Claims to leadership

FRI, NOVEMBER 3, 2017 BY THE MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR LEAVE A COMMENT

IN MY OPINIONKlaus Döring

I am 64 now. I traveled all around the world. I met innumerable leaders in different companies and institutions. I experienced “good” and “bad” leaders.  My “good” leaders, just a handful – maybe, became my mentors. Each one in his or her own very special way. The others I sorted out. Forgot them….

Quitters never win and winners never quit! Basta! My first leader’s motif –  a publishing house director, whom I met during my college time. This saying has been imprinted in my mind and heart till today. As a result, when I started teaching German language in the Institute of Languages and Creative Arts at University of Southeastern Philippines in Davao City almost ten years ago, I used this and other sayings helping my students to remember these key points.

As I said before: just only a handful awesome leaders crossed my path. In Germany, in the U.S. and lately also here in the Philippines. I learnt a lot from them and their behavior. I also learnt from negative leaders, those, catching people doing things wrong. Why don’t leaders spend at least an hour a week wandering around their operation catching people doing things right AND wrong?

My first boss in Germany really did it this way. One could talk to him.

Many leaders wait to praise their people until they do things exactly right. Problem: mostly, one waits forever.

Up to now, I see a lot of unmotivated people at work or students at school, but I have never seen them after work or school! When office is done and school is over, people race to do such things that provide them with positive feedback on results.

My students in USEP are getting tired many times. I try to tell them, that learning is more important today than ever before. In the past, if a person was loyal and worked hard,his or her job was secure. Also during my time in the 1960s and 1970s or even early 1980s. Today, the skills you bring to the party constitute the only available form of job security. When you stop learning, you stop growing. Albert Einstein, once said: Never stop learning and ask questions. A perfect leader should be included. It really depends on how you talk to the people!

In one of my previous write-ups, I mentioned: Dream hard but work harder. I have to rethink this. How about this: Don’t work hard – work smarter. This saying is common sense but not common practice as America’s best-selling business author Ken Blanchard voiced it out. If you don’t take time out to think, strategize and prioritize, you’ll work a whole lot harder, without enjoying the benefits of a job smartly done. As an ordinary worker or as the Big Boss.

Leadership and communication are two areas in  which we can continue to develop virtually forever.

EU eyes 100M EURO grant for Marawi Rehabilitation

EU eyes €100-M grant for Marawi rehab

By Catherine Talavera (The Philippine Star)

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EU Ambassador Franz Jessen said the group is eyeing a grant that would focus on the rehabilitation of Marawi City as well as the whole of Mindanao. File

MANILA, Philippines — The European Union (EU) is looking to offer the Philippines a grant of as much as 100 million euros for the rehabilitation of war-torn Marawi City.

EU Ambassador Franz Jessen said the group is eyeing a grant that would focus on the rehabilitation of Marawi City as well as the whole of Mindanao.

“Right now, we are discussing internally in the EU, we’re talking about 55 million euros. Later on we intend to expand around 100 million euros for Mindanao and Marawi,” Jessen said on the sidelines of the 4th Energy Smart Philippines summit yesterday.

Jessen said they have already spent under 1 million euros on assisting Marawi in areas such as water purification.

“Things that are very practical that don’t affect foreign policy but it does affect the daily life of the people there,” he said.

Jessen emphasized the new assistance would focus on job creation in the region.

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“We look at this as partly reconstruction, but also to give the people hope and permanent jobs. So job creation would be a major focus. Energy will also be a major focus,” he said.

The EU ambassador stressed the importance of rehabilitating Marawi for the Philippines to attract more European investors into the country.

“The European investors don’t look at the country divided into different regions, but they look at it as one country. And it is important that there is peace across the country,” Jessen said.

Sought to comment on the issue of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano reportedly rejecting the EU’s grant to the country, Jessen said he met with the official two days ago.

“We had a very good discussion. We had a very intense discussion with Secretary Cayetano and (Finance) Secretary (Carlos) Dominguez and then we went through the different issues and we’re sort of going back to our corners and see how we can modify,” Jessen said.

Cayetano confirmed meeting the EU ambassador.

“If there are no conditionalities and it will not affect our sovereignty, then everyone is free to help,” Cayetano had said.

President Duterte has been ranting at the EU for criticizing his policy against illegal drugs.

In May, Duterte informed the EU that the Philippine government would no longer accept development aid from the body.

Jessen said the decision to cut aid from the EU would mean the loss of about 250 million euros worth of grants, mostly allocated to Muslim communities in Mindanao.

Jessen stressed the EU would continue its development program.

“Our development assistance is for the Philippines and that’s where we need to focus. It’s for companies, it’s for people, it’s health, it’s energy, it’s better education and it’s the reconstruction of Marawi,” Jessen said.

Military operations have cost P5 billion ($97 million) and the government estimates it could cost 10 times that much to rebuild Marawi.

Apart from the EU, Australia, the United States, Singapore, Russia, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are among the countries and organizations that have offered to help.

In a related development, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) donated P2 million as seed capital for each family of the soldiers who died in the battle of Marawi.

“This project from San Miguel Corporation which will extend P330 million to 163 soldiers or police killed in action at P2 million as seed capital for a business startup assistance for each of family (of soldiers) killed in Marawi,” SMC president and chief executive officer Ramon Ang said.

Ang and outgoing Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Gen. Eduardo Año sealed the donation in a ceremony held at Camp Aguinaldo yesterday.

“This is the best we can honor them. We cannot replace them or can we repay them for their sacrifice, but we can honor them and help them fulfill their dream of better lives for their families,” Ang said.

Año, for his part, was all praises for the gesture.

“The donation of P2-million seed business capital would really go a long, long way for the bereaved families for them to be able to get going, building their own lives and show that their husbands or their sons who died fighting really did all their best for the country,” Año said.

“Mr. Ang, you’re an angel to our bereaved families. We cannot thank you enough, the whole AFP is really in gratitude… hence the AFP, as I said, will always be the professional armed forces that will be the protector of the people and the state,” he told Ang. – Jaime Laude

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German Legacy in Davao (V)

                                                                                                                                                                    

By Antonio V. Figueroa

The German Evangelic Church, in the sixties, donated a multi-million building and equipment to the Brokenshire Memorial Hospital, a Protestant hospital in Davao City. Part of that assistance came from the German Federal Government.

In 1969, the port of Davao got a share from the DM 12.5 million grant the German Government extended under a financial cooperation for the rehabilitation of ports.

Another funding amount DM 2 million was earmarked for the preparation of the Master Plan Study  of the port of Davao (Sasa wharf), which was prepared from June June 1979 to December 1980.

Product links

In terms of exports, the famous Chocolate de San Isidro produced by farmer cooperatives in Davao del Norte is now exported to the Netherlands and other European countries, including Germany and and Belgium.

And who would forget the iconic Mongol pencil that took the Philippines by storm during the American period? It was originally manufactured by Eberhard Faber GmbH, founded in 1922 in Neumarkt, near Nuremberg, Germany. The pencil factory was taken over by Staedtler, a stationery company with global reach, in 1978.

The US operations of the popular Eberhard Faber writing pencil were founded in New York City in 1861, on the site where the United Nations building now stands, by John Eberhard Faber (Dec. 6, 1822 - March 2, 1879). This was acquired in 1994 by Faber-Castell USA before it was purchased by Newell (Sanford) and rolled into the Paper Mate brand.

In transport, as Davao's traffic jam moves from bad to worse, German imprints are present also in costly, high-end cars, that negotiate, even if irregularly, the city's thoroughfares. Who can deny the pricey BMW (Bavaria Motor Works), Volkswagen (People's Car) and the Mercedes-Benz (built by German manufacturer Daimler AG) brands that have caught our fancy?

In the mall freezers, names like frankfurter (a small, cooked and smoke sausage of beef or pork named after Austrian-born Felix Frankfurter, a U.S. jurist, 1882-1965); bratwurst (a fine German pork sausage, typically fried or grilled), and wiener (a small, thin hot dog made of veal and pork) surely will remind you of their origin - that is, German-speaking territories.

Congregations

As a Catholic country, the Philippines has much in common with Germany, a predominantly Protestant country, when it comes to the spread of Christianity. Two of the three religious congregations founded by St. Arnold Jannsen have established branches in Davao City.

Jannsen, born on November 5, 1837 in Goch, Germany, was ordained priest on August 15, 1861. He founded three religious congregations, namely: the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD, 175), the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit (SSps, 1889), and the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration (SSpSAP, September 8, 1896).

The SVD priests took over the management of the Saint Francis Xavier Regional Major Seminary at Catalunan Grande, Davao City, in the 1980's from the Foreign Mission Society of Quebec (PME Fathers), while the SSpSAp, also known as the Pink Sisters, holds court at the Holy Spirit Adoration Convent, along Seminary Road, Catalunan Grande, Davao City.

In the field of Education, the German language, has been institutionalized at the state-funded University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP) at Obrero, Davao City. One of the institute's most visible professors is Professor Klaus Döring, an expatriate journalist, court translator and interpreter certified by the German, Swiss and Austrian embassies in Manila, a businessman who has made Davao City as his home since 1999 and since June 2017, taking office as German Honorary Consul to the island of Mindanao.

Sara Duterte threatens to shut down Mindanao's tallest skyscraper

By Davao Start

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The developer behind Mindanao’s tallest skyscraper project is threatened of a denial of their right to operate in the city if they fail to follow the local government’s order to hoist down a crane that is said to have obstructed air traffic here.

Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio issued a 5-day ultimatum to Aeon Towers developer FTC Group of Companies on Tuesday, October 24, to lower down a crane mounted on top of their 33-storey project or else the city will carry out the dismantling at the expense of the firm.

“If they won’t lower the crane, I will never allow to open their building. They will never be allowed to do business in Davao City,” Duterte-Carpio said on Tuesday, October 24.

The boom crane is being used by the developer to complete construction works of Aeon Towers, a P3.1-billion condominium project estimated to be be finished by the end of this year. It is expected to become Mindanao’s tallest skyscraper.

However, since Feburary this year, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) has sent notices to the developer to have their cranes lowered, if not removed, as pilots of commercial airlines point out it is obstructing air traffic. The project sits some 7 kilometers away from Francisco Bangoy International Airport, also known as the Davao International Airport.

Franklin Anota Sr., air traffic section chief of CAAP in Davao City, said a “misapproach” issue has been recorded in January, causing delays in some of the flights.

This was confirmed to Rappler by Cebu Pacific Air’s spokesperson, Charo Lagamon.

“For Cebu Pacific, the flights were not diverted, but (we) just changed the approach that increased risks (in flying),” she said.

According to CAAP Davao, aircraft coming outside Davao land at the airport’s Runway 05, and take off on Runway 33. But with the presence of the said crane, aircrafts landings have been transferred to Runway 23 to avoid the risks of hitting the said equipment.

This issue was tackled Tuesday at the City Council where officials grilled Aeon Tower’s project manager Engineer Buboy Espinosa.

During the session, it was learned that FTC did not take immediate actions despite’s CAAP’s previous notices earlier this year, earning the ire of Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte.

“We can instruct the City Engineers (Office) and ask the help of the DPWH to demolish your crane. Now which is cheaper, you remove your crane or let DPWH remove your crane and you’ll pay for the expenses?,” said Duterte.

To the company’s defense, Espinosa clarified that the developer is willing to dismantle the cranes but is asking “consideration” as the cranes weigh 1-2 tons.

“What we are asking to the LGU is to give us little time because dismantling of the tower crane is not easy since its parts are heavy and can’t be lifted by ordinary equipment,” he said.

But Duterte-Carpio did not mince words Tuesday, and said that if the developer fails to meet the city’s 5-day deadline, they would proceed with demolishing the crane. 

Jack Ma tests internet in the Philippines: Not good!

By Ian Nicolas Cigaral (philstar.com) 

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In this 2015 photo, Jack Ma participates at a United Nations climate change event. UN photo/CC

MANILA, Philippines — Chinese tech magnate Jack Ma tried to test the Philippines' internet speed upon his arrival here, and he was not happy about the result.

Ma made his assessment during his lecture at the De La Salle University on Wednesday, which was also attended by executives of the Philippines' telecoms duopoly—PLDT, Inc. and Globe Telecom, Inc.

"I arrived late last night and I tried to test the speed of Philippine [internet], it's not good," Ma said, drawing cheers from his audience.

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Last May, cloud service provider and content delivery network Akamai Intelligent Platform reported that the Philippines has the slowest and most intermittent internet connection speed in the world.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier threatened both PLDT and Globe with new competition from China if their services do not improve.

Last year, these two firms together agreed to buy conglomerate San Miguel Corp. out of the sector for $1.5 billion, pledging to invest heavily to boost internet service. The acquisition was the country's biggest corporate transaction in nearly three years.

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The Court of Appeals, in a decision dated October 18, ordered the Philippine Competition Commission to permanently stop its review of the deal and recognize its validity.

Opportunities

Despite the bad internet service in the country, Ma said he sees this as an opportunity for concerned parties to improve Manila's internet connectivity.

He also said it would be "unfair" to blame "anybody" for the country's poor internet connection as recalled starting his e-commerce business at a time when China's internet speed was "much worse" than the Philippines'.

"But this is the potential, this is the opportunity and I encourage your government, entrepreneurs, everybody that we work together to improve the speed and coverage of the internet," the Chinese billionaire said.

"Opportunities exist in the areas most people complain," he added.

"We have to make sure that everybody is connected."

Automation against corruption

Still on the topic of technology, Ma also urged the Philippines to promote cashless transactions to eradicate corruption.

"We should make the Philippines a cashless society. When you have cashless society, [there is] no corruption. A lot easier," he said.

"So Philippines, I think you have the opportunity to make the world's best fintech (financial technology) because you have so many mobile phones. You have more than 7,000 islands. It's impossible for banks to have offices in 7,000 [islands] covering everywhere. But mobile phones [can] cover everywhere," he added.

According to international magazine Forbes, Ma is back on top as Asia's richest businessman as he continued to grow the world's largest e-commerce businesses, Alibaba Group. His real-time net worth is at $38.3 billion.

He last visited the country in November 2015 to speak before the business leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit. Ma was among the speakers along with former US President Barack Obama.

The killer number one

THU, OCTOBER 26, 2017 BY THE MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR LEAVE A COMMENT

IN MY OPINIONKlaus Doring

The report is just on my desk. Maybe also on yours. I didn’t get surprised anymore. Maybe you too!

Pollution kills more people each year than wars, disasters and hunger, also causing huge economic damage, a study says. Almost half the total deaths occur in just two countries.

Environmental pollution is killing more people every year than smoking, hunger or natural disasters, according to a major study released in The Lancet medical journal last  Thursday. One in every six premature deaths worldwide in 2015, could be attributed to diseases caused by toxins in air or water, the study says.

Of the 9 million people killed prematurely by pollution, air pollution was the main cause of deaths, responsible for 6.5 million of the fatalities, followed by water pollution, which killed 1.8 million.

Meanwhile air pollution is also the ‘top health hazard in Europe’. The estimate of 9 million pre-mature deaths, considered conservative by the authors, is one and a half times higher than the number of people killed by smoking, and three times the death toll from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. It is also 15 times the number of people killed in war or other forms of violence.

Ninety-two percent of pollution-related deaths occurred in low- or middle-income developing countries, with India topping the list at 2.5 million, followed by China at 1.8 million.

Economic costs reach no limit in the polluted sky. The report also attributed massive costs to pollution-related death, sickness and welfare, estimating the costs at some $4.6 trillion (€3.89 trillion) in annual losses — or about 6.2 percent of the global economy.

“What people don’t realize is that pollution does damage to economies. People who are sick or dead cannot contribute to the economy. They need to be looked after,” said one of the study’s authors, Richard Fuller, who is head of the global pollution watchdog Pure Earth.

“There is this myth that finance ministers still live by: that you have to let industry pollute or else you won’t develop. It just isn’t true,” he said. And it’s so very true!

According to the study, the financial burden also hits poorer countries hardest, with low-income countries paying 8.3 percent of their GNP to tackle the harm caused by pollution, as compared with 4.5 percent in richer countries.

The Lancet editors Pamela Das and Richard Horton said the report came at a “worrisome time, when the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency, headed by Scott Pruitt, is undermining established environmental regulations.”

Pruitt announced this month that the US, a major producer of air pollution and greenhouse gases, would be pulling out of former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The plan, which aimed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production, was expected by the EPA to also reduce smog and soot in the air by 25 percent and thus avoid thousands of premature deaths through asthma and other lung conditions.

Das and Horton said the latest findings should serve as a “call to action.” “Pollution is a winnable battle … Current and future generations deserve a pollution-free world,” they said.

Sure, we all hear and read daily calls to action. But really happened? No deeds follow. Just empty words and statements… . Quo vadis Mother Earth?

Five months battle with IS in Philippines City ends

  

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CLARK, Philippines - A five-month battle against Islamic State supporters in the southern Philippines that claimed more than 1,100 lives has ended following a final battle inside a mosque, defence chiefs said on Monday.

The conclusion of the conflict ended immediate fears that IS would establish a Southeast Asian base in the southern city of Marawi. But concerns remained about its longer-term intentions and capabilities for the region.

"We now announce the termination of all combat operations in Marawi," Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in Clark, a northern Philippine city . "There are no more militants inside Marawi city ."

Hundreds of local and foreign gunmen who had pledged allegiance to IS rampaged through Marawi, the principal Islamic city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, on May 23. They then took over parts of the cityusing civilians as human shields.

An ensuing US-backed military campaign claimed the lives of at least 920 militants, 165 soldiers and 47 civilians, according to the military.

More than 400,000 residents were displaced as near-daily air strikes and intense ground combat left large parts of the city in ruins.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte travelled to Marawi on Tuesday last week and declared the city had been "liberated", a day after the Southeast Asian leader for IS, a Filipino militant named Isnilon Hapilon, was shot dead there.

However the continued fighting in subsequent days raised questions over whether the city was indeed free of militants.

"The presence of the Maute-ISIS was confined to two buildings: one of them a mosque," armed forces chief General Eduardo Ano told reporters on Monday as he explained the situation in Marawi following Duterte's liberation proclamation.

"That is where the last fighting occurred and that is the place where we rescued (an) additional 20 hostages. "In that fighting, we gave the chance for these militants and terrorists to surrender. But they fought to the last breath so we had no choice."

The bodies of 42 militants were recovered after the final battle , including two women and five foreigners, according to Ano, who spoke at the same briefing as Lorenzana in Clark.

Hapilon, who was on the US government's list of most wanted terrorists, was killed along with one of group's other leaders, Omarkhayam Maute, according to the military.

The militants had been able to defy the relentless bombing raids that destroyed entire neighbourhoods by sheltering in basements and travelling through tunnels, according to the military.

The military had also said its opponents hid inside mosques, and that soldiers had been ordered not to bomb or fire artillery at such buildings.

The Philippines' Muslim minority regards the southern Philippines as its ancestral homeland.

Muslim rebels have been battling in the south since the 1970s for independence or autonomy, with that conflict claiming at least 120,000 lives.

The nation's biggest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is in talks with the government to end the rebellion, and its leaders regularly denounce IS.

But there are more extreme groups with no interest in peace, some of which were originally part of the MILF. Hapilon and Maute led small armed groups that declared their allegiance to IS in recent years, and they formed an alliance aimed at taking over Marawi and establishing a regional caliphate for the Middle East-based jihadists.

Duterte imposed martial law across the southern third of the Philippines immediately after the Marawi fighting erupted, saying it was needed to contain IS's influence spreading throughout the region.

When asked on Monday whether marital law would be lifted, Lorenzana said a decision had not yet been made.

US Defence Secretary James Mattis on Monday praised the Philippines for its success.

"One of the first things I'm going to do when I get there is commend the Philippine military for liberating Marawi from the terrorists," Mattis told reporters on board a flight to the Philippines to attend the security meeting in Clark.

Mattis praises Philippines for IS battle

US Defence Secretary James Mattis on Monday praised the Philippines for its successes in battling Islamic State supporters, as he began an Asian trip aimed at reaffirming American support for regional allies.

Mattis echoed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's statement last week that Filipino forces had "liberated" the southern city of Marawi, after five months of bitter urban fighting that had claimed more than 1,000 lives, even though battles have continued.

"One of the first things I'm going to do when I get there is commend the Philippine military for liberating Marawi from the terrorists," Mattis told reporters on the flight to the Philippines, according to an official transcript.

"It was a very tough fight as you know in southern Mindanao (the local region). And I think the Philippine military sends a very strong message to the terrorists."

Gunmen who had pledged allegiance to IS occupied parts of Marawi, the Islamic capital of the mainly Catholic Philippines, on May 23 in what Duterte said was a bid to establish a Southeast Asian caliphate there.

Hundreds of insurgents withstood a US-backed military campaign, including near daily air strikes and artillery fire, that displaced more than 400,000 people and left large parts of Marawi in ruins.

Duterte last week travelled to Marawi to declare it had been "liberated", a day after the Southeast Asian leader for IS, Isnilon Hapilon, was shot dead there.

However deadly fighting has continued, with the military reporting dozens of militants are still resisting in a small pocket of the city .

Mattis flew to the Philippines to attend a meeting hosted by Southeast Asian defence ministers at the former American military base of Clark, two hours' drive north of Manila.

The Philippines is a former American colony and the two nations are bound by a mutual defence treaty.

But relations have soured under Duterte as he has sought to build closer ties with China and Russia.

Defence ministers from Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Russia are also scheduled to attend the two-day Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) event.

Mattis' Asia trip, which will also take him to Thailand and South Korea, comes ahead of US President Donald Trump's visit to Asia next month.

Some American allies in the region have become wary of Trump's interest in Asia.

Mattis sought to reassure allies. "The US remains unambiguously committed to supporting ASEAN," Mattis said.