OLONGAPO CITY — Thirteen Bataan fishermen were rescued and returned home on Sunday night (Oct. 15) after their boat capsized near Scarborough Shoal as Tropical Storm “Odette” exited the country through the West Philippines Sea on Oct. 14.

By: Allan Macatuno

The FB Justin Lloyd sank some 40 kilometers from Scarborough Shoal (in red marker). (Image from Google Maps)

Strong winds and big waves sank FB Justin Lloyd some 40 kilometers from the shoal, said Martin Datingginoo, boat captain and owner of the ship.

Justin Lloyd was the same vessel carrying the three fishermen who were arrested and allegedly assaulted by the Malaysian Navy for encroaching into their territorial waters in May last year.

Datingginoo and his crew – all of them with injuries – arrived safely in Mariveles town, after being rescued by a passing boat.

“We have been out at sea for a week when the typhoon passed directly over the West Philippine Sea,” Datingginoo told the Inquirer in a telephone interview.

He said they kept themselves afloat for at least seven hours by clinging to their boat’s hull before it sank.

Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net/

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MANILA, Philippines — With the strong prospect of duathlon being included in the 2019 Manila Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games), the triathlon association has embarked on a long selection process for the national team starting with the National Duathlon set Nov. 12 at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.

Photo by: rappler.com/Joel Nito/AFP

Organized by the Triathlon Association of the Philippines in partnership with the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, the race will have a Standard Distance course of 10K run-40K bike-5K run for the Elite and age-groupers. The Sprint Distance (5K run-20K bike-2.5 K run) is open to 16-19 and 20-above. Remy Field will serve as main venue while the bike legs will cover stretches of Rizal Ave., Argonaut Highway and the National Container Terminal road.

At stake in the event sponsored by SBMA Tourism Department, Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), Standard Insurance, Gatorade and Asian Center for Insulation are medals as well as gift packs for the Top 3 male and female age-group winners and Top 3 male and female winners for Sprint 16-19 and 20-above categories. Also at stake are qualifying slots in the developmental pool of the Philippine Team for new and upcoming talents.

Fancied to contend in this year’s edition are Jarwyn Banatao, Emmanuel Comendador, 2017 SEA Games triathlon silver medalist John Chicano, Joey delos Reyes and Carlo Pedregosa. For the women, two Philippine Air Force WACs Mirasol Abad and Miscelle Gilbuena are major contenders.

Banatao is the NDC defending champion while Comendador is the 2017 ASTC Asian Middle Distance Duathlon champion. Gilbuena ruled the women’s elite in the recently held Powerman Pilipinas, while sprint distance champion Jelsie Sabado aims to defend her title.

Registration is ongoing until Oct. 31 with entry fees of P2,500 for Standard Distance and P2,000 for Sprint Distance.

Sportshub ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1

TRAP-registered athletes are entitled to 10 percent discount while students and senior citizens with valid IDs can avail of 20 percent discount. Participants registering online can pay their entry fees via TRAP’s PNB (C/A No. 1002-3310-0013) and Bank of Commerce (C/A No. 066-000011755) bank accounts.

Participants are advised to be at the Subic Holiday Villas on Nov. 11 for the release of their race packets and timing chips (10 a.m.-6 p.m.), bike check and uniform check for Elite participants (2:30-4 p.m.), Elite race briefing (4:30 p.m.) and age-group race briefing (5-5:30 p.m.).

Source: philstar.com

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State subsidies to government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) dropped in August, but the Duterte administration’s total monetary aid to these companies continued to rise in the first eight months of the year.

State subsidies to government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) dropped in August, but the Duterte administration’s total monetary aid to these companies continued to rise in the first eight months of the year.

Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed the national government had disbursed P6.08 billion in subsidies to state-run firms in August, lower by 18 compared with P7.4 billion in the same month a year ago.

Based the Treasury report, nearly half or 46.3 percent of the total subsidy releases, equivalent to P2.82 billion, went to the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).

At end-August, the total financial support given to the agency amounted to P23.89 billion.

In January, President Rodrigo R. Duterte stopped the NIA from collecting the Irrigation Service Fee (ISF) from farmers. There is also a bill pending in Congress seeking to make the agency’s free irrigation program permanent.

After NIA, the second biggest recipient of monetary help was the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC), the implementing agency of the government’s agricultural insurance program.

Based on the Treasury data, PCIC received P1.4 billion worth of subsidy from the national government in August, its first financial aid for the year.

Subsidies to NIA and PCIC cornered 69.3 percent of the government’s total disbursements for the month.

Meanwhile, other GOCCs that enjoyed financial aid were the Social Housing Finance Corp. (P929 million), Small Business Corp. (P350 million), National Power Corp. (P263 million), and the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (P89 million).

Subsidies also went to Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (P65 million), Philippine Rice Research Institute (P38 million), Philippine Heart Center (P38 million), Philippine Institute for Development Studies (P27 million), and Lung Center of the Philippines (P22 million) received subsidies in August.

Other recipients were Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (P16 million), Zamboanga City Special Economic Zone Authority (P8 million) and Southern Philippines Development Authority (P3 million).

In the first eight months of the year, the Treasury reported that the national government’s total subsidies to GOCCs stood at P81.17 billion, up by 2.4 percent compared with P79.26 billion in the same period last year.

For next year, the national government earmarked a record P162.55 billion in financial aid for GOCCs and government financial institutions (GFIs), up by 20 percent compared with the projected P135.51-billion disbursements this year.

The increase is attributed to the government’s non-recurring expenses on the conditional cash-transfer (CCT) program being facilitated by the Land Bank of the Philippines, which aims to support Filipino households that will be affected by the proposed tax reform package.

Aside from the CCT, the government has also tapped the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) to help in funding the planned public utility vehicle (PUV) modernization program.

The Land Bank and DBP are traditionally non-recipients of monetary aid from the national government as these two state-owned lenders are members of the so-called “Billionaires’ Club,” an elite class of GOCCs that declare P1 billion or more in dividends annually.

The budget department is allocating P25.62 billion in subsidies for Land Bank next year and another P1.13 billion for the DBP.

Source: business.mb.com.ph

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Filipino and Australian naval forces darted across the sea and landed on a Philippine wharf in a disaster-response drill Sunday that reflects their deepening security ties in a region prone to calamities, piracy and territorial rifts.

The Royal Australian Navy HMAS Adelaide crueses alongside landing crafts with Philippine Marines and Australian troops as they conduct a joint Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) exercise off Subic Bay in northwestern Philippines Sunday, Oct. 15, 2017. The HMAS Adelaide, along with another Australian Navy ship, the HMAS Darwin, a guided missile frigate, are here for a goodwill visit aimed at strengthening relations between the two navies as well as maritime security and stability in the region. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Lt. Col. Daniel Turner of the Australian Defence Force said the naval maneuvers in Subic Bay, northwest of Manila, will strengthen the two countries’ ability to jointly respond to typhoons and other disasters when roads, bridges and ports are damaged or destroyed.

The drills reflect the strengthening security relations between the two U.S. allies despite Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s often antagonistic stance toward American security policy. Australia and the United States have deployed surveillance aircraft to help Filipino troops quell a disastrous siege by pro-Islamic State group militants in southern Marawi city.

During the maneuvers, more than 100 Philippine marines and Australian naval personnel took off from an Australian navy ship, the HMAS Adelaide, on board troop carriers then rushed to a port at Subic Bay, a former U.S. naval base. Two Associated Press journalists were allowed to witness the exercises from a helicopter.

When typhoons and floods happen, “traditional infrastructure is damaged and the only way we could get to the affected area is through helicopters and landing craft,” Turner said. “Our militaries can operate together, support those affected people.”

Australia signed a 2007 accord that allows its forces to train in the Philippines. Australia is the only country aside from the United States with which Manila has forged such a defense pact, commonly known as a status of forces agreement.

Subic Bay faces the South China Sea, where China, the Philippines and four other governments have long-unresolved territorial disputes, but Australian officials stressed that Sunday’s exercises were aimed only at improving the ability of Australian and Philippine forces to deal jointly with natural catastrophes.

Australia does not take sides in the disputes, but Captain Jonathan Earley, commanding officer of the Adelaide, said his government has an interest in keeping regional stability and the rule of law.

“What that includes is our ability to conduct freedom of trade, so trade is unimpeded, and that countries do have that ability to exercise freedom of navigation,” Earley said.

Source: abcnews.go.com

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SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—#OneSBMA and #StrongerTogether may just be hashtags used by employees of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) on social networking and microblogging sites, but they are considered powerful symbols of shared struggle, victory and hope among stakeholders in this bastion of investment and industry.

The hashtags, after all, embodied the common aspiration among various sectors in the Subic Bay Freeport that recently worked together to unify the one post that affected them all: the position of the SBMA chairman and administrator.

That post, now held by lawyer Wilma T. Eisma, who was first appointed SBMA administrator in December last year, presides over not only the length and breadth of the 67,452-hectare special economic zone, but also over more than 1,500 registered companies with $10 billion worth of investments and employing more than 115,000 workers.

Eisma was appointed by President Duterte to the unified chairman-administrator position on September 26, following half a year of leadership dispute with then-chairman Martin Diño.

The conflict not only threatened to gnaw at the insides of the 25-year-old agency and reverse its accomplishments in the past several years as the country’s biggest and most progressive free port, it also endangered the business of local and foreign investors here and the livelihood of free-port workers.

However, it also gave stakeholders of the Subic Bay Freeport a first-hand lesson in unity, and the importance of malasakit, or caring, for the common good, as a core value in economic enterprise.

In Photo: The Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway joins Central Luzon’s twin engines of economic growth.

Change of men

SBMA Administrator Wilma T. Eisma: “We found strength in a common battle and rediscovered solidarity under a common purpose.”

Those affected by the leadership conflict in SBMA point to Executive Order (EO) 340 as the root of the misfortune. The order, signed by President Gloria M. Arroyo in 2004, separated the position and powers of the SBMA chairman from that of the SBMA administrator, the original appointee under Republic Act 7227, which created the SBMA.

The split positions apparently worked well under two sets of appointees before: Chairman Francisco Licuanan and Administrator Alfredo Antonio from 2004 to 2006, and Chairman Feliciano Salonga and Administrator Armand Arreza from 2006 to 2011.

But that soon changed when Diño, popularly known as chairman of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) and PDP-Laban’s surrogate presidential candidate for then Mayor Duterte, took over as SBMA chairman in October 2016.

At first, Diño exemplified in Subic the “change” that the Duterte administration has promised. Vowing to capitalize on the achievements of his predecessor and the support of President Duterte to make Subic the best free port in Southeast Asia, he won over the Subic constituency by promising to look after the interests of both the investors and the lowly workers.

But it soon became apparent that the former barangay captain from Quezon City had wanted to wield power also as administrator.

Just two weeks after his arrival in Subic, and as Malacañang sought nominees for the SBMA administrator post, Diño’s allies began calling for the consolidation of the SBMA chairmanship with the administrator position, pointing out that the appointment of separate officials to the two posts violated the law.

When then SBMA Deputy Administrator for Legal Affairs Randy Escolango was designated by the Palace as OIC administrator on the third week of October, there began a series of foil and counterfoil between the two officials.

In a memorandum dated December 12, 2016, Diño averred that, “In faithful compliance to the instructions of President Duterte, I have caused the institution of criminal as well as administrative cases against Atty. Randy B. Escolango relative to his claim that he was designated by the Office of the President as OIC Administrator and to his string of unlawful and unauthorized actions.”

At one point, Diño stopped all business transactions in the SBMA.

Escolango also fought back, voiding over 30 office orders and memoranda issued by the chairman for lack of authority, including the appointments of some 14 high-level consultants.

Escolango also voided what he called Diño’s “self-appointment” as officer in charge of the SBMA’s Law Enforcement Department, whose head was then on terminal leave prior to retirement.

Confusion

“The result was chaos in the service,” said Amethya dela Llana, manager of the SBMA Ecology Center, who was among the SBMA employees who had called out the chairman’s actions as unbecoming of an official.

The infighting at SBMA temporarily abated upon the appointment of Eisma as administrator in late December.

In their first “State of the Freeport” last April, Diño and Eisma outlined in broad strokes an ambitious program to expand the Subic Bay Freeport’s infrastructure, and then leverage the same to position Subic as a major production and distribution hub in the Asean region.

The duo then echoed the national mantra of “Build, Build, Build” to keep Subic Bay sustainable, as well as to help in national developmental efforts.

The following month, however, Diño again broke the spell by issuing Administrative Order 01-2017, which sought to create a task force under his office ostensibly to “inspect, monitor and faithfully implement the laws in the conduct of business and financial operations and collections” of the agency.

Eisma cried out that the creation of such a task force would interfere and encroach upon the power, function and duty of the administrator and CEO. She also lamented the accusation in Diño’s order that the SBMA was in dire financial straits and in danger of collapse.

With the outcry, the SBMA board of directors issued a letter on June 1 chiding their chairman for his utterances, saying that they “cannot support your action of issuing an administrative order well beyond the scope of your duties as chairman of the board, unilaterally declaring that the operations of SBMA are in danger of ‘financial collapse’ and creating a task force…without approval of the board.”

The last straw

This ensuing conflict sparked an investigation by the House of Representative on EO 340, which separated the position and functions of the chairman from that of the administrator.

It also galvanized the local community to action, voicing out their concerns on the issue.

In a joint manifesto, seven local chief executives in communities around the Subic Bay Freeport decried Diño’s actions and also expressed support to Eisma in the ongoing leadership tussle.

The manifesto signed by Bataan Governor Albert Garcia, Olongapo City Mayor Rolen Paulino, Mayor Antonio Joseph Inton of Hermosa, Bataan; and Zambales Mayors Jay Khonghun of Subic town, Estela Antipolo of San Antonio, Elvis Soria of San Marcelino, and acting Mayor Christian Esposo of Castillejos, declared “unwavering and unconditional support to the SBMA Administrator and Chief Executive Officer, Atty. Wilma T. Eisma”.

On June 8 the Subic Bay Freeport Chamber of Commerce headed by businesswoman Rose Baldeo wrote House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez to say that “it would be for the benefit of the SBMA and its locators to have only one person for the position of SBMA chairman and administrator instead of separating the two.”

Baldeo added that the confusion caused by the separation of positions “runs contrary to the mandate of the SBMA to create a harmonious environment for the businesses to generate employment opportunities in and around the zone and to attract and promote productive foreign investments.”

Unity call

Upon assumption as the first woman SBMA chairman and administrator on September 26, Eisma promptly called the unification of the SBMA chairman and administrator positions as a victory for the Subic Bay Freeport.

“We all claim this victory today as stakeholders of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone who are cognizant of the vision for Subic as a haven for economic production in this part of the globe, and as a progenitor of inclusive growth in this part of the country,” she said in a statement.

“But in claiming this victory, we cannot forget our moorings: We won not because we have remained while others had to go; we won because we have seen a wrong and we decided—together—to set it right,” she added.

The SBMA official also said that while the conflict in the agency proved to be trying times for Subic stakeholders, it resulted in a firmer SBMA and Subic Bay.

“We emerged triumphant not only because we were grounded on truth and reason, but because we found strength in a common battle and rediscovered solidarity under a common purpose,” Eisma added.

One Subic

The return to just one top official for the SBMA has provided fresh hopes for business locators, workers, residents in the Subic Bay Freeport area.

“First, there is harmony because there is only one direction to take and there is no conflict; and second, there is also efficiency and things move faster,” Dela Llana said.

Then there is the new-found joy in that shared experience. “This is the reward that we get for undergoing that ordeal together—winning the struggle,” she added.

Last week, the Subic Bay Freeport Chamber of Commerce (SBFCC) also issued a statement congratulating Eisma for her appointment.

“Moving forward, the locators of Subic Bay expect many great things from Attorney Eisma, which is both a compliment and a heavy burden on her shoulders,” the SBFCC statement said.

“Being the chamber and the voice of the business community, we are here to support her endeavors that will improve the business environment of Subic. In the same breadth, we are also here [so] that her leadership and policies will be fair to all the stakeholders of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone,” it added.

Changes may be introduced in Subic, but the stakeholders will always opt for more of the same: more and better business.

Source: businessmirror.com.ph

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