THE Quezon City Business Center is now open at the Robinsons Novaliches mall.
Located at the Lingkod Pinoy Center on the mall’s third floor, the office offers the following services: assessment of current real property tax (RPT), collection of RPT, issuance of professional tax receipts, and issuance of community tax receipt.
Two more Quezon City Business Centers will open at Robinsons Galleria and Robinsons Magnolia.
DAVAO CITY — Tycoon Lucio L. Co plans to have more Acacia Hotels nationwide after opening the third branch here last week, as his company seeks to take advantage of growing tourism to the Philippines.
“I am not a hotelier, isa po akong sari-sari store owner (I am a retail store owner)… but I know when I get the best service and accommodation in a hotel,” Mr. Co said in his speech during the Acacia Hotel Davao opening on Nov. 22.
Mr. Co, through Cosco Capital, Inc., owns the chain of Puregold Price Club supermarkets and S&R Membership Shopping.
The Acacia Hotel under his holding company’s real estate arm, CHMI Land, Inc., has three branches, with the two others in Alabang and Bacolod.
Mr. Co said he considers the Acacia brand “not quite” a hotel chain yet, and he wants to expand it similar to the Puregold and S&R footprints.
“Our tourism industry in the Philippines has been flourishing in the last few years, with Davao as one of the best destination… We are confident that this lays the foundation for us to grow Acacia Hotel across the rest of our 7,107 islands,” he said.
The Department of Tourism reported earlier this month that visitor arrivals from January-September this year reached 6.16 million, up 14.4% from 5.39 million in the same period 2018.
Mr. Co — whose business interests also include real estate, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and liquor and wine distribution — also vowed to explore more investment opportunities in the city, where there is already one branch each of Puregold and S&R.
“Our experience in doing business in Davao City has been delightful… We are also encouraged by the enthusiasm and can-do spirit that our colleagues at Acacia Hotel has extended in getting this property opened in time,” he said, noting that the hotel’s human resource is “99%” locals.
“Mr. President makakaasa po kayo na (you can count on us that) we will continue to build and invest in Davao and our country,” Mr. Co said, addressing President Rodrigo R. Duterte, a long-time mayor of the city, who attended the opening ceremony.
The 260-room Acacia Hotel Davao has an amphitheater and event facilities that can accommodate up to 1,000 guests.
It is a renovated building located in the Lanang District, built about five years ago and bought by Cosco Capital in 2017. — Maya M. Padillo
BUSINESS process outsourcing (BPO) firm ibex earlier this month inaugurated a new center in Alabang, Muntinlupa.
In a statement, ibex said the center, located at CTP Asean Tower in Alabang, Muntinlupa, will employ 850 employees as of end-November. It can accommodate over 1,000 seats.
“This is the first of three new sites we are launching in the Philippines for a total expansion of over 2,700 seats in 120 days,” Bob Dechant, chief executive officer of ibex, said in a statement.
With the new locations, ibex will now employ over 10,000 people in the Philippines. It has 30 sites around the world.
“Our growth is the result of an engaged and high-performing workforce and our ability to offer broader solutions than the traditional BPOs,” Mr. Dechant said.
BOULEVARD Holdings, Inc. (BHI) has forged a partnership with Revolution Precrafted, Inc. to build a resort and residential complex in Ternate, Cavite.
In a statement Monday, start-up Revolution Precrafted said it inked a development and sales contract with BHI for the project.
Under the deal, an integrated resort and residential complex will be built on a 13-hectare lot within the Puerto Azul Golf and Country Club. The development is initially planned to be called Rogue Resorts and Residences.
The first phase of the project, which covers a 3.4-hectare portion of the property, is expected to raise P3.4 billion in sales. It will include a total of 783 condominium units, cluster homes, villas and curated units.
“We want to introduce this beachfront enclave to a whole new generation of homeowners and leisure visitors who want to get away from the city and have a private sanctuary they can call their own,” Jose Roberto “Robbie” R. Antonio, founder and chief executive officer of Revolution Precrafted, was quoted in the statement as saying.
“A part of our goal is to make Rogue Resorts and Residences a popular destination for leisure and hospitality. We have plans to enter into an asset-management agreement with the homeowners in case they want to lease their units to guests,” he added.
The remaining nine hectares of the property will be developed in the next five years in accordance to market demand. Revolution Precrafted said it wants to build the project as an eco-sustainable complex to preserve the Paniman beach.
“The 13-hectare property for Rogue Resorts and Residences is just the beginning of what we hope to be a long-term partnership. We are considering the expansion of this partnership in the years to come,” BHI Senior Vice-President for Hotel Operations Michael Lancelot F. Panlilio was quoted in the statement as saying. — Denise A. Valdez
FROM BERNIE SANDERS to Warren Buffett, almost everyone says US inequality is a problem. In 2019, big ideas about how to solve it have been in the air. One of the most unlikely solutions is emerging from a far-flung corner of the Federal Reserve.
Neel Kashkari, the outspoken dove at the Minneapolis Fed, says monetary policy can play the kind of redistributing role once thought to be the preserve of elected officials. While that likely remains a minority view among US central bankers, Mr. Kashkari has helped lay the groundwork for a shift in Fed communication this year.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues invoked trade tensions and a slowing global economy as they reversed course and cut rates three times in 2019. But they’ve also offered new explanations for their actions, focused on low-paid Americans.
Fed hiked as unemployment fell, backtracked when inflation didn’t rise
Policy makers have acknowledged getting labor markets wrong in the recent past, and say they’ve learned from community outreach this year that many Americans haven’t felt the benefits of the economy’s long expansion.
All this rethinking has bolstered the case for keeping rates low at times when prices aren’t rising much — like the past quarter-century or so. And if the new ideas take hold, America’s next economic upswing may be overseen by a Fed that’s less inclined to raise rates in response.
GUIDING DOCTRINE
As recently as 2018, both the policy and the rationale were different.
The Fed was tightening policy preemptively to foreclose on the risk that inflation would rise as unemployment fell. It also had plenty of experience of the damage that excessive inflation could do, not least to poorer Americans. Its guiding doctrine said that moving rates around can shift prices — but not the structure of job markets, or the prevalence of inequality.
That was seen as a task for politicians who control government spending and taxes. When Mr. Kashkari, a year into his job, launched an in-house effort in 2017 to examine widening disparities in the economy, he was expecting to generate research that might inform lawmakers’ decisions, rather than the Fed’s.
“We had historically said: distributional outcomes, monetary policy has no role to play,” he said in an October interview. “That was kind of the standard view at the Fed, and I came in assuming that. I now think that’s wrong.”
INTENSELY POLITICAL
Mr. Kashkari’s project has taken an unexpected turn over the last two years, morphing into something more ambitious. It has the potential to transform an intensely political debate about inequality into a scientific endeavor that the Fed’s 21st-century technocrats could take up.
This year, he finally found someone to lead it: Abigail Wozniak, a Notre Dame economics professor, became the first head of the Minneapolis Fed’s Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute.
Back in 2015, when her eventual boss Kashkari was taking a career break after a failed bid to become Republican governor of California, Ms. Wozniak was a member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) — where her work helped pave the way for the Fed’s paradigm shift.
Dropouts are reentering the labor force, confounding expectations
What ultimately changed Mr. Kashkari’s mind — and surprised many Fed insiders — was the way the US economy kept creating jobs, even as low jobless rates suggested that it should’ve been at or near full employment under old assumptions.
Instead, Americans who’d given up looking for work after the financial crisis — and who weren’t therefore counted among the unemployed — were pouring back into the job market.
While at Obama’s CEA, Ms. Wozniak was at the forefront of trying to figure out why so many men aged 25 to 54 had dropped out, according to Jason Furman, CEA chair at the time.
“We helped emphasize that supply explanations, like men not wanting to work, wasn’t a big source of the problem,” says Mr. Furman, who’s now at Harvard. The issue was weak demand — which implied the trend could reverse, if policy makers let the economy heat up enough.
REALLY RESONATING
Mr. Furman says he took Wozniak to a meeting with Obama — unusual for someone of her rank — and they clicked. “It became immediately clear that she knew more than any of the other economists,” he says. “What she was saying was really resonating with him, and moving him.”
Mr. Kashkari, who sits on the central bank’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), wants to utilize her policy chops as well. He can designate a handful of advisers with clearance to attend FOMC meetings and says he hopes down the road to bring Ms. Wozniak into that inner circle.
In the meantime, Wozniak has the institute to build up. Eventually, she says, its work will feed through into monetary policy too.
One of its priorities has been to build a network of experts on income and wealth distribution, the same way the Fed brings in specialists in financial markets or growth.
“When we need to tap into the research network and say, what’s the state-of-the-art on this question, we can do that quickly because we’re kind of already there,” Ms. Wozniak says.
IVORY TOWER
Mirroring the central bank’s wider efforts to engage with the public this year via “Fed Listens” events, Ms. Wozniak is determined to reach beyond the ivory tower too.
That was evident at Ms. Wozniak’s first big event as head of the Institute, an Oct. 3-4 conference on housing affordability. There were panels crammed with PhD economists — but also presentations by local government officials and activists.
“We look on paper at the unemployment rate or other statistics and we try to come to a judgment about what full employment is,” says Mark Wright, the Minneapolis Fed’s research director. “That’s very different to what you hear when you’re on the ground talking to these people.”
RACIAL SEGREGATION
The keynote address at the conference dinner was delivered by Lawrence Lanahan, a Baltimore-based reporter who wrote a book about housing segregation. After-dinner conversation quickly turned into a heart-to-heart on America’s legacy of racial discrimination.
For Ms. Wozniak, it was an example of what the institute hopes to achieve by bringing together diverse perspectives and challenging the way people think about pressing policy issues.
“We do want to try to foster that conversation,” Ms. Wozniak says. “I think that sometimes that means you take a risk, and you have someone who is outside the field present a strong view.”
While the Fed may be scanning a wider horizon, its immediate preoccupation is when or whether to resume cutting interest rates — or pivot to raising them.
‘MATERIAL REASSESSMENT’
Testifying in Congress on Nov. 13, Mr. Powell signaled that rates will likely stay on hold absent a “material reassessment” of the economic outlook.
A key question is whether the Fed’s new focus on inequality makes it more reluctant to raise rates if growth accelerates?
David Wilcox, a 30-year Fed veteran who ran the research department for its Board of Governors before retiring last year, thinks the answer is yes — with the caveat that the central bank’s actions must still be justified in terms of pursuing its congressional mandate for full employment and price stability.
“There’s more scholarship emerging that issues of engagement, issues of inclusion and issues of inequality are related to the overall functioning of the economy,” says Mr. Wilcox, who’s now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“I think there’s the potential to change the decisions that are actually arrived at.” — Bloomberg
Red Dead Redemption 2
PC via Stream
RED DEAD REVOLVER almost never came to light. Angel Studios began working on it at the turn of the millennium, and managed to move it forward enough to be officially announced alongside three other intellectual properties two years later. Despite the support of industry giant Capcom, however, it went on to miss production targets and wound up being canceled not long after. Fortunately, fate intervened, and holding company Take Two Interactive’s acquisition of its erstwhile developer paved the way for its resurrection at the hands of subsidiary Rockstar Games. Under the tutelage of Rockstar San Diego, it lived up to its promise as a spiritual successor to Konami veteran Yoshiki Okamoto’s vertical-scrolling arcade shooter Gun.Smoke on sixth-generation consoles.
The success of Red Dead Revolver laid the groundwork for a sequel. Rockstar Games unveiled a teaser shortly after its release in 2004, signaling the start of a long — and extremely expensive — process that saw fruition six years later. The time proved to be well spent in any case, with Red Dead Redemption becoming a critical and commercial hit that justified a nine-figure outlay. The title, which bore no story ties to the original release, went on to garner industry award after industry award, all the while flying off store shelves and exhibiting rarefied longevity in seventh-generation platforms.
Not surprisingly, work on the next title in the Red Dead series began as soon as Red Dead Redemption hit the ground running. For all the strides Rockstar Games was making with its Western actioner, it resisted the temptation to come up with a quick turnaround. Even as its bottom-line considerations were met by continuing enhancements to the current release (among them Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, an expansion pack with a horror bent), it made sure to underscore the need for quality by parceling out development on the successor to all its assets worldwide, all the while sparing no expense.
To argue that Red Dead Redemption 2 was borne of great expectations would thus be an understatement. It’s certainly one of the most ambitious games currently out on the market, going for, and achieving, stunning realism as presented through both first- and third-person perspectives. Its humongous open map brings about an immersive sandbox experience that makes full use of the capabilities of the Sony PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. And, again, both critics and consumers have spoken. It has gone on to win Game of the Year awards while generating significant revenues; it needed just two weeks to shatter Red Dead Redemption’s lifetime sales figures, and now boasts of a shipment total of close to 30 million copies. And with its version of the wild, wild West just out on the personal computer, the number figures to keep growing.
Unlike previous titles in the Red Dead series, Red Dead Redemption 2 shares a narrative timeline with its immediate past predecessor. Presented as a prequel to Red Dead Redemption, it has gamers taking control of outlaw cowboy Arthur Morgan, the right hand man of gang leader Dutch Van der Linde. After narrowly avoiding agents of the law in Blackwater, a modern town in one of the game’s five fictitious states, members of the group strive to flee their pursuers and plan an escape to greener pastures. To accomplish their objective of retiring from a life of crime, they move to build a nest egg by engaging in robberies (notably of assets belonging to oil baron Leviticus Cornwall), holdups, extortions, and shootouts, all while evading capture by the Pinkertons.
Red Dead Redemption 2 provides tons of action while giving gamers free rein on largely undiscovered country. And the audio-visual engagement is nothing short of outstanding. No sooner has it been booted up than a howling snowstorm erupts, highlighting an urgent need to find shelter. Scant minutes after, a desperate shootout ensues; bullets whistle through the wind as its first taste of combat. A frantic fist-fight then breaks out, leading to a moral choice: Will the vanquished antagonist be allowed to live, or should he be executed in cold blood to best cover tracks? From the engaging opener and up until the very end, it convincingly portrays a world slowly being consumed by greed, excess, and “civilization.” Gone are the simpler times of desperados, replaced by a dog-eat-dog world, where even close friends can turn into bitter enemies for coin.
All throughout, Red Dead Redemption 2 never forgets to have fun. During its story missions, it moves gamers from one set piece to another, as if to cross out a list of the best embodiments of a traditional Western. Among other things, they get to be part of a train heist, to sneak into a bank, to engage in a shootout at a country manor (setting up one of its most iconic moments). At the same time, it supports a surprisingly deep storyline. For all the pains it takes to inject adrenaline into the proceedings, it shows no fear in tackling serious and solemn themes with remarkable introspection. For instance, it unveils Arthur’s personal struggles in the midst of Dutch’s seeming rejection of the inevitable tides of change and the gang’s increasing willingness to engage in violence.
Meanwhile, there’s Red Dead Redemption 2’s open world to consider. Within five large, unique areas representing Western, Midwestern, and Southern states, gamers are free to do as they please in interactive fashion. They can take up bounty hunting and bring in criminals to the local sheriffs, or lie in wait for game to earn extra money, or scavenge for food and materials to upgrade their camp and satchel. They can shop for clothes, or stay in a hotel and take a bath, or simply mosey along in furtherance of Western stereotypes. And, yes, just about everything is presented flawlessly by the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (note the acronym). Just about.
As good as Red Dead Redemption 2 may be, minor issues do spring up. Notably, while the sandbox experience allows gamers to explore the open world in pretty much any manner they see fit, the story missions require an almost precise degree of linearity. While they remain enjoyable all the same, they feel like on-rail segments that take away a large degree of freedom otherwise on offer. Straying too far off the set path will lead to an automatic return to the last checkpoint — not normally a problem for most titles, but, in its case, shining the spotlight on the huge disconnect among its primary gameplay options.
The general clunkiness of some of Red Dead Redemption 2’s mechanics can also hamper the experience of gamers unprepared for their manifestation. Those so inclined may term these mechanics immersive, while the more critical would instead deem them intrusive. For example, hunger and thirst come into play and introduce some light roleplay elements. On the flipside, they don’t add any meaningful depth; on the gaming monitor, they’re simply bars that need to be watched over, lest the principal character be penalized with reduced health regeneration and slower stamina recovery rates. Parenthetically, it employs extra animations that can wear out their welcome. Everything — from eating food to looting a body to examining a storage chest — is styled and stylized, initially eliciting wonder but subsequently giving off a been there, done that vibe.
Most crucially, Red Dead Redemption 2’s mileage may vary depending on PC specifications. Dedicated desktop and laptop rigs will run it well and, perhaps, exhibit minor stuttering during more chaotic sequences, but less-powerful setups have been documented to encounter issues that prevent it from running smoothly. Creditably, Rockstar Games has taken steps to address technical concerns, issuing patches designed to enable gamers to focus on the quality and depth of the gameplay. As an aside, the robust community continually comes up with practical and customized fixes to help others overcome unique hurdles.
On the whole, Red Dead Redemption 2 merits an easy recommend, especially for those with a lot of time to spare, not to mention hardware advanced enough to run it on its best settings. Its layered plot and sheer scale may wear down gamers, but it nonetheless offers an experience unlike any other as one of the best titles ever to come out on any platform.
THE GOOD:
• Gripping, well-written storyline
• Engaging gunplay combined with a large sandbox experience
• Tons of content on offer
THE BAD:
• Linear missions
• Can get very tedious at times
• Hit-or-miss performance depending on hardware strength
RATING: 9.5/10
POSTSCRIPT: Rimelands: Hammer of Thor is a faithful recreation of a nine-year-old role-playing game that first saw light on the iOS platform. Kyy Games does an outstanding job porting it over to the Nintendo Switch, and the hybrid console, as has been the case for most independent releases originally conceived for mobile devices, exhibits the updated version with aplomb. It’s certainly the definitive iteration, presenting enhanced, if dated three-dimensional visuals along with a superb sound mix — more than justifying the $9.99 price tag, double that of its original format.
As could be expected from Rimelands: Hammer of Thor’s mobile origins, the narrative — which has the principal protagonist stopping quarters bent on breaking an uneasy truce between two races sharing the world’s surface — is light on the exposition. Gamers take on the role of youthful Rose Cristo, armed with a passion for adventure. She willingly explores vaults/dungeons at the behest of her grandmother who raised her following the death of her parents, but soon finds her aim to uncover the truth behind her heritage meshing with the need to avert war.
Likewise, Rimelands: Hammer of Thor puts forth simple gameplay mechanics. It employs a turn-based combat system reliant on dice rolls to direct movement and determine success or failure of attacks and blocks. That said, a good degree of customization is on offer; skill sets and abilities are developed based on the chosen character type, while equipment and crafting components can be collected from exploration ventures. Proper management of battle gear can be especially useful in claiming additional dice to roll more skulls (for offense) and shields (for defense).
All told, Rimelands: Hammer of Thor should be good for some eight to 10 hours of play on the go. Post-completion choices are present, but figure to hold appeal only to completionists. In any case, it’s a boon to the library of gamers partial to tabletop offerings. (7.5/10)
THE LAST WORD: Nippon Ichi Software America has announced the release of the localized iterations of Langrisser I & II on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The compilation of the two classic strategy role-playing games will be retailing in North America on March 10, 2020, in Europe on March 13, 2020, and in Australia and New Zealand on March 20, 2020. A trailer has been made available to highlight pluses to the updated versions, which include English voice tracks, a remastered art style, and, seemingly, a new character.
Currently on preorder for $79.99 at the NISA Online Store, the Limited Editions of Langrisser I & II for the Switch and PS4 contain a visual book, separate two- and three-CD soundtracks, and art cards housed in a collector’s box.
Here’s a quick glance at how PSEi stocks fared on Monday, November 25, 2019.
THE House of Representatives on Monday approved on third and final reading Package three of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP), the bill that will centralize the valuation and assessment of real property.
Voting 224 in the affirmative, seven in the negative and one abstention, the chamber passed House Bill 4664, which if signed into law will become the Real Property Valuation and Assessment Reform Act.
Representative Edcel C. Lagman of Albay’s first district said the bill features protections for owners of residential lots and for property owners affected by calamities.
Mr. Lagman added that amendments to the bill regulate the authority of the Secretary of Finance to review, approve or reject schedules of market values.
Section 12 provides that “all real properties, whether taxable or exempt, shall be valued or appraised based on prevailing market values in the locality where the property is situated.”
The bill also authorizes the Secretary of Finance to approve the Schedule of Market Values prepared by provincial and city assessors.
The Real Property Valuation and Assessment Reform Act is one of the priority bills that President Rodrigo R. Duterte outlined in his 2019 State of the Nation Address (SONA).
There are a total of four packages under the CTRP. Republic Act No. 10963 or Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law effectively reduced personal income taxes by amending the tax tables while Republic Act No. 1123 or the Tax Amnesty Act hopes to settle arrears owed by delinquent taxpayers.
Package two of the CTRP includes the proposed Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act which seeks to gradually lower the corporate income tax rate from 30% to 20%.
Package 2+ on the other hand, proposes to reform sin taxes to generate additional revenue for Universal Health Care (UHC).
Package four of the CTRP includes the Passive Income and Financial Intermediary Taxation Act which seeks to simplify the taxation of passive income and financial instruments.
All these bills have passed in the House but remain pending in the Senate. — Genshen L. Espedido
THE Department of Energy (DoE) has released a draft circular that will require power generation plants connected to the transmission grid to submit their planned or scheduled outages for three years.
The draft, which was posted by the DoE for industry comment, comes after the grid operator Monday announced that Luzon would be on “yellow“ alert because some power plants were on unplanned outages. The forced shutdown happened when other plants were on their scheduled maintenance outage.
The draft circular provides guidelines for the planned outage schedules of power plants and transmission facilities, and the publication of the grid operating and maintenance program.
The DoE said it would be accepting proposals and comment until Dec. 13.
Under the proposal, power generating companies are to submit three-year planned outage schedules for their power plants to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), which will then compile a grid operating program (GOP).
NGCP will devise a mechanism to arrive at an optimal generation and transmission planned outage schedule, which will be the basis of the grid operating and maintenance program (GOMP).
NGCP will submit to the DoE the GOMP every third quarter of the year, for review and approval.
The DoE, in its review of the resulting reserve profile, will direct the necessary adjustments in the generation and transmission planned outage schedules. NGCP and the concerned generating companies will then be informed of any changes in the submitted GOMP.
The first year of the GOMP schedule will be considered binding and can be changed during its implementation, subject to DoE approval.
The second- and third-year schedules will be considered indicative and reference for the medium-term power supply and demand outlook.
On Monday, the power plants that went on unplanned outage were Prime Meridian Power Corp.’s Avion natural gas-fired power plant unit 2, with installed capacity of 50.3 megawatts (MW) and dependable capacity of 48 MW, because of gas turbine trouble; South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp.’s coal-fired power plant unit 2, with installed capacity of 135 MW, and dependable capacity of 122 MW, because of a cyclone separator tube leak; and Quezon Power Ltd. Co.’s coal-fired power plant, with installed capacity of 511 MW and dependable capacity of 460 MW, because of an inlet valve issue and high furnace pressure.
The others are: GN Power Mariveles Coal Plant Ltd., Co.’s coal-fired power plant unit 1, with installed capacity of 345 MW and dependable capacity of 316 MW, to facilitate correction of governor valves; AP Renewables, Inc.’s Tiwi geothermal power plant unit 6, with installed capacity of 57 MW and dependable capacity of 50 MW, for maintenance.
In all, their total installed capacity is 1,098 MW and dependable capacity 996 MW. — Victor V. Saulon
THE Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) backed measures to facilitate the adoption of alternative work arrangements on a voluntary basis, on the condition that companies continue to pay overtime and night differentials.
DoLE outlined its position before the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development on Monday when it tackled Senate Bills 153 and 673, which amend Presidential Decree No. 442, or the Labor Code of the Philippines to authorize more flexible work arrangements.
Senator Emmanuel Joel J. Villanueva, who chairs the panel, said previous amendments nearly made it past the 17th Congress, having gone as far as the bicameral conference committee.
“We were able to pass this on third reading. We were about to conduct the Bicameral Conference Committee kaso hindi po natuloy (but it didn’t go through),” Mr. Villanueva told the panel.
He noted that in the previous Congress, deliberations stalled on the application of benefits such as overtime pay and night differential pay.
“This is pursuant to our existing policy to recognize voluntary work arrangements between companies and their employees that is mutually beneficial and does not diminish existing standards and benefits such as overtime pay premium and night shift differential,” Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said.
The bills seek to introduce a new provision in the Code permitting alternative work arrangements in cases of national emergency or by agreement between the employer and employee; provided that the total work hours do not exceed 48 hours per week.
Mr. Bello also proposed adopting a compressed work week as an alternative.
“As a form of alternative work arrangement, a compressed work week promotes work life balance and productivity as well as competitiveness of industry,” Mr. Bello said.
“We suggest that the hours of work in any given working day, under a compressed work week shall not exceed 12 hours.”
He also proposed that DoLE be given authority to limit the applicability of a compressed work week, taking into account the job performed and the health and safety of workers involved.
The Nagkaisa Labor Coalition told the panel there is no need to legislate a compressed work week. “With the existing rules and regulations promulgated by the DoLE for temporary situations, I think those rules will do at present,” Chairman Sonny Matula said. — Charmaine A. Tadalan
EMPLOYERS said they see no chance of approval for a proposed daily minimum wage of P750 for Metro Manila workers, a year after the region last increased its minimum wages.
Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECoP) President Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis, Jr. said he does not expect the wage petition filed by Unity for Wage Increase (U-WIN), an alliance of unions, filed before the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board of the National Capital Region (RTWPB-NCR) on Monday to make it past the board.
“There is no chance the proposal can be passed especially when the increase is more than 50% of the current minimum wage,” Mr. Ortiz-Luis, Jr. told BusinessWorld by phone Monday.
Mr. Ortis-Luis also said that the wage hike petition is unjustified considering receding inflation. The wage board considers inflation, among others, as a factor in deciding a wage increase.
“I don’t know how that can be passed especially with inflation at a (multi-year) low,” he added.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the inflation reading in October of 0.8% was the lowest in three years.
U-WIN said its petition is seeking an additional P213 on top of the current NCR minimum wage.
The current wage level was set by the National Wages and Productivity Commission’s (NWPC) Wage Order No. NCR-22 which fixed the daily minimum wage for private, non-agriculture workers in the NCR at P537.
According to NWPC rules, a wage hike petition can only be filed on the first anniversary of the previous wage order. The required one-year period lapsed on Nov. 22.
U-WIN said the last wage increase only added P25 plus a P10 daily allowance, a 4.9% increase from the previous minimum wage of P512.
U-WIN Spokesperson Charito Arevalo said in a statement, “What we are asking is mere relief for Filipino workers and their families (to bring their earnings to) at least 75% of the daily cost of living.” U-WIN added that wage growth has not kept up with productivity growth.
The alliance also quoted World Bank Economist Rong Qian as saying that wages did not grow in real terms in the Philippines between 2000 and 2016. — Gillian M. Cortez
BUSINESS sentiment remains positive with the economy continuing on its growth trajectory and liquidity abundant due to the central bank’s expansionary measures, the head of BDO Unibank, Inc. said.
“I’m quite optimistic because… the next generation is really coming up and frankly the economy is in a good spot, we have growth and it’s broad-based so we just have to look at the positives,” BDO Unibank President Nestor V. Tan told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Makati City yesterday when asked for his views on the state of the business sector.
The economy grew 6.2% in the third quarter, picking up from the muted 5.5% growth in the first semester as well as the 6% registered a year earlier.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said that it will take 6.7% growth in the fourth quarter to achieve the low end of the 6-7% 2019 target, which he said was a “challenge” that is nonetheless achievable.
Mr. Tan said that the private sector will be a “big help” in ramping up implementation of the government’s infrastructure program.
In its revised list of flagship programs, the government listed 100 works compared with the previous total of 75, cancelling projects deemed no longer feasible while including “small but game-changing ones.” The list also included more projects funded by public-private partnership (PPP) to 29 from the previous 9.
“I guess we need a lot of infrastructure investment so the more people participating in it the better for us as long we don’t choke with so many projects simultaneously. Bringing in the private sector would be a big help,” he said.
With the new list, the infrastructure program will cost P1.77 trillion for PPPs, and P2.31 trillion for the 49 projects financed through official development assistance (ODA). The remaining 22 projects worth P167.95 billion will be financed via the national budget.
Mr. Tan, who was recently named the Management Man of the Year 2019 by the Management Association of the Philippines, also said that to sustain the growth, the economy will need the liquidity boost provided by the central bank.
On Friday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said interbank borrowing will no longer be classified as deposit substitutes subject to reserve requirements under the new Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Charter.
The move to exclude such borrowing from the reserve requirement of banks and quasi-banks “will result in freed-up liquidity” which can be used for other lending and investment activity, it said.
“I don’t know how much it will introduce into the system but I’m quite positive with that move because I think the economy needs the liquidity now to support the growth so that will be a big help,” Mr. Tan said. — Beatrice M. Laforga
