Over 300 illegal Chinese workers deported

November 5, 2019 | 8:23 pm

MORE THAN 300 undocumented Chinese workers, including seven minors, were deported on Tuesday, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) reported. In a statement, BI said “it has deported 294 Chinese nationals in two chartered flights earlier today at the Puerto Princesa International Airport.” They were arrested last Sept. 16 for working without permit in eight hotels and restaurants. The seven minors were nabbed on the same day. BI Intelligence Division Chief Fortunato C. Manahan said they were arrested for “violating the conditions of their stay by working in the country without the necessary permits and visas.” — Gillian M. Cortez

Ormoc remembers 1991 flash flood

November 5, 2019 | 8:22 pm

ORMOC CITY commemorated on Tuesday the Nov. 5, 1991 flash flood, brought about by typhoon Uring (international name: Thelma), where over 8,000 people died, including some 3,000 whose bodies were never found. Mayor Richard I. Gomez, in a simple ceremony at the Anilao Bridge, stressed the importance of planting trees and environmental protection as well as following disaster preparedness protocols. “Let us not experience that tragedy again.”

Homes, schools damaged by tornado in Marawi City, no casualty reported

November 5, 2019 | 8:22 pm

TWO HOUSES and seven classrooms were totally destroyed when a tornado struck Marawi City at around 2:10 p.m. on Nov. 4, but no casualties were reported, the local disaster management office said in its rapid damage assessment report released Tuesday. An auditorium was also knocked down while partial damage were recorded in at least 42 houses and public infrastructure, including some buildings at the Marawi City government compound. The tornado, which lasted for about 10 minutes, affected the five villages of Sagonsongan, Barrion Fort, Bangon, Green, and Saber.

Cotabato appeals to residents to stop begging for relief goods along highways, says it’s unfair to emergency workers

November 5, 2019 | 8:21 pm

COTABATO ACTING Governor Emmylou Talino-Mendoza appealed to residents, whether they have been affected or not by last month’s triple earthquakes, to stop begging for relief goods along the national highway, stressing that both the local government and national agencies have been working 24/7 for the emergency operations. Ms. Mendoza said while they are free to do such acts, it is unfair to the emergency workers who have been doing their best. “Hindi nagkulang ang national at local governments sa pagtulong sa kanila (We have not been remiss in the emergency response),” Ms. Mendoza said in a telephone interview, noting that evacuation areas were immediately set up, and relief goods distribution and rescue operations have been continuing. She also said the province — which was the epicenter of the magnitude 6.4, 6.6, and 6.5 earthquakes — fully supports the directive of Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana to the Armed Forces of the Philippines to set up checkpoints in quake-affected areas in Mindanao to properly monitor the movement of relief goods and workers as well as ensure peace and security. “My position is to maintain the security and the orderliness by supporting the directive of (Mr.) Lorenzana for an orderly flow of the distribution of the relief goods.” Meanwhile, Cotabato Police Chief Maximo C. Layugan has reported incidents of looting in Barangay Batasan. — Maya M. Padillo

Mt. Apo trails temporarily closed

November 5, 2019 | 8:21 pm

ENTRY POINTS to Mt. Apo, the country’s highest peak, from towns in Davao del Sur have been temporarily closed following the three earthquakes that hit parts of south-central Mindanao last month, including the province. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) regional office said the local governments of Sta. Cruz, Bansalan, and Digos City have made their trails off limits for now to avoid risks to climbers. Landslides triggered by the earthquakes occurred in some areas at the foot of Mt. Apo. “The safety of the climbers is of utmost priority,” DENR said. Meanwhile, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), in an announcement posted Nov. 3, has stressed that the earthquakes are “tectonic,” which means these were due to movements in faults, and not arising from volcanic activity. Nonetheless, PHIVOLCS said it continues to closely monitor the two active volcanoes near the earthquakes’ epicenter, Mt. Matutum and Mt. Parker, and the “potentially active Mt. Apo.” — Carmelito Q. Francisco

Nation at a Glance — (11/06/19)

November 5, 2019 | 8:17 pm

News stories from across the nation. Visit www.bworldonline.com (section: The Nation) to read more national and regional news from the Philippines.

Guided growth: Google and IdeaSpace team up for the Philippine ecosystem

November 5, 2019 | 3:59 pm

Last October 17, Google Developers Launchpad and IdeaSpace announced their partnership towards the common goal of boosting the Philippines’ startup ecosystem. By offering an acceleration program tailor-fitted specifically for emerging economies, IdeaSpace will enjoy access to a wide array of tools and networks.

Through Google Launchpad, IdeaSpace will be connected to fellow accelerators around the world to help them leverage on their best practices and resources. They will likewise gain access to Google’s global network and learn from 20 years’ worth of research and best practice insights on building businesses, products, and teams at scale.

“Google believes in empowering startup communities around the world, and helping them leverage each other for insights and resource sharing,” said Samuel Jeanblanc, Market Lead for Google Philippines. “We are thrilled to partner with IdeaSpace to support more startups and fuel the local ecosystem’s growth over the long term.”

Adding further value, with values

These benefits will be felt throughout the entire IdeaSpace ecosystem. During the 7th Demo Day held last October 22, it was announced that the next cohort and current alumni of IdeaSpace’s acceleration program will also be enjoying the same resources.

“We’re excited to be a Powered by Launchpad partner for the Philippines, because it represents an influx of talent, knowledge, experience, and resources into the Philippine startup ecosystem,” said Butch Meily, President of IdeaSpace. “As our startups grow in number and mature, we need to ensure that we have the resources necessary to support their growth and development.”

Beyond the technical privileges that the partnership will offer, IdeaSpace believes that it’s the values that they share with Google that will ensure the best kind of growth for their startups.

“Google was very selective also on the kind of accelerator that they were going to provide the support for, because it has to first fall into the same values,” said Dianne Eustaquio, Executive Director of IdeaSpace.

“We used to have partnerships with other companies, but all they really wanted to do was sales. We know that eventually Google will want to have these people engage with them, but they give before they get. And that jives with our values.”

Meet the 12 new startup graduates of IdeaSpace’s Accelerator Program

November 5, 2019 | 12:46 pm

For the participants of IdeaSpace’s 7th Demo Day held last October 22 at Whitespace Manila, the event was a conclusion that opens the door to a promising beginning.

After months of intensive training and mentoring, the latest cohort of IdeaSpace’s Accelerator Program presented their respective product offerings and business models. The 12 tech-based startups all have a common hyperlocal focus, whether it’s through partnering with other businesses or empowering other members of the community:

● Airship Logistics: An end-to-end solution for courier companies to manage operations
● Automart: An online car auction platform that ensures the best price for used vehicles
● BukidFresh: A platform that provides customers with fresh, fair-trade greens from local farmers
● Brooky: An AI-enabled marketing assistant for real estate developers and brokers
● Cocotel: A hotel aggregator that also assists smaller chains in upscaling their services
● Contrack: A platform that connects home and business owners to accredited local improvement services providers
● DCLA: An end-to-end computer learning scheme for basic education
● ExperiencePH: A community travel platform that offers themed and gamified experiences
● IOL: A gamified e-learning platform for business education
● Olivia: A gamified app for women to help track expenses and decide on the best investment options
● Omnibus: A cloud-based platform to help legal practitioners manage their daily operations
● Pandalivery: A food delivery solution designed for the Philippine market

“We’ve high hopes for this cohort. They’re more mature,” said Butch Meily, president of IdeaSpace. “In the past we would take prototypes, but we’re no longer doing that. We’re looking for more mature startups that have a business model, revenues, and that are going for the long run.”

As new members of the IdeaSpace’s alumni program, the 12 startups will be granted access to additional resources such as mentors, office space, business matching, and funding. They will also be able to compete for the chance of receiving a P1 million equity investment from IdeaSpace.

Learning from one’s battle scars

For the cohort’s graduates, much had changed for their startups since the beginning of the program. Olivia, for instance, was supposed to start off solely as an investing app.

“The program really helped us validate the market and understand what the real pain points are,” said Jocs Pantastico, Olivia’s CEO and founder. “So after going through weeks of marketing validation… we found out that while investing was aspirational, the need was more basic than that. It was understanding where money was going first, and then eventually investing.”

For some of the founders, change started on a more personal level. “As an IT student, I really didn’t know how business worked,” said Jude Salvador Buelva, CEO and founder of Pandalivery. “[The program] really honed me to become an entrepreneur, and to become the best startup founder that I can be.”

[Read more about Jude’s journey putting up Pandalivery here.]

A safe space for growth is one of the key benefits of any incubation or acceleration program. But now that these startups have graduated, it’s important that they keep on learning- even if it means earning a few more battle scars along the way.

“Just keep on failing,” said Buelva. “Pandalivery failed a lot in terms of implementation. And that’s where we learned that we should focus on this and that. It really gave us the path on where we should go.”

House approves bill deferring village polls

November 5, 2019 | 1:00 am

THE House of Representatives yesterday approved on third and final reading a proposal to defer village and youth elections from May 2020 to Dec. 2022.

Congressmen voted 194-6 in plenary to pass House Bill 4933, the substitute for 40 consolidated bills seeking to reschedule the elections.

The original bill, approved on first reading by the committee on suffrage and electoral reforms on Sept. 24, had set the new schedule for May 8, 2023.

But during floor debates, Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez introduced a change by setting the date to Dec. 5, 2022 to synchronize it with the version passed by Senate.

The House plenary accepted his proposal before approving the proposed measure after two days of debates and deliberations.

Under the bill, synchronized village and youth elections will be held every three years from Dec. 2022. If enacted, this will be the third time the elections will be postponed under the Duterte administration. — Delon Porcalla, Philippine Star

Manufacturing purchasing managers’ index of select ASEAN economies, October (2019)

November 5, 2019 | 12:33 am

FACTORY ACTIVITY in the country improved “modestly” — though the latest reading was the best in nine months — in October, with bigger output and new orders offsetting record-low business expectations, according to findings of the latest Philippine survey conducted by IHS Markit that were released on Monday. Read the full story.

Modest factory improvement marks Oct.

November 5, 2019 | 12:33 am

FACTORY ACTIVITY in the country improved “modestly” — though the latest reading was the best in nine months — in October, with bigger output and new orders offsetting record-low business expectations, according to findings of the latest Philippine survey conducted by IHS Markit that were released on Monday.

The IHS Markit Philippines Manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) bared “modest improvement” with a 52.1 reading for October, climbing from the preceding month’s 51.8, “signalling a moderate improvement in the health of the goods-producing sector,” according to a news release on the country report. The latest reading matched that of July and was the best performance since January’s 52.3.

Regionwide, the Philippines maintained its second spot among the seven Southeast Asian countries tracked, next to Myanmar’s 53 (up from 52 previously). They were the only two economies in the region that bared upticks from the preceding month. “… [o]nly Myanmar and the Philippines reported an improvement in operating conditions, contrasting heavily with a marked deterioration in Singapore and a further decline in Malaysia,” the regional report quoted IHS Markit Economist Lewis Cooper as saying.

The Philippines also bested the region’s average of 48.5 that marked a deterioration for the fifth consecutive month.

PMI is the weighted average of five indices, namely: new orders with a 30% weight, output with 25%, employment with 20%, suppliers’ delivery times with 15% and stocks of purchases with 10%. PMI readings above 50 signal improvement in operating conditions from the preceding month, while those below that denote deterioration. The Philippine results were based on responses to monthly questionnaires by purchasing managers of about 400 manufacturers that were collected on Oct. 11-24.

Philippine manufacturers saw modest expansion in rate of production on the back of new orders.

New orders rode a “solid increase in demand due to greater client numbers and an improvement in export conditions,” IHS Markit said in a press release on Monday. “In fact, sales to overseas clients rose for the first time in five months, albeit only modestly.”

Firms continued to pay higher prices of input goods in October. Respondents attributed such input inflation to “higher prices of raw materials, including metals and food stuff” as well as “reduced input availability”.

At the same time, the hike in selling prices eased “to the softest rate since the first month of [Philippine] data collection in January 2016.”

“While a number of firms raised prices due to greater cost pressures, most kept them unchanged in order to maintain a solid inflow of new business.”

“A stand-out from October data was a further fall in the pace of output charge inflation, which reached the weakest since January 2016. Despite a solid rise in cost burdens, many firms looked to keep prices unchanged in order to maintain a strong market environment,” David Owen, economist at IHS Markit, was quoted by the press release as saying.

And as respondents saw “another steep reduction in outstanding business,” they “saw little need” to hire more workers. Hence, employment increased “at the softest pace” in three months.

Traffic also hampered supply delivery with “lead times increased for the third month in a row and at the fastest rate so far this year.”

Finally, factory outlook weakened further to “a new record low for the survey”, even as “many panelists remained optimistic” about future output “due to sales growth, new products and store openings.” — Beatrice M. Laforga

Senate sets target for 2020 budget OK

November 5, 2019 | 12:32 am

By Charmaine A. Tadalan
Reporter

SENATE plenary deliberation on the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020 will begin on Nov. 11 as the chamber eyes bicameral approval by the first week of December, Senate leaders said on Monday.

The House of Representatives, meanwhile, moved to extend the availability of the 2019 national budget until Dec. 31 2020 as it approved on third and final reading House Joint Resolution No. 19.

“We’re looking at two weeks of budget deliberation. Hopefully, i-approve on second reading and third reading by Nov. 22,” Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel F. Zubiri told reporters in a briefing on Monday.

“With that we’re looking at possibly having the bicam[eral conference committee discussions] by November 25-30.”

Mr. Zubiri said Senator Juan Edgardo M. Angara, chairman of the Finance committee, is scheduled to sponsor the proposed 2020 spending plan on Nov. 11.

Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III said in a separate briefing on Monday that the bicameral conference committee might convene in the “first week of December.”

The House of Representatives on Sept. 20 approved House Bill No. 4228, or the proposed General Appropriations Act (GAA) for Fiscal Year 2020, on final reading, the same day it was passed on second reading.

The bill was certified as an urgent measure by President Rodrigo R. Duterte, allowing the chamber to do away with the required three-day interval between second- and third-reading approval.

Lawmakers are moving to assure punctual approval of next year’s spending plan, following an almost four-month delay in enactment of the P3.662-trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2019 that made overall economic growth slow to 5.5% last semester from 6.3% a year ago and against a 6-7% full-year 2019 target set by the government.

“Ang consensus ng ating mga kasamahan sa Senado ay maganda naman: ipapasa the soonest possible time para hindi naman mangyari ‘yung nangyari last 17^th Congress (The consensus among senators is… to approve the 2020 budget at the soonest possible time in order to avoid a repetition of what happened in the last 17^th Congress),” Mr. Zubiri said.

To recall, the delay resulted from an impasse between the House and the Department of Budget and Management over a change in budgeting framework and later with the Senate over fund realignments that were deemed not in sync with the administration’s priorities. Mr. Duterte signed the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget in mid-April, but vetoed some P95 billion in funds realigned to the Department of Public Works and Highways.

Asked whether the Senate is open to adopting the House version in order to speed up budget approval, Mr. Zubiri replied: “Malabong mangyari ’yun (That will be far-fetched),” explaining that senators have proposed amendments to the spending plan.

Mr. Sotto, however, said he is open to the idea. “Kung maganda ang sinampa sa’min na (If the) House version, magandang budget at maliwanag na budget (that we received does not have items we find questionable), yes, payag ako i-adopt (I will be amenable to adopting the House version),” Mr. Sotto said.

In a separate development, the House, voting 199-0, passed HJR No. 19, which will extend the availability of the 2019 budget for maintenance and other operating expenses and capital outlays until Dec. 31, 2020.

It is a measure that is supported by the Senate. Its counterpart, Senate Joint Resolution No. 7, filed by Mr. Angara, is set to be sponsored in the plenary “this week.”

“Kailangan i-extend ang validity ng 2019 GAA dahil nawalan tayo ng six months sa implementation (We need to extend the validity of the 2019 GAA because we lost six months of implementation due to its late enactment),” Mr. Zubiri said.

He noted that under the cash-based budgeting system put in place starting this year, funds left unobligated to projects by yearend will revert to the Treasury.

Aside from late budget enactment, implementation of projects was also stalled by the ban on new public works 45 days ahead of the May 13 midterm legislative and local elections.