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SM Investments gets corporate regulator’s nod on P30-billion bond program

SM Investments Corp. (SMIC) has received the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the shelf registration of a P30-billion bond program.

In a disclosure to the exchange on Thursday, the conglomerate said it has recently received a pre-effective clearance letter from the SEC for its proposed debt securities program.

The SEC also issued a statement, saying SMIC’s registration was approved by the commission en banc in a Sept. 15 meeting.

The company plans to initially offer up to P10 billion fixed-rate bonds, from which P5 billion is an oversubscription option. The offer is estimated to generate P9.89 billion in net proceeds, which SMIC will use to refinance existing loans.

This first tranche will comprise 3.5-year bonds due in 2024, which will be issued in minimum denominations of P20,000, and in multiples of P10,000 thereafter. They will be listed on Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp.

SMIC has tapped BDO Capital & Investment Corp., China Bank Capital, BPI Capital Corp., First Metro Investment Corp., and SB Capital as joint lead underwriters for the initial tranche. 

The remaining securities from the P30-billion bond program may be issued in tranches within a three-year period.

“Further details on the bonds will promptly be disclosed to the public as it becomes available,” SMIC said.

The company posted a 69% earnings drop to P7.09 billion in the first semester. Its revenues fell 21% to P185.53 billion, as the coronavirus pandemic weighed on its malls and banking businesses.

Shares in SMIC at the stock exchange slid P5 or 0.55% to P905 each on Thursday. — Denise A. Valdez

Pepsi starts tender offer to delist from PSE

PEPSI-COLA Products Philippines, Inc. (Pepsi-Cola Philippines) has started the tender offer of some 77.86 million common shares by Lotte Chilsung Beverage Co. Ltd.

In a Sept. 15 letter to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE), Pepsi-Cola Philippines has formalized its application to delist its shares from the local exchange. The company first announced the decision on Sept. 10.

Lotte Chilsung, which bought 1.13 billion shares in the company earlier this year, is doing the tender offer of shares from Sept. 16 to Oct. 13. The shares are priced at P1.95 each.

To recall, Lotte Chilsung bought 1.13 billion shares or a 30.7% stake in Pepsi-Cola Philippines in June. The P2.21-billion transaction resulted in the deflating of the company’s public float to 2.1%.

The PSE’s minimum public ownership for listed firms is 10%. Breaking this threshold is a ground for delisting.

“In relation to the voluntary delisting and pursuant to the rules of the PSE on voluntary delisting, Lotte Chilsung is undertaking a mandatory tender offer to acquire the 77,858,236 (Pepsi-Cola Philippines) common shares held collectively by all common shareholders of the company,” it said.

The shares to be bought by Lotte Chilsung exclude those currently held by Lotte Corp. and Quaker Global Investments B.V.

In a Sept. 10 disclosure to the exchange, Pepsi-Cola Philippines said its board of directors decided to delist as it will not be able to comply with the minimum public ownership requirement given the “prevailing market conditions.”

Despite its delisting, Pepsi-Cola Philippines will remain the exclusive Philippine bottler of PepsiCo’s beverage brands Pepsi, Mountain Dew, 7-Up, Mirinda, Mug, Gatorade, Tropicana, Sting, and Aquafina.

Shares in Pepsi-Cola Philippines stopped trading on June 17. It closed at P1.70 apiece at the time.

The company posted a P162.39-million attributable net loss in 2019, a turnaround of its P71.1-million attributable net income the year prior, as its revenues dropped 7% to P7.7 billion. — Denise A. Valdez

Sumitomo to build wiring harness factory in Pangasinan

SUMITOMO Wiring Systems, Ltd. has broken ground for a new wiring factory in Binalonan, Pangasinan that is expected to create around 10,000 jobs.

A subsidiary of Japan-based Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., the company’s factory for wiring harnesses will be in Northluzon Aero Industrial Park (NAIP). Wiring harnesses are used in automotive manufacturing.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said that the project is part of 26 business agreements signed by Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez during President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s visit to Japan in May 2019. The combined business projects are valued at
P289 billion and can produce 82,000 jobs, DTI said in a press release on Thursday.

Sumitomo Electric President and Chief Operating Officer Osamu Inoue at the time signed a letter of intent to build a new factory for wiring harnesses in Northern Luzon, from which products will be exported to Japan and North America.

The Pangasinan project is expected to create an estimated 10,000 jobs, DTI said.

“Not only will the Sumitomo factory generate more jobs and employment for communities in the area, it will boost the development of our wiring industry to become part of the global value chain,” Mr. Lopez said.

DTI Senior Trade Representative Dita Angara-Mathay said that an additional investor from Japan joins the eight foreign investors in wiring harness manufacturing in the country.

“We are working towards cementing the Philippines’ role as a competitive hub for wiring harness production in the region,” she said.

The Philippines has a 6.5% share in the $80-billion global wiring harness market, DTI said.

IHS Markit in April forecast global auto sales to fall 22% to 70.3 million units this year compared with the figure in 2019. — Jenina P. Ibañez

Del Monte sees return to profitability in 2021

CANNED FRUITS manufacturer Del Monte Pacific Ltd. is expecting to swing back to profitability in 2021 as it continues the optimization of production facilities.

In a presentation to stockholders uploaded to the exchange on Thursday, Del Monte said it is expanding its product portfolio to push back its bottomline to record an income for the next fiscal year.

“The (Del Monte) Group is expected to return to profitability in fiscal year 2021, barring unforeseen circumstances,” it said.

“Aside from the (Del Monte) base business, (US subsidiary Del Monte Foods, Inc.) is also well-positioned to improve performance in fiscal year 2021 with better sales mix and management of costs,” it added.

The company swung to an attributable net loss of $81.39 million in its fiscal year ending April 2020, which it said was due to one-off expenses from the closure of its US facilities and the retirement of loans.

Excluding the one-off items, the company saw a recurring net profit of $32.2 million, more than double the $15.8 million it saw in the previous fiscal year.

Del Monte said it is performing well despite the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, as many people have started to cook their own food at home.

“We are benefiting from the COVID-19 environment as consumers turn to trusted brands, shelf-stable and culinary products for home cooking,” it said.

However, the company warned it may still incur a net loss in the first quarter due to the seasonal nature of its business. But for the remaining quarters, it expects to post an income.

“Our strategy is to strengthen the core business, expand the product portfolio, in line with market trends for health and wellness, and grow our branded business while reducing non-strategic business segments,” it said.

Shares in Del Monte at the stock exchange closed at P4.80 apiece on Thursday, up five centavos or 1.05% from the previous day. — Denise A. Valdez

AgriNurture board approves reclassification of shares

LISTED agricultural firm AgriNurture, Inc. (ANI) has made adjustments to its articles of incorporation in relation to its authorized capital stock that will provide more trading opportunities for shareholders and investors.

The company’s board of directors approved the reclassification of 40 million unissued common shares at a par value of P1 per share to 400 million voting preferred shares with a par value of P0.10 per share.

“The shares to be reclassified shall come from the unissued portion of the total authorized capital stock of the company,” the company said in a stock exchange disclosure on Thursday.

Aside from creating additional trading options for shareholders, ANI said the lower value of preferred shares will offer more affordable shares for small investors.

“The shares will be more marketable and liquid in the market,” it said.

ANI will start the documentation process for the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the changes to take effect within the last quarter of the year.

Once approved by the SEC, the authorized capital stock of ANI, at P2 billion, will be split into 1.96 billion common shares and 400 million preferred shares.

On Thursday, shares in ANI at the stock market fell 0.25% or P0.02 to close at P7.96 each. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

Civic groups join DA’s urban agriculture program

FOUR CIVIC organizations have partnered with the Department of Agriculture (DA) in increasing food production under its urban agriculture program.

On Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar forged a memorandum of agreement with Metro Pacific Investment Foundation (MPIF) President Melody M. Del Rosario, AGREA President Cherrie D. Atilano, Pinas Forward Chief Operating Officer Josemaria Claro, and Project Pearls Operations and Program Director Monica Aclan.

Under the agreement, the DA’s Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) will give farm inputs, gardening modules, and technical assistance for the maintenance of the community gardens under the care of the civic groups.

“The momentum is already there. Individual households and even communities have started planting. Idle areas should be used for food production and the harvest can substantially contribute to the country’s food sufficiency level,” Mr. Dar said.

“Every effort will always lead to a higher level of food production, ensuring food security for this country,” he added.

Meanwhile, AGREA’s Ms. Atilano said that partnership between the private and the public sector is more important, especially during the pandemic.

“During this pandemic, it is evident that public and private sectors can really work together. We want to empower the communities to start growing their own food and make their food source sustainable,” Ms. Atilano said.

Launched in April this year, the DA’s urban agriculture program was created as a solution to address the food supply disruption caused by the establishment of quarantine checkpoints. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

Hybrid events: the future of live sports and entertainment

By Mariel Alison L. Aguinaldo

HYBRID setups are the future of live sports and entertainment events, according to experts in the field.

“I think it won’t be a return to the previous live formats… It will be live plus digital. But at the same time, those who attend live, I think we would have discovered new digital ways in which they can also have a great experience even if they are in the same seminar room with hundreds of other people,” said Lionel Yeo, chief executive officer of sports, entertainment and lifestyle hub Singapore Sports Hub, during a Sept. 14 session in the online convention All That Matters.

Various institutions in the industry have already explored unique or alternative ways to hold their events. Following a pause since the outbreak, the National Basketball Association (NBA) resumed live games with a virtual audience. In the Philippines, telco provider Smart partnered with LIVENow, a pay-per-view service, to broadcast British singer Ellie Goulding’s virtual concert in August.

Live events with middle-sized audiences, which could be anywhere between 200 to a few thousand participants, may also become less popular. Organizers will want to capitalize either on the intimacy of a small group or the charged atmosphere of a large crowd.

“The energy of 10,000 people cheering together is something that you, for the foreseeable future, will not be able to replicate digitally… Who knows where Neuralink [a neurotechnology company developing implantable brain-machine interfaces] and other technology stuff will bring us a few decades? But with the technology we’re talking about right now, those live experiences are unique, they are emotionally special, and are creating a way that people even on the screens at home will see it, can relate to, and [are] important actually for all of live entertainment,” said Ralf Reichert, chief executive officer of ESLGaming, an electronic sports (esports) organizer and production company.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused devastating losses across the live sports and entertainment industry. Professional services firm Deloitte projects, for instance, that the Premier League football clubs in the United Kingdom may suffer a £500 million loss, a huge part of which is from matchday revenue. Pollstar, a live-event trade publication and research firm, calculates that the industry could lose up to $8.9 billion in revenue by the end of the year.

Leagues and clubs across different sports stopped operating with the onset of the pandemic, creating a pent-up fan demand for live sports content. While the gradual resumption of games and innovations in broadcasting production are satisfying fans for now, industry leaders must contemplate on producing new formats to sustain their engagement.

“Some commentators have suggested that fan interest now may need to take precedence…whether more reality TV, whether greater innovations in getting into the fan-content creation space, in order to create that level of interest to tell a story around sports,” Teck Yin Lim, chief executive officer of Sport Singapore, an agency under the Singapore Government that leads the development of a holistic sports culture for the country.

NBA players like JaVale McGee and Matisse Thybulle began vlogging their life during the pandemic, which was met with warm fan reception. Each video garners 200,000 to 2.3 million views and gets thousands of comments.

Screenshot via Matisse Thybulle/YouTube

For this new era of engagement to happen, Mr. Lim believes that the industry first has to shift its perspectives.

“There’s still significant legacy mindsets in the sport industry so that by the end of this year, there will still be a lot of people waiting and wishing for COVID-19 to go away…But I’m optimistic that sport, being what it is, will think about this for longer term in terms of how we build greater resiliency in the industry. Because if this pandemic is anything to go by — and all of the commentators on the pandemic suggest that this is going to come and go — we have to make our shifts,” he said.

GREEN SCREENS

Photo of ESL One Birmingham 2019 by ESL/Helena Kristiansson

Professional video-game tournaments, which can fill 50,000-seat arenas, have migrated to the digital space. Two in-person competitions of the online game Dota 2, which were supposed to be held in the Shrine Auditorium in the United States and the Arena Birmingham in England, took place virtually in March and April. While Mr. Reichert said that 50% to 60% of the production of their events had already been digitized prior to COVID-19, the full transition to digital brought them various benefits.

“If you look…[at] the live sets that we’re having as a studio… they’re a hundred percent green-screen-produced. We can really see how we can produce mind-blowing quality which nearly feels like an event in a world where we actually have to produce with two people in one room, and everyone else is remote. These kinds of things will help us a lot going forward to produce more content and actually lower price points,” he said.

While the world waits for a vaccine to be made, the live sports and entertainment industry may use this time to re-evaluate the purpose of their industries and develop better practices for the future.

“What really are the deep impulses that drive humans to want to get together in a physical space? We can’t do that yet right now in a large scale, but we’re thinking about what does it mean when we can. In the meantime, there’s a lot of people who have been now sort of live to the potential of digital engagement…that’s not necessarily a bad thing because I believe we will then be much out of this pandemic with…a much better playbook for thinking about how do we create meaningful experiences,” said Mr. Yeo.

Livestreaming: Growth and Diversification of Content

A look at related industries

AS LOCKDOWNS forced people to stay at home, many of them turned to livestreaming platforms for entertainment and a sense of community. According to a report by livestreaming platform Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet, an electronic sports (esports) business intelligence firm, 3.1 million hours watched on Twitch in the first quarter rose to 5 million in the following quarter. For YouTube Gaming, it increased from 1 million hours to 1.5 million hours within the same timeframe.

Twitch expects this growth to continue for the following year with new products and content. They just launched Versus, an end-to-end suite of tools that streamers can use to organize and manage their own tournaments. Ninja and Shroud, two of the industry’s most influential streamers, also recently returned to the platform with exclusive deals.

Non-gaming content on Twitch is also anticipated to grow in the next months. Just Chatting was the most popular category on the platform in December 2019, according to a report by StreamElements, a livestreaming platform, and Arsenal.gg, a video game livestreaming analytics company.

Sunita Kaur, the platform’s senior vice-president for APAC (Asia Pacific), also cited the likes of broxh_, a Kiwi woodcarver with 1.2 million followers who was even visited by New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a stream. “There’s a lot of communities that are coming together especially in a time like this, and that’s a really nice thing to see,” she said.

MUSIC: LOCAL IS KEY

The music industry had its downs during the pandemic, although it is slowly recovering. In the United States, physical album sales dropped by 27.6% and digital album sales by 12.4%. Pollstar, a live-event trade publication and research firm, projects a loss of up to $8.9 billion in revenue for the concert industry by the end of the year.

However, there has been a growing clamor for local and regional music in Southeast Asia. Acts like Phum Viphurit from Thailand and Niki from Indonesia have gained international fans and performed beyond Asia. Mass media company 88rising, which aims to empower Asian artists, recently partnered with telco provider Globe to launch Paradise Rising, a Filipino music label that houses artists such as Kiana V and Leila Alcasid.

“The response has been a lot more favorable than it would be like two, three years ago when every time you say, ‘We have an artist from Thailand,’ they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, whatever, give me back my Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift.’ Now, they’re more accepting to this new talent coming from within the region. It’s largely related to whether the video quality production from this region has grown, the music production has grown, the talent has actually acquired more capability, and the gap between the quality from the West and the quality from this part of the world is beginning to grow smaller and smaller,” said Calvin Wong, chief executive officer for South East Asia and executive vice president for Asia at the Universal Music Group.

Weaving through different industries and exploring different platforms will play a huge role in the innovation of the music industry. Musicians have been “performing” in video games; for instance, rapper Travis Scott’s April concert in multiplayer game Fortnite brought in a massive 12.3 million viewers. Bang Bang Con: The Live, a paid online concert by South Korean band BTS held in June, raked in 756,600 viewers and between $19 million to $26 million in revenue.

“The key for us in the music industry is, can we evolve, can we react quick enough to really react to the situation? I think we can. As an industry, we have become very agile in terms of accepting new things…we’ve gone through a lot of pain in the last 15 to 20 years from physical business to digital business,” said Mr. Wong. — Mariel Alison L. Aguinaldo

Puregold adds feature in mobile app for Globe prepaid customers

GLOBE Telecom, Inc. announced Thursday a new feature added to Puregold Price Club, Inc.’s mobile app for the loading needs of its prepaid customers.

“As customer needs have changed and safety becomes a priority, Puregold, together with Globe, launched the app’s newest feature — Buy Load,” Globe said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday.

The app also allows customers to purchase prepaid sims, call cards, and prepaid WiFi.
Customers may pay via credit card, debit card, GCash or via Puregold’s P-Wallet.

“With the current situation, we want to help our customers to stay safe in their homes. By adding an in-app loading service with multiple payment options in the Puregold app, they can buy load credits anytime 24/7, anywhere they are,” Puregold President Ferdinand Vincent P. Co said.

Globe and Puregold launched the mobile app in January. The app allows Puregold shoppers to do online shopping. Its features include item barcode scanning, store pickup, and real-time updates on order status and stock replenishing.

The app also allows Puregold shoppers to link their perks card for them to easily monitor their points and get access to discounts.

“With the increase in work-from-home and learn-from-home set-up, having ready access to prepaid load and promos is as important as having basic necessities in the house. We want to give our subscribers another platform in the Puregold Mobile App to avail of their load needs so they can always stay connected,” Globe President and Chief Executive Ernest L. Cu said. — Arjay L. Balinbin

PHL economy’s recovery prospects improving

The Philippines’ recovery prospects have improved as of September based on the latest scorecard of Oxford Economics, putting the country at a higher rank among Asia-Pacific economies.

“The updated APAC scorecard continues pointing towards a staggered recovery in the region. But the rankings show some noteworthy shifts compared to the erstwhile Asia scorecard. Northeast Asia no longer distinguishes itself as the H2 recovery leader compared to the rest of the region,” the report published Wednesday read. 

The Philippines’ recovery scorecard eased to -0.12 this month from -0.4 in June, which was when the report was launched. Despite the improvement, it still scored negatively in recovery, which was the average of four components: vulnerability, stringency, containment, and policy scores.

Among 14 economies in Asia Pacific, the Philippines’ ranking in terms of recovery prospects is now fifth from the bottom, up by three places from the previous scorecard where it was projected to post the second-slowest recovery after India.

Broken down, the country’s scores for stringency of lockdown and macro policy measures adopted in response to the pandemic improved to positive territory, with the former rising to 0.1 from -0.3 previously and the latter to 0.2 from -0.4.

However, its score stayed in the red for vulnerability (to -0.3 from -0.2, previously) and containment indicators (to -0.5 from -1.2). Vulnerability scores a country’s exposure in terms of health and the economy, while the containment component covers the economy’s progress and speed in controlling the outbreak.

The economies seen posting the slowest recoveries are India, Indonesia and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, New Zealand, Taiwan and Singapore are now leading recovery prospects across Asia Pacific.

Countries across the globe implemented various restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus, hurting their economic performance.

The think tank expects the Philippine economy to shrink by 8% this year. The economy plunged into recession in the first half after posting a nine-percent contraction during the period.

The Philippines imposed one of the world’s longest and most stringent lockdowns from mid-March to May, which included barring individuals from leaving their homes and restricting the operations of some sectors of the economy. Restrictions have been eased since then. 

“The world is entering a more difficult stage of recovery, with the post-lockdown GDP (gross domestic product) bounce expected to give way to slower growth in coming quarters. At the same time, the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) situation has broadly deteriorated across APAC economies, following the widespread easing in social distancing measures since mid-Q2,” Oxford Economics said.

It said downside risks to their recovery forecasts include prolonged and recurring waves of the outbreak as this could result in uneven resumption of activity and slower recovery.

Meanwhile, it said the faster-than-expected production of vaccine will be a positive development as this would boost the confidence of consumers and businesses. — BML

Docu fest rails against dangers of Martial Law

DAANG DOKYU, a film festival showcasing the best of Filipino documentaries, was one of a myriad of festivals that were halted — for a time — because of the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But true to its mission of telling “100 years of Filipino stories told in moving images,” according to a festival organizer, Daang Dokyu has moved to a safer space online and has updated its battle cry to rail against Filipino’s forgetfulness of the horrors of Martial Law for the festival’s opening weekend.

“When all the world is seeking to reflect on the lessons emerging from the pandemic, a group of filmmakers is sounding out the call to resist the lethal lure of forgetfulness,” a press release for the film festival said.

The festival, which runs from Sept. 19 to Nov. 5, will not only feature some of the best documentaries aired on television by GMA Network, ABS-CBN, Probe Productions, Rappler, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), and those recommended by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), but will also feature several masterclasses, lectures, and discussions on how the Philippines’ story measures up.

Daang Dokyu is organized by the Filipino Documentary Society (FilDocs), founded by documentary filmmakers Jewel Maranan, Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, Baby Ruth Villarama, and Coreen Jimenez. It was originally slated to run from March 16 to 21 at the University of the Philippines (UP) Film Institute’s Cine Adarna but had to be postponed because of the strict lockdowns imposed to curb the pandemic.

For its opening salvo online, Daang Dokyu tackles forgetfulness and historical revisionism of one of the darkest moments in Filipino history by presenting the ABS-CBN documentary Marcos: A Malignant Spirit (1986) and Imelda (2003) by Ramona Diaz. Both films will be screened from Sept. 19 to 21.

The opening week is themed “Martial Law, Never Again.”

In Marcos: A Malignant Spirit, ABS-CBN’s Angelo Castro Jr., looks into “the inhuman manner in which Marcos and his henchmen systematically drained the economy… in their greedy and unrelenting quest for fortune,” according to the festival’s Facebook page. The film contains rare footage and recorded conversations about the plunder of a nation.

Imelda meanwhile, tells the story of former First Lady Imelda Marcos in her own words and follows her journey from being a young beauty queen in the 1950s to a First Lady of the Philippines in 1960s, her family’s downfall in 1986, and their eventual return to power. The film won the Excellence in Cinematography Documentary Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. “Foregrounding the narrative is not just Imelda and her obsession with power but also the lasting influence of her family on Philippines society even to this day,” said a post on the festival’s Facebook page.

The date when these films will be screened is also very intentional as on Sept. 21, 1972, then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos declared Martial Law, a period which saw thousands of forced disappearances, torture, and killings of those deemed critics of the government. The Marcos family stole an estimated $10 billion of Philippine wealth, leaving the country steeped in debt that Filipinos are still paying to this day.

“The opening program is not just a lineup of films to remember the past but a statement for us in the present. Our generation now has been witnessing the erosion of our freedoms, unbelievable abuses of power, and a growing confusion about the future.

We think documentaries can help make up our minds about the lessons already learned, mistakes we shouldn’t repeat, and what we shouldn’t allow again to be done to us as a people,” Jewel Maranan, one of the festival directors, said in a release.

Aside from the Martial Law films, the first week of Daang Dokyu will also be premiering Kiri Dalena’s Alunsina (2020), a documentary about struggles of children and families in an urban settlement severely affected by the current government’s war on drugs; A Rustling of Leaves: Inside the Philippine Revolution (1988) by Nettie Wild, about the struggles of the newly elected President Corazon C. Aquino as she tried to wrest control of the country from her own military; and Mendiola Massacre (1987) by Lito Tiongson, a newsreel about the massacre on Mendiola Bridge in Manila where authorities opened fire against protesters who were urging genuine agrarian reform which resulted in the deaths of 13 farmers and hundreds of civilian injuries.

A discussion on the theme will also be held on Sept. 19, 8 p.m., moderated by Ed Lingao and featuring guests Chel Diokno, Kiri Dalena, Miguel Reyes, and Joel Lamangan.

Beyond the opening week, Daang Dokyu also has a lineup of documentaries from 1914 to 2020. Early this year, the festival organizers went online to raise funds to bring several Filipino documentaries stored in the British Film Institute to the Philippines, in order to show them at the festival. The films include the 1926 film Manila Street Scene and the 1929 film Glimpses of the Culion Leper Colony and of Culion Life.

“We are offering these films for free, the largest collection of curated Philippine documentaries ever put together for online public viewing, films from 1914 to 2020. We’re inviting everyone to revisit this album of images because these are about us,” Ms. Maranan said.

Aside from film screenings, the festival will also be holding discussions on current issues, offering the “docu way” to take stock “how we have been as a nation and where we are headed,” said the release. The festival will also be holding several masterclasses but information about these is yet to be announced.

The festival will also be launching Dok Book, “a collection and recollection of histories and stories, as well as views and interviews, centered on the rich landscape of the Philippine documentary in film and television.”

The book includes details and historical accounts, from the arrival of cinema in the late 1890s to the shutdown of the press during Martial Law and the advent of digital technology in the 2000s. The book contains writings from scholars and practitioners in the field including Nick Deocampo, Teddy Co, Adjani Arumpac, Patrick Campos, Ed Lingao, Howie Severino, Kara David, Kidlat Tahimik, Kiri Dalena, Sari Dalena, Gutierrez Mangansakan II, and many more Filipino documentarists.

The Daang Dokyu opening films will be available for viewing starting Sept. 19 on www.daangdokyu.com/watchnow. For more information visit the Daang Dokyu Facebook page. — Z.B. Chua

GMA rides Hallyu Wave with new digibox channel

IN LATE June, TV network GMA entered the digital TV box fray with its Affordabox that was met with an “overwhelming response” and introduced a new digital channel focused on Asian dramas. This month, GMA is adding to its digital channels with the music and reality-show-centric HallyPop, riding on the current Hallyu Wave (or Korean pop culture wave).

“We have the heart of fans and that’s going to be seen in the way we program HallyPop. A lot of people are looking forward to that Hallyu (Korean Wave) content. Having another channel that could actually focus on having certain materials like variety shows, K-pop, and reality shows, it can complement what we have started for the Heart of Asia so I’m excited about it because we have a lot of things to learn from these Asian contents,” Jose Mari A. Abacan, GMA’s first vice-president for program management, said in a press release.

The new channel will feature K-Pop (Korean pop music), variety and entertainment programs starting Sept. 20. The channel is done in partnership with international streaming company Jungo TV. HallyPop is one of the “one or two more channels” to be introduced within the year, according to an earlier BusinessWorld interview with Regie C. Bautista, GMA Network chief risk officer and senior vice-president for corporate strategic planning, and concurrent head for program support.

Some of the programs in the HallyPop channel lineup include Korean music show Music Bank, Korean variety show Running Man, and a concert stage HallyStage featuring “highly requested concerts in the country and across Asia.”

“HallyPop represents a new and exciting direction in the reimagined world of Asian entertainment,” said Jungo TV CEO and co-founder George Chung in the same statement.

The new digital channel is free but those using digital TV boxes need to re-scan in order to get the new channel. — Z.B. Chua

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