·              Qatar to undertake aggie and fisheries ventures in RP 

·              PGMA to bring home $1 billion in new investments after 3-day official visit to Qatar 

·              PGMA winds up successful official Qatar visit

·              DFA undertakes emergency employment and livelihood project 

·              JPEPA “contributes to greater development” in East Asia--DFA 

·              D.A. to test planned pork exports 

·              European Union Heads of Mission to Mindanao from 15 to 17 December

·              UN officials urge local authorities in Central Mindanao to ensure uninterrupted schooling of child evacuees

·              News Feature: Renegades’ Jihad Sabotages Peace, Adds to Suffering of South

Qatar to undertake aggie and fisheries ventures in RP

 
DOHA (via PLDT) -- Qatar has expressed interest in investing in agricultural and fisheries projects in the Philippines, among other business ventures that are expected to draw more Qatari investments to the country.

No less than the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, told President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of his country's interest in undertaking agricultural and fisheries ventures in the Philippines during their bilateral meeting at the Emiri Diwan Royal Palace on Sunday.

During their meeting, President Arroyo also extended a formal invitation to the Emir to visit the Philippines, to which he gladly accepted. No dates, however, have been set but the Emir's Philippine visit is expected to materialize next year.

Qatar, which imports most of its agricultural requirements from various countries, is strengthening its economy by diversifying into new asset classes. The diversification program is being carried out by the government-owned Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).

The President immediately directed the Department of Agriculture (DA), through DA Secretary Arthur Yap, to come up with the needed project proposals that would respond to Qatar's requirements.

Qatar has taken the first big step toward what is expected to be a growing presence in Philippine business and trade when it entered into a joint venture with Qatar Telecom (Telcom) in the wireless broadband business.

The joint venture, which was signed Sunday (Dec. 14) as part of President Arroyo's three-day visit here, joins the Philippines’ biggest diversified company and Qtel, Qatar's biggest telecommunications firm, under one group in their Southeast Asian operation.

The strategic partnership will set the course for the two companies to begin exploration of joint opportunities in the wireless broadband, mobile and mobile broadband sectors in the Philippines.

The government-owned Qtel operates in 16 countries and is "already actively engaged in extending its wi-tribe brand, which supports the provision of broadband wireless services for emerging markets. Wi-tribe has already realized significant success in providing Wi-MAX services in Jordan, and is in the process of rolling out new offerings for Pakistan," a company statement issued Sunday said.  

 
PGMA to bring home $1 billion in new investments after 3-day official visit to Qatar

 
DOHA, Qatar (via PLDT) -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo winds up her three-day official visit here confident that the trip has generated for the Philippines US$1 billion in new investments, and raised to another level the friendly relations of the Philippines with Qatar, a leading destination of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

She leaves at noon (Monday, Dec. 15) on her return flight to the Philippines with a three-hour stopover in Abu Dhabi.

The President held various meetings with chief executive officers (CEOs) of several private companies employing Filipino workers as well as government officials, including executives of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) whom she asked to look into the prospect of doing business in the Philippines.

A state investment arm headquartered in this sprawling Middle East metropolis, the QIA serves as the spearhead of Qatar's investment expansion binge backed by the emirate's huge wealth from Qatar’s natural resources.

Awash with cash from its oil and natural gas exports, Qatar has launched a strong investment drive abroad while pursuing a massive construction program at home.

"As a world-class investor, the QIA adheres to the strictest financial and commercial disciplines. It has a strong track record of investing in different asset classes, including listed securities, property, alternative assets and private equity in all the major capital markets as well as the new emerging markets," says a backgrounder on the investment authority.

But the biggest investment draw for the Philippines from Qatar, thus far, is the tie-up between Qatar Telecom QSC (Qtel) and San Miguel Corporation (SMC), the Philippines' leading business conglomerate. The joint venture was formalized during the President's visit to Qatar.

Senior Qtel executives met with the President on Sunday (Dec. 14) to discuss potential areas of cooperation in Qtel's undertaking to extend access to broadband internet technology in the Philippines.

After the meeting, Qtel and SMC signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the expansion and consolidation of the group's Southeast Asia operation. Ramon Ang, chief executive officer and president of San Miguel Corp., signed the MOU on behalf of his company, while Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammad Bin Saud Al-Thani, Qtel chairman, signed for Qtel.

Under the Qtel-SMC agreement, SMC will own 60 percent of the joint venture to Qtel's 40 percent. Qtel will put in an initial investment of US$150 million, but this will be raised to US$1 billion after one year.

After the formal signing of the accord, Qtel issued an upbeat statement view on its forthcoming Philippine operations, saying it sees a huge growth and expansion potential for the advanced telecommunications industry in the Philippines.

We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to meet with President Macapagal-Arroyo. Qtel has looked to increase its profile within the Republic of the Philippines and the environment appears increasingly open to external investment and the provision of communication services," said Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammad Bin Saud Al-Thani, Qtel chairman.

He added: "We see huge opportunities for growth and partnership within the Philippines and this meeting provided an important opportunity for Qtel to communicate its ambitions and its obligations to the people" of the Philippines.

Qtel, which is operating in 16 countries including in Southeast Asia, is vying for a slot among the top 20 telecommunications companies in the world by 2020.

A telecommunications service provider, Qtel is licensed by Qatar's Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology to provide both fixed and mobile telecommunications services in the state of Qatar.

San Miguel, on the other hand, is the largest publicly listed food, beverage and packaging company in Southeast Asia with more than 15,000 employees in over 100 facilities throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Qtel's tie-up with San Miguel is the biggest investment thus far by a Qatari company in the Philippines or in a Philippine-based business conglomerate. Up until the Qtel-SMC deal, Qatari investments in the Philippines were concentrated on human services, notably in the manpower supply sector, or the recruitment of Filipino workers for the Middle East.

But the President's meeting with Qatar business executives brought to the fore the untapped markets in Qatar and other Gulf countries for such Philippine products as mango -- a favorite fruit here -- fresh as well as processed Filipino food. 

 
PGMA winds up successful official Qatar visit

 
DOHA, Qatar (via PLDT) -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo left this noon (Dec15) at the end of her successful three-day official trip assured that no major displacements of Filipino workers in this country are in the cards.

Instead of the feared lay-offs, 27 of the biggest companies here employing Filipinos told the President Saturday (Dec. 13) that they are hiring 37,000 more Filipino workers.

The President was seen off by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who also welcomed her at the Qatar International Airport when she arrived here on Saturday.

En route back to the Philippines, the Philippine plane bearing the President will make a three-hour stopover in Abu Dhabi for a luncheon conference with top officials of the emirate.

DFA undertakes emergency employment and livelihood project

MANILA — An emergency employment and livelihood project of the Department Foreign Affairs (DFA) has been given a boost with the signing recently of two memorandum of agreements (MOAs) to benefit dependents of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who reside in Pasig City.

A MOA for P20 million worth of Financial Assistance and Microfinancing for Entrepreneurship (FAME) is with the People's Credit and Finance Corporation (PCFC).

The other MOA with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is for P15 million of emergency employment for about 1,000 out-of-school youths in the lone congressional district’s 30 barangays.

Pasig City Rep. Roman T. Romulo arranged the projects with the PCFC and DPWH respectively, in support of OFWs suddenly displaced from their overseas jobs because of the global economic meltdown that also hit rich labor-receiving countries such as Taiwan and South Korea.

Edgar Generoso and Noel N. Poso, president and vice-president respectively of the PCFC, DFA Undersecretary Esteban B. Conejos Jr. and Romulo signed the MOAs on Friday last week. (PNA)

JPEPA “contributes to greater development” in East Asia--DFA

MANILA - A new era in the Philippines` economic partnership with Japan has begin with the entry into force of the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) since Thursday last week, according to Secretary Alberto Romulo of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Romulo went to Tokyo last week for the inaugural Philippine-Japan Joint Committee Meeting on the JPEPA, and met also with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso.

In a dispatch from Tokyo, the DFA said both Romulo and Aso “agreed that the JPEPA`s entry into force…contributes to the greater development of both countries as well as in East Asia.”

Romulo has proceeded to the Middle East to join President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s official entourage. (PNA)

D.A. TO TEST PLANNED PORK EXPORTS

The Department of Agriculture (DA) will test local hogs in Mindanao that are sources of pork and pork products set for export for possible presence of the Ebola Reston virus despite having gone through rigorous safeguards as required by global animal health standards as a precautionary measure and to show that the Philippines is a “responsible exporter.”

 
DA Secretary Arthur Yap expressed optimism, however, that all hogs that in South Cotabato and General Santos City that are sources of pork and pork products set for export will test negative for the virus, which was found in a few hogs in two swine farms in Luzon, because the DA has stopped movements of animals from Luzon to the Visayas or Mindanao since 1995.

“As we clear those farms, then we are going to go back to our export track,” Yap said.  “The truth of the matter is I’m personally confident that Visayas and Mindanao were not affected at all because since 1995, we have stopped moving animals from Luzon to Mindanao and to the Visayas.”

Officials of the DA and Department of Health (DOH) along with international health institutions have pointed out that the Reston virus “does not pose a significant public health risk.” This particular strain of the Ebola virus has been shown in the past to be “non-pathogenic,” which means it is not harmful to humans.

The Matutum Meat Packing Corp.  in Polomolok, South Cotabato  was set to make its inaugural export of  pork and pork products to Singapore last Dec. 10, or on the very day when the DA and DOH first reported to the public the presence of the virus. Yap announced then that, as part of the DA’s precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the virus, it was suspending all planned pork shipments abroad until further notice.

Yap pointed out that all hogs that are sources of pork exports have passed the stringent requirements of Singapore health authorities on food safety, but the government will nonetheless subject these animals for testing as a matter of precaution.

Yap said the DA and the DOH would seek assistance from international health agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) in eradicating the virus, which resurfaced after it was discovered 19 years ago among macaques or monkeys that the Laguna-based Ferlite Farms had been exporting to the Hazelton Research Product Laboratories in Reston, Virginia, USA.

The DA has already quarantined the two farms where the virus was detected. (DA-PRESS OFFICE)

European Union Heads of Mission to Mindanao from 15 to 17 December

Cotabato City - A group of European Union Ambassadors will visit Mindanao from 15 to 17 December, to see how EC assistance for the civilian victims of the conflict in Mindanao is being implemented.

The group will include , Ambassadors Heikki Hannikainen (Finland), Christian Ludwig Weber-Lortsch (Germany), Rubens Fedele (Italy), Valeriu Gheorghe (Romania) , Luis Arias (Spain), Peter Beckingham (United Kingdom), and ) Alistair MacDonald  (European Commission), as well as French Chargé d'Affaires Didier Ortolland, representing the EU Presidency. Colleagues from the Austrian, Czech, Dutch, Greek and Swedish Embassies will also take part, together with officials from the World Food Programme, led by Mr. Stephen Anderson, Country Director, and from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, led by Undersecretary Celia Yangco and Assistant Secretary Ruel Lucentales. 

The group will meet with local government officials and civil society organizations and NGOs involved in peace and development in Cotabato City, Maguindanao, South Cotabato and Saranggani. The group will also visit a number of evacuation centers in Maguindanao, where assistance provided by the EC is being implemented.

The Ambassadors' visit recalls the statement issued by the European Union on 15 September, which expressed concern about the escalation of violence in Mindanao, and the growing number of civilian casualties and displaced persons. It particularly condemned the indiscriminate killing of civilians and called for those responsible to face the due process of law.

The EU statement underlined that the conflict in Mindanao can only be resolved through dialogue and called upon all parties to show restraint and genuine respect for the rule of law. The European Union urged the government of the Philippines and the MILF, who both have invested heavily in the peace process, to agree to an early return to negotiating table in order to seek a lasting solution to the conflict.

In October 2008, the European Commission agreed to provide € 7.0 million (approx PhP 440 million, at current exchange rates) to help civilian victims of the conflict in Mindanao. The assistance is used to cover emergency food distribution, drinking water and additional sanitation facilities, non-food relief items, basic shelter assistance, health care and psycho-social support, emergency support to livelihood rehabilitation and protection.

Over the last decade, and including this latest assistance, the EC has now provided some € 33.0 million in assistance to persons displaced by conflict in Mindanao (including some €12.0 million in humanitarian assistance, and €21.0 million for longer-term rehabilitation) . Other EC assistance for Mindanao (development assistance, excluding purely humanitarian assistance and rehabilitation assistance) has amounted to some € 93.0 million (approx Php 6.2 billion) over the last two decades.

Taken together, the EC's humanitarian, rehabilitation and development assistance for Mindanao thus amounts to € 126.0 million (approx PhP 7.9 billion) over the last two decades. This figure does not include the assistance provided by individual EU Member States, several of whom have also contributed substantially to the development of Mindanao. (EU/PIA12)

UN officials urge local authorities in Central Mindanao to ensure uninterrupted schooling of child evacuees

General Santos City - Officials of the United Nations (UN) urged local authorities in Central Mindanao to make sure that children evacuees have an “uninterrupted” education. 

Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for Children in Armed Conflict (CIAC) led the delegation of UN officials from New York and those from the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) based in Manila.

The team visited Cotabato City and Maguindanao over the weekend to see the plight of children in evacuation centers.

She said authorities must find means to make sure that child evacuees are able to study like other normal school children even inside evacuation centers.

UN officials were worried about the plight of child evacuees in conflict areas in Central Mindanao as fights between government troops and the lawless Moro Islamic Liberation Front group (LMG) continue to disrupt the life of the people in the area, thus, affecting hundreds of children.  

Coomaraswamy said that UN endeavors to “bring peace” so that children in conflict areas may be able “to live a truly good life.”

Datu Gumbay Piang Elementary School, one of the schools visited by UN officials has become temporary shelter of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) after renewed fighting erupted in North Cotabato and Maguindanao in August as a result of the failed signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).

Record showed that at least 600 families have considered the school compound as temporary safe haven for their children.  

Badria Kamaong Uy-Andamen, a former teacher and executive director of the Bureau of Cultural Heritage of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) expressed hope that one day peace shall be restored in the area. (PIA SarGen)

News Feature: Renegades’ Jihad Sabotages Peace, Adds to Suffering of South
      
General Santos City - Nine-year-old Rakma tried unsuccessfully to soothe her baby sister, restless on a makeshift hammock.  Rakma’s other sisters were guarding the family’s meager possessions, heaped on the muddy ground of an evacuation camp in North Cotabato.  Rakma is among the thousands who fled the mixed Muslim-Christian hamlet of Takepan after renegades from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front invaded the area.

         
The rogue MILF fighters invaded southern Philippine villages in early August to protest the stalled peace deal between the MILF and the government.  The MILF had agreed to stop its war in exchange for expanded autonomy for Muslim areas on the island of Mindanao. 

The deal, initialed by both sides in June, stalled because of legal questions.  Some Philippine lawmakers challenged the pact’s constitutionality, with claims that the law of the land barred creating an independent state within the state.  The Supreme Court ordered the government to argue the merits of the peace pact.  In other words, the peace agreement was not dead but merely under legal review. 

         
Influenced by the anti-democratic bias of allied terrorists like the Abu Sayyaf Group and Jemaah Islamiyah, some MILF fighters spurned waiting for democratic legalities.  Proving their terrorist leanings, they simply lashed out.  Not only did they occupy North Cotabato villages in mid-August but later in the month, they also went on the rampage in 6 Lanao del Norte villages.  About 40 civilians died in those attacks.  Some were hacked to death with machetes.  The rebels took hostages, looted property and burned homes to the ground. 

 
Although most of the victims were Christians, Muslim villagers also suffered at the hands of the MILF renegades.  Muslims certainly numbered among the civilians uprooted by the MILF violence. 

 
Not surprisingly, Philippine Muslims denounced the attacks.  Adel Tamano, a Muslim scholar and lawyer, called the rampage by MILF rebels “immoral, un-Islamic and un-Christian.”

 
He worries that the actions of a few Muslim extremists will blacken the name of all Philippine Moros.  Tamano said, “The vast majority of Filipino Muslims are law-abiding citizens who want nothing more than to find decent jobs and education for their children.”

 
Those modest goals, along with the prospects for a lasting peace, have been set back by the violence committed by MILF renegades.  The MILF leadership has distanced itself from the two rebel commanders responsible for the attacks.  But that does not help the dozens of civilians killed or the thousands uprooted by the violence and facing even more hardship, after decades of economic malaise in the south. (MW/PIA SarGen)