiter. Architecture should recognize this fact, Van Eyck said and “frame our desire to tarry, make places where we can do so.” The balcony is one realization of this vision.

Like theatrical stages, balconies lie dormant until brought to life by people. Consider this: most city dwellers live in apartments they did not design, embedded in facades they cannot alter. In Beirut, balconies are the only spaces in public view that residents can particularize and make theirs. Furniture is displayed; a birdcage is suspended; plants are meticulously arranged and watered — and everything is kept clean, in a Sisyphean battle against the dust. Balconies offer a rare opportunity to leave a personal trace in an otherwise anonymous urban fabric.

In the vicinity of balconies, one is always performing. Ordinary vices are laid bare just as ordinary virtues. Alongside the polite gestures of recognition and the loose sense of community, balconies also invite voyeurism and gossip. Family disputes, love affairs, losses in temper become a matter of common interest. This can be unnerving, but it forces us to come to terms with those who live around us.

Around the Mediterranean balconies are everywhere, yet it would be a mistake to take them for granted. In Beirut, two factors were critical to their popularity: a demand for external space to take advantage of the climate and a favorable construction law that incentivized their creation.

Over the past two decades, however, the growing popularity of air-conditioning units has enabled Beirutis to control the climate inside their apartments all year long. The increasing pressure on existing real estate has also prompted the Lebanese Parliament to amend the construction law in 2004, permitting the enclosure of balconies with transparent curtain walls. This has affected new development, with balconies now frequently conceived and marketed as inward-looking spaces, functioning as extensions of the living room.

Politicians justified the measure by claiming that they were enacting what their constituents wanted — more internal space, climate control, less exposure to noise and pollution. These are indeed salient concerns in Beirut.

Yet the danger in thinking of balconies as private amenities is that it obscures their standing as a public good. As city dwellers, we all benefit from the social life they foster even though we may individually prefer to enclose our own. It is for this reason that public regulation might be called for: not to prevent each of us from getting what we want, but to help avert a collective outcome resulting from such wants — a thinning of the social fabric of the city — that we might, collectively, come to regret.

In the throes of a pandemic, this message may land on sympathetic ears. The videos from Italy are still with us, and who today wouldn’t want the reserved sociability that balconies foster? The challenge will be to keep the sentiment alive once we return to a new normal. The first few weeks after COVID-19 may be all hugs and kisses. But reserved sociability is not a second best, and we should continue to look kindly at the architecture that makes it possible even after the pandemic leaves us.

 

THE NEW YORK TIMES

 

Bernardo Zacka is an assistant professor of political science at M.I.T., the author of When the State Meets the Street and the co-editor of a recent collection of essays, Political Theory and Architecture.

The phony war on the coronavirus

By Pankaj Mishra

GOVERNMENTS around the world say they’re engaged in a war against the coronavirus. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the legend of the Mahabharata, fought over 18 days, as he declared, with little warning, a devastating national lockdown.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who always seems to be mentally screening a film of Winston Churchill in World War II, said that “we must act like any wartime government.”

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who has long deployed bellicose language, most notoriously in his violent “war on drugs,” went further, advising the military and police that if quarantine violators “become unruly and they fight you and your lives are endangered, shoot them dead!”

This kill-or-die idiom is more than casual rhetorical overkill. Many governments are symbolically but very deliberately calling, in this time of fear and uncertainty, for general conscription along military lines.

This is so they can, while pointing to an insidious foreign enemy, aim their firepower against some of the most valuable institutions of domestic public life. They have been very successful so far. Last week, Duterte’s government shut down ABS-CBN television and radio, his country’s largest broadcasting service.

Things are not much better in countries with sturdier democratic institutions. Johnson’s Conservative government accused the British Broadcasting Corporation of bias after its flagship investigative program, Panorama, exposed shortages of personal protective equipment among health care workers.

The public broadcaster’s critique of the government was stinging in part because Johnson enjoys a high degree of support among Britain’s privately owned, overwhelmingly pro-Tory press. Nor does Modi, assured of craven public broadcasters, expect much criticism from the Indian media, which has been described, only semi-humorously, as veritably North Korean in its devotion to the supreme leader.

Modi held a virtual meeting with media editors and owners just before imposing his lockdown. According to his website, the attendees committed to “work on the suggestions of the prime minister to publish inspiring and positive stories” about COVID-19.

In addition to economic and military mobilization, wartime measures typically encourage a high degree of political, social and intellectual conformity. The general idea is that, in the face of an existential challenge from a vicious enemy, criticism of the government ought to cease.

The media tends to become more patriotic, as do former political partisans. Such was the case in the United States during the early stages of its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, when most journalists and even Democratic politicians rallied around the Republican George W. Bush administration.

The trouble is that the “war” against COVID-19 is actually not a war at all. And no one should feel obliged to sign up for it.

The loss of, and separation from, loved ones, and the fear and anxiety that is devastating many lives is not an opportunity to fantasize about heroism in battle. The pandemic is, primarily, a global public health emergency; it is made potentially lethal as much by long neglected and underfunded social welfare systems as by a highly contagious virus.

A plain description like this is not as stirring as a call to arms — and doesn’t justify the more extreme actions governments have taken against critics during the crisis. It does, however, open up a line of inquiry that journalists ought to pursue, now as well as in the future.

According to the Indian government’s own statistics, its public spending on health before the pandemic measured just 1.17% of GDP, lower than Nepal and nowhere near comparable to South Korea’s 8.1%. Duterte no doubt wants his citizens to forget that as late as March 11, he told an audience: “I’ve been told, ‘You folks are too scared of this coronavirus epidemic’ and ‘Fools, don’t believe it.’”

Johnson, whose Conservative party presided over harsh cuts to health services, boasted, on the same day in early March that the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies warned against shaking hands, “I shook hands with everybody, you will be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands.”

Awakening late to the pandemic, authoritarian or authoritarian-minded leaders have turned it into an opportunity both to shore up their power and to conceal their stunning ineptitude. To fail to see through their manufactured fog of war, as many in the media are doing, can only further endanger the long-term moral and political health of their societies.

 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

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