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Sta. Lucia Land sets three-year capex at P20 billion

STA. LUCIA Land, Inc. (SLI) has allotted P20 billion in capital expenditures (capex) over the next three years, in a bid to expand its residential and commercial properties in the country.

In a statement Tuesday, the listed property developer said about P16 billion of the capex will be used for projects in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, Batangas, Iloilo, Pangasinan, Palawan, Cebu, and Davao.

This will support its plan to launch 28 new residential and commercial projects, as well as five condominium and hotel projects that could generate up to P20 billion in reservation sales.

The company’s new residential projects in Metro Manila include Sotogrande Fairview and Acropolis Loyola in Quezon City, and Orchard Towers in Pasig City.

In Luzon, SLI will be developing Green Peak Heights Phase 3 and Sta. Lucia Residences in Rizal, Aquamira at Saddle and Rockville in Cavite, Golden Meadows Phase 2D in Laguna, Colinas Verdes Expansion in Bulacan, Woodside Garden Village in Pangasinan, and Ponte Verde de Sto. Tomas and Yanarra Seaside Residences in Batangas.

Meanwhile, its projects in Visayas and Mindanao include Metropolis in Iloilo, Valle Verde in Cebu, and Ponte Verde Phase 2 in Davao.

For the leasing segment, SLI said it will soon complete the Sta. Lucia Business Center, a six-storey office and commercial building that offers more than 14,000 square meters of gross leasable area. The project stands inside the Sta. Lucia Mall complex, and will bring the firm’s total GLA to over 150,000 sq.m.

The remaining P4 billion out of SLI’s capex will be spent for future land acquisitions.

The company earlier said it will be applying for additional credit lines with the Bank of Commerce and Maybank Philippines, Inc. at P250 million and P200 million, respectively.

SLI’s net income attributable to the parent grew 28% to P338.48 million in the first quarter of 2019, driven by a 30% uptick in gross revenues to P1.27 billion.

Shares in SLI climbed 0.53% or one centavo to close at P1.91 each at the stock exchange on Tuesday. — Arra B. Francia

InLife targets P1 billion in premiums from Mindanao

INSULAR LIFE wants to triple its first-year premiums in Mindanao by end-2019.

DAVAO CITY — Insular Life Assurance Co., Ltd. (InLife) is looking at tripling its first-year premiums in Mindanao by the end of this year to P1 billion from about P333 million in 2018.

“To help us reach our target, we are increasing our effort to recruit more financial advisors and agency leaders, coupled with intensified training for new and existing members of the sales force,” the company said in a statement sent to BusinessWorld, noting the economic growth in the country’s southern islands.

Last year, Mindanao recorded an overall gross regional domestic product growth of 7.1%, according to the National Economic and Development Authority.

To attract more clients, InLife said it is also improving its “product solutions by giving more options for the public to choose the best plan that would suit their personal protection needs as well as improve their financial security.”

The company has also “improved the customer’s experience by using the digital platform.”

“We have made purchasing life insurance as seamless as possible, with the use of our pioneering Automated Underwriting System which can process more than a thousand insurance applications in a day,” it said

It has installed automated systems “to give the customers, through online access, the power to retrieve information regarding their policy/ies, perform certain changes, and avail of services, 24/7, anywhere they may be. “

Aside from technological innovations, the company has also maintained physical presence in the cities of Davao, General Santos, Cotabato, Cagayan de Oro, and Ozamis.

“These buildings are proof of InLife’s commitment to Mindanao and its people,” it added.

The company currently has about 30,000 policyholders in Mindanao, representing 13% of its nationwide customer base. — Carmelito Q. Francisco

‘Paradise Found’ opens Salcedo Auction’s new space

SALCEDO Auctions will hold its inaugural auction at its new headquarters at NEX Tower along Ayala Avenue in Makati on June 1.

“We were waiting for a space like this to come up. We decided that this is the appropriate space for us,” Salcedo Auctions director Richie Lerma told BusinessWorld at the auction preview on May 25.

This weekend’s auction, called “Paradise Found,” is symbolic of finding a new space and a new place for treasured items.

“‘Paradise Found’ came from the idea that everything that is sold through the auctions are pieces of a person’s personal paradise,” Salcedo Auctions Marketing Communications Head LA Consing Lopez told BusinessWorld, discussing the auction’s theme. She added that the items are usually someone’s personal treasure, family heirloom, or a favorite piece of artwork.

The 500-square meter gallery with frontage along Ayala Avenue will function as a showroom, sale room, and exhibition space.

UP FOR AUCTION
The auction consists of 210 lots, the highlights of which include Rodel Tapaya’s painting Baston ni Kabunian, Bilang pero di Mabilang which depicts Philippine folklore and tradition (the piece won the 2011 APB Foundation Signature Art Prize in Singapore), Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s Rooftop in Paris (1890), Jorge Pineda’s depiction of a rice field before harvest (1929), and Lao Lianben’s Man of Few Words (2008). Also up for sale are works by Filipino artists Alfredo Esquillo, Jr., Buen Calubayan, and Jigger Cruz

Rare antique furniture including a rare 19th century all-kamagong wardrobe; an escritio with a chest of drawers made of dark kamagong and narra wood, with carabao bone inlays; a 19th century Hepplewhite-style Baliuag altar table from the collection of Rony and Nini Jorge; and a pair of late-18th century molave pillars from Bohol, are also among the auction peices. There will also be heirloom jewelry and timepieces by Patek Philippe, Breguet, IWC, and Jaeger-Lecoultre.

The “Paradise Found” auction will be held on June 1, 2 p.m., in the new showroom at the Ground D Podium Levels, NEX Tower, 786 Ayala Ave., Makati City. The online catalogue is available at www.salcedoauctions.com. The auction items are on public viewing at the Podium Level of the NEX Tower daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. until May 31. For inquiries, e-mail info@salcedoauctions.com or call 659-4094, 823-0956, or 0917-894-6550. — Michelle Anne P. Soliman

Remember the past

By Craig Scharlin

Book Review
Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the
Battle of Manila
By James M. Scott
Published by W. W. Norton & Company
640 pages

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana

JAMES SCOTT’s well researched, moving and emotionally written book Rampage does a unique service for the Filipino people. Perhaps for the first time it allows them to remember and honor those who died from the horrors of the War and, specifically the battle of Manila, in a mature and nuanced way. It allows them to share this experience with the rest of the world, an experience most outsiders have had little understanding of and which Scott’s book goes a long way to finally explain. Unlike other peoples, places, cities around the world who have been able to share and memorialize the “rampages” that came down upon them during World War II, the same can not be said of the people of Manila.

One can view memorials to the fallen in many major cities that suffered during the war, documentaries and movies made, essays and books written about. There’s an old saying, “if it wasn’t written it didn’t happen.” Far too little has been written to bring notice to Filipinos and Americans and recognition shown to the city of Manila that suffered equally if not more than the others. James Scott’s book does a commendable job in bringing back those horrendous memories, in memorializing the tragic events, because once a memory is lost, it is gone forever.

But exactly why did this happen, who was responsible? These important inquiries beg for a more serious investigation. Of course the conclusions are not always black and white and it is no easy task to expose the myths of war and show the extent of suffering and loss on all sides.

It is important that what something like Scott’s book accomplishes should not have only the effect of allowing Filipinos and Americans to memorialize the tragedies of those lost during the battle of Manila, but in so doing not challenge the very reasons that it happened. That can possibly block the path to a fuller understanding and then hopefully a more positive future. If more serious questions as to why and how the events happened are not asked and attempted to be answered then Filipinos, then, like all those who don’t learn from the lessons of the past, they will only be doomed to repeat them.

To get at the question of who was responsible for the horrendous destruction of life and property in the Battle of Manila, the author, in this reader’s estimation, only starts to get at the truth. Considering the length and breadth of his work, he seems to have barely scratched the surface of a broader investigation.

The chapter heading quotes listed below from Scott’s book enumerate in mind-boggling detail horrors committed by the Japanese upon the citizens of Manila. But these accounts leave as much unanswered as they reflect on the cruelties of the Japanese. I have highlighted these chapter headings to point out areas of the story that this reader feels need to be further questioned, challenged, analyzed, and investigated.

• Chapter 16 — “The Western mind cannot grasp the realities of this awful crime. One must grope into the shadows of history to find a parallel. Genghis Khan, the Mongol Horde blazing a trail of utter destruction.” (General Headquarters, South West Pacific Area, Military Intelligence Section, General Staff)

• Chapter 17 — “Cannibals in the lowest strata of life could have pursued no crueler methods.” (Report No. 13, June 11, 1945, War Crimes Branch, Office of the Theater Judge Advocate)

• Chapter 20 — “The Japs have murdered wholesale and retail. To call them beasts would be to slander the beasts; to call them fiends would be to slander the fiends.” (John Osborn, Letter, Feb. 25, 1945)

• Chapter 23 — “There can be no doubt that once again, as in Nanking and Shanghai, the Japanese Armed Forces have shown themselves to be absolutely ruthless, barbaric and brutal.” (Lt. Col. Edmund Stone, Report, Feb. 26, 1945)

• Chapter 24 — “Nothing has seared the hatred against the Japanese in the Filipino heart more deeply than seeing our capital city converted into a funeral pyre.” (Brig. Gen. Carlos Romulo, Free Philippines, Feb. 22, 1945)

To all these chapter heading quotes I think Mark Twain stated best what we must admit, “There are many humorous things in the world: among them, the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.”

In direct reply to the question of who was ultimately responsible, Philip Vera Cruz’s quote from his memoir comes to mind: “We need the truth more than we need heroes.” And if the process of idolizing certain heroes becomes more important than knowing the truth — as much as it can ever be known — then James Scott’s Rampage will have been for naught.

Prologue — “I consider him an officer of most brilliant attainments.” (Maj. Gen. Charles T. Menoher, Efficiency Report on Douglas MacArthur, Aug. 28, 1919)

It is of interest that Scott chose this quote to start his book with. This of course is a comment about MacArthur as a young man, a student, but doesn’t really speak to his true abilities and record as a commanding officer.

And what exactly is the truth of that record? Scott hints at it but much more needs to be discussed considering the horrendous outcomes from not only MacArthur’s decisions at the end of the war to force the battle of Manila against the position of the Joint Chiefs, but also his decision at the beginning of the war to retreat to Bataan and Corregidor resulting in the greatest defeat of an American army in it’s history and a suffering for the Filipino and American forces equal to that during the battle of Manila at the end of the war.

Many of MacArthur’s highest ranking officers knew he had made fundamental mistakes and acted more out of ego than rationale. As one officer called it, “the missteps, mismanagement and indecision’s were all MacArthurs” (from Tears in the Darkness).

Epilogue, page 741: “MacArthur is still a revered figure by many in the Philippines, more than a half-century after his death in 1964 at the age of 84 and despite the criticism of some that American artillery played a large role in the city’s destruction, both in lives lost and in property ruined.”

“Douglas MacArthur bears as much responsibility as Sanji Iwabuchi for the cruel fate that was inflicted on Manila,” concluded Filipino historian Alfonso Aluit, author of By Sword and Fire.

American William Brady, who survived the Japanese occupation and the battle, agreed. “One side killed and destroyed us willfully,” he wrote, “The other side killed and destroyed us willy-nilly”

The book ends in a very revealing and moving chapter with the telling of the trial of Japanese General Yamashita. Here is a chapter heading quote and an excerpt which start to get at the reality of war and how a victor’s hubris can lead to a loss of moral standing:

Chapter 25 — “An uncurbed spirit of revenge and retribution, masked in formal legal procedure for purposes of dealing with a fallen enemy commander, can do more lasting harm than all of the atrocities giving rise to that spirit.” (Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy, Feb. 4, 1946). This quote is in reference to the war crimes trial of Japanese General Yamashita.

Epilogue, page 739 — “I think we made a hell of a mistake,” George Guy said in 1967. “His (Yamashita’s) case was a sad chapter in our military and judicial history.”

I would recommend anyone with an interest in the World War II in the Philippines read Scott’s book, but I would also suggest one read and investigate further.

For all of Scott’s accomplishments with Rampage, and there are many, it still only starts to tell the complete story, and with a better understanding of that story only then can a true healing of the wounds and memories of that War begin.

(For a book that goes much further than Scott’s in dealing with questions raised in this review, I would recommend Tears in the Darkness by Michael and Elizabeth Norman, in the telling of the story of the surrender of Bataan and the Death March at the beginning of the War.)

CLI plans to launch projects in Bohol, Iloilo

CEBU Landmasters, Inc. (CLI) is planning to expand into new cities in the Visayas and Mindanao region this year, starting with projects in Bohol and Iloilo.

“Cebu Landmasters will continue to focus on rolling out projects for the growing VisMin market. We are now moving into new key cities in the region as we expand our developments in existing ones,” Jose R. Soberano III, chief executive officer of CLI, said in a statement.

Aside from projects in Bohol and Iloilo, CLI is finalizing talks to acquire land in the cities of Ormoc, Roxas and General Santos.

The property developer is also in negotiations for a township project in Cagayan de Oro and a 20-hectare property in Mandaue City.

CLI earlier said it is allocating P13 billion for capital expenditures this year, as it plans to launch 29 projects worth P25 billion.

For 2019, the company aims to add 7,517 condominium units, sell 111 hectares of house-and-lot packages, increase hotel rooms to 1,223, and boost total gross leasable area (GLA) to 159,323 square meters (sq.m.).

Mr. Soberano reiterated CLI’s double-digit growth targets for 2019 — consolidated net income at P2.6 billion and net income attributable to parent at P2 billion. The company is targeting a 25% increase in revenues to P8.4 billion this year.

In 2018, CLI reported net income soared 72% to P2.17 billion, while net income to parent also grew 30% to P1.67 billion, on the back of P6.7 billion in revenues.

“We continue to see steady demand for the property company’s developments providing guidance on expected earnings performance,” Mr. Soberano said.

The property company currently has projects in Cebu, Dumaguete, Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, and Davao.

FWD Life sees slower premium income growth this year

FWD Life Insurance Corp. expects slower growth in premium income in 2019 after it tallied robust expansion last year.

“Inevitably, it’s a bit difficult to defy gravity. Delivering sorts of middle- to high-digit growth in the…first two to three years is easier because the quantity was smaller…. We’re not a small company now in total premium income…. We would expect that there will be slowdown,” said Peter Grimes, FWD Life president and chief executive officer.

FWD Life reported a total premium income of P7.65 billion in 2018, 68% higher than the P4.55 billion recorded the previous year and outpacing the industry’s 13% growth rate.

Mr. Grimes attributed the robust growth to increased distribution reach, larger number of sales as well as the insurer’s messaging.

FWD Life ended the year with 3,300 financial agents, with Million Dollar Round Table members up by almost 40%. The life insurer also had more than 200 bancassurance financial solutions consultants as of end-2018 scattered across the 300 branches of its partner lender Security Bank Corp.

It opened six new business hubs across the country last year, bringing the total to 14.

FWD Life’s first-year weighted premiums, stated in new business annual premium equivalent, surged 54%, surpassing the life industry’s growth of 11% in 2018.

Despite the expected slowdown in income this year, the life insurer still expects strong performance this year.

“What we are saying is mathematically, because of the lower base now becoming higher, the amount of percentage growth may not be as high as before, but that doesn’t mean that the absolute growth will not be as good,” FWD Life Chief Financial Officer Jasper Hendrik Cheng said.

“There’s nothing to suggest that what we’ve achieved in the past few years is a one-off. These are things that are quite sustainable. There’s absolutely an expectation that we will continue this trend.”

Looking ahead, Mr. Grimes said its continuous expansion of its presence as well as its bancassurance channel will “naturally” drive FWD Life’s income moving forward. However, he declined to provide targets for 2019.

“Obviously, our intention is to continue to build more scaled distribution. It will be done in a controlled way. I think physically having more presence, more advisers, hopefully Security Bank will have new customers. That will drive a degree of natural growth,” he said.

“We remain generally positive about the macros in the Philippines. It’s domestic consumption-driven, plus the remittances. We feel pretty good about the market and we’re confident about what we’re doing to our customers.” — K.A.N. Vidal

How PSEi member stocks performed — May 28, 2019

Here’s a quick glance at how PSEi stocks fared on Tuesday, May 28, 2019.

 

House adopts Senate version of Security of Tenure bill

THE House of Representatives on Tuesday adopted the Senate’s version of a bill which seeks to prohibit the practice of “endo,” clearing the way for more workers to enjoy regular status with their employers.

The House adopted Senate Bill 1826 or the Security of Tenure Bill which will amend its own version of the legislation, House Bill 6908.

Its adoption eliminates the need for lengthy bicameral sessions to reconcile the two chambers’ bills.

The Senate bill’s principal author, Senator Emmanuel Joel J. Villanueva said in a Viber message: “The Senate version will be enrolled to Malacañang for the signature of the President.”

“Endo” or “end of contract” denies workers a pathway to permanent employment status and the associated benefits.

The bill rules out the following practices which it classifies as labor-only contracting: the provision by a job contractor of workers it recruits and places; the performance by contract workers of core industry tasks; the company where workers are assigned, or the contractee, having direct control and supervision of the workers supplied.

It also classifies workers as either regular, probationary, project and seasonal.

The Security of Tenure bill has been identified by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council as a priority. It was also among the measures President Rodrigo R. Duterte pushed for during his Third State of the Nation Address in July 2018. — Vince Angelo C. Ferreras

Employers warn anti-‘endo’ bill will discourage investment, hiring

EMPLOYERS warned that the Security of Tenure Bill (SoT) will dampen investment and increase unemployment if enacted, ahead of the bicameral conference committee session to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill later this week.

At the Employers Confederation of the Philippines’ (ECoP) 40th annual conference, ECoP Chair Edgardo G. Lacson said: “For regulations to provide punitive sanctions, we believe that these are disincentives to investment. No investor in their right mind will do business in a country where they are intimidated and threatened to be put in jail should they be found non-compliant, especially with the kind of labor inspectorate and labor justice system we have right now.”

“Investment creates employment so you should not discourage investment,” he said.

Philippine Association of Legitimate Service Contractors Inc. (PALSCON) President Rhoda C. Caliwara added that passing the SoT Bill is not the only way to assure protection of workers.

“If there’s a policy, it should be how to harmonize the interests of both labor and capital, not about demonizing one or the other. We still need investment to generate employment. It’s still employment that’s the best social protection that the economy can give to our workers,” she said.

Former Labor Undersecretary Josephus B. Jimenez said he believes the bill may not be approved as is by President Rodrigo R. Duterte despite its designation as urgent last year.

“It’s very possible that a compromise will be agreed but the president will not approve the entire bill as proposed by the Bicam because the president understands the realities on the ground… Such a law will be harmful to the economy,” Mr. Jimenez said during the conference.

ECoP President Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis said that regularizing workers does not always assure better employment, since employers will be forced to reduce hiring if they don’t have the capacity to regularize every worker. Any elimination of contracting activities should focus on those that are already classified in the current Labor Code as illegal.

“You have to be remember that regularization does not create jobs… We have already succeeded in eliminating the evils of 555 and Endo but we’re going beyond that (with the SoT Bill) which will affect worldwide competition,” he told reporters on Tuesday. Endo and 555 refer to employment practices that deny workers a pathway to regular employment, typically by denying them the six-month tenure the law requires before mandatory regularization.

Last week, the Senate approved the SoT Bill 15-0 on third and final reading. The bicameral conference committee session to harmonize the two versions of the bill is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.

The 17th Congress is scheduled to adjourn next week, June 3.

Labor Undersecretary Ana B. Dione said employers have nothing to worry about if ever the SoT Bill is enacted as it just clarifies the definition of contractualization, which the Labor Code failed to explain.

“There is still contractualization… but legal work arrangements. We hope that it clarifies the unclear provisions of the current law… if it’s a clearer definition, it’s easier to implement. It creates a better understanding for employees and management,” she said at the conference. — Gillian M. Cortez

Shops warned to translate foreign-language signs into English/Filipino

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said it has prepared a draft order that would require shops to translate foreign-language signs into Filipino or English, apparently in response to reports of restaurants catering to Chinese-only clients.

In an advisory to solicit comment on the draft, the DTI said the draft department administrative order will cover all businesses offering products or services covered by the Consumer Act of 1992.

The order bans untranslated signage, billboards, brochures, fliers, notices, fliers, labels, advisories, price tags, menus, and receipts, among others.

“The use of foreign language or languages shall be allowed, provided, that a corresponding translation is made in both or either Filipino or English, which translation shall be written or printed in the same material, either above or below the written foreign language, or in such manner that the English/Filipino translation clearly indicates or refers to the foreign language intended to be translated,” according to the draft order.

It requires the English or Filipino translation to be as easily visible and legible as the foreign language.

The order refers to “Filipino” as including all regional languages of the Philippines.

It proposed penalties of P50,000 for a first offense, P100,000 for a second and P300,000 for a third. Third-time violators also face cancellation of their business name certificate at the DTI’s Business Name registry. The DTI will also recommend to local government units or other agencies the revocation of the company’s business registration, permits, licenses and other clearances. — Janina C. Lim

FDA orders seizure of all pork products from countries affected with African Swine Fever

THE Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it has ordered the recall and seizure of pork meat products imported from countries affected by African Swine Fever (ASF).

The order covers products which are for distribution, offered for sale, transfer, or donation.

“Pursuant to the FDA Order No. 2018-133 dated 24 September 2018 and FDA Order No. 2019-045 dated 27 May 2019, all importers, distributors, retail outlets, and other dealers of processed pork meat products, are hereby ordered to immediately recall all pork meat products imported from countries suspected to be affected by the African Swine Fever (ASF) virus as identified in the aforementioned Orders,” FDA said through the FDA Order 2019-046 given to reporters on Tuesday.

Food-Drug Regulation Officers and Regulatory Enforcement Unit (REU) officers have been instructed to collect all pork products in circulation originating from ASF-affected countries. It authorized them to seek the assistance of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Local Government Units (LGUs) if necessary.

Section 14 of Republic Act (RA) No. 9711 authorizes the FDA Director-General “to issue orders of seizure, to seize and hold in custody any article or articles of food… that is adulterated, counterfeited, misbranded or unregistered, or drug, in-vitro diagnostic reagent, biologicals, and vaccine that is adulterated or misbranded.”

The FDA also reiterated its warning against the purchase and consumption and importation of all pork meat products from ASF-affected countries like China, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Zambia, South Africa, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Mongolia, Moldova, and Belgium.

ASF is non-treatable and contagious, and can kill swine in as little as two days. The Bureau of Customs first alerted NAIA in January about the possible entry of contaminated pork products after it received reports of their entry into South Korea and Japan late last year. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang

NFA says rice procurement funds adequate after reports of delayed payments

THE NATIONAL Food Authority (NFA) said it has sufficient funding to fulfill its domestic rice procurement mandate, despite high buying prices that have persuaded farmers to sell it 4.1 million bags of palay, or unmilled rice, as of May 20.

In a statement Tuesday, NFA Officer-in-Charge Administrator Tomas R. Escarez said he had to deliver reassurances amid reports of delayed payments to farmers in some NFA buying stations.

“NFA management assures those isolated instances are being addressed at the soonest possible time,” it said in the statement.

The NFA has lost its rice importing functions under the rice tariffication law, which liberalizes the import process for private entities. It has been relegated to maintaining a buffer stock from domestically-produced rice.

The NFA currently pays P20.70 per kilogram (kg) for palay, consisting of the P17.00 per kilogram support price and an additional P3.00 as a buffer stocking incentive (BSI); a P0.20 drying incentive; a P0.20 delivery incentive; and a P0.30 cooperative development incentive fee (CDIF).

The average farmgate price for palay paid by commercial rice buyers fell 0.5% week-on-week during the second week of May to P18.35 per kilogram (kg), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.

Mr. Escarez has advised NFA field offices to request funds in advance to be able to pay for palay deliveries from farmers.

As of May 20, the NFA has bought about 4.1 million bags of palay worth P4.2 billion. The NFA’s ultimate target is to procure 15 to 30 million bags to keep in inventory for emergencies. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang