Will it work?

After the firestorm generated by the Bureau of Customs’ plan to open and tax balikbayan boxes, Malacañang on Thursday said it is ready to face public criticism over a plan to impose an odd-even traffic scheme in Metro Manila.

President Aquino himself floated the possibility of the “radical scheme” being implemented to decongest traffic in the National Capital Region (NCR) being blamed by the private sector for lost man-hours and productivity.

If implemented, the odd-even scheme would halve the volume of traffic but it is not clear whether it would also be imposed on public utility vehicles like jeepney, buses and taxis.

“Pinakaradikal ay hatiin ang bilang ng bumibiyaheng sasakyan, salitan ang pagbaybay ng odd, even na plaka kada linggo (the most radical is to halve the number of vehicles by alternating road use of odd and even plates),” said Aquino in Mandaluyong.

The move is seen by many as a bane for motorists and a boon for commuters, thus if implemented it may have a polarizing effect between those with privately owned vehicles and those who have none. –End-

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The Whopping Cost of Zero Remittance

The economy stands to lose some P3.1 billion if the “zero-remittance day” pushes through on August 28.
      

Figures from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) show that the personal remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) reached $26.93 billion in 2014. This figure accounts for 8.5 percent of the gross domestic product last year.
      

On the average, Filipino workers across the globe sent a combined remittance of $2.014 billion per month from January to June this year.
      

Thus, a one-day remittance boycott could translate to losses of over $67 million, or some P3.1 billion (at P46.61 exchange rate), for the Philippine economy.
      

OFWs play a significant role in the Philippine economy. Thus, the targeting by the Bureau of Customs in its anti-smuggling campaign is misplaced.

      

President Aquino has already instructed the BOC to stop its implementation of a policy on the inspection of balikbayan boxes following complaints from OFWs and their families.
      

Despite this, the OFWs will still push through with their zero-remittance plan on August 28. OFW groups will also hold a protest march in Manila. –End-

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‘Bloody presidency’

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has warned of a "bloody presidency" if he is elected president in 2016.

      

“If I happen to file my certificate of candidacy for one reason or another because I have no other choice, to satisfy those who want me to become president  then do not vote for me because it will be bloody, really bloody. How would I deal with 15,000 drug lords?” Duterte said in the vernacular during an education summit in Balanga City, Bataan.

      

Duterte, who said he was not campaigning and was only promoting the federal form of government in the country, said he also plans to establish rehabilitation centers all around the country.

      

“Illegal drugs are the source of most crimes. Addicts commit rape, robbery, murder,” he said.

      

Duterte is among the leading presidential candidates though he has consistently denied he is gunning for a higher post. 

–End-

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Not on the menu

The canned pork luncheon meat Maling from China would neither be in the menu nor on the pallets being loaded on export ships.

Philippine producers of Halal-certified food better take notice of China’s intention to bite a big slice of the booming market for food fit for Muslim consumption.

In a report by CNBC, a forecast was made that Muslim consumers will make up more than a quarter of the world’s population by 2030 “and China wants to play an active role in feeding them.”

“Chinese companies are increasingly flexing their muscles in the burgeoning market for halal food” which was estimated to be worth US$1.6 trillion by 2018, it said.

Under Islamic precepts, halal food must free of pork, tobacco, alcohol or lipids from animals. Animals intended to be processed into halal food must also be slaughtered under religious guidelines.

China has a 26-million strong Muslim population representing 2 percent of its population. However, it is looking past its domestic market to being the dominant halal producer globally. –End-

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Setting eyes on Rio

The Philippines is hoping to qualify from 15 to 20 athletes in the 2016 Rio Olympics, Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Richie Garcia said at the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) forum.

 

Vowing to put the PSC’s money where its mouth is, Garcia said the objective is to send as many Filipino athletes to qualifying tournaments though the effort would entail costly trips mostly to Europe.

For a country which has yet to bag an elusive Olympic gold medal, Garcia’s sense of accomplishment seems to be hinged now on the number of athletes participating than their having real chances of winning medals.

“If we can get 15 to 20 athletes to Rio that will be good,” said Garcia. “That will be an accomplishment we can be proud of. If we go back to the past few Olympics, we haven’t been sending many athletes,” he said.

The Philippines only had 11 qualifiers in eight sporting disciplines in the 2012 London Olympics, none of whom made it past the elimination rounds.

“We are willing to spend. Funding will not be a problem as long as we qualify,” said Garcia who said the PSC would shoulder the training of qualifiers.

The International Olympic Committee shoulders all the other expenses of Olympic athletes during the actual games. -End-

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What Dreams May Not

The widow of Robert Williams has filed a legal complaint averring she’s not getting enough money to make ends meet, cover her mortgage, insurance and maintenance of the California home she shared with the actor who committed suicide.

In a report by E!, Susan Schneider rued her not getting her money for the house, but the kids of Williams from other relationship think she’s been getting more than enough.

Schneider, however, did not mention how much she has been getting and how much more money she wants.

Williams’ kids, on the other hand, expressed concern that Schneider wants to deplete the funds left by the actor. 

The brouhaha has caused pundits in the Hollywood area to joke that the tug-of-war may force Williams to do a cameo of his role in the movie What Dreams May Come, but in reverse.

In that film, Williams sought in the underworld the spirit of his wife who committed suicide. –End-

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No to dumping of garbage in the country

The Philippines should not be a dumping ground of garbage from faraway Canada, or from any other country for that matter.

        

That's the spirit behind a proposed bill banning of the importation, shipment, entry and dumping of garbage, hazardous scrap or residual wastes in the country.

      

House Bill 5930 or the “Anti-Trash Act of 2015”, authored by Quezon City Rep. Winston Catelo, seeks to address health and environmental issues and its impact on the economy of the country by pushing for the bill that prohibits entry of garbage in the country.

      

The filing of the bill follows close on the hills of the controversy over the entry into the Philippines of 50 container vans containing wastes from Canada.

      

"No country in the world should be dumping site for another country's trash. It should therefore be banned for items, materials, or substances detrimental to health and environment to be loaded on container vans and be shipped or imported from foreign countries under any guise that such are recyclables, filling materials or declared as stuff. The Philippines is simply not a dumping ground for such filth," according to Castelo. –End-

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Uber on crosshairs

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) of the Philippines is not alone in clamping down on Uber and other app-based taxi-hailing services for their failure to register, get insurance for their passengers and pay taxes to the government.

Bruce Hung, a Hong Kong police senior inspector, revealed that they raided Uber’s office and arrested five of its drivers for lacking the required for-hire car permits or third-party insurance.

Over in  Australia, the government is demanding that UberX units pay 10 percent of their fares just like regular taxis after the service turned into big business overnight.

A year ago, UberX did not exist in Australia, but it now has 15,000 drivers and one million users. UberX is contesting in Federal Court the ruling of the Australian Tax Office that it is a taxi service, thus must pay in taxes what regular taxis pay.

The Hong Kong raid on Uber and arrest of three of its staff and five drivers mirror mounting concern across the globe over the operation of taxi-hailing services which hurt the livelihood of regular taxi operators and drivers.

In the Philippines, LTFRB Chairman Winston Ginez said that his office is merely doing its job since taxi operations in the Philippines must be accompanied by valid franchises issued by his office. –End-

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Could war be in the horizon?

Is a resumption of war in Muslim Mindanao possible should Congress fail to pass a version of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) unacceptable to the Moro Islamic  Liberation Front?

      

That possibility looms as the House of Representatives has rejected the request of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) to restore at least 28 provisions deleted by lawmakers from the proposed BBL.

      

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chairman of the 75-member House ad hoc committee on the BBL, said he and other leaders of the chamber met last week with Mohaquer Iqbal, who is both chairman of the BTC and chief negotiator for the MILF.

      

The BTC drafted the BBL and is composed of representatives from the MILF and other sectors from Mindanao.

      

“It has been the consensus that these provisions that we removed – there were many deletions as well as amendatory language – are really very important and necessary to make the bill constitutionally compliant,” Rodriguez said.

      

“In other words, if these provisions are restored, we believe that it may not be able to pass the Supreme Court’s constitutional scrutiny. That’s what we’ve explained to them over and over again during our meeting,” he said.

      

The Senate, for its part, has replaced the entire version of the BBL with its own, through the efforts of Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., chairman of the local government committee tackling the proposed measure.

      

Marcos defended the new basic law on Bangsamoro Basic Region, adding there was no intent from the Senate committee on local government to sabotage or delay approval of the measure.

      

"Our goal was to craft a basic law that is constitutional so that we can have peace. We are still working for peace. We had to fix this, this could have been junked like MOA-AD,” Marcos said, referring to the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain which was junked by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in 2008.

      

“The draft BBL is highly unconstitutional. All I know that it is a law that we cannot pass,” Marcos said. –End-

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A pay increase soon?

There's good news for nearly 1.3 million government employees.

      

The national government is setting aside P50.6 billion in the proposed 2016 national budget for the planned salary hike for government workers, which requires congressional approval.

      

Sen. Ralph Recto said the average increase in the monthly pay of government workers would be P3,000. He arrived at the figure by dividing the proposed P50.6 billion by 1,295,056 employees in the government payroll and using 13 compensable months in a year.

      

Recto said it is possible that the mulled pay hike in 2016 "may just be the first installment of a bigger pay adjustment that will be implemented in phases."

      

He recalled that in the initial implementation of Salary Standardization Law (SSL) III, the public sector pay guide in current use was spread out over four years.

      

Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Florencio Abad has confirmed before senators that his department is drafting an SSL IV based on a commissioned study on the state of public sector pay.

      

Recto urged the DBM to submit the bill as soon as possible so it can be tackled "in unison" with the national budget. 

–End-

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Accenture scores big for mama

Business process outsourcing (BPO) giant Accenture has announced an unheard-of labor benefit in the Philippines effective September 1 – a maternity leave equivalent to 120 calendar days or the equivalent of four full months.

In a report, GMA News said that the 120-day maternity leave unveiled by Accenture is something that a number of legislators have been pushing to become a law to replace the Philippines’ statutory mandatory leave equivalent to 60 days.

“Accenture recognizes the valuable contribution and sacrifice of working mothers, who need more time off from work to focus on caring for their newborn,” GMA quoted Accenture country managing director Lito Tayag.

Accenture employs 35,000 people in the Philippines in Metro Manila, Cebu and Ilocos Norte.

Rep. Manny Pacquiao is moving for a 180-day maternity leave benefit with House Bill 3590. In a congressional hearing in March, a representative of the UNICEF said a 180-day maternity leave is necessary to ensure that babies get proper nutrition through breastfeeding. 

Many other lawmakers in the Senate and House are pushing for 120-day maternity leave. –End-

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A snail Pace

The Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) should do much more and speed up the pace of the capacity expansion and rehabilitation projects of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT). 

Sen. Grace Poe, chair of the Senate public services committee, said that the pace of MRT upgrading has been "very slow".

      

She was referring to the train prototypes ordered by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) which are scheduled to arrive this month but must first undergo tests before they start actual operations by next year.

      

The committee is holding public hearings on various issues faced by the MRT,  such as the delay in the construction of a common station at the corner of North Avenue and EDSA and the controversy over its maintenance provider.

      

Poe said one of the concerns is that the head of the maintenance provider is a former campaign contributor of the ruling Liberal Party.

      

The Senate committee will continue its public hearings to determine how fast and efficient the DOTC has been implementing the rehabilitation plan for the MRT. –End-

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My oh my Montblanc!

Montblanc is best known for its ultra-expensive pens, but it is already starting to make waves as a maker of classy and elegant mechanical watches that should also appeal to moneyed tech guys and gals, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

Three Montblanc watches costing from US$3,140 to US$6,660 would soon be hitting the shelves, with the e-Strap, a secondary device on the watch’s strap that adds functionality like calendar alerts and email notifications.

Alexander Schmiedt, Montblanc’s watch division manager, said the offering would be combination of contemporary technology and a traditional mechanical watch that should keep its long-term value than a totally disposable smart watch.

"Compared to the one-watch solution, the difference is I don't wear it as the main device. It's an additional device, an accessory to the watch," Lambert said.

Software updates will be coming quarterly from Montblanc and the company plans to support the first e-Strap for at least two years. –End-

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Wanted: English teachers

English teachers, here's your chance to go to Thailand and teach the language to the locals. 

     

Thai Ambassador Thanatip Upatising said his country is willing to recruit  around 400 Filipino English teachers.

      

The envoy said the Philippines was chosen to be the source of English teachers because of the Filipinos’ mastery of the language, as indicated by the phenomenal growth of the business-process outsourcing industry and related information-technology sectors in this country.

      

The Thai Prime Minister will visit  Manila in September to sign a memorandum of agreement with President Aquino to sign the deal.

      

The envoy said those who successfully graduate from the English classes would be fielded in tourism-related industries.

      

Thailand attracts millions of foreign tourists every year but lacks English-speaking guides and hotel employees. –End-

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Defense Cooperation Amid China Threat

Not to worry, it's only a courtesy call on the armed forces chief of staff at Camp Aguinaldo.

      

Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, chief of the Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, was given arrival honors on Wednesday at the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) general headquarters and proceeded to make a courtesy on AFP chief of staff General Hernando Iriberri.

      

Later, the Japanese admiral was scheduled to go to Subic Bay to observe  Pacific Partnership 2015, an American-led annual activity that seeks to improve inter-operability among Asia-Pacific countries in terms of humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR).

      

Pacific Partnership is the largest annual multilateral HADR preparedness mission in the region.

      

The hospital ship USS Mercy is docked in Subic Bay for this purpose, while other activities will be underatken in La Union with the vessel USS Millinocket.

      

The presence of the top Japanese military commander in the Philippines comes close on the heels of increased island-building by China  in the West Philippine Sea/West Philippine Sea.      

Japan is embroiled in a territorial dispute with China, as is the Philippines. Both countries have therefore increased defense cooperation, with Japan even offering to provide the Philippines with several surveillance aircraft. –End-

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Swell! Oil at $30 a barrel?!

With the second largest oil consumer China devaluing the yuan for the third straight day, the founding partner of Again Capital predicted on Thursday that US crude oil could fall to the $30-$40 range as early as October, thereby forcing Saudi Arabia to finally cut down production.

"It's coming early. It's coming fast," said Again Capital analyst John Kilduff, who added that oil could even hit rock bottom at $20 a barrel but that could have dire consequences.  However, Kilduff sees a rebound  to the $50 level before the year 2015 ends.

CNBC reported the yuan hitting a four-year low on Wednesday  after Chinese authorities allowed it to weaken following an abrupt devaluation at the start of the week.

A weaker yuan erodes the purchasing power of China for dollar-denominated imports like US crude oil.  Oil prices fell early Wednesday but rebounded following a statement by the International Energy Agency that global demand is picking up.

Kilduff said oil demand  falling by 500,000  barrels may finally convince the Saudis to finally reduce supply.  –End-

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Net Speed Sucks Here

In the Philippines, Internet web pages take an eternity to open, videos buffer oh so slow and files download as “fast” as the bumper-to-bumper traffic on EDSA on rush hour.

The annual Akamai Technologies, Inc. State of the Internet Report tells us why. In its most current list of countries by Internet connection speed, the Philippines was lodged at a lowly 50^th among only 55 nations tested.

The Philippines’ average connection speed of 2.5Mbps is the same as Vietnam’s and better only compared to India’s 2.0, Venezuela’s and Paraguay’s 1.3, and Bolivia’s 1.l.

That 2.5Mbps average net speed in the Philippines is even slower than the world average of 3.9Mbps.

In comparison, the 10 countries with the fastest net speed are as follows: South Korea (25.3), Hong Kong (16.3), Japan (15.0), Switzerland (14.5), Sweden (14.1), The Netherlands (14.0), Ireland (13.9), Latvia (13.0), Czech Republic (12.3) and Singapore (12.2).

Still, many Filipinos who subscribe to the most expensive local net connections would swear that they hardly get that reported speed of 2.5Mbps, and that the minimum speed guaranteed in their contracts is, most of the time, the norm.

If you’re in the Philippines and you suck big-time in first-person shoot ém up games, it may not be you. It’s you not playing in real time because of internet connection lag. 

–End-

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Mandatory health Insurance under Poe?

Sen. Grace Poe has announced that she would file a bill seeking to provide mandatory health insurance for students. 

      

"The government should provide mandatory health insurance for students consistent with the State policy to promote and protect the physical and mental well-being of the youth," Poe said.

      

Poe said the health and safety of students should be a major concern of all schools, whether public or private.

      

The health insurance program for students envisioned by the senator would cover various health conditions as well as accidents requiring immediate medical attention.

      

Under the planned health insurance program, students suffering from various ailments or who meet accidents whether in or out of school can avail of medical attention from accredited hospitals and medical centers.

      

Poe's other advocacies include giving children and youths access to quality education and proper nutrition.

      

Among the first bills she filed in the Senate was the Free Lunch Program which seeks to provide free lunch to malnourished children in all public schools nationwide.

      

Sen. Poe chairs the Senate Committees on Public Information and Mass Media and on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs. She also heads the Congressional Oversight Committee on Dangerous Drugs. –End-

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