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EastWest eyes bond issue by Q3

EAST WEST Banking Corp. (EastWest Bank) expects to offer the first tranche of its P10-billion fixed-rate bond program in the third quarter, as it seeks to diversify its funding sources.

EastWest Bank Senior Executive Vice-President Rafael S. Algarra, Jr. said in an interview that the Gotianun-led lender is looking at offering its maiden peso-denominated bonds next quarter.

“We’re still looking at the timing. We’re looking at it some time definitely this year. Hopefully, we can do it probably by the third quarter of the year,” Mr. Algarra said.

Last week, EastWest Bank said in a regulatory filing that its board of directors approved the issuance of up to P10 billion in bonds to be issued in one or more tranches, adding that the timing of the issuance will be subject to market conditions.

Before issuing the bonds, Mr. Algarra said the bank will have to look at market appetite as well as the timing of other firms that are also issuing debt instruments.

“You want to put it in a position where it doesn’t conflict with other issuances in the market,” he said. “The rates should be also reasonable for us.”

The official added that EastWest Bank will raise funds through the fixed-rate bonds to diversify its funding sources.

“We expect recovery in the lending market as the cut in reserves and interest rates would probably spur some growth, especially on the loan side of business,” Mr. Algarra said.

“As the business expands, we would need funding… What we want to do is to have a good stable balance sheet and one way to…have stable funding is to have something on the longer end of your liabilities.”

Lenders can now raise fresh funds through bonds and commercial papers after the central bank last year relaxed its rules by doing away with having to secure approval from them.

In June 2018, EastWest Bank raised P2.45 billion from the first tranche of its P15-billion long-term negotiable certificates of deposit program. The 5.5-year notes carry an interest rate of 4.625% to be paid quarterly until December 2023.

EastWest Bank posted a net income of P1.3 billion in the first three months of the year, up 36% from the same period a year ago, driven by improved trading income, lower credit costs and the resumption of the teachers’ lending program of the bank’s rural banking arm.

The bank’s shares closed at P11.62 apiece on Tuesday, down eight centavos or 0.68%. — Karl Angelo N. Vidal

AMA invests P150M on online education

AMA Education System invested P150 million on its online education platform, which caters to students both in the Philippines and abroad.

“(We invested) north of a hundred fifty million (in AMA Online Education or AMA OEd)… To be online is the way to go. We can be everywhere in the world. You can access it anytime at your own pace, at your own leisure,” Amable “Miguel” C. Aguiluz IX, vice chairman and chief executive officer of AMA Education System, said in a recent briefing.

AMA OEd is the online learning platform of AMA University — a CHEd recognized and accredited institution. AMA Education System also operates AMA University, which offers Information Technology (IT) courses.

Mr. Aguiluz thought of creating a platform for distance learning to address the lack of access to education for some Filipinos. This after a student from AMA Davao raised this problem.

“If you think of ways to solve people’s problems, it might be a good business,” he said.

Launched in 2015, AMA OEd allows people who have no time to attend classes physically can now do so anywhere, anytime.

“What we did was we got a few top graduates of AMA on software development and a few system analysts. We told them about our dream to build a platform that would be accessible via the internet,” Mr. Aguiluz said. It took eight to nine months of trial and error to finalize the education platform.

There are 17 courses available on AMA OEd, such as computer studies, engineering, business administration, and arts and sciences courses.

Enrolled students can simply log on the platform to access lessons, which may be in the form of text, video, or audio. There is also an offline option for those who do not have internet access in their homes. Questions can also be posted in the platform, and the instructor will reply within 24 hours.

Just like traditional schools, there will also be seat work, quizzes, long tests, and final exams.

In order to ensure that the student is the one answering such tests, Mr. Aguiluz said that they developed a system that would detect malicious acts called the lock-down browser. This would also detect if the student would open other files, or have someone coach him. This also manipulates the device’s camera to take pictures of the student every 30 seconds for further security.

“We want to grow the business, the platform. Of course, our plan is to really go out of our comfort zone, which is targeting just the Filipinos. We want to go further and target the international students,

With a couple of improvement in the coming years, this will attract more students. We are very bullish about the future. We know that in the next 10 to 20 years, more students will favor the online versus the traditional school,” Mr. Aguiluz added.

Mr. Aguiluz said AMA OEd did not affect AMA University, given that all of the latter’s students are full-time.

As the online education platform attracts more attention, he expects more working professionals, and persons with disabilities (PWDs) to enroll.

AMA OEd is open to Filipinos and foreigners. Tuition fees for courses vary, but Mr. Aguiluz said these are “competitive.” — Vincent Mariel P. Galang

Flavors of Mindanao highlights food tourism’s role in promoting culture, local economy

By Maya M. Padillo, Correspondent

DAVAO CITY — The World Food Travel Association defines food tourism as “the act of traveling for a taste of place in order to get a sense of place.”

The non-profit organization, with a community of over 50,000 across 139 countries, says in its site that it adopted this term in place of “culinary tourism” back in 2012 because their research indicated that the word “culinary” “gave a misleading impression” and was rather perceived as “elitist.”

“Food Tourism includes the full range of experiences, from food carts and street vendors, to the locals-only (gastro) pubs, dramatic wineries, or one-of-a-kind restaurants. There is something for everyone in the food tourism industry,” the association says.

The Philippine tourism industry recognizes this important sector and the link between food and tourism for bringing benefits to local communities.

“This relation significantly manifests how each platform contributes to the tourism industry and even in community development. Generally, tourism serves as an economic driver that provides livelihood for everyone,” said Department of Tourism-Davao (DoT-11) Regional Director Tanya R. Tan.

In an interview during the Davao stop of the “Malling is More Fun in the Philippines” nationwide campaign of the DoT and SM shopping malls, Ms. Tan said part of what they are promoting is how local food tells the stories of the communities.

“Big companies nowadays are one in heart and voice with the DoT in spreading fun and excitement across different experiences possible for everyone… Aside from malling, the real fun experience in the country is through satisfying the palate with mixes of flavors and filling the stomachs with gastronomic innovations,” she said.

One of the main activities during the event was the “Flavors of Mindanao,” which Ms. Tan said showcased “the culinary heritage of Mindanao through the different cuisines rooted in the different areas on the island.”

Among the food served up for tasting were balut lumpia (a spring roll filled with fertilized duck egg), chili-flavored chocolates, Malagos cheeses, durian tarts and puffs, adlai champorado with candied dilis (a sweet chocolate rice porridge — adlai subbing for the rice — with candied anchovies), tuna tartare, seafood satti (skewers), and crispy bangus (milkfish) with adobong kangkong (swang cabbanged stewed in vinegar and soy sauce).

These were prepared by participating restaurants and hotels, namely Top One Grill and Hotpot, Blue Post Group, Marco Polo Davao, The Fat Cow, the Malagos Farm House, and Park Inn by Radisson Davao.

A cook-off featuring five of Davao’s up-and-coming chefs was also held as well as a food fair.

Ms. Tan said food and tourism should translate to generating income for the communities and contribute to the local economy.

“This is the idea behind SM’s partnership campaign with the Department of Tourism… This campaign ups the fun, food and festivity,” said Lester R. Tantoco, SM Lanang Premier’s mall manager.

“It (SM malls nationwide) continues to serve as a venue for meaningful experiences in shopping, dining, leisure, and entertainment. We are excited for Malling Is More Fun in The Philippines to unfold in the coming months,” he added.

Apple sets vision for unified app strategy at developer confab

APPLE INC. upgraded the operating systems that power its devices, previewed a new Mac Pro desktop computer and showed off new health and augmented-reality features at its annual developer conference on Monday.

The most important change for developers was Apple’s vision for the future of its software: Project Catalyst. For the first time, Apple will let developers re-work their iPad applications so they can run on Mac computers. This will help revive the Mac app ecosystem and begin a broader convergence of Apple’s different software platforms.

New tools will mean apps are written once and will run on all of Apple’s major devices. Currently, developers that want to be on Mac computers, iPhones and iPads need to write two separate apps. The new capability will free up developers’ time to focus more on features, rather than device compatibility.

Project Catalyst applies to Apple, too. The company has started shifting some of its software code to apps that can run on any Apple device. Last year, it added News, Voice Memos, Home, and Stocks apps to the Mac that were originally written as iPad apps. At the WWDC conference in San Jose, California, on Monday, the company showed Project Catalyst examples from developers such as Twitter Inc. and Atlassian Corp.

While the conference isn’t the most-watched Apple event of the year, it is crucial to the company’s success. Apple devices are often unique and more capable than those of rivals because the software works so well with the hardware.

Beyond the new app strategy, Apple added several new features to its key operating systems. iOS 13, which powers the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, added a new Dark Mode. That’s appealing to professional users, but also gives Apple devices a new look that could be easier on the eyes in low-light environments. The devices also get a new “Find My” device and friend tracking app, along with updates to Mail, Reminders, and Maps.

The iPhone added a redesigned Health app with a focus on hearing and women’s health. The iPad got unique features like widgets on the Home screen, more advanced text editing via gestures, and the ability to be used as an external monitor for Macs. The iPad version of the software is now called iPadOS.

Apple unveiled new watch faces, health apps and an App Store for the Apple Watch to make it more independent from the iPhone.

The new macOS Catalina operating system, beyond supporting iOS applications, gained new Apple apps for listening to podcasts and the new Find My app. iTunes has also been broken up into the Podcasts, TV, and Apple Music apps.

Apple also showed off a new Mac Pro desktop computer, a machine that developers and other pro-users have been clamoring for since Apple launched a much-criticized Mac Pro in 2013.

An update to the Apple TV streaming video box included support for lyrics in Apple Music, multi-user mode, and a redesigned Home screen. Last month, the company unveiled a new TV app for the device and said its TV+ original video service would launch toward the end of this year.

The HomePod speaker, which competes with the Amazon Echo and Google Home, is getting a multi-user mode so different people can issue commands to the device and get personalized responses. Apple’s AirPods earphones are also getting a new feature to more quickly respond to messages notifications via voice.

All the new software updates will be available to consumers in the fall, while developers are getting early testing versions on Monday. The company typically releases updates around the same time as it rolls out new iPhone and Apple Watch hardware in October. — Bloomberg

The art of taking wine tasting notes

“BRIGHT dark ruby color, fragrant nose with hint of leather, robust and powerful, majestic up to the last drop” — this is an example of a wine tasting note you may see for a young Grand Cru Bordeaux, which, to the uninitiated reader, could be a description of anything from a new sports car to a signature brand of perfume. But this is exactly the description that makes wine writers good at their profession. This is also the art in wine writing. However, many times, the notes can be too vague, too general, or even a bit incongruous.

Wine writers/critics taste wines and write their notes for the public to know what their opinions are about the insane number of wine choices out there. The tasting notes therefore serve as guides, very much like restaurant and food reviews. So, the description of the wines, should be as vivid and “sensory-inferential” as possible. When I get to watch Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson on their TV cooking shows, I can already somehow savor the food they are describing. This is what tasting notes on wines should do — even though in the case of wines, the time you open the bottle and how you aerate the wine, as well as other factors like serving temperature and food accompaniment may affect the tasting per se. Still, overall, the tasting notes, if written well, should give the readers the essence of the wines being described. But do take into consideration that there will definitely be biases and very subjective views, as, after all, wine appreciation is still a personal experience between the drinker and his/her own preference.

THE AROMA WHEEL AND THE DESCRIPTION SEQUENCE
One of the most influential guides to tasting notes is the Aroma Wheel which was created in the University of California Davis in 1984 by then faculty member of the renowned Department of Viticulture and Oenology (now retired) Professor Ann Noble. This graphic illustration of the different aroma categories and components that are found in wine has provided a useful basic terminology on the “nose” of a wine using metaphoric scents we are familiar with, like fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc. The Aroma Wheel has very general terms starting from the center, going to the more specific terms in the outer tiers. The Aroma Wheel can be viewed and purchased at the official website www.winearomawheel.com.

The Aroma Wheel is the first step to combat the so called “olfactory verbal gap” of wine novices, or the usual expression “I know what I smell, but can’t quite say what it is” or the more common “The description is at the tip of my tongue.” After all, the idea of tasting notes is to be able to communicate what one thinks of the wines. And the clearer the communication, the better. So the usual description of a wine being simply “fruity,” can be better understood if it is specified to be fresh tropical fruits like bananas or pineapples, or to be dried fruits, like raisins or prunes.

The Aroma Wheel only covers the Smell side of the 2S3T Wine Sensory Evaluation, the 2Ss being Sight and Smell, and the 3Ts being Taste, Touch, and Totality, written in this order when wine is being described.

Other than the smell descriptions, the Touch portion is probably equally as important. Touch refers to the “feel” of the wine when it touches the mouth, and is where wine body — whether it be full, medium, or light — and the finish — whether the flavors thin out or linger long — are expressed in the tasting notes.

HYPERBOLE
This is really where entertainment value to me comes in. Simply saying a wine is bad or good just doesn’t cut it, so wine writers can call use more colorful terms. I have seen and heard wine critics say a wine has a foul smell reminiscent of un-flushed toilet bowls, or a wine is so good, it has sent them to cloud nine. As a writer, the hyperbole is for emphasis, and this holds true to any writing job, when tackling sensorial subjects like food, hotel facilities, spas, and so on.

There is, sadly, no substitute for saying a wine is surreal, majestic, magnificent, superb and all the superlatives if the writer is so enamored by the quality of the wine being tasted.

It is now just up to the readers to try the wine being described and to agree or not with the writer. So the writer who resorts to hyperbole may lose his or her credibility among some of the readers who disagree with him/her.

DESCRIBING WINES THE ASIAN WAY
I remembered an instance almost two decades ago when I was in Hong Kong selling California wines. I had a tasting session with a top hotel chain in the Kowloon side, when I asked the waitstaff to help me describe the wine I just poured for them. It was a Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon. While I got the usual descriptions of black berries, chocolate, vanilla, licorice, etc., one guy from the back of the function room screamed “Peking Duck.” Everyone suddenly laughed at him. But then, I swirled my glass a bit more, and I somehow identified a fowl-like nose, as well as some oiliness and creaminess in the wine. So when I asked this fellow if that was what he was detecting, he nodded his head. Then, the rest of the waitstaff reexamined their glasses, and eventually all agreed that it had that “Peking Duck” note… even the Hoisin sauce used for the Peking Duck skin wrap was noticed. To me this made sense, as the sweet over-ripe berries in the Cabernet have Hoisin sauce-like qualities.

So, tasting notes here in Asia can be used with more familiar regional similes. I do not think many of us can perceive a rhubarb, raspberry, or gooseberry aroma which Western wine writers use a lot to describe certain wines, but we can identify hawthorn berry (the famous haw flakes), coconut, and other more familiar fruits. In one of my more recent tastings, I remembered a New Zealand Chardonnay that has this unbelievable aroma resembling buko pandan (young coconut with screwpine leaf).

Learning about wines can be doubly enjoyable if one can communicate tasting notes that fellow wine aficionados can understand. And the first step is to be perceptive of the different scents and flavors around us on a day to day basis. I always believe that chefs or culinary professionals are the most perceptive wine aroma spotters, as they are exposed to different herbs and spices which can tremendously help their wine aroma vocabulary. As for the hyperbole, just leave it to us wine writers to entice your wine imagination.

The author is a member of the UK-based Circle of Wine Writers (CWW). For comments, inquiries, wine event coverage, and other wine-related concerns, e-mail the author at protegeinc@yahoo.com. He is also on Twitter at twitter.com/sherwinlao.

GCash targets 100 NGO partners for donation platform

GCash is targeting to end 2019 with 100 NGO partners.

DAVAO CITY — Mobile money platform GCash is targeting to end the year with 100 non-government organization (NGO) partners for its GCash for Good campaign launched here Tuesday.

A platform for donations, GCash for Good is a corporate social responsibility project of the company that enables users to donate to NGOs that advocate education, environment, and animal welfare, among others.

“We want to end this year with 100 partner NGOs nationwide. The 100 is just aspirational,” Reyner M. Villasenor, GCash vice-president for corporate communications, said during the launch.

“This is our way of giving back as GCash as a corporate entity,” he said.

The program has so far signed up 35 partner NGOs that have completed documentation requirements from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Mynt or Globe Fintech Innovations, Inc., which operates GCash.

“We leverage on our relationship where we would want to elevate a certain level of awareness as an individual. You can do good with your mobile application,” said Mr. Villasenor.

“We are the number one mobile wallet in the country today. But being number one means we have to be a role model… It’s all about how we make a difference in people’s lives,” he added.

Mr. Villasenor cited the 2017 Global Trends in Giving study, which shows that 54% of individuals prefer to donate online. The total volume of donations made online has been growing by 12.1%, according to the study. — Maya M. Padillo

Tiffany’s US sales to China tourists drop by over 25%

TIFFANY & Co.’s US sales to Chinese tourists fell by more than 25% last quarter, a trend that’s worsening as a trade war escalates between the two countries.

The jeweler first started seeing cracks in tourist spending a year ago, and it has further deteriorated over the past three quarters. Company executives said on a conference call that the overall sales drop to tourists visiting the US steepened to 25% last quarter from a year earlier, and the decline was even deeper among travelers from China, without giving a specific number.

The trend represents a threat for US luxury companies, which depend on deep-pocketed foreigners for a not-insignificant part of their sales. The problem will likely be exacerbated by a travel warning Tuesday, in which China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism dissuaded citizens from visiting the US because of “frequent” shootings, robbery and theft. State-run television network China Central Television said US law enforcement agencies had “repeatedly harassed” Chinese travelers.

“Of course we are not happy when there are recommendations of not traveling,” Chief Executive Officer Alessandro Bogliolo said in an interview Tuesday. “But of course this is outside our control. We’re focusing on what’s under our control.”

The company’s internal estimates show that foreign tourists account for a low-double-digit percentage of Tiffany’s US sales. Revenue from the Americas represented about 40% of the company’s total of $1 billion in the first quarter.

It’s not just Tiffany that’s feeling the impact. Jeffrey Goh, CEO of the Star Alliance group of airlines, said this week that his association’s members have seen a decline in US-bound travelers from China. Star Alliance includes carriers such as Air China and United Continental Holdings, Inc. PVH Corp., the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger apparel, reported last month that US-China tensions are causing anxiety among consumers.

US data show Chinese tourism has been falling. Three million Chinese tourists traveled to the US in 2018, down from 3.2 million the previous year, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office, which collects data from U.S. customs forms. But Chinese citizens still spent more while stateside: $36.4 billion in 2018 — up from $35.3 billion the year before — making them the biggest spenders of all international tourists.

For Tiffany, the other side of the coin is that the Chinese government is urging its citizens to increase domestic consumption, which helped push the jewelry maker’s sales in mainland China up by double digits in the first quarter.

Currency trends are also playing a role. When exchange rates were favorable, Chinese vacationers would often make shopping lists of what they wanted to buy from luxury brands before traveling abroad, Mr. Bogliolo said. That stopped as the US dollar strengthened, so they shifted to buying more of those goods domestically.

Sales to wealthy travelers tend to skew toward Tiffany’s New York flagship location, West Coast stores and boutiques in the Northeast that are close to major universities.

Tiffany shares rose 2.6% to $92.51 on Tuesday, extending the stock’s year-to-date rise to 15%. — Bloomberg

Compliance with agri-agra lending difficult for banks

UNIONBANK of the Philippines, Inc. said banks are having a hard time complying with the required lending to the farming sector given the rapid growth of their loan portfolios.

“This is the problem. The Agri-Agra Law is computed as a percentage of your loan book. Loans of banks have grown so fast that compared to the number of hectares that are available, it didn’t grow. It even declined,” UnionBank President and Chief Executive Officer Edwin R. Bautista told reporters on Monday in a mix of English and Filipino.

Republic Act 10000 or the Agri-Agra Reform Credit Act mandates banks to allot at least 10% of its total loanable funds to agrarian reform beneficiaries and 15% for farmers and fisherfolk.

As of end-2018, banks only extended P707.4 billion loans to the agriculture sector, just 56.97% of the P1.241 trillion they should have lent out to beneficiaries, central bank data showed. However, loans to the sector grew from the P573.69 billion booked at end-2017, also roughly half of the P1.034 trillion banks should have offered.

Given that lenders are unable to meet the regulation, banks mostly prefer to pay penalties for non-compliance rather than lend to the so-called “risky” segment.

Mr. Bautista added that the penalty imposed to banks is “not that big.”

“Still, that’s not the point. The point is why do you have a regulation that is impossible for the industry to comply with?” he said.

In an interview last year, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Head of Financial Consumer Protection Department and Inclusive Finance Advocacy Office Pia Bernadette Roman-Tayag said despite the low compliance rate to the Agri-Agra Law, this does not necessarily mean there is lack of interest from banks to invest in the agriculture sector.

“Absorptive capacity of the sector [can] be a limiting factor, where growth of the banking system’s total loanable fund significantly outpaces the sector’s growth,” she said.

The BSP has given banks alternatives to complying with the mandated agri-agra lending, such as investments in bonds issued by government-run lenders Land Bank of the Philippines and Development Bank of the Philippines, as well as investing in infrastructure and preferred shares of stock in rural financial institutions that will help grow the sector.

Despite these, Mr. Bautista said there is a “general sentiment that the law needs to be repealed.”

“They have to go to Congress to have it repealed. I think there are moves already because they saw there’s no way banks can comply.” — K.A.N. Vidal

Stocks may drop further amid lack of catalysts

By Arra B. Francia, Senior Reporter

LOCAL SHARES may slump in the remainder of the week on the lack of positive leads.

The 30-member Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) fell 1.72% or 139.51 points to 7,945.37 on Tuesday, snapping a five-day winning streak that saw it climb past the 8,000 level.

Market breadth on Tuesday was also negative, with 113 decliners versus 84 advancers and 40 names that stayed flat. Foreign investors also went back on selling mode at P737.38 million, compared to net inflows of P1.43 billion in the previous session.

“Our PSEi may retest 7,800 if we see no positive catalyst in the remaining two trading days of the week. Current resistance is at 8,100,” Timson Securities, Inc. Equity Trader Jervin S. de Celis said in a mobile phone message.

Mr. De Celis noted that there will be little impact from the inflation data reported on Wednesday. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Wednesday that inflation accelerated to 3.2% in May, higher than April’s 3% but lower than the 4.6% seen in May 2018.

The PSA attributed the increase to higher prices for food, such as vegetables, fruit, and fish. Housing and utility expenses such as water, electricity, and fuel also rose last month.

The headline inflation print is higher than the 3% median estimate recorded in a BusinessWorld poll of 11 economists, but was still within the 2.8-3.6% estimate range given by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ Department of Economic Research last week.

“I think it (inflation) is of little concern for investors since it accelerated by only 0.2% versus April’s inflation data. So I don’t think it will have a dragging effect on the PSEi [on Thursday],” Mr. De Celis said.

Eagle Equities, Inc. Research Head Christopher John Mangun earlier said that even if inflation comes in higher than 3%, this would still be within the government’s target of 2-4%.

On the other hand, the PSEi may also take cues from international markets’ performance yesterday.

Wall Street indices all gained more than 2% after US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell hinted that they could cut interest rates if the US’ trade war with China and its recent dispute in Mexico cause a slowdown in the country’s economy.

With this, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.06% or 25,332.18. The S&P 500 index climbed 2.14% or 58.82 points to 2,803.27, while the Nasdaq Composite index soared 2.65% or 194.10 points to 7,527.12.

Asian markets followed suit, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 up 1.77% or 361.39 points to 20,769.93. The Hang Seng index added 0.55% or 147.68 points to 26,909.20, while the Shanghai Composite firmed up 0.57% or 16.28 points to 2,878.56.

Local financial markets were closed on Wednesday in celebration of Eid al-Fitr.

Ang expects to spend P10 billion for bus terminal

SAN MIGUEL Corp. (SMC) said it may spend around P10 billion for the construction and operation of a proposed bus and food terminal on the site of the former Pandacan oil depot.

During a media roundtable on Tuesday, SMC President and Chief Operating Officer Ramon S. Ang said the amount covers the overall cost to develop the terminal.

The Pandacan oil depot previously hosted the facilities of Petron Corp. Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., and Chevron Philippines, Inc. The property is owned by the state-owned Philippine National Oil Co.

“(SMC) intends to submit an unsolicited proposal to the Department of Transportation for the construction and operation of a bus and foot (sic) terminal at the NLEX-SLEX Connector Road that will allow provincial buses and UV Express vans to drop off passengers to decongest traffic at the Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue,” the listed company told the stock exchange on Monday.

Mr. Ang earlier said that the terminal will be built over the Skyway Stage 3, a road currently being built by SMC’s unit, Citra Central Expressway Corp., which will connect the South Luzon Expressway from Buendia in Makati City, and North Luzon Expressway in Balintawak, Quezon City.

The planned bus and food terminal, according to Mr. Ang, will be similar to an “airport terminal” where safety and security is ensured.

The terminal is expected to open by December 2019.

To recall, in 2017 Mr. Ang bared plans to convert the oil depot into a food terminal where agriculture products will be sold at lower prices. — J.C.Lim

Microsoft, no longer open source ‘Great Satan,’ woos skeptics to push growth

IN 2014, Microsoft Corp. cloud chief Scott Guthrie wrote up a proposal to acquire GitHub Inc. Then he filed the plan away in a drawer. Every once in a while he’d take the plan out and look at it, and then return it to the cabinet.

Guthrie felt Microsoft just wasn’t ready to acquire the popular open-source company — a widely used digital hive where millions of software programmers collaborate on, share and store code. “We would have screwed it up,” Guthrie said. What’s more, developers — many of whom viewed Microsoft as public enemy No. 1 for its attacks on freely distributed open-source software — would have rioted.

“The open-source world would’ve rightly looked at us at the time as the antichrist,” he said. “We didn’t have the credibility that we have now around open source.” The company was still largely focused on its own software, completely created in-house and owned by Microsoft.

Since then, Microsoft has turned itself into one of the biggest developers of open-source software and has persuaded customers to trust applications built using rival tools and programs to Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing service, boosting Azure revenue and usage. More than 60 percent of the company’s team that works with cloud-app developers were hired for their expertise in non-Microsoft programming tools or cloud services. A full version of the open-source Linux operating system is even being added to Windows. The efforts are bringing new software builders to the Microsoft camp.

Last June, Guthrie and Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella finally unveiled an agreement to acquire GitHub. While there was still some initial agita in the developer community and rivals gained some refugee users from GitHub, one year later the deal is noteworthy mainly for how little drama it’s caused. Most GitHub users just continued putting their code there.

“Some people were upset, but few, because Microsoft had spent years building up goodwill with the open-source community,” said Matt Asay, an Adobe Inc. senior director who is a longtime open-source developer and previous Microsoft opponent. “There was a knee-jerk sort of ‘remember, they’re the Great Satan’ reaction, but it was halfhearted.”

Appealing to a wider swath of developers is important for Microsoft’s growth prospects. Tools and software that help engineers write programs generate a small portion of Microsoft’s revenue, dwarfed by units like cloud services and Windows — but they lure users to the bigger businesses. Winning over software developers is key to getting them to write apps from games to business software that dovetail with Microsoft products or that are housed in Microsoft’s Azure cloud. Developers’ hearts and minds have also been key to Microsoft’s revived reputation as a technology leader.

“There are more developers today that Microsoft is being relevant to,” said S. Somasegar, managing director at Madrona Venture Group who spent 27 years at Microsoft, including running the developer division when it began increasing its focus on open source.

Five years ago, the company was far more insular. When Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, more than a decade of developer defections had left the company in a weak position. Microsoft had been unable to rally engineers to build apps for its phones and tablets. The biggest start-ups were built on open-source tools, and growing young companies like Uber Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc. chose Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud.

The mass defection of software developers represented a dramatic reversal of fortune for a company that was founded in 1975 as a developer tools company — Bill Gates and Paul Allen’s first products were languages meant to enable coders to program early home computers. Later on, the Windows operating system’s dominance meant everyone wrote programs for it. But even as video surfaced in the early 2000s of then-CEO Steve Ballmer working up a sweat onstage cheering for “developers,” the company was losing them in droves. The rise of internet-based computing and later mobile phones pushed programmers to other languages and mobile app stores. Microsoft executives termed the increasingly popular Linux and open-source tools a “cancer” and an anathema to the “American Way,” angering an entire community of engineers, including people like Asay.

“Our investments were really Windows-only,” said Julia Liuson, who runs Microsoft’s Visual Studio products, which are used to develop software, applications and web sites. By 2012, developers told her they no longer looked to Microsoft to provide them with programming languages and end tools. “You got this really clear sense that we were their past but not part of their future.”

After Nadella replaced Ballmer, Microsoft began releasing some key products — including one of Liuson’s Visual Studio programs — under an open-source license, so any programmer could use and make adjustments to it. Nadella also wanted to boost Azure usage by recruiting Linux devotees. They weren’t in a forgiving mood. Microsoft engineers frequently found themselves unwelcome at the table — literally. Liuson sent a delegation to a Linux conference a few years ago. When they sat down at the lunch tables, existing occupants scattered at the sight of their Microsoft badges, she said.

Microsoft tried to reboot the entire way it works with developers, starting with a basic but arcane part of the relationship — the reams of highly technical articles about products, which include sample code and blueprints for interested engineers. To overhaul these instruction manual-type documents, Guthrie brought back Microsoft veteran Jeff Sandquist, who had started his career in 1997 on the company’s telephone support hotline for software developers and decamped for Twitter Inc. in 2013. Upon his return, Sandquist worked to make the articles fresher and more accurate, with more technical depth. He bolstered Microsoft’s ability to write documentation for developers working with Java, Python and Linux — all of which had gained prominence as Microsoft’s tools faded. Without clear and compelling documentation for a wider array of systems, Microsoft couldn’t hope to gain credibility with developers, Sandquist said.

Next, Sandquist began to set up a team of experts who could reach out directly to cloud-app developers to get them to reconsider Microsoft. The company has always reached out to developers, but this time, in a Microsoft now embracing open source and trying to lure a wide array of engineers to use Azure, Sandquist’s new team would have to include top experts spanning the full range of non-Microsoft technologies.

“We hired a number of people where the first day they were using Azure was probably their second day at Microsoft,” said Sandquist, who is now general manager for developer relations.

Sandquist aimed to create a diverse team in several respects: expertise, gender, race and location — unlike many other technical teams, much of it is based outside the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. He hired people like Emily Freeman, then a Washington DC-based ghostwriter for tech entrepreneurs, who underwent a “slightly more than quarter-life crisis” and switched to coding despite having no prior programming experience. With a baby daughter, she moved to Denver and learned the web application framework Ruby on Rails, ending up as a developer-relations expert. The role let her blend newly gained coding skills with her older talent for communication, she said, providing technical information to developers, answering their questions and relaying their needs and concerns back to her employer.

About two years ago she heard Microsoft was looking for people like her for its cloud advocacy team — experts in areas outside its core.

“Developers are skeptics by nature — the majority of people have started to take notice, but a lot of people are still in that phase where they still want a little more proof,” she said.

Some customers are talking notice. Adobe, where Asay works, is an Azure customer that uses Java and Red Hat Linux. So is Maersk, the shipping giant. Carlsberg, the beer maker, has some of its Azure applications running SUSE Linux, and the same goes for Coke One North America, which handles the technology for North American Coca-Cola bottlers. GitHub, which hosts code for companies large and small, will continue to be a barometer of developer feelings about its parent company. Since Microsoft’s deal for GitHub, other tech giants have also sought out ways to get closer to the open source community’s roots. When International Business Machines Corp. agreed to buy Linux developer Red Hat Inc. for $33 billion last year, it raised some similar concerns for developers, even though IBM has been working on Linux projects for two decades. In announcing the acquisition, IBM took pains to assure developers that it would remain committed to Red Hat’s open-source work. So far, Microsoft has done little to interfere with GitHub. Like Microsoft acquisition LinkedIn, GitHub has its own CEO and is run independently. The prevailing management ethos seems to be to try to add features users appreciate — for example, making some private code repositories free to host — while not messing with anything they did like. Last week, GitHub announced a system that lets people fund their favorite GitHub contributors — a sort of Patreon for coders.

GitHub CEO Nat Friedman has instructed his team that the needs of GitHub customers come first, even if they conflict with Microsoft’s desire to promote its other products. In November, Friedman went to his first AWS re:Invent, the flagship cloud conference of Microsoft’s biggest rival Amazon, to sit alongside Amazon cloud officials and meet with joint customers. He’s also inked a closer deal with Google Cloud. Still, rivals GitLab and Bitbucket, owned by Atlassian Corp., say many GitHub users have decamped for their sites: Bitbucket said the day after the Microsoft deal was announced was its biggest sign-up day ever, while GitLab says it gained about 113,000 code repositories that were moved from GitHub.

Friedman says his company has grown, too. In the almost 12 months since Microsoft’s $7.5 billion purchase of the site was announced, the number of registered developers that called the site home has risen to 36 million from 28 million.

There are customers who worry that, over time, GitHub will slip more into Microsoft’s shadow. Reza Zadeh, CEO of Matroid, an artificial intelligence company that competes with Microsoft, is still happily using GitHub — but Microsoft’s ownership does make him a little uneasy. He assumes in the future GitHub will be somewhat more aggressive about encouraging users to choose Azure.

GitHub will have to fight that tendency, CEO Friedman said.

“GitHub has to be neutral and GitHub has to be independent,” he said. “Developers want choice. GitHub can’t have any favoritism.” — Bloomberg

Happy Birthday Your Majesty!

ELIZABETH II, Queen of the United Kingdom, was born on April 21, 1926, as the eldest daughter of the then-Duke and Duchess of York, the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Born during her grandfather George V’s reign, she was born third in line to the throne, then her father ascended the throne in 1936, after her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated to prevent a constitutional crisis in his desire to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson.

BusinessWorld attended the Queen’s Birthday Party at the Manila Polo Club earlier this week, organized by the British Embassy. The menu was traditional and included Welsh Rarebit, Toad-in-the-Hole, Cumberland Sausage Rolls, Roast Beef (more than 100 kilograms of it), and trifle, ice cream, cupcakes, and a birthday cake.

The British Ambassador to the Philippines, Daniel Pruce said in a speech, “We are here tonight to celebrate the 93rd birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We pay tribute to her remarkable lifetime of service to the United Kingdom, first as Princess Elizabeth and then as queen since 1952.”

While the Queen was born on April, she officially gets two birthdays: her actual birthday and one usually in June. The tradition of celebrating official birthdays started with one of her ancestors, King George II. Apparently, the queen used to celebrate her birthday on the second Thursday of June, the same day as her father, George VI used to do. The monarch’s birthday has been usually celebrated in June, thanks to another modification by her great-grandfather King Edward VII, who was born in winter and wanted favorable weather for his own birthday celebrations. The schedule has changed since 1959, now she celebrates it on the second Saturday of June, which on this year falls on June 8. The day will be marked in the United Kingdom with the ceremony of Trooping the Color.

“Over the seven decades of her reign, she has seen many changes in the United Kingdom,” said the ambassador in his speech. In her lifetime, the Queen has seen a world war, several conflicts, the creation of the European Union, the transformation of the British Commonwealth, and several reforms in parliament. On more personal notes, there have been children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as well as multiple marriages and divorces within her family. “The United Kingdom will remain a modern, diverse, dynamic country, proud of our past, confident about our future, open to and welcoming of the rest of the world. We will remain an active and energetic member of the international community, advancing prosperity, security, the rule of law, promoting sustainable growth and advocating the rights and principles that we believe in,” said Mr. Pruce. On the then-Princess Elizabeth’s 21st birthday, the future queen made a speech from Cape Town in South Africa. “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” The British Empire is officially gone, replaced by the British Commonwealth. The Queen and her promise live on. — JLG

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