PEZA investments may breach P100 billion
Investments approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority may exceed P100 billion this year with expected investments from both new and existing investors......»»
DBM: Infrastructure, capital expenditures breach P1 trillion
Expenditures of the national government for infrastructure and other capital outlays grew to P1.02 trillion from January to November 2023 from only P861.8 billion in the same period in 2022, according to the Department of Budget and Management......»»
PSA assures security of PhilSys, Civil Registration System
The PSA made the statement on Wednesday in light of a data breach on October 7, reportedly involving a P42 billion data leak, which is said to be larger than a recent breach at Philippine Health Insurance Corp......»»
EU hits TikTok with big fine over child data
A European Union regulator hit Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok with a 345-million-euro fine over child data breaches on Friday, in the bloc's latest salvo against the business practices of tech titans. The fine, equivalent to $369 million, is the culmination of a two-year inquiry by Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC). The Irish watchdog, which plays a key role in policing the EU's strict General Data Protection Regulations, gave TikTok three months "to bring its processing into compliance" with its rules. The DPC in September 2021 began examining TikTok's compliance with GDPR in relation to platform settings and personal data processing for users aged under 18 years old. It also looked at TikTok's age verification measures for persons under 13 and found no infringement, but found the platform did not properly assess the risks to younger people registering on the service. The regulator highlighted in its ruling Friday how children signing up had TikTok accounts set to public by default, meaning anyone could view or comment on their content. It also criticised TikTok's "family pairing" mode, which is designed to link parents' accounts to those of their teenage offspring, but the DPC found the company did not verify parent or guardian status. Ireland is at the centre of the GDPR regime because Dublin hosts the European headquarters of TikTok and the likes of Google, Meta and X, formerly Twitter. In May, the DPC fined Meta a record 1.2 billion euros for transferring EU user data to the United States in breach of a previous court ruling. TikTok, a division of Chinese tech giant ByteDance, is extremely popular among young people with 150 million users in the United States and 134 million in the EU. TikTok 'respectfully disagrees' In response to the fine, TikTok said it "respectfully disagrees" with the verdict and was "evaluating" how to proceed. "The DPC's criticisms are focused on features and settings that were in place three years ago, and that we made changes to well before the investigation even began, such as setting all under 16 accounts to private by default," a TikTok spokesperson told AFP. The platform insists that it closely monitors the age of its users and takes action when needed. TikTok says it deleted almost 17 million accounts worldwide in the first three month of this year due to suspicions that they belonged to people under 13 years old. Earlier this month, the social media giant opened a long-promised data centre in Ireland, as it tries to calm fears in Europe over data privacy. GDPR came into force in 2018 and was the EU's toughest and most famous law on tech, ensuring citizens give consent to the ways in which their data is used. Friday's fine comes after the EU last week unveiled a list of digital giants -- including Apple, Facebook owner Meta and ByteDance -- that will face tough new curbs on how they do business. The post EU hits TikTok with big fine over child data appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
BP chief Bernard Looney resigns ‘with immediate effect’
British energy giant BP said Tuesday that its chief executive Bernard Looney has resigned "with immediate effect", after admitting that he had not been "fully transparent" about historical relationships with colleagues. "Bernard Looney has notified the company that he has resigned as chief executive officer with immediate effect," the company said in a statement, adding that finance chief Murray Auchincloss would act as interim CEO. Looney, 53, is leaving the energy firm after less than four years in the role. BP said that in May last year, its board received and reviewed allegations from an anonymous source relating to Looney's conduct "in respect of personal relationships with company colleagues". Looney disclosed "a small number of historical relationships with colleagues prior to becoming CEO" during the review, it added while noting that no breach of the company's code of conduct was found. However, the board was given his assurances over his disclosures of past personal relationships, as well as his future behavior, according to BP. "Further allegations of a similar nature were received recently, and the company immediately began investigating with the support of external legal counsel," it said, adding that the process was continuing. "Mr Looney has today informed the company that he now accepts that he was not fully transparent in his previous disclosures," BP added. "He did not provide details of all relationships and accepts he was obligated to make more complete disclosure." BP said the board expects all staff to behave in accordance with the company's values. "All leaders in particular are expected to act as role models and to exercise good judgment in a way that earns the trust of others," the company said. Looney has been at BP since joining the British energy behemoth in 1991 and was appointed chief executive in 2020. The company said no decisions had yet been made regarding any remuneration payments. Looney had vowed to reposition BP as a leader in clean energy technologies, and gradually cut oil and gas production to reduce carbon emissions, but environmentalists have criticized the firm for inaction in that regard during his tenure. Like many of its rivals, BP earlier this year unveiled record annual profits for 2022, thanks to soaring oil and gas prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. However, earnings have fallen somewhat from those heights so far this year, as energy prices retreated for much of 2023. Nonetheless, BP said in August it was hiking its dividend and returning $1.5 billion to shareholders by repurchasing stock. The post BP chief Bernard Looney resigns ‘with immediate effect’ appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
$1.8-billion Aboitiz, Coke deal still under PCC review
The Philippine Competition Commission or PCC is monitoring the recently reported intention of Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. or AEV to acquire minority stakes in Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines or CCBP under a $1.8-billion cash joint venture deal with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners or CCEP. In an email on Friday, the competition watchdog said it is still determining if the parties involved have properly met the required threshold for their transaction. As of the end of the first quarter, all mergers and acquisitions that breach a P7-billion size of party and P2.9-billion size of transaction should be reviewed by the PCC. The PCC’s merger review thresholds are adjusted annually relative to the size of the economy. While this is ongoing, the PCC likewise noted that it may also ask its Mergers and Acquisitions Office or MAO to conduct an initial assessment if the effects of the transaction warrant a motu proprio review. “This review will determine if the transaction may result in a substantial lessening of competition in the relevant markets,” it said. The PCC’s MAO provides pre-notification consultations for parties contemplating a merger to address queries about the merger review process. During consultations, the parties may seek non-binding advice on the specific information needed for the notification. Early this month, AEV and CCEP signed a non-binding Term Sheet with The Coca-Cola Company, which is currently divesting its CCBP interests. The parties are now in advanced discussions regarding the potential joint transaction, where CCEP would be the majority owner with a 60 percent stake. AEV, on the other hand, would take up the remaining 40 percent non-controlling interest. The AEV, however, clarified that since the buyout is still subject to several conditions, the transaction has no guarantee that it would proceed until closing. These conditions include satisfactory completion of confirmatory due diligence which is well underway, receipt of AEV and CCEP’s board approvals, and the parties signing the definitive agreements. However, assuming that the plan pushes through, AEV expects that the deal could be closed by the end of the year, subject to the approval of the Philippine Competition Commission. CCEP is a global consumer goods company serving 600 million consumers and helping 1.75 million customers across 29 countries grow their businesses. On the other hand, the AEV of the Aboitiz family has major investments in power, banking and financial services, food, infrastructure, land, and data science and artificial intelligence. In the first half of the year, AEV reported an 11 percent decline in its net income. It only booked a bottom line profit of P10.5 billion during the period, from last year’s P11.8 billion. The post $1.8-billion Aboitiz, Coke deal still under PCC review appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
UK water firms facing legal fight over pollution incidents
An environmental academic said Wednesday she had filed the first of multiple planned court actions against British water companies for underreporting pollution incidents and overcharging customers, in breach of UK laws. Carolyn Roberts, a professor and water and environment consultant, revealed she had lodged an initial claim against Severn Trent Water and planned further legal actions against five other firms on behalf of more than 20 million customers. Roberts, who is represented by the well-known British law firm Leigh Day, estimates the companies could face compensation bills of over £800 million ($1 billion) if the cases are successful. The first claim, filed last week against Severn Trent on behalf of eight million people, is estimated to be worth more than £330 million. It comes amid a long-running scandal over privatized water firms pumping raw sewage into waterways, provoking widespread public anger and promises of increased regulatory scrutiny from the government. Ministers announced last month that companies and individuals polluting Britain's rivers and other ecosystems will be liable for unlimited fines. "Like many others across the country, I have viewed with horror the escalating number of stories in the media regarding the volume of sewage discharged into our waterways and onto our beaches," Roberts said in a statement. "It appears that because of the serial and serious underreporting at the heart of these claims, water companies have been avoiding being penalized by Ofwat," she added, referring to the sector's regulator in the UK. "I believe this has resulted in consumers being unfairly overcharged for sewage services." Industry body Water UK said the accusations are "entirely without merit" and that 99 percent of sewage works are legally compliant. However, Roberts and Leigh Day said they intend to bring similar "collective actions" against Thames Water, United Utilities, Anglian Water, Yorkshire Water, and Northumbrian Water. They urged the companies' millions of customers to visit a website created to assess their eligibility for compensation. "These companies have allegedly been misleading their regulators by underreporting the number of pollution incidents, being discharges of wastewater from a company sewerage asset adversely affecting the water environment and resulting in higher customer bills," a statement on it read. Last month, a UK court fined Thames Water, the nation's biggest supplier, £3.3 million for polluting rivers. The fine came shortly after the UK's privatized water companies pledged to make massive investments to avoid repeats of the contamination. The post UK water firms facing legal fight over pollution incidents appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
5-month debts breach P1T
Gross financing of the national government had reached the P1-trillion threshold in the first five months of the year due to higher domestic borrowings, data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed over the weekend. From January to May 2022, actual gross financing hit P1.17 trillion as gross domestic borrowings amounted to P912.577 billion, while external debts reached P343.874 billion. Retail Treasury bonds worth P283.763 billion and fixed-rate bonds worth P561.150 billion were both issued to raise funds from domestic sources. Project loans totaling P37.872 billion, program loans of P142.395 billion, and global bonds comprising P163.607 billion made up the entire amount of external funding. Meanwhile, the Marcos administration’s actual gross financing for May 2023 increased month-on-month by 13.13 percent to higher domestic borrowings. Higher May borrowings The same data from BTr revealed that the government’s gross borrowings in May reached P141.671 billion from April’s P125.230 billion. Local borrowings in May rose 37.10 percent month-on-month to P131.792 billion with the issuance of treasury bills worth P31.792 billion and fixed-rate treasury bonds worth P100.000 billion. Gross loans from the international donor community reached P14.991 billion, or 55.62 percent lower than P33.779 billion last month. The gross external financing is composed of project loans worth P5.893 billion and program loans worth P9.098 billion. The post 5-month debts breach P1T appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Iran takes Canada to UN court over terror compensation
Iran has taken Canada to the International Court of Justice for allowing victims of alleged terror attacks to claim damages from Tehran, the UN's top tribunal said on Wednesday. Tehran's case claims that Ottawa, which listed the Islamic Republic as a sponsor of terrorism in 2012, had violated Iran's state immunity. Iran asked the Hague-based ICJ to make Canada overturn a law passed in the same year that allows victims to collect damages from state terror sponsors in Canadian civil courts. "Canada has adopted and implemented a series of legislative, executive, and judicial measures against Iran and its property in breach of its international obligations," Iran said in its filing to the court. Tehran also demanded compensation from Canada. Iran's application cites a Canadian court judgment in 2022 that awarded more than $80 million in compensation to the families of six people who died when Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner almost two years ago. Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was downed shortly after take-off from Tehran on January 8, 2020, killing all 176 people aboard -- including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Three days later, the Iranian armed forces admitted to downing the Kyiv-bound plane "by mistake." 'International obligations' Iran also cited a 2016 ruling by a Canadian judge ordering Iran's non-diplomatic land and bank accounts to be handed over to victims of attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah. The judgment awarded a reported $13 million to families of Americans who died in eight bombings or hostage-takings in Buenos Aires, Israel, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia from 1983 to 2002. The families, led by the parents of Marla Bennett, who was killed when a suicide bomber struck at a cafeteria at Hebrew University in Israel in 2002, had successfully sued Iran in the United States. "Iran respectfully requests the Court to adjudge and declare that by failing to respect the immunities of Iran and its property, Canada has violated its international obligations toward Iran," Iran's ICJ filing said. Canada broke diplomatic ties with Iran in 2012 as relations frayed over Tehran's support for Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, its nuclear program, and threats to Israel. Iran launched a similar case at the ICJ against the United States in 2016 seeking to unfreeze assets seized by Washington to compensate victims of terror attacks. Judges in March rejected Iran's bid to free nearly $2 billion in central bank assets but ruled the United States had illegally seized funds of some Iranian companies and individuals. The ICJ was set up after World War II to resolve disputes between UN member states. Its judgments are final but can take years. The post Iran takes Canada to UN court over terror compensation appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Mañalac defends involvement in ‘unconstitutional’ exploration deal
Former Energy Undersecretary Eduardo Mañalac — a staunch critic of the current Malampaya consortium — admitted that he took part in a tripartite agreement, which was supposed to open the country’s natural resources to other countries, without government supervision. Speaking at a forum organized by the National Youth Movement for the West Philippine Sea over the weekend, Mañalac said that the decision, which was opposed by no less than the Supreme Court, only followed government orders and directives related to a policy of energy independence. Mañalac had brokered the Joint Maritime Seismic Understanding with China National Offshore Oil Corp. and Vietnam Oil and Gas Corp., allowing seismic work on a 142,886-square-kilometer area in the West Philippine Sea. Mañalac signed the agreements in his capacity as then Philippine National Oil Company president and chief executive officer. “The tripartite agreement for the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking or JMSU is a three-year cooperative agreement between CNOOC, Vietnam and PNOC to jointly gather seismic data in certain areas of the South China Sea,” Mañalac said. Back then, Mañalac explained that the agenda was to develop the Philippines' indigenous petroleum resources, promote renewable power, increase the use of alternative fuels, form strategic regional alliances and strengthen energy conservation programs. “The JMSU was part of our five-point energy independence agenda to find new and indigenous petroleum reserves. It is not my idea. It is the idea of the government as part of its energy independence strategy,” he added. Last January, the Supreme Court declared the JMSU deal as unconstitutional due to its breach of Section 2, Article 12 of the 1987 Constitution. But Mañalac contended that the PNOC, under his leadership, had been “extremely careful and consistent in ensuring the constitutionality of the JSMU.” Manalac also recalled that his decision to sell 5 percent of the government’s stake in PNOC-Exploration Corp. way back in 2005, like his JMSU involvement, was also prompted by external forces. “The reason given to sell the PNOC-EC share at the time was that, if you remember, PNOC paid a hundred plus million for the 10 percent (stake). So what the government was saying was we have to pay that. We have to raise the money,” he said. Mañalac served as an Energy Undersecretary from 2003 to 2004 before he was laterally transferred to PNOC president from 2004 to 2006. Last week, Mañalac lambasted the extension of the Malampaya service contract for another 15 years due to the alleged lack of expertise of the current operator led by Prime Energy of businessman Enrique K. Razon. Razon said Mañalac’s claims against Malampaya were unsubstantiated. Based on the latest estimates of the Department of Energy, the gas field near Malampaya is estimated to have about 210 billion cubic feet of gas. The Malampaya project uses indigenous natural gas to reduce the country's oil imports. It also generates significant revenues for the local government that already amounted to $13.14 billion or over P1 trillion. Malampaya has been powering up to 20 percent of Luzon’s total electricity requirements. It supplies natural gas to power four power generation plants in Batangas with a combined capacity of 2,011 megawatts. The post Mañalac defends involvement in ‘unconstitutional’ exploration deal appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Digital ‘budol-budol’
Often for kicks, I open the “Spam” folder of my Email and entangle myself with what digital fraudsters are up to lately in messing up people’s lives. I precisely did that after apprising the big news about the potential personal data breach at GCash, the popular digital payments platform of Globe Telecom Inc. and immediately searched for fake GCash emails. Usually, for safety’s sake, I quickly delete such fakeries. But I took a conscious effort at scrutinizing a message I got last month which purportedly came from the “GCash Help Center.” The message urgently asked me to activate my account by clicking the provided link. Helpful missive that was, innocent-sounding even. Only it was a head-scratcher: I never applied for a GCash account nor have no intentions whatsoever of enrolling into one. I often wonder how these people could assume I wasn’t strictly a cold-cash-paying Luddite struggling with where to place in my all too-small billfold those new-fangled unfoldable one thousand peso bills. Anyway, since I was also often bombarded by National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) text alerts imploring me to be ever watchful with digital fraud, or in the more suitable and folksier digital “budol-budol,” I had become suspicious enough to spot dead giveaways showing fraud. By the way, all of us really have to keep up with fraudsters’ ways. In fact, in our digital era “face-to-face fraud doesn’t really happen anymore. It’s all digital,” says Louis Smith, credit card Visa’s chief risk officer for Southeast Asia. At any rate, in the case of those fake emails, technically known as “phishing” emails, the dead giveaways I learned were: a. the email usually has a generic greeting like “Hi”; the email says your account is on hold because of a billing problem; and the email invites you to click on a link to update your payment details by sending all your personal data. Those raise fakery alarms since legitimate companies, even if they might communicate with you by email, won’t ever email or text you with a link to update your payment information. So there. Still, the growing sophistication and sheer volume of digital “budol-budol” every day catches us off-guard. Nowadays, the risks of digital fraud are alarmingly high. In fact, Globe Telecoms, which owns GCash, reported that it has already blocked 4.07 million malicious bank-related messages in the first quarter of the year, 2.7 percent higher than the number of malicious messages from last year. Last year, too, Globe blocked 85 million bank-related spam and scam messages, part of the record-high 3 billion scam and spam messages filtered by the giant telecom firm between January 2022 and January 2023. In another report, TransUnion, an American credit reporting outfit, says the nation had the third-highest rate of suspected fraudulent digital transactions among all countries and regions analyzed in 2022, with as much as 8.7 percent of digital transactions suspected as fraudulent. TransUnion also reported that from a three-month survey, 71 percent of Filipinos had been targeted by digital fraud attempts through emails, phone calls, online messaging, or texts. Eleven percent of those surveyed admitted to falling victim to fraud. The common fraud schemes experienced by Filipinos were “phishing (fraudulent emails, social posts, websites and QR codes), “smishing” (fraudulent mobile text messages), third-party seller scams, and identity theft. Now if all these scams make it our personal responsibility not to be duped, companies and the government also have to do all they can not to make things worse than it already is. Companies really have to beef up their cybersecurity measures and the government can’t content themselves with launching useless probes after a digital disaster or with registering cellphone SIMs. Where, for instance, is a government-run digital facility where the public can quickly report text or email scams? The US, for example, has SPAM (7726), a sort of 911 where Americans can forward any “smishing” text message. Here, we’re still resorting to reporting digital fraud on social media. The post Digital ‘budol-budol’ appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Landbank earnings breach P30 billion in 2022
State-run Land Bank of the Philippines surpassed its net income target last year as earnings jumped by 38.2 percent to P30.1 billion, from P21.7 billion in 2021......»»
Elon Musk pulling out of $44B Twitter deal
HOUSTON, Texas - Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Friday that he is pulling out of his USD44 billion deal to buy Twitter."Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement," Musk's attorney Mike Ringler said in a Securiti.....»»
Cignal’s profit surges in H1
PLDT-backed Cignal TV Inc. is poised to breach the P1 billion profit mark this year as it continues to assert its dominance in the country’s pay TV market following the demise of ABS-CBN’s Sky Direct last year......»»
BIR collections breach P1 trillion, surpass target
The Bureau of Internal Revenue collected more than P1 trillion in taxes as of end-June, surpassing its target by over P16 billion, as the agency improves its performance to beef up the government’s resources for pandemic response......»»
Virtual currency transactions hit P100 billion in 2020
Virtual currency transactions are expected to rise further this year, after a fivefold increase, to breach the P100-billion level last year as more people turn to their phones and gadgets to pay bills, do grocery and shop amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas......»»
Foreign debt entry boosts reserves stock anew in April
Buffer funds still below the historic high of $110 billion, but are forecast to breach that level nonetheless by yearend......»»
AUB boosts e-wallet service as transactions breach P7 billion
Asia United Bank, the Rebisco Group’s banking arm, is gearing up its digital channels through higher spending on information technology particularly data security and capacity......»»
DBP& rsquo;s total assets breach P1 trillion
State-run Development Bank of the Philippines, the sixth-largest lender in terms of assets, joined the elite ranks of trillion-peso banks in the country after posting total assets of P1.04-trillion as of end-2020, 37 percent higher than P761.24 billion recorded in 2019, its top executive said Thursday......»»
PEZA investments may breach P100 billion
PEZA investments may breach P100 billion Louella Desiderio (The Philippine Star) – November 24, 2020 – 12:00am MANILA, Philippines — Investments approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) may exceed P100 billion this year with expected investments from both new and existing investors. “We might exceed more than P100 billion this year with all […].....»»
PEZA investments may breach P100 billion
Investments approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority may exceed P100 billion this year with expected investments from both new and existing investors......»»