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Regional Updates (08/30/20)

Baguio eases restrictions for locals, eyes reopening for tourists mid-Oct.

SEVERAL QUARANTINE restrictions in Baguio City are lifted effective Monday, Aug. 31, as the local government takes steps towards “learning to live with the virus” while reviving the economy. Among the regulations that will be eased are the use of quarantine pass to enter shopping malls and other commercial establishments, liquor ban, and movement of senior citizens. “I understand that one needs food for sustenance, but we cannot count out the positive effects of physical activity and the company of friends and family. Which is why, once again, we will try to ease up on restrictions within the city,” Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong said in an advisory released Saturday. “With these eased restrictions, I remind everyone: keep your guards up, and apply minimum health standards in every instance,” he added. Meanwhile, City Tourism Officer Aloysius C. Mapalo announced that the mountain city’s public parks, except the Botanical Garden, will be reopened to residents by September. Mr. Mapalo said this is part of the local government’s efforts “to gradually open the tourism industry” to help revive the economy. “Activities in the parks such as boating, biking, horseback riding, among other related activities, will be allowed, but the public will have to abide by the stringent health and safety protocols, particularly the mandatory wearing of face mask, the observance of physical distancing, and the practice of personal hygiene,” he said in a statement. For tourists, Mr. Mapalo said they moved the planned reopening of the city to mid-October from September as they are still finalizing the Baguio Visitors Information and Travel Assistance (VISITA) online platform. VISITA is a digital registration system that will be used by the city government to regulate the entry of visitors as well as for overall monitoring of the tourism industry’s compliance to health safety standards. As of Aug. 29, the city had 334 coronavirus cases, with 87 active, 239 recoveries, and eight deaths.

P16-M aid given to sugarcane workers in Western Visayas—DoLE

THE DEPARTMENT of Labor and Employment (DoLE) reported that it has released P16 million in aid to sugarcane workers affected by the coronavirus crisis. In a statement on Saturday, DoLE said its regional office in Western Visayas distributed P1,000 per worker under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Law and assistance is continuing with the available budget. “We wanted to reach out to our sugarcane workers because they are one of the most vulnerable and marginalized workers in the country and the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) pandemic had added to their hardships,” DoLE Regional Director Mary Agnes Capigon said. — Gillian M. Cortez

Whale shark count in Bicol up by 19

THE NUMBER of whale sharks in Bicol’s protected seascape is up to 69 since the start of the year after 19 new individuals were spotted in addition to 50 identified as returning, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines reported on Friday. The whale sharks, the largest living fish and known locally as butanding, are in the Ticao-Burias Pass Protected Seascape (TBPPS), a critical ecosystem that is monitored by the organization. It is a popular tourism site with the town of Donsol as jump-off point. “It’s important that we continue our whale shark monitoring efforts despite the lockdown. It’s our obligation as WWF-Philippines to continue monitoring activities, and to let the world know of the whale sharks of Donsol and their importance to their ecosystem,” WWF-Philippines Donsol Project Manager Jun E. Narvadez said in a statement. “Our Butanding Interaction Officers, our spotters, they all help us monitor the whale sharks. This is a community effort that helps both the whale sharks and the people of Donsol. Hopefully by November, we’ll be able to restart our tourism activities again,” Mr. Narvadez said. A total of 733 whale sharks have been documented in the region since monitoring began in 2007. Butandings are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Red tide warning up in Siaton, Negros Oriental

THE BUREAU OF Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has warned consumers against eating shellfish collected in Siit Bay in the town of Siaton, Negros Oriental after it tested positive for red ride contamination. In its latest shellfish bulletin, BFAR said Siit Bay joins other red tide positive areas such as Puerto Princesa Bay in Palawan; the coastal waters of Dauis and Tagbilaran City in Bohol; Tambobo Bay and Bais Bay in Negros Oriental; Cancabato Bay, Tacloban City in Leyte; Balite Bay in Davao Oriental; and Lianga Bay and the coastal waters of Hinatuan in Surigao del Sur. All types of shellfish and Acetes sp. or alamang harvested from these areas are not safe for human consumption. However, other types of marine species are safe to eat provided these are fresh, washed thoroughly, and internal organs such as gills and intestines are removed before cooking. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

Nationwide round-up

4,284 new COVID-19 cases reported on Sunday

THE DEPARTMENT of Health reported 4,284 new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases on August 30, bringing the total to 217,396.

The death toll rose by 102 to 3,520 while recoveries increased by 22,319 to 157,403, according to Sunday’s bulletin.

There were 56,473 active cases, 91.3% of which were mild, 6.1% did not show symptoms, 1.1% were severe, and 1.6% critical.

Metro Manila had the highest number of newly-confirmed cases with 2,207, followed by Laguna with 327, Cavite with 191, Batangas with 161, and Rizal with 147.

Of the new reported deaths, 52 came from Metro Manila; 14 from the region of Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon); 10, Western Visayas; 9, Central Luzon; 8, Central Visayas; 2 each from Cagayan Valley, Bicol and Davao regions; 1, Caraga; and two were still an unidentified location.

The new cases came from tests done by 100 out of 110 licensed laboratories.

More than 2.3 million individuals have been tested, the Health department said.

The agency reported “time-based” recoveries by reconciling their data with those of local government units.

Patients with mild symptoms or don’t show them at all will be tagged as recoveries after 14 days from the onset of the illness or from the time of swabbing, based on the protocol.

The patients should be cleared by physicians before being tagged as recovered. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

Foreigners allowed to exit without I-Card

THE BUREAU of Immigration has eased the requirement for foreigners leaving the country to avoid crowding in immigration offices and prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease.

Immigration Commissioner Jaime H. Morente issued a directive allowing foreigners with approved visas to leave the country before they could claim their alien certificate of registration identity card (ARC I-Card).

The policy will be in effect until December 31, but can be revoked or extended based on the state of the pandemic.

“By allowing these aliens to leave pending release of their I-Cards, the number of people going to our offices will be lessened and physical distancing will be achieved, thus preventing the further spread of the virus among our frontline personnel and clients,” Mr. Morente said.

More than 70 employees of the bureau have so far contracted the virus. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

Business registration portal to launch in Sept.

THE government’s central portal streamlining the process of establishing a business is due for public launch next month, the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) said.

The central business portal aims to reduce business registration to an eight-step process lasting less than a week. Registration took 13 steps and 33 days in 2019, ARTA said in a statement Saturday.

ARTA last week met with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Social Security System (SSS), Philippine Health Insurance System (Philhealth), and the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG) to finalize the date the portal will go live for public use.

“ARTA and the agencies will be continuously coordinating the developments of the portal to make it ready for launch in September,” the authority said.

Authorized by the Ease of Doing Business Law, ARTA is in charge of implementing the system developed by the DICT. The online platform captures data on business transactions and provides links to online registration services of national government agencies and local government units.

Under this law, government agencies are tasked to “eliminate red tape, avert graft and corrupt practices and promote transparency and sustain ease of doing business.”

The DICT made changes to adapt to the pandemic, ARTA said. The closed beta testing of the platform by selected business registrants was done last week.

“Apart from adhering to the whole-of-government approach in streamlining, this CBP, in collaboration with DICT and the national government agencies, is a huge step in our push towards incorporating e-governance in our ease of doing business initiatives,” ARTA Director General Jeremiah B. Belgica said.

The portal will have a virtual national business one-stop-shop (NBOSS) for the registration of one-person corporations.

The NBOSS project consolidates the business-registration requirements of the SEC, BIR, SSS, Philhealth, and Pag-IBIG.

The first phase of the central business portal was initially launched in October last year. — Jenina P. Ibañez

South Korea free trade deal still expected before end of 2020 — DTI

FREE TRADE agreement (FTA) negotiations between the Philippines and South Korea are still due to conclude this year despite delays caused by the pandemic, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said.

The DTI, before the lockdown, had aimed to conclude negotiations after April, to coincide with President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s invitation to South Korean President Moon Jae-in for a state visit. The negotiating teams missed their initial November 2019 deadline.

Negotiations stalled last year because the countries had not agreed on reduced tariffs for Philippine banana exports and South Korean auto exports. Both countries have since replaced their negotiating teams.

Trade Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo, who now leads the Philippine team, said that representatives of the two countries have been meeting online during the pandemic and will have another discussion in the second week of September.

He said in an online news conference on Aug. 21 that negotiations were again delayed this year after a change in leadership in South Korea’s negotiating team, as well as some travel restrictions due to the pandemic.

“We were initially looking at me going to Korea. Kaya lang… ang hirap ngayon lumabas from our side — lumabas at saka bumalik. So may mga practical difficulties. Because of that, na-delay ng konti ‘yung sa Korea (The South Korea trade deal was delayed because it was difficult to leave and to go back),” he said.

“Pero target pa rin natin this year matapos ‘yung FTA with Korea (The target for completing an FTA remains this year).”

Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez in February said that the banana and auto trade are “being worked out” and negotiations have improved.

Through the FTA, the Philippines aims to increase its exports of agricultural products, auto parts, organic and natural products, and design-driven products like garments and furnishings.

South Korea is one of the Philippines’ largest trading partners, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. It was the Philippines’ sixth-largest export destination in 2019, with exports valued at $3.2 billion accounting for 4.6% of the value of total Philippine exports.

Top exports to South Korea include bananas as well as electrical and semiconductor products, while top imports include petroleum and integrated circuits. — Jenina P. Ibañez

Consumer group calls for abolition of electricity cross-subsidy for poor

THE government should stop enforcing a scheme that subsidizes parts of some poor power users’ bills, a consumer group said.

A proposed measure by the Senate Energy committee seeks to extend for another 20 years the implementation of the lifeline rate, a subsidized rate benefiting poor consumers provided under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA).

In a comment, Laban Konsyumer proposed “to repeal and terminate” the cross-subsidy scheme, which is “is fair and reasonable to all consumers.”

“At the moment non-lifeline consumers subsidize the amount of Php 0.0604 per kilowatt-hour as a lifeline subsidy in their bill(s),” the group noted.

The Energy Regulatory Commission may remove such a mechanism after introducing a new universal charge which replaces it, according to Section 74 of Republic Act No. 9136, or the EPIRA.

By 2021, “there should be no more authorized cross-subsidy,” Laban Konsyumer said. EPIRA will be turning 20 next year.

In June, Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian proposed Senate Bill No. 1583 extending the subsidy.

“With the expiration of the lifeline rate and thus higher electricity rates for marginalized end-users looming next year, this measure is filed,” Mr. Gatchalian said.

Section 73 of the EPIRA provides for this mechanism and the continuation of its enforcement. The imposition of the present subsidized rate will end next year after it was extended in 2011.  In 2019, 2.41 million poor customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) each saved P1,567 annually from the lifeline rate.

“This bill extends the lifeline rate for an additional 20 years or up to 2041 in order to continue the much-needed assistance to low-income electricity consumers, which in turn enables them to access electricity and improve their lives,” Mr. Gatchalian said. The measure remains pending at the committee level. — Adam J. Ang

Wage support pads gov’t subsidy bill in 7 months to July

SUBSIDIES to government agencies surged in the seven months to July largely due to the wage subsidy program and increased support for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth), the Bureau of the Treasury said.

The national government’s budget support to government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) totaled P187.465 billion during the period, up 188% from a year earlier.

The seven-month total accounts for 98% of the P191-billion allotted for subsidies to GOCCs this year. The overall budget was lowered after the government realigned funds to deal with the pandemic.

The Social Security System (SSS) was the largest recipient of subsidies during the period at P51 billion, or 27% of the total. It served as the main implementing agency of the wage subsidy program. It did not receive any subsidies from the government last year.

The wage subsidy program injected between P5,000 and P8,000 per worker per month into companies to allow them to pay their workers during the lockdown.

The National Food Authority (NFA) and Philhealth were the next top recipients with subsidies worth P37.65 billion and P30.3 billion, respectively, up 998% and 2,497% from a year earlier.

In July, subsidies totaled P17.935 billion, down 53% year on year and down 74% from June.

The National Housing Authority received 55% of the total or P9.892 billion, up 19.5% from a year earlier and 33% higher compared with June.

Philhealth received P4.128 billion, while the National Irrigation Administration got P1.911 billion. Philhealth did not receive any subsidies in July 2019.

The SSS did not receive subsidies in July, after the wage subsidy program ended in June.

The government subsidizes GOCCs to cover operational expenses not supported by their revenue. — Beatrice M. Laforga

Industrial crop production mixed; coconut, coffee output fall

PRODUCTION of coconut, coffee, abaca, and rubber fell in the second quarter, while output of sugar, tobacco, and cacao rose, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.

According to its major non-food and industrial crops bulletin, the PSA said coconut production fell 2.6% year on year to 3.24 million metric tons (MT).

The Davao Region was the top producer, accounting for 14% or 453,063 MT, followed by Northern Mindanao with 12.9% or 417,114 MT, and Zamboanga Peninsula 12.7% or 411,814 MT.

Coffee production fell 3.1% year on year to 5,883 MT.

SOCCSKSARGEN (South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, and General Santos City) was the top coffee producer, accounting for 32.9% or 1,935 MT, followed by Davao Region with 22.4% or 1,317 MT, and BARMM (Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) 21% or 1,238 MT.

Robusta coffee was the top coffee variety, at 59.3% or 3,486 MT, followed by Arabica with 27.5% or 1,620 MT. Excelsa coffee accounted for 12.5% or 736 MT.

Abaca fiber production fell 3.3% year on year to 18,278 MT.

Bicol Region was the top abaca fiber producer, accounting for 35.2% or 6,433 MT, followed by Eastern Visayas at 19.6% or 3,574 MT, and Caraga at 14.1% or 2,570 MT.

Rubber production fell 6.7% year on year to 116,935 MT.   

BARMM was the top rubber producer, accounting for 37.7% or 44,129 MT, followed by Zamboanga Peninsula with 36.2% or 42,373 MT, and SOCCSKSARGEN 16.6% or 19,394 MT.

Sugarcane production rose 100.3% year on year to 5.22 million MT.

Western Visayas was the top sugarcane producer, accounting for 53.9% or 2.82 million MT, followed by Northern Mindanao with 18.3% or 955,681 MT, and Central Visayas 13.1% or 684,669 MT.

Tobacco production rose 3.3% year on year to 37,618 MT.

Ilocos Region was the top tobacco producer, accounting for 66.3% or 24,940 MT, followed by Cagayan Valley at 31.4% or 11,826 MT, and the Cordillera Administrative Region at 1.5% or 567 MT.

Cacao production rose 5.6% year on year to 2,023 MT.

Davao Region was the top cacao producer, accounting for 73.7% or 1,490 MT, followed by Cagayan Valley and Northern Mindanao, both at 4.7% or 95 MT.

The PSA estimated in August that total crop production rose 5% year on year during the second quarter.

Major non-food and industrial crops accounted for 53.7% of agricultural output. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

Transforming tax and finance functions

As we continue to navigate the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are reshaping their operations in the new normal to focus on business continuity and to prepare for recovery once the economy bounces back. Part of this transformation strategy is to revisit and reimagine the tax and finance function.

The 2020 Tax and Finance Operate (TFO) survey sponsored by EY and conducted by Euromoney Thought Leadership Consulting with over 1,000 executives representing 42 jurisdictions (including the Philippines), 17 industries and 178 publicly listed organizations, demonstrated that the tax and finance function in organizations is generally struggling to cope with digital advances and rapidly evolving global and local conditions.

While the survey was conducted before the pandemic, nearly all respondents (99%) indicated that they are taking steps to transform their tax and finance operating models due to deficiencies in their current target operating model. Meanwhile, 73% are looking to co-source critical activities in the next two years as a solution to relieve growing pressures. This also aims to aid in successfully adapting to the constantly evolving tax environment and rapidly transforming digital landscape, which have been amplified by the unforeseen business and human impact of COVID-19.

DEFICITS IN DATA AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION
Based on the survey, 65% of respondents cited the lack of a sustainable plan for data and technology as their biggest barrier to delivering the tax function’s long-term purpose and vision. In fact, 73% of the respondents said that their organizations do not have a formal tax technology strategy in place.

The unprecedented operational disruption due to the pandemic — where organizations struggle to manage business continuity amidst the abrupt need to shift to telecommuting and develop digital workspaces — only highlighted the deficit in the technological capabilities of most organizations.

This has brought the urgent need for digital readiness in organizations to the forefront. Contributing to the urgency are the growing demands for tax and finance functions to quickly and effectively respond to the dynamic tax landscape, due in part to the Philippine government’s tax reform programs and the implementation of the digital transformation roadmap, which is a priority program of the Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

Organizations that are not pushing to operate in new ways or investing in data and technology adoption (e.g., automation, cloud storage and data governance, data analytics and reporting) may eventually find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. This is in comparison to others that have fast-tracked their digital transformation and have integrated digital technologies into their tax and finance functions to manage tax risks and provide greater focus on value generation.

EVOLVING TALENT NEEDS
Under their current tax operating models, 62% of the survey respondents spend majority of their tax function time on routine compliance activities. Examples of these include data collection and processing, workpaper preparation, tax returns and reconciliations — as opposed to higher value/higher risk activities — with nearly half (45%) of the organizations struggling to provide new responsibilities and career advancement opportunities for their tax and finance personnel.

With the move towards digitally transforming the tax and finance function, a corresponding reimagination of the tax and finance workforce would necessarily follow. This will, however, pose a challenge for organizations to search for and retain the appropriate talent in today’s evolving tax and finance function. In fact, 83% of the survey respondents believe that the core technical competencies of their tax and finance personnel will shift from traditional technical skills to data, process and technology skills over the next three years. However, 61% admit that they are unable to attract and retain talent with the skills required for the tax and finance function of the future.

As talent demands continue to evolve, organizations will have to revisit, reskill and/or upskill their tax and finance workforce. This can be achieved by either providing their current employees with the necessary learning and skills development (e.g., digital fluency, data analytics proficiency) to cope with the evolving tax and finance function, or by considering an entirely different strategy to bridge the talent and skills gap (e.g., establishing new tax operating models, co-sourcing) to improve the financial operational effectiveness and efficiency of their tax departments in the new and next normal operations.

TAX AND FINANCE OPERATE (TFO) SOLUTIONS
Organizations need to use the right mix of people, process and technology to maximize the value of their tax and finance functions and meet the evolving organizational goals now and in the future. One way to do this in the shorter term is by engaging an experienced external TFO solutions provider who can deliver a customized and flexible technology-driven tax service delivery model that can help business leaders reimagine their tax and finance functions. With the right TFO provider, organizations can achieve a sustainable corporate tax function that can support their strategic efforts and bring new innovation and transformation to their tax function.

ACCELERATED TRANSFORMATION
In today’s highly dynamic tax and regulatory environment, which has been further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, sustaining a strong and stable tax and finance function with the right technological and talent capabilities may be one of the most difficult challenges of an organization.

In order to more effectively navigate through these changes, organizations should consider accelerating the transformation of their tax and finance functions into agile and cost-effective tax operating models. This will allow businesses to prioritize long-term value creation and risk management as well as redirect valuable internal tax and finance resources to more strategic activities and efforts. A focused effort will manage and boost business continuity and resilience, achieving operational optimization for the now, next and beyond.

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional advice where the facts and circumstances warrant. The views and opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of SGV & Co.

 

Fatma Aleah A. Datukon is a Senior Director of SGV & Co.

Coconuts and COVID-19

When can we get serious in supporting research to produce a cure or treatment to COVID-19 from our very own VCO?

Scientists know that virgin coconut oil (VCO) has anti-viral properties and strongly believe that our country can add value to VCO and produce a food supplement to strengthen our immune systems against COVID-19 infection, or a medicine with its therapeutic claims vis-a-vis the disease approved by our Food and Drug Administration or other FDAs in the world.

Unfortunately, we seem to have misplaced our priorities. Our Department of Health officials are apparently content to wait for developed countries (or even not-so-developed ones like Russia) to sell us that vaccine or an anti-COVID medicine, if and when they are available. With all the monies we are willing to spend to flatten our COVID-19 infection curve and save lives, does it not make better sense that we also spend a significant part of that money to undertake primary research and development (R&D) as part of a determined program to produce a useful anti-COVID product out of our VCO?

But a dearth of confidence of our government officials on the potential of VCO and the capability of our scientists to turn VCO into a game changer in the world’s fight against COVID seems to hover above us, causing a drought of spending for COVID-related R&D on VCO. To check on the facts behind this claim, I asked Dr. Toby Dayrit, Professor of Chemistry at Ateneo de Manila University, about the level and make-up of public spending on R&D on VCO, particularly as it relates to fighting COVID-19. Dr. Dayrit is among our prominent scientists who have consistently believed in the potential of VCO and have quietly but consistently worked on finding out more about it. He is an Academician at the National Academy of Science and Technology, and President of the Integrated Chemists of the Philippines.

Dr. Dayrit says the Philippine Council of Health Research and Development (PCHRD) of the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) has provided funds to undertake three research studies on VCO for fighting the COVID-19 virus.

The first is an in-vitro study which his team did in Singapore. The second was a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on persons under investigation (PUIs) in Sta. Rosa City, which the Food and Nutrition Research Institute did. Lastly, another RCT study was done by UP Manila on COVID-19 patients at the Philippine General Hospital.

These PCRHD-supported research studies are incidental, not part of a deliberate program of the Department of Health (DoH) to create a food supplement or medicine out of VCO. PCHRD has funds to support this type of research, and as the COVID pandemic continues, allocating more funds to R&D related to COVID is compelling.

However, aside from a quarter-of-a-page list of COVID studies that the PCHRD is funding, there seems to be no new research money — out of the billions of pesos we spend for fighting COVID-19 — to finance a strategic R&D program for VCO-related research for fighting COVID. Dr. Dayrit says the DoST is willing to think more strategically about this effort and not just utilize existing PCHRD funds on this highly relevant and timely research. But it cannot without a directive from the national leadership and substantial new funds and administrative support to undertake the program.

The DoST has got to have the mandate from the President to go all the way: from conducting primary research; to deepening our knowledge on promising leads from earlier research; to doing this progressively, iteratively up to refining an idea of what that anti-COVID VCO product might be made up of; to producing a prototype of it; to conducting FDA-approved tests of its safety and efficacy; to commercializing this research with private sector investors; to establishing the property rights of the marketable product; and to supporting product owners to get FDA approval to sell the product locally. Generally a linear process with one step building on an earlier one, the program could be packaged in a way that makes most sense. But if successful in the sense of having produced a product that would be widely accepted locally, the program could stretch to helping our exporters market the product abroad.

Look at what we are missing out on with incidental funding only! Dr. Dayrit, in his e-mail to me, says he co-authored a paper with Mary Newport last January. They found that VCO “may have two mechanisms at work: antiviral and immunomodulatory… The immunomodulatory property of VCO is more interesting and potentially more powerful for me than the antiviral mechanism,” he wrote.

“May have” are the words he used. The authors are not sure yet, but that’s exactly the most honest statement unpretentious scientists would say. We caught them at the point of their study where they honestly disclose that they don’t know … yet. Dr. Dayrit says in his e-mail “COVID-19 is a complex disease and the immune system is also very complex. If VCO works — and there are many reports of successful treatments — we should study this more deeply.”

Yes, we should do that. But sadly Dr. Dayrit and scientists like himself cannot do more studies or better make their studies more systematic as they pursue a long term goal without the mandate from the DoST, the DoH, and the President, to work strategically about the whole thing. For now, all that our scientists can do with the existing funds from PCRHD, or occasionally from local governments like the province of Cebu, is to conduct a few random RCTs, or not even an RCT like that study on VCO’s efficacy with inmates of the province of Cebu as its participants.

The scientists would all tell us that their studies strongly support the efficacy of VCO against COVID-19.

But we would never find out why that is. And because we remain ignorant about the science behind the claim that VCO is effective against COVID-19, product owners cannot not pass FDA approval, and the VCO product, dubbed by its owners to be good for COVID, remains to be considered just a food supplement with the underlying advice from the FDA that it has nothing to do about it. Then the world community would look elsewhere instead of here for COVID-19 antidotes.

Admittedly, this effort could be a long shot. But without funds there is no way we can understand how far we are from our goal. We hope the private sector would invest in it. But venture capitalists would still need a minimum knowledge about the science behind the potential of VCO as a potential cure for COVID-19.

This is where public funds would need to be invested — to support primary research, to understand better this “immunomodulatory property,” or to discover new properties of VCO, and know how these properties could be put to use to combat this complex disease.

With a mandate from the President himself, the DoST can lay down the primary research program that would be farmed out to scientists to undertake in several grants, including investing in post-graduate scholarships to deepen our pool of homegrown scientists. Some of the monies invested in the program could yield no return for us, but for as long as they were spent legally and in pursuit of honest scientific research, we just have to be prepared to accept that loss.

But out of the several primary research grants that could be given out, we may generate new knowledge that can be pushed up the next rung.

The program could also have unintended benefits: new knowledge that could give us ideas on other useful products we can make out of our coconuts; a deeper pool of scientists who become more experienced in pursuing biological research; more and better equipped research laboratories; industrial designers more adept in producing prototypes of food supplements or medicines out of VCO; and more matchmakers who would help scientists, their home research institutions, and venture capitalists structure new investments to commercialize VCO- or bio-related research ideas.

All these would make our country an ideal place for placing domestic and foreign capital to build a bio-industry. We could become a regional center for bio-industrial research. COVID-19 may still turn out to be a boon for our coconut industry, not just to produce a cure out of VCO, but by sowing the seeds of a future regional center for bio-industrial research.

Perhaps it is now time for our Secretaries of Science and Technology, Health, Finance, Trade and Industry, and of Agriculture to persuade the President to authorize the undertaking of a strategic research program on coconuts and COVID, pouring a significant amount of public funds into it.

Despite the fact that other countries may already have their vaccines and medicines against this disease on the market as early as late this year, doing our own research is never too late. It could never be because of its intended or indirect benefits. Who knows, we may even produce a better product against COVID-19 from our VCO, and, importantly, give an income boost to our coconut farmers as well.

 

Ramon L. Clarete is a Professorial Lecturer at the School of Economics of the University of the Philippines.

Grief in the time of COVID-19

This year has been dark and catastrophic. And that’s an understatement. The latest update from the Worldometer website: 25,155,780 COVID-19 cases and 845,956 COVID-19 deaths. In the Philippines, the Department of Health has recorded 216,768 cases and 3,419 deaths.

Include the excess deaths not due to COVID-19 but still associated with the conditions brought about by the pandemic. These are cases of patients who died of other communicable or non-communicable diseases because an overwhelmed healthcare system could no longer attend to them; the sick who opted not to seek outside care because of their fear of being infected by COVID-19; those who died of hunger because of their deteriorated economic situation; those who died of depression or mental illness.

Worse, people are being killed in a time of crisis when we should be caring and protecting one another.  The systematic pattern of killing unarmed political activists and suspected drug users continues, despite the pandemic. And most recently, soldiers and civilians in Jolo died from bombs detonated by terrorists.

I myself have experienced multiple losses this year. Not all deaths were due to COVID-19, but the cause of death is secondary when we grieve. 

I mourn the passing away of an aunt, Tia Olang, who died two months before she turned 100 years old. I grieve over the death of GCF — who treated me like a son at the same time regarded me as a kabarkada, despite our different generations. I miss my colleague Obet, but missing him reminds us at Action for Economic Reforms that he will remain our moral compass. I feel sorrow over the death of comrades, namely: Mercy and her empathy; Susan Q and her caring for the youth; Mô and her being a free spirit; Aileen and her scholarly and independent views, especially on foreign policy; Viol and her trade union activism and her culinary writings; Fidel, Janis, and Randall and their unswerving commitment to a revolutionary cause; Jun F. and his being a champion of the environment and human rights. I grieve over the death of my grade school and high school classmates Efren and Louie, the parents or relatives of my friends, the friends of my parents, the friends of my siblings, and others.

Grieving during a pandemic is hard. We could not even be with our loved one in her moment of death.  We could not visit the dead because of social distancing. We could not be physically close to people who grieve; we could not hug them, hold their hands. Memorial services are done online, thereby diminishing the affection and intimacy of our relationship.

Recovering from grief is not easy either. We are battered by a succession of deaths. The rules of quarantine and hence the dearth of social interaction make the grieving more desolate, more complicated.

I have been grieving for five years. I lost my wife, Mae, at the end of August 2015. Time has somewhat alleviated the pain. But 2020, a year of too many deaths, has made my heart heavy and sorrowful. My solace is that Mae is now in a better place.

 

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

www.aer.ph

Stories of Filipino frontliners in the US

Cecilia Yap-Banago was a registered nurse at the Research Medical Center in Kansas City. The 69-year-old mother migrated to the United States in 1970 and dedicated her life serving as a healthcare professional.

The five foot tall Celia is described by colleagues as a “little fireball” since she was known to work with speed and gusto in whatever department she was assigned to, be it the trauma unit or the critical care unit. It was typical for Celia to work 72 hours a week.

Celia was a woman of great empathy as well, said her colleagues. Not only did she care for patients as if they were personal friends, she cared for their families as well. She was known to spend hours explaining the condition of the patient to their loved ones and would even take phone calls from them during her rest days. She would update them on the patient’s latest test results and console them should the patient lose their battle. Her heart was as big as her talent.

Like most Filipino healthcare workers, Celia was the breadwinner of her family. Her son, Josh, remembers her as a demonstrative and affectionate mother. She loved to laugh and would often play practical jokes on her children as a show of affection. You knew she loved you if she was pranking you, Josh tearfully remembers.

Last March, Celia treated a patient who later tested positive for COVID-19. Due to budget cuts, Celia was not provided personal protective equipment since she was not working in an area designated for COVID patients. She got infected and spent her final days in isolation away from her children. Celia died on April 21 due to complications resulting from COVID-19.

Meanwhile, over in New Jersey, Alfredo Pabatao worked as a medical orderly while his wife, Susana, worked as a nurse’s assistant. The couple have been married for 44 years, with the last 20 spent in the US working as medical frontliners. They were loving towards one another, recalls youngest daughter, Sheryl. Alfredo would regularly come home with a bunch of flowers for Susana for no reason except to show his appreciation. The Pabataos were a loving family who derived strength from one another especially amid the financial and social challenges that come with being an immigrant.

Susana was an excellent nurse, say her colleagues. She was full of empathy, especially towards the elderly. She would treat aging patients with the same tenderness as her own parents. Somehow, she always had the right words to say and it always brought comfort to those she was tending to. She was a woman with a calm soul and it shone through.

Last March, Alfredo attended to a patient infected with COVID-19. He fell ill days later and was immediately put in confinement. Alfredo and Susana would communicate daily through FaceTime even when Alfredo was connected to a ventilator. Susana was his pillar of strength — she would encourage him to fight and be strong. For his part, Alfredo tried to show his bravado. In one of their FaceTime conversations, he attempted to do yoga poses to prove that he was recovering, recalls Sheryl.

But he could not fool Susana. She knew perfectly well how serious Alfredo’s condition was. In the privacy of her room, Sheryl would hear her mother sobbing through the night.

Alfredo died on March 26. Susana fell ill a few days after that. Her health spiraled down due to both the lethality of the COVID-19 virus and depression. She died a month after, on April 30.

Filipino healthcare workers are the backbone of the American healthcare system. In New York City alone, 34% of nearly 300,000 Filipinos are connected in the healthcare industry. In California, 20% of all nurses are of Filipino ancestry.

Filipino healthcare workers in America are dying at a 40% mortality rate, significantly higher than the 3.7% mortality rate of COVID-19 patients in the US, according to the John Hopkins Institute. This is due to their daily exposure to infected individuals and oftentimes, less-than-ideal safety conditions.

Evelin Weber, a Wall Street executive, philanthropist and founder of the Philippine Foundation, says that Filipinos are the soldiers in America’s battle against COVID-19. Often serving without personal protective equipment, these brave health workers have cared for 5.4 million infected Americans, 170,000 of whom have died. They are the unsung heroes who work tirelessly and without fanfare or complaints, to protect Americans from this terrible virus.

Co-founder of the Philippine Foundation and advocate of Philippine-American relations, Trevor Neilson, recognizes how Filipinos healthcare workers have set aside their own safety to help others. Many have died in the process. As a result, countless Filipino families have lost a father, mother, sister or brother, and many of them were the breadwinners of their families.

The Philippines Foundation, in partnership with the Los Angeles-based Manny Pacquiao Foundation, has recently established a fund to ease the burden of the families of fallen Filipino healthcare workers. The goal is to help 100 Filipino families with their immediate financial needs, whether it be to purchase food, rent, tuition fees and other such pressing necessities.

Apart from the seed fund that the Philippines Foundation and the Manny Pacquiao Foundation are providing, they are also accepting donations from concerned citizens. The more funds raised, the more families can be helped. Donations can be made through www.thephilippinesfoundation.org. All donations are tax deductible.

What is good about this initiative is that the donations go directly to the families of fallen Filipino healthcare workers who need it most. The Philippines Foundation also has a system to ensure that the funds go towards the basic needs of the family.

Families of Filipino healthcare workers killed by COVID-19 who have not yet been accredited by the fund can contact the website mentioned above.

Our countrymen abroad who work as medical frontliners live tough lives. They are exposed to this insidious virus on a daily basis and are dying at 11 times the rate of COVID patients themselves. The initiative of the Philippines Foundation to recognize and assist slain Filipino frontliners in America is both timely and a godsend. It deserves our full support.

 

Andrew J. Masigan is an economist

The NBA realizes racism is bad for business

By Stephen L. Carter

THE National Basketball Association (NBA) players who briefly staged a work stoppage in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake have decided to play their games after all. The threat to the truncated baseball season is also over. And herein lies a tale about sports and the limits of protest.

The courts where the NBA is staging its contests have “Black Lives Matter” emblazoned on them. Critics complain, on the other hand, that although players and team officials are permitted and even encouraged to speak up about racial injustice at home, the league won’t allow them to criticize the government of China, a country from which the NBA earns billions in revenue. Assume that the charge is true. It’s not hypocrisy. It’s just business. It’s also evidence that when it comes to political protests in professional sports, the players get the publicity but the owners are in charge.

Some conservatives angrily charge that the NBA owners are trying to show how “woke” they are, but that’s an oversimplification. Like other corporate entities, the teams have First Amendment rights, and as they read the shifting political winds, they’re trying to position themselves to maximize profit. They see no gain in antagonizing Beijing; and they see little loss in siding with Black Lives Matter.

This era is like every other. It takes nothing away from the sincerity of the players to point out that protests in sports succeed when the leagues and owners support them. Otherwise … not so much.

Case in point: In January of 1959, the Minneapolis Lakers arrived in Charleston, West Virginia, to play a basketball game against the Cincinnati Royals. But the hotel where the Lakers were staying refused to give a room to superstar Elgin Baylor because he was Black. (A White teammate is said to have scolded the desk clerk: “This man is more successful than you, and makes a lot more money than you ever will!”)  Later that evening, Baylor and the team’s two other Black players found that no local restaurant would seat them. Having had enough, Baylor refused to play. Tickets had been sold on the promise of his presence on the court. Instead he sat on the bench in street clothes. Sportswriters were angry. Local business leaders complained. The league considered handing down discipline, then backed off after the team’s owner supported his star.

The following year, a football player named Art Powell, a member of the Philadelphia Eagles, refused to play in a preseason game in Norfolk, Virginia, after learning that he could not stay at the team hotel because he was Black. Powell wasn’t a star. He’d been in professional sports for all of one season. The team didn’t support him. It released him. The protest has largely been forgotten. (At this writing, it’s not mentioned in Powell’s Wikipedia entry.)

A few years later, now a member of the Oakland Raiders, Powell was one of several Black players who threatened to boycott a preseason game in Mobile, Alabama, because stadium seating was segregated. When the venue wouldn’t budge — “We don’t want four boys from Oakland telling us how to run our stadium,” stadium management said — the league arranged for the game to be moved elsewhere.

Maybe the owners were sympathetic to civil rights. But it’s also true that by 1963, when the controversy over Mobile arose, the issue of racial equality had become more salient, and it was clear as crystal which argument was in the descendant. It was important that the owners of professional sports franchises, whatever their private views, wind up on the winning side.

Just a year earlier, the Washington football team had been informed by the Department of the Interior that unless they added Black players to the league’s last remaining lily-White roster, they would no longer be welcome at the government-owned DC Stadium. The majority owner at the time was the venerable racist George Preston Marshall, who was determined never to integrate his team. But Marshall was a businessman. He saw the writing on the wall. Segregation was no longer profitable. He caved.

Not that things were always so clear. Consider some of the early Black players in major league baseball, long before the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson: Vincent Nava in the 1880s, George Treadway in the 1890s, Charles Grant at the dawn of the 20th century. Owners hired them to help their teams win more games, then tried to pass each as an acceptable ethnicity: Nava as Hispanic, Treadway as American Indian or perhaps White, and Grant as White. Each was soon outed as Black, and abandoned by his team. The issue of race was salient indeed, but the winds were blowing in a different direction.

We could argue for a right of protest that is independent of the views of the league. But there’s a catch. If we’re going to respect protest rights, let’s respect them across the board. The social media attacks on the NBA’s Jonathan Isaac for refusing to kneel during the National Anthem are wrong-headed, to say the least. In 2017, two high school football referees, upset that players were kneeling, walked off the field. “They’ve got the right to protest and so do we,” said one. After being disciplined for their walkout — even high school leagues know who butters their bread! — the refs wound up quitting.

To respond that the pair got what they deserved is to endorse the position of the National Football League owners accused of refusing to hire Colin Kaepernick after he began kneeling four years ago. They, too, were surely trying to maximize profit by outguessing the political winds. They just got the direction wrong.

BLOOMBERG OPINION

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