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Bukidnon sets up biosecurity stops

BUKIDNON, a major livestock and poultry producer, has set up biosecurity measures at its borders to prevent the entry of African Swine Fever (ASF). Travelers are required to get off vehicles and step on a foot bath while vehicles are sprayed with disinfectants. Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol (in blue shirt), chair of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), said it is supporting efforts by local government units and hog industry stakeholders in conducting a Mindanao-wide education campaign on ASF. He said MinDA is preparing a request to the government for financial support to procure more efficient biosecurity equipment and facilities.

How I will remember Tio Nene

Tatay Nene is how his family and also his friends, colleagues, and ordinary people call the late Senate President Aquilino Pimentel, Jr.

But I call him Tio Nene, for my brother-in-law Abet, a De la Llana, is related to him by affinity. Tita Bing, Tatay Nene’s wife, is a De la Llana. Tita Bing, a composer and lyricist, is as politically sharp as Tio Nene, and likewise served as Tio Nene’s political confidante.

I will remember Tio Nene in a personal way. It is subjective but nevertheless factual. Although I came to know the name of Nene Pimentel in the early 1970s as an intrepid and principled democrat, the personal relationship came much later — when a De la Llana became part of my family and my sister became part of the De la Llana family. Filipinos are typically clannish. So on special occasions like birthdays, weddings, and funerals, our families gather.

But because I am a political activist espousing progressive causes, I paid attention to Tio Nene’s brand of progressive politics — essentially social-democratic but yet sympathetic to the national-democratic movement. (For the unaware, social democrats and national democrats in the Philippines have had an intense, even antagonistic, rivalry, despite both being Left and radical.)

In this light, remembering Nene Pimentel is likewise remembering his politics, including the victories and the defeats.

So let me count the ways I will remember Tio Nene.

• Nene Pimentel voted “No” to the 1973 Marcos Constitution and did not sign the Constitution that legitimized the dictatorship. He, together with a few Constitutional Convention delegates who constituted the progressive bloc, campaigned hard against the ratification of the Marcos Constitution. It was in an assembly in Pasig, that I, a high school student then, first heard Nene Pimentel lambast the dictatorship and the Marcos Constitution — a hoarse and fiery yet enthralling speech.

• Despite the odds of losing because of systemic fraud and coercion, the anti-Marcos opposition, including Nene Pimentel, formed the Lakas ng Bayan coalition party to contest the 1978 Interim Batasang Pambansa elections. Led by Ninoy Aquino, Lakas ng Bayan fielded 21 candidates in Metro Manila. As expected, cheating and coercion dictated the outcome of the elections, resulting in the opposition’s total defeat. But what was politically significant was that the election campaign created a huge and energetic mass movement that presaged the people power movement that toppled the dictatorship in 1987.

The revolutionary Left in the Metro Manila region was instrumental in unleashing the mass movement by participating in the elections, even fielding its own candidates, namely former student leader Jerry Barican, labor leader Alex Boncayao, and urban poor leader Trining Herrera. It likewise actively supported the progressive candidates in the coalition, including Nene Pimentel, Teofisto Guingona, and Charito Planas. Regrettably, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) rejected the participation of its forces in the elections and the alliance with the “bourgeois reformists” or the “anti-Marcos reactionaries.” This dogma shaped its decision to boycott the snap elections in 1987. But the 1987 election campaign created the groundswell and the uprising that fell Marcos.

The political isolation arising from the boycott led to an acknowledgement from the revolutionary Left of a “tactical blunder.” I argue though that this was a strategic blunder, which could explain the problems that continue to hound the Left. I likewise argue that if a popular front materialized then, the progressive forces, including those associated with Nene Pimentel, Pepe Diokno, Tanny Tañada, et al. could have gained more political leverage in building the post-dictatorship institutions.

• Nene Pimentel formed the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP), which could have been the model of a truly mass-based, programmatic, and ideological party. It is said that that the only genuine Philippine political party — in terms of discipline, mass membership, and ideology — is the CPP. But the CPP has rejected parliamentary struggle as the main arena and has stuck to a strategy of armed revolution. That has created a vacuum, which the PDP could have filled.

In a private conversation with Tio Nene, with the benefit of hindsight, he attributed the decline of the PDP (only to be resurrected under Rodrigo Duterte’s candidacy, but no longer as an ideological party) to its pragmatic merger with the Lakas ng Bayan, operated by Peping Cojuangco, which was heavily populated by trapos (traditional politicians). The merger gave the upper hand to the trapos, effectively making PDP no different from the other traditional political parties. The rotten system swallowed many.

A handful shouldered on, conducting seminars on values, ideology, and platform. Along this line, an institute for leadership and governance was named after Nene Pimentel.

A prolific author, Tio Nene wanted to write about the lessons, including the sad ones, from the PDP experience. But his physical condition weakened, preventing him from doing what remained in his bucket list.

• Nene Pimentel’s nationalism was consistent. Most representative of this was his Senate vote in 1991, rejecting the extension of the US bases treaty. He was among the so-called Magnificent 12 Senators who voted “No” to the treaty. This of course dismayed then President Cory Aquino, who was personally close to Pimentel. Here was a case in which friendship, without breaking it, had to give way to a higher cause.

• The 1992 national elections saw the formation of a progressive force to contest the topmost positions. Then Senate President Jovito Salonga teamed up with Nene Pimentel to run for President and Vice-President, respectively. This was similar to the attempts of a reformist “third force” associated with grand names like Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo Tañada, and Raul Manglapus to capture political power. Their candidacies helped revived a coalition of small political parties and diverse groups that constitute civil society. But their machinery and their resources did not match those of the dominant parties, and they did not get Corazon Aquino’s support. In short, Salonga, Pimentel and the progressive forces got clobbered.

Till now, it is most difficult for reformists, much less the radicals, to win elections for the highest posts. But it can be done, as shown by the tantalizing victory of Leni Robredo in the 2016 vice-presidential election.

• Again, Nene Pimentel had to subordinate friendship to values and principles when he, exercising leadership in the Senate, demanded the opening of an envelope that contained sensitive bank information. The information would have been the evidence to convict then President Joseph Estrada in an impeachment trial. He was outvoted, even if he was then the Senate President, leading him to voluntarily resign from the position. This episode triggered a new “people power” movement that ultimately resulted in the extra-legal ouster of Estrada.

• Nene Pimentel was the intellectual fountainhead of local government reforms. The media and other institutions describe him as the “Father of the Local Government Code.” The gains at the level of local governance can be attributed to the pioneering effort of Nene Pimentel.

But these gains are still limited; they are called pockets or islands of success. What has bedeviled the likes of Nene and other reformists is that good initiatives like decentralization and devolution of power and political party reform have to contend with binding institutional constraints. Such deep problems like the transactional nature of Philippine politics or the short-term political horizon result in pieces of reforms having sub-optimal outcomes.

• Nene Pimentel made his mark as an elected official when he became the mayor of Cagayan de Oro city. He governed the city well, in spite of being deprived of additional resources by the dictatorship. And he used Cagayan de Oro and the whole of Mindanao as his support base in fighting the dictatorship.

Mindanao was solid in opposing the dictatorship. The Moro armed struggle helped weaken the dictatorship. The CPP and its forces in Mindanao primarily contributed to the advance of the revolution that became a strategic threat to Marcos. But politics was in command, and in this context, the politics of radical reformism promoted by Nene Pimentel and other legal oppositionists in Mindanao (including Rodrigo Duterte’s mother Soledad) was most significant in cutting down the Marcos regime.

• It goes without saying that Tio Nene and I also had differing political positions. He did not favor legislation of reproductive health because of his being Katoliko saradong and his interpretation of the Philippine Constitution with respect to this issue. He supported the candidacy of Rodrigo Duterte because of his preferential ranking of issues, in which his principal advocacy is federalism. (Later, he said that his version of federalism is different from what the Duterte administration is pushing). With respect to Duterte’s behavior on human rights, one can quote Tio Nene’s TV interview, wherein he said that Duterte “should pay for that, but it has to be done in accordance with the law.”

• On a more personal note, I will miss the singing of Tio Nene. His favorite song: “You are my Sunshine.” On some gatherings, my late wife Mae and Tio Nene would sing this song as a duet. In the Great Beyond, Tio Nene and Mae will reunite and sing:

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

You make me happy when skies are grey.

You never know, dear how much I love you.

Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

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

www.aer.ph

Why not forestry?

Yes, why not forestry as a driver of economic growth, together with tourism, mining, and agriculture, which are sources of jobs in the countryside?

We used to export logs, lumber and other forestry products. Now, we are a net importer of forestry products. We import as much as 75% of our wood requirements. Really sad.

There are several reasons why we should promote the forestry industry and make it a growth driver of jobs in the uplands.

We have a competitive advantage in forestry production. The Philippines is in the tropical zone. Trees can reach full maturity in 10 to 15 years, depending on the specie, compared to 20 to 30 years in temperate zone countries. There’s no reason why the Philippines can’t produce forestry products and export again.

According to Petteri Makitalo, Vice-President of the Nordic Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, the Philippines can be a superpower in forestry. Finland, which is a forestry superpower, produces only six, and in extraordinary circumstances, 15 cubic meters per hectare. The Philippines, being a tropical country, can produce 100 cubic meters or more per hectare.

It can generate jobs in the uplands, where about 25 million people live. Most of them are poor. It’s therefore a poverty-reducing industry.

It can also help combat insurgency in the uplands. The uplands, where the forests are, are a focus of recruitment by the New People’s Army.

However, the tree huggers and environmental Talibans will say that the forestry industry is the cause of the massive denudation of Philippine forests. The only solution to stop denudation is the total log ban which we have in place.

Not true. It’s government policies which caused the massive denudation. In the 1960s, the government promoted logging and mining to generate dollars and feed the import-dependent, inward-looking protectionist economy. However, government policy didn’t put the incentive on wood and logging companies to reforest by giving them long term and secure property rights. Instead, it imposed a reforestation fee on logging companies because it, rather than the private sector, assumed the task of reforestation.

Of course, government being government, the funds from the reforestation didn’t go into replanting and reforestation. It went to the pockets of officials. On the other hand, since the logging companies never got long-term secure property rights (at least 50 years) over their concessions, with short-term concession permits being the norm, logging companies’ incentive revolved on just cutting and exploiting the forests.

Because the main source of dollars to feed our import-dependent, debt-laden economy shifted to OFW remittances in the 1970s, government basically neglected the forestry industry and committed policy error after policy error, driven by political grandstanding, which led to the gradual decline of the industry and the country becoming a net importer of wood products.

The worst grandstanding gesture was made by former President Aquino who imposed a total log ban on natural and residual forests (Executive Order 23 issued in 2011). This resulted in regulatory overreach, affecting even man-made forests or tree plantations. Permits were needed for everything: permit to plant, permit to cut, and permit to transport, even for planted trees. One hundred percent inventory was required prior to harvest. Permits had to be signed by officials high up in the bureaucracy. Moreover, wood processing plants were required to renew their permits every three years, and every purchase of logs was required to show certifications where the logs came from. Extortion and bribery became the norm.

The result, according to Dr. Vic Paqueo, a retired former World Bank economist who had invested in a tree farm in Surigao from his retirement money, was that of 119 wood processing plants in Caraga region, 116 plants closed and demand for planted trees collapsed.

It’s arguable whether the total log ban is successful. Government is incompetent in policing the forests since kaingin farming (slash and burn agriculture) is the main culprit of denudation. Government’s other solution — a massive P7 billion tree planting program — was a failure, according to the Commission on Audit.

In fact, in other countries, most productive forests are privately owned. These privately owned forests are passed on from generation to generation. In Finland, 85% of the forests are privately owned.

In Germany, almost half are privately owned. It’s not hard to see why. Private owners have an economic incentive to maintain and police the forests in order to sustain their business for many, many years.

The solution to denudation is to assign property and tenurial rights to private entities, whether communal or individual. The Leftists, for whom only government is the solution, would probably cry murder.

However, let’s concede to the Leftists and environmental Talibans the policy of relying on government to enforce a total log ban on natural and residual forests. How do we move forward?

We need to customize the policies in order to promote tree plantations. Planted trees should be treated like a vegetable crop and not be over-regulated.

For planted trees, a 5% inventory, instead of 100%, is enough. Issuance of permits should be devolved to the CENRO (Community Environment and Natural Resources Office) of the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) instead of it going to the regional level or the DENR Secretary. Permits for the cutting of trees in plantations should be done away with. A system of forest certification by accredited forest certifiers should be enough so that logs can be freely transported and traded. The setting up of wood processing plants should be completely deregulated and treated like any other business.

Fortunately, the DENR under Secretary Roy Cimatu is more enlightened and looking to emphasize promotion of tree plantation rather than regulation. However, investors need more secure and long-term property rights and the passage of the Sustainable Forest Management Act (SFMA), which passed in the House in the last Congress, is urgently needed to boost the industry.

The benefits of tree plantation and forestry production are enormous.

Tree farming can be a hugely profitable business. According to a study, the IRR or Internal Rate of Return on falcata (a type of fast growing wood specie) production with a 12 year crop rotation is 48.2% per annum. For gmelina, another wood specie with an eight year crop rotation, the IRR is 29.7% pa.

It’s an ideal investment for pension and retirement funds, whether local or foreign because of the long-term nature of these funds. Investment yields far surpass that of bonds. Investors could also earn and sell carbon credits. Furthermore, investment in tree farms would burnish the green credentials of any company or individual.

Tree farming is also good for the environment. Not only would more trees result in more carbon capture, they are also essential in water conservation. Water conservation, in turn, is important for irrigation and renewable energy generation.

It will spur the development of the downstream wood industries, such as furniture and housing construction. It can also help narrow the trade gap, initially with import-substitution and later on, export development.

Most importantly, it will promote peace and development in the uplands. It can reduce poverty and curb rural insurgency. With just a million hectares for tree plantation, the industry can generate up to $20 billion in revenues.

Unlike Build Build Build, the government’s infrastructure program, the promotion and development of the forestry industry require no government funds. All it needs is the tweaking of government policies.

So, why not forestry?

Those who want to order the book, Momentum: Reforms for Sustaining Economic Growth, a curated collection of articles in this column by National Scientist Raul Fabella, Dr. Emmanuel de Dios, Romeo L. Bernardo, Calixto V. Chikiamco, and the late Dr. Cayetano Paderanga Jr., may call the Foundation for Economic Freedom office at 3453-2375 or e-mail fef@fef.org.ph.

 

Calixto V. Chikiamco is a board director of the Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis.

idea.introspectiv@gmail.com

www.idea.org.ph

A bleeding heart for the middle class

The Social Weather Survey (SWS) announced a “recovery” in October of self-rated poverty to 42% compared to September’s 45% from March’s “awesome” (according to SWS) 38% which was 12 points better than the 50% of December 2018. These are distressing statistics for bleeding hearts. There is no “improvement” in poverty. There is no “less poor” or “more poor” but only “poor.” In a deeply religious and morally demonstrative country like the Philippines, expression of empathy more than just lip-service sympathy is expected for the poor from those who have more in life.

The Brookings Institute, refining traditional estimates of the Gini Ratio by the estimated undeclared wealth of the rich, found the adjusted inequality ratio in the Philippines in 2018 to be as high as 0.6, or 60%, from the estimate of just over 0.4, or 40% in 2017, meaning the gap is six points away from equality of zero to the inequality of 10. The latest statistics on the Asian Development Bank website show that the Philippines is pathetically third among ASEAN nations, with 21.6% of the population below the poverty line, compared to the worst, Myanmar with 32.1%, and the best in control of poverty, Malaysia, with 0.4%. Based on the Commission on Population’s estimate of the country’s population of 107.19 million in 2018, some 23+ million Filipinos live below the poverty line.

How does this stand beside President Rodrigo Duterte’s vow at his assumption of office in 2016, that poverty will be eradicated by 2040? More than halfway into his term, poverty in the country is increasingly prevalent. But according to established private purveyors of social statistics, surveys show that the ever-optimistic and always-forgiving Filipinos believe Duterte’s exaggerated promise is still deliverable. In May, SWS reported that the administration of President Duterte scored a record-high +72 net satisfaction rating in the first quarter of the year. The respondents were most satisfied with the government’s efforts to help the poor. In October, SWS announced that Duterte’s net satisfaction rating remained “very good” in the third quarter despite a three-point decline to +65 during the Sept. 27-30 survey covering 1,800 adults (0.00169%) from a total population of 107 million.

The economist Paul Krugman might call it a “statistical illusion.” In his column, “The conscience of a liberal” in The New York Times on Jan. 20, 2013, Krugman doubts the value of measurements and statistics in which the cumulative effects of extended time may be mistakenly presented as segregated incremental bursts of improvements and declines. He cautions against the distortions from respondents having a good year or a bad year. And he blasts his professional rival, co-Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, for the “morality tale” — as Krugman derogatorily brands it — that “inequality is a big factor in (economic) recovery.”

Is it a “morality tale,” this over-concern for the trickle-down and inclusion of the lowest denizens of society in economic progress? It does seem opportunistic in socio-politics to mouth and emote concerns for the poor. In the US, Republicans and Democrats have branded themselves conservatives and liberals respectively, with the former more inclined towards economic growth, today spurred by supply-side policies, government priming, and fiscal incentives to big business, and the latter pitching for the “soft” products of social and economic reforms that will have future benefits for society. Thus, the derogatory name-calling (by those opposed) of politicians and economists who dream and do for the less-privileged in society as “bleeding hearts.”

But in the Philippines, like in most developing countries, the bleeding heart for the poor must throb in cadence with the stressful palpitations for rapid economic growth in the race with global competition. We observe with mixed amazement and worry how our leaders must mouth concern for the poor, the unemployed, the underemployed, as small tax breaks are doled to low-income earners while big businesses rake in lower-taxed double-digit profits. How much of the money of the rich is even saved, or reinvested for the recycling of money that will trickle down to the poor in the long run?

“In the long run, we shall all be dead,” economist John Maynard Keynes famously said in the regrouping and rehabilitation after the world wars of the last century. That was said in the urgency of the times. But that was at least 75 years ago, yet the compromises for recovery with heightened laissez-faire capitalism thrive today in the pernicious competition that favors those who have the capital to compete — the rich. And that is the obvious reason why income inequality is widening in the world today, even in America, probably the most democratic of all economies.

The Huffington Post in January 2013 (at the time of the world financial crisis) analyzed the debate between Krugman and Stiglitz on why income inequality is slowing economic growth. Krugman accused Stiglitz of a faulty “underconsumption” hypothesis, basically that the rich spend too little of their income. Stiglitz disregarded Krugman’s accusation of him as a bleeding heart for the poor against the rich, and focused instead on the middle class, saying that “America’s middle class is too weak to support the kind of consumer spending required for a robust recovery, the middle class is too weak to invest in its future, the weak middle class means a smaller tax base and income inequality causes more intense boom and bust cycles.”

“Theories of economic growth, however, do not typically include models for investigating the implications of changes in the strength of the middle class,” economists Heather Boushey and Adam Hersh posted on americanprogress.org in May, 2012. They noted that in between 1979 and 2007, income growth stalled for the middle class while the incomes of those at the top continued to rise dramatically compared to the rest of the working population. Thus consumption, which is mostly from the middle class, declined and so did economic growth.

A 2015 Rappler analysis quoted the Asian Development Bank (ADB) definition of the regular middle class as “those with incomes between four to 10 times the poverty line (which, on average, is P6,312 to P15,779 pesos per person in 2012 prices). For a household of five persons (which is the average family size in the country), the household is thus considered middle class if its total monthly family income ranges around P30,000 to P80,000.” The Philippine Statistics Office estimates that in 2012, the middle class comprised about 3.6 million households, or three out of every 20 households.

There is also the lower middle income class, those with incomes are between twice the poverty line and four times the poverty line; and the upper middle income: those with incomes between 10 to 15 times the poverty line. If we were to aggregate the middle-middle class with the lower middle and upper middle classes, this combined group would be about nine of 20 families (45.1% in 2006, 44.6% in 2009, and 45.8% in 2012). The total share of their incomes of these three groups is about two thirds of the country’s household income (65.1% in 2006, 64.7% in 2009, and 65.6% in 2012), the ADB study said. Though these figures are not current, this is certainly a clear indication of how much the middle class can do to boost consumption and drive economic growth.

A bleeding heart for the middle class is needed. The government must nurture the middle class as a major driver to the achievement of its economic goals by providing an environment of opportunities to this sector, more than “partnering” at dubious costs and accommodations to the already-rich. President Duterte defined his Ambisyon Natin 2040: “By 2040, the Philippines shall be a prosperous, predominantly middle class society where no one is poor; our peoples shall live long and healthy lives, be smart and innovative; and shall live in a high trust society.”

 

Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.

ahcylagan@yahoo.com

In sickness and in health

By Tony Samson

THESE are the words fervently and publicly proclaimed in marriage vows. They promise steadfastness in times of tribulations brought on by failing health (you forgot your walking stick, Hon).

This same devotion is not proffered to leaders undergoing health problems. Not that even in marriage, especially late, is this vow always observed. After all, the state of well-being is not confined to the physical, but the fiscal as well.

Corporate chiefs as they advance in age without any succession plan in place and hanging on beyond retirement age are constantly observed for failing mental faculties. Instructions are contradictory and given to different executives. Speech patterns are stretched with long pauses where the verb eagles looking for a direct object, as the sound of coffee being dipped around the table become noticeable — somebody please complete the sentence. Outbursts of temper are frequent.

What happens to the organization with an ailing chief who thinks he’s still in good health and capable of carrying on?

The designated gatekeeper assumes unusual powers when petitioners want to see the chief — sorry he’s taking a nap. The gatekeeper may or may not actually clear requests for appointments and memos for signing with the chief.

Power groups form in this power vacuum. This may entail those not even in the Organization chart like family members and romantic attachments. They use proxies to make their moves, usually appointments to top positions and bully the gatekeeper — can you have the chief sign this short memo?

Appointments and public appearances are abruptly cancelled with a curt note to organisers of events — he needs to take a nap. His representative will read the speech he wrote for him. No other explanation is forthcoming.

Nobody is really in charge and major decisions are put on hold, until the situation is more stable. Banks and stockholders are particularly concerned about this management risk.

Doctors become constant companions and may also be pressed to pass on items for signature — Sir, you’re just supposed to sign this document that your blood pressure is through the roof.

Of course, nature can take its course to relieve the corporate situation. Full page ads are taken and tributes showered on the chief “who worked through the end” and died with his boots on.

Then, the whole unstable process continues until a new chief is designated, preferably much younger and in good health (he just completed the marathon in Berlin). By then, it is the company that may have health issues, definitely of the fiscal variety.

Sickness and health for the chief also affect nations. In those cases, it is the subject of media speculation, fake news, and inside information. Anyway for that situation, there is a succession process in place… but not always devoid of conspiracy theories and some surprises.

 

Tony Samson is Chairman and CEO, TOUCH xda.

ar.samson@yahoo.com

Photos cluttering up your phone? You may be an artist

By Leonid Bershidsky

AS SMARTPHONE CAMERAS continue to improve, we are understandably taking more and more photos with them. Priceonomics, a San Francisco-based firm that analyzes data to create content, attempted to figure just how many more.

Using data from Avast, a company that makes antivirus and maintenance software, it found that the average number of photos stored on a smartphone anywhere in the world is 952. Five years ago, a study based on data from another app developer, Magisto, put the average number at 630. Though the large datasets used in both cases are not directly comparable, it’s likely that they accurately capture how much more we’re photographing with our phones. They also reveal the same trends — for example, more photos taken in certain Asian countries than elsewhere, and more pictures snapped by women than men.

Is this increase in snapping and storing good for us, though? That depends on how we use that camera.

In 2013, Linda Henkel, a psychologist from Fairfield University in Connecticut, described a “photo-taking-impairment effect.” People told to walk around a museum photographing some objects and merely looking at others turned out to have clearer memories of the exhibits they hadn’t snapped. Other studies with different experimental setups have confirmed the existence of this effect.

An early theory explaining the impairment effect held that people forget things they photograph because they, consciously or unconsciously, want to get rid of unnecessary information they’d otherwise keep in their heads. “Cognitive offloading,” researchers named it. Two years ago, Julia Soares and Benjamin Storm from the University of California at Santa Cruz, found that the impairment effect is present even when people use an ephemeral messaging app such as Snapchat to take a photo, or when they’re told to delete the image manually. This suggested that memories aren’t simply offloaded, they’re merely dimmed when we put a camera between ourselves and an experience.

It gets even more complicated. The work of Alixandra Barasch from New York University, Kristin Diehl at the University of Southern California and Jackie Silverman at the University of Pennsylvania has shown that taking pictures tends to aid recall when people consciously look for specific details or aspects to photograph. They called this “volitional photo taking.” This doesn’t actually contradict Henkel’s work: She, too, found that people in her museum experiment tended to remember better when they zoomed in on specific details.

Thus, the question of whether the phone is a memory aid or a trash can for unwanted memories hinges on our level of engagement. We can behave somewhat like professional photographers, looking for the best angle, an interesting detail, an object among many that we want to bring back from an exhibition. Or we can just click that button indiscriminately. Soares of California-Santa Cruz, who found that Snapchat photos are forgotten as fast as the ones that remain stored, referred to the latter practice as “attentional disengagement.” Stepping away from a scene to take a picture, and thus losing touch with it, creates a false familiarity with the subject and makes us less likely to make an effort to remember it.

In another series of experiments, Barasch and Diehl, along with Gal Zauberman from Yale University, discovered that taking pictures tends to make any activity — from a bus tour to an ordinary lunch — more fun when it increases engagement with the experience rather than interferes with it or adds a new element to what’s already highly engaging. And, in a separate paper, they showed that the intention to share photos can detract from the enjoyment because it “increases self-presentational concern during the experience.”

Notably, all this science is consistent with the finding by a group of UK researchers that selfie-taking is positively correlated with smartphone dependency and anxiety. In addition, people who are less phone-dependent tend to take more photographs of nature. Those people also tend to be older. And, interestingly, somewhat older users, according to the Avast data, tend to store more photos on their phones than the youngest people. The average number of pictures on the phone of a person aged 18 through 24 is 836; a person between 25 and 34 keeps 1,067 of them.

Priceonomics offers a plausible explanation: The youngest people are more likely to use ephemeral messaging apps that don’t save photos by default. That means they take more photos with the purpose of sharing them. It also likely means more selfies, which are used as a means of visual conversation, and other low-engagement pictures. Snap, send, forget.

The higher accumulation of photos cluttering the memory of the phones of relatively older age groups isn’t necessarily a problem. Often, these pictures are taken in contemplation, as a way to study something closer, take in and remember more details. Then, the snapping habit isn’t just benign — it’s a private form of art, not necessarily shared with anyone. And even if we never return to our photo galleries, the intimacy of the contact we once established with our subjects can stay with us.

 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

BPOs seeking ways to maintain NCR footprint

By Jenina P. Ibañez

THE Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) is in talks with Metro Manila mayors to find ways to continue building outsourcing centers in the capital despite a national government suspension of economic zone approvals intended to divert the industry to the countryside.

In an interview Monday, IBPAP president and chief executive officer Rey C. Untal said IBPAP and representatives from organizations like the Makati Business Club met with Manila Mayor Francisco Moreno Domagoso to discuss the possibility of encouraging BPO firms to locate in the city.

“We are pushing for initiatives that are very targeted at the LGU (local government unit) level,” he said.

He said that Mr. Domagoso extended an invitation and offered incentives to the sector to increase its presence in the City of Manila, noting that the city currently only has one or two BPO facilities that are certified by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority.

“That’s strange considering Manila is where many of the graduates are produced. There’s a lot of universities there — their graduates are working in other cities” he said.

He said that the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is looking at developers’ plans to build townships or mixed-use developments of several hectares of land to be repurposed.

Mr. Untal said the ideal situation would be for BPOs to support the development the areas surrounding the office areas, with entertainment, retail, and food establishments growing as an “ecosystem.”

Last month, Mr. Untal said that he was meeting with Metro Manila mayors to seek ways to mitigate Administrative Order No. 18 from Malacañang, which imposes a moratorium on ecozone approvals to encourage BPOs to set up shop in the provinces.

The industry, which depends on ecozones for incentives that support its business model, has expressed support for the national government’s intent to divert growth in the countryside, but pointed to possible job losses during the transition period.

Mr. Untal has also met with Quezon City Mayor Maria Josefina G. Belmonte to discuss stronger links between academic institutions and the industry.

IBPAP is also working with Muntinlupa City on an upskilling partnership to make BPO jobs available to locals, and is setting up meetings with the cities of Makati and Pasig.

When asked if the industry is looking to expand further outside of Metro Manila, he said its efforts have been “aggressive.”

“The IT-BPM industry I think is one of those industries that has been quite aggressive in growing outside of Metro Manila,” Mr. Untal said, adding that there are almost 300,000 Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) employees in 23 provinces outside of the National Capital Region.

Hog growers claim lost revenue of P10 billion since ASF outbreak

THE HOG INDUSTRY is claiming lost revenue of about P10 billion two months after the emergence of African Swine Fever (ASF) on farms in Luzon, the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) said.

SINAG also urged the government to charge the importers of two containers of allegedly infected meat products from China, which has been battling the virus for over a year now. The products were reported to be “misdeclared” and were seized at the Port of Manila.

“The industry has lost P10 billion in the past two months,” SINAG said in a statement.

In a text message, SINAG Executive Director Jayson H. Cainglet said that the average farmgate price of pork has declined to P70-80 per kilo for backyard growers, while commercial growers could command P90 per kilo as of the third week of October.

“We urge authorities na kasuhan kaagad ang (to immediately file charges against the) consignee and the people in government who are in cahoots with them, if any,” it added.

SINAG said Republic Act No. 10845, or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016, defines large-scale agricultural smuggling as economic sabotage.

The two containers were declared as tomato paste and vermicelli, but were later discovered to be containing pork products like dimsum, dumplings, minced meat, and others.

Since 2018, the government has banned entry of pork and pork products from countries infected by the virus, which include China, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Hungary, North Korea, Laos, Moldova, Mongola, Myanmar, Poland, Germany, and South Africa.

The pig cull currently totals 52,000 hogs across Luzon, about 17,000 of which were confirmed to be ASF-infected and the remainder killed as a precaution. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang

DoST signs marine transport research tie-up in W. Visayas

THE DEPARTMENT of Science and Technology (DoST) has tied up with universities in the Western Visayas to develop modern seagoing vessels that meet international safety standards.

The DoST signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) last week with the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV), Northern Iloilo Polytechnic State College (NIPSC), Iloilo State College of Fisheries (ISCoF), University of Antique (UA), Aklan State University (ASU), and Guimaras State College (GSC), along with Metallica Shipyard.

The MoU formalizes the establishment of the Western Visayas Marine Transport Research and Development Network, which will also come up with a long-term research program for marine transportation.

DoST-Region 6 Director Rowen S. Gelonga said the department is positioning the Western Visayas to become the hub for marine transport research and development.

“We are very serious in addressing the modernization constraints to our shipping sector,” he said.

Within the informal network, the institutions and DoST-6 have been developing three new boat designs.

One currently being developed by ASU is a 150-seater hybrid trimaran, which will harness the ocean’s wave energy.

It will also be a roll-on/roll-off commercial vessel that can carry four vehicles.

Mr. Gelonga said a prototype of the vessel is being fabricated and is targeted for sea trials by April.

“(It’s an) experimental vessel, we are still not sure if we can generate profit, or power from ocean energy, but essentially we are exploring that possibility,” he said.

Following the ferry losses on the Iloilo Strait in early August, when three traditional outrigger motorboats capsized and 31 people died, the DoST has been working with GSC and a private institution develop an alternative to the wooden-hulled bancas plying the Iloilo-Guimaras route.

“The 60-seater modern passenger vessel would present an alternative to wooden-hulled bancas. Research is currently ongoing but we plan to present it once finished to the government of Guimaras,” Mr. Gelonga said.

A third project, involving NIPSC, aims to provide a safer and more durable vessel to fishermen.

“It is ironic that we supply a majority of seafarers and we are an archipelagic country yet wala kita sang (we don’t have a) viable shipping sector. But we have the talent, especially in fabricating our ships. That is why we are coming up with a very aggressive research program in Western Visayas,” he said. — Emme Rose S. Santiagudo

Next head of Asian Development Bank backs UHC, free university as inclusive measures

THE NEXT PRESIDENT of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has told Philippine officials that he supports Manila’s attempts to expand social inclusion through universal health care (UHC) and free state university education.

In a meeting with Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III in mid-October in Washington, DC, Masatsugu Asakawa the former Special Advisor to the Japanese Prime Minister and Tokyo’s nominee to head the ADB, described the UHC program and free tertiary education at state universities and colleges as “really good” initiatives for social inclusion.

Mr. Asakawa was quoted as saying in a DoF statement that he is planning to expand social inclusion in his capacity as ADB head through improved education and health care across the region as well as developing a universal framework for a global e-commerce tax system.

“Securing high quality jobs for people could be a better instrument than transfer of money. So ‘social inclusion,’ which means providing more education, securing more health care to let them have better jobs is really important. So far ADB has done something but I would like to expand the conversation as well,” Mr. Asakawa was quoted as saying.

He said that a universal framework is important in taxing multinational companies “profiting from the highly lucrative electronic trade of goods in the global marketplace.”

He said there are “radical and innovative” proposals involving taxing such companies that derive a certain percentage of their earnings from e-commerce and sharing the proceeds with countries where the goods are traded.

Meanwhile, Mr. Dominguez also reiterated his desire for “closer coordination” between the ADB and World Bank to avoid duplication of efforts in extending assistance to countries.

“We want to continue that effort to make sure that cooperation and coordination between the two institutions are not duplicated,” he said. — Beatrice M. Laforga

Fisheries in national security spotlight as Esperon targets industry’s health

THE national security establishment has turned its attention to propping up the fisheries industry with a target of continuing the sector’s current growth track of about one percent a year.

National Security Adviser Hermogenes C. Esperon, Jr. said the initiative is part of efforts to build a “blue economy” around better fisheries management which seeks to reverse years of negative growth.

“Now that we have 24 managed fishery areas, if we can take care of that and if we have good fishing volumes from the locals and as well as the other groups, our fisheries industry will improve,” he told BusinessWorld.

“We are aiming for another, if it was positive last year by 1%, probably another 1% for this year then another year 1% then another year. Malaking bagay yun (That would be a big development).”

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the fisheries industry’s output rose 0.92% in 2018 to 4.35 million metric tons.

Mr. Esperon announced Friday that the government will soon release an updated version of the 25-year-old National Marine Policy (NMP). One of the major focuses under the updated NMP will the development of marine resources, including improving fisheries, canneries, shipbuilding, and tourism, among other industries.

He added that one of the strategies for growing the fisheries industry is developing a chain of cold storage centers. “We will be able to develop cold storage all over. Kasi ang limitation sa fishermen natin ngayon (Because the constraint on our fishermen) is their catch cannot immediately absorbed by the market, so we will need cold storage.”

Last week during a briefing in Malacañang, Mr. Esperon valued the fisheries industry’s potential at least P70 billion. He added that the government is also intent on addressing issues that destroy livelihoods, such as overfishing and cyanide fishing.

The National Marine Summit runs to Oct. 30 and will discuss the administrations goals in defending national patrimony and utilizing marine wealth. In relation to fishing, Mr. Esperon said the government is looking to declare a number of marine protected areas.

Mr. Esperon said shipbuilding also has the potential to contribute more to the economy. He added that the Philippine market can be larger than Singapore, which is currently one of the leading shipbuilding industries worldwide despite not having a large land or water territory. — Gillian M. Cortez

CTA upholds PAL refund on 2008 jet fuel imports

THE COURT of Tax Appeals (CTA) has upheld a P302-million tax refund granted to Philippine Airlines Corp. (PAL) in connection with its jet fuel imports in late 2008.

In a five-page resolution on Oct. 16, the court, sitting en banc, affirmed its May 10 ruling and denied the motions for reconsideration of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BoC) over the tax refund granted to the airline.

“This Court is categorical in the assailed Decision that there is no cogent reason to depart from the Court in Division’s ruling that PAL was able to comply with all the requisites under Section 13 of Presidential Decree No. 1590 for it to be exempted from excise tax on its importations of Jet A-1 fuel used for its domestic operations as the conclusion reached by the Court in Division is supported by evidence,” the court said.

It also said that the court in division “squarely discussed PAL’s compliance with requisites under PD 1590, PAL’s franchise and it is sufficient even if only one qualification is proved on whether the imported product is not locally available in reasonable ‘quantity, quality, or price.’”

Section 13 of PD No. 1590, as amended by Letter of Instruction 1483, authorizes the airline’s tax exemption on its aviation fuel imports for use of domestic operations.

The BIR claims that the Authority to Release Imported Goods (ATRIG) is not sufficient alone to prove that the Jet A-1 was used by PAL for its transport and non-transport operations and failed to comply with all the requisites under Section 13 of PD 1590 for tax exemption.

The BoC, meanwhile claimed that the BIR has no jurisdiction for the refund claim of excise tax on imported articles as it is vested upon its office, there was no proof that the imported fuel was actually used in transport operations and not available in reasonable quantity, quality or price at the time of importation.

Both claimed that the court has no authority to rule on validity of BIR Ruling No. 001-2003, which was the basis of the BIR to assess PAL for specific taxes on importations of Jet A-1 used for domestic operations.

In the May 10 decision, the court ruled that PAL was able to use the imported fuel in domestic operations from August to October 2008 based on evidence it submitted which included the ATRIG. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

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