Category Archives: business news

Bye-bye freewheeling money

Posted on by
Lifted from a LinkedIn post.

I really don’t understand this metric. This is used by companies wanting unrealistic valuation and investors bit the bullet because…they need to close a deal and show their LPs that they’re doing “something”.

Now that startups and even the unicorns and listed tech companies are laying off people by the thousands (I just edited a story about this in Asia a few weeks ago) as funding dries up and investors begin to see reason. Gone are the days when Uber and WeWork burn money like it’s growing on trees. Things are so bad right now that those who have jumped from their stable jobs to hustle on their startups are seeing doors close on them. Cost of money is rising, with inflation hitting multiple-year record highs, hence, we see central banks looking through their tool kits to stem possible runaway inflation. Investors are now turning off the tap and begin to be more selective in their deals. Companies that I’ve talked to are preferring cash over anything else these days.

Just today, Philippines Statistics Authority reported that last month’s inflation rate was the highest in four years at 5.4%, from 4.9% in April. Gone were the days when I was reporting inflation rate at 1%, T-bills at near-zero levels, and very loose policy rates (which was boring us to tears) that banks and insurance companies were looking at alternative investment vehicles in search of higher yields.

As it stands, inflation is emerging as a big headache for the incoming administration of President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., who is yet to reveal his full economic plans for the country.

The BSP is racing to control prices and has already made its first decisive action to fight inflation last month by hiking rates for the first time in three years. Diokno, who will cut short his term as BSP governor to join the Marcos cabinet as finance secretary, hinted at another rate hike in June.

Philippine Star

I feel bad for my brother, who is trying to close a housing loan with PS Bank and he has been racing against time. If he can’t close the loan (because the Register of Deeds is slow in releasing the title), he has to work again on the loan with higher rates for the townhouse he is trying to buy.

This situation will squeeze small and medium enterprises with existing loans; if they don’t have fixed-rate loans, then this will hurt them so much.

Recession is very much in the offing.

I just bought vegetables and a few oranges last night and I spent PhP 1,200 that is good for four people for a week. And that’s not even the same amount of vegetables I used to buy six months or a year ago.

It hurts a middle class citizen like me but I’m luckier that I can still spend for “frivolous needs” like wheel alignment and clothes shopping because my children got bigger again and no longer fit in their clothes I bought a few months ago.

Clothes and and sandals shopping at SM tonight
Having my car’s wheels aligned and steering wheel straightened out this afternoon
Photos by CallMeCreation.com

This, however, is a different story for those who belong to the lower economic strata who can barely budget their PHP 570-a-day minimum wage, which includes costly transport costs. It’s no wonder why people still gravitate towards the long queues at MRT and EDSA Carousel buses because right now these are still free. Filipinos could no longer afford basic transportation costs.

I have to be selective with the face-to-face meetings because petroleum is so precious right now. I had filled up my tank (which was already half-full) tonight for around PHP 1,700, which a year ago would be enough to fill up my car from near-empty.

Despite the high cost of driving your own car, people like me bite the bullet because there are no Grab cars (heard they decommissioned a lot of Grab cars because they’re older than 5 years already), the queues in MRT and buses are out of this world, and the traffic is much worse than pre-pandemic levels.

We are in a fucking transportation crisis.

Metro Manila is no longer livable.

I had been living here full-time for more than 20 years and I can see how things have deteriorated over time. I can’t wait to move back to my hometown (even if that means I lose my autonomy because I will be nearer my siblings who can poke their heads into my business) because I’m so tired of the drive. The driving time of my brother and mine were the same last Saturday. His 70 km vs my 14 km both for 1.5 hrs. This is really absurd.

Smiles and tears

Posted on by
Beneficiaries of the donation drive we had. Photo by AAPAFI.

The president of the foundation that I had been helping sent me photos of the turnover of the school clothes for the Aeta children. They said their thanks.

However, we have hit only half of the target 600 shirts. We need to raise more funds.

After all the drama with my car, I will drive up to Capas, Tarlac to visit them with my journo friend, M, who is also helping them.

Today hurts my wallet.

My entire Monday was spent repairing my old Crosswind—the expected wear and tear of an old car. Good thing about this is that I finally found a good overall mechanic. The bad thing here is he is in Cainta, Rizal, which is a bit of distance from here. His shop also does body repairs since his side business is flipping cars.

old defective fan belt pulley
Old clutch fan
The clutch fan removed
Putting it all back,. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

So after my trip to Pico de Loro and other trips during my week-long leave, I will bring my car to his shop for other internal and external repairs like dents and paint. Then I will bring it to the electrical shop that I had been using since 2009 for centralized locks. Then to my upholstery guy for carpets and sound deadeners.

So after all these, I hope this car will not bring more headaches until I buy a new one.

After Taal Volcano had her tantrum earlier this year, here comes Mount Bulusan in Sorsogon with her own temper flare.

And OMG! NEDA Sec Gen Karl Chua, who is much younger than me, has aged so much over the course of the six-year Duterte administration, especially now that the Philippines incurred P12.76 trillion in debts.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and NEDA chief Karl Kendrick Chua gives an update to President Rodrigo Roa Duterte during a meeting with key government officials at the Malacañan Palace on February 28, 2022. King Rodriguez, Presidential Photo

“The debt-to-GDP ratio meanwhile has risen to 63.5 percent, which is higher than the internationally prescribed best practice of 60 percent.”

ABS-CBN News

This is double whammy for a developing market like the Philippines as the US is bracing for a recession. It has always been, when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.

So I have to hold off any major purchase and I must hold cash for opportunities. My portfolio lost so much on paper so I must even them out. 😑

Meanwhile, I was able to resurrect my sister’s dead laptop. The Asus laptop keyboard I bought from Shopee arrived yesterday and I was able to replace the old ghosting one. I was able to turn this laptop on, which had been sitting idle for a long time. I didn’t want to spend PhP 6,000 for a new LCD since this is just a spare Windows machine, so I hooked up a spare old Dell LCD monitor.

Et voila! I have brought it back from the dead. And this machine has a licensed Photoshop and other layouting software.

Sushi investigating the old machine. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m too tired tonight to paint or sketch. I have to buy new tires tomorrow. 😑

In the meantime, I’ll just watch other people draw people.

Poison pills do not work

Posted on by

Wall Street knows only money. That’s it. How can anyone resist USD 44bn for a company that registered a USD 221m loss in 2021?

However, the problem with having Musk at the helm of a powerful media tool like Twitter is that it will give rise to the likes of Duterte and Marcos, who both built their alternative universes by keeping troll farms. It undermines fragile democracies like the Philippines.

That’s why Musk’s bid feels like much more than just an economic takeover of Twitter. It’s also a political takeover, akin to Rupert Murdoch’s 1976 deal for the New York Post and 2007 purchase of the Wall Street Journal. The world’s richest person, who has said he “doesn’t care about the economics” of buying of Twitter, is aiming to acquire a different kind of power: control one of the world’s largest megaphones and the ability to impose his libertarian ideology on questions of moderation and misinformation…

…The pressure will be even more significant outside the U.S. In 2020, Twitter said it would start labeling as “state-affiliated media” accounts belonging to some Chinese government officials and state-linked media outlets, in addition to ensuring that tweets from those profiles aren’t amplified. The Chinese government surely hates these restrictions. Suppressing government statements arguably contaminates the free-speech stew, but Tesla also has important business goals in China and needs the support of President Xi Jinping.

Bloomberg

Ayn Rand with a megaphone. Oh que horror!

Twitter will be a weapon of mass destruction now that Xi Jinping, Duterte, and Marcos will be given a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge platform for their propaganda.

Good luck to us all.

Mitsubishi Xpander

I was looking at cars that could replace my current one and the closest thing that I could say I liked is Mitsubishi Xpander because of its cargo cabin size.

It’s so roomy!

I love my Isuzu Crosswind because I have a lot of room for bikes, camping gear, and even furniture. And I just discovered last year how to fold the passenger seat for more cargo room. However, it’s already old—but then I really don’t want to let it go because it can take whatever I throw at it. I’m conflicted. 🤔

So I’m holding off… I think I’ll just soup up my current ride (already inquiring about body repairs) because my sister may go abroad again (she said) and would probably sell her Toyota Corolla-Altis to me. But then, I really don’t like sedans; for me they don’t have any use except to ferry people. I can’t even drive that thing on provincial roads farther than Laguna because driving through Quezon province is like driving on the moon. For someone who often goes on road trips, that’s going to be such a drag. Sedans really limit you in terms of where you can go here in the Philippines and what you can bring.

I’m itching again to go nature tripping. I found several campsites in Tanay in Rizal and Kalayaan/Cavinti in Laguna and I want to try all of them, especially the areas that offer kayaking, paddle boarding, and wind surfing. My high school friends who bike around Laguna on weekends said Lake Yambo in Nagcarlan is also good for camping.

FRC Campsite

We will be going to Decathlon this weekend to buy new swimsuits/rash guards and kites. Yes, I saw kites!

If still available, I may buy that camping cooking gear that I’ve been lusting after for quite some time.

I’ll take a week-long leave this summer so the girls and I can go camping then dive in Anilao again—before they start their high school entrance exam review classes and before I start flying back and forth Singapore.

Smart beefcake

Posted on by

Not only is he a great dad with sense of humor and a loving husband, he is also a smart beefcake, too. I had been following his Instagram for 4 years now and he is really hands-on with this Centrfit company he has built with his partners. He road-tests the exercises personally that he or his partners devise for this platform. I didn’t try it when he offered a 30-day trial because the exercises are hardcore or high-impact that can shatter my knees.

Read the rest of the thread on Twitter.

As I posted on my FB wall:

Please read this Twitter thread. This is scary Please get out of your echo chambers. Reach out to the people in your communities.This is extremely disturbing. The enemy is really well versed in the art of black ops. Hiring microinfluencers to shape the psyche of the C, D, E markets who do not have the access to fact checkers because it requires money (data, airtime load, smart phone) to access Tsek.ph.

“When I heard about them hiring micro influencers, I just thought of them as, perhaps, a message conduit, but receiving these questions (lalo na yung most recent. I mean? Saan nanggaling yung ipapatanggal ang ambulant vendors?), kinilabutan ako.”–@hannahbarrantes

As I said during the interview in ________, those in the lower economic level are not being reached by the truth brigade. The battle against “fake news” should be approached at the grassroots level. Apply the different communication tools in AKAP principle in social marketing (Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice). This should not just be a bullet way of using mass media/social media . We’re only scratching the surface and we are failing in the first step–making people aware. Graduates of _________ know what I’m talking about when I say social marketing concepts for rural development. Same principles.

I’m getting tired. This is the longest election season I experienced. I was just chatting with one of my BFFs and she said if BongBong Marcos wins, they will no longer come back to the Philippines from their vacation in Australia and just process their immigration papers from there. Another former colleague already left for Canada, never to come back.

These are educated people. Brain drain. If Marcos wins, there will be an exodus of skilled and educated Filipinos.

This is what we do on Friday nights.

Twin A applying facial mask on me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Twin A bought me facial masks from SaveMore. I don’t know why but she did. And she insisted that she put it on me tonight to help me relax after work. Since she used her own money for this gift, I obliged.

No filters. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Clean face, pampered with love from my daughter. Nothing can beat that.

Yes, I’m already 42 years old and damn proud of it. If he finds me old, then he has a problem, it’s not me who’s the problem.

Domino effect

Posted on by

So the economist of a global bank told me today that Thailand will take a huge battering this year given that tourism is sooooo down plus global trade is weak, hence, it will continue to register huge current account deficits. Its currency would be the worst performing one this year in the region given that its economy is heavily dependent on external demand like tourism and exports. It is also hurting from the spike in oil since it is also a net importer of petroleum.

Meanwhile, the Philippines—which has been leaning heavily on internal/domestic demand to run its economy—will a bit insulated but with a caveat: its consumer demand will be dampened by a quickening of inflation. The food basket makes up a huge part of of its CPI and it will surely take a hit from the rise in fuel and electricity. Our fuel and power are not subsidized by the government so the full effect of the rise in world market prices easily hurts us. We have the highest power cost in Asia after Japan because we bear the full weight of market prices. Indonesia, which has an inflation rate of 2% mainly due to govt subsidies on fuel/power, will be the least affected by the spike because of this artificial stability in costs of goods and services. But this is at the expense of its national budget that would come under strain—public spending for services and infrastructure would be sacrificed. Malaysia to some extent will enjoy the rise in oil prices and super cycle in semiconductors but at the same time it would have to absorb the costs of these rise in commodities since it also subsidizes fuel and power.

As I said yesterday, the spike in commodity prices will redound to other industries.

Chinese metal giant faces heavy losses on wild nickel ride

Company bet on decline in prices but market has surged

The price of nickel soared as much as 250% in two days to briefly trade above $100,000 a ton early on March 8.   © Reuters

This affects all heavy industries dependent on steel and other alloys. If you’re a trader, it’s nerve wracking to short your position these days. Its suicide. Wild, wild market that we have now.

Despite sleeping late last night because of last-minute portrait sketching exercises (and waking up in the middle of the night because I was angry), I had a surprisingly good sleep thereafter so I was able to wake up in a good disposition. I was able to attend back-to-back meetings today without feeling exhausted and got a couple of stories.

Refreshed, waiting for the Zoom meeting/press briefing to begin this morning. CallMeCreation.com

I’m not good at drawing or whatever I’m doing on paper but it makes me feel great. I like it that I see progress in whatever I’m doing. Expressing myself in colors. Seeing colors. Dipping the brush in pans of colors…it’s like creating a world from what’s inside my head. Whatever I draw doesn’t have to be a replica of what I’m seeing but rather whatever I put on paper is what I see in my head or what my heart tells me I feel I should put on paper.

Here we are, my gay friend, K, and I are chatting and we’re talking about visiting museums when they reopen. I gave him a list of the places that we should go to.

Views of Rodel Tapaya’s work exhibited at the second floor of Artinformal gallery | PHxOTO: Tatler Homes Philippines
Photo: MCAD Manila

I told him I woke up on the right side of the bed this morning. “Art therapy does a lot to me,” I told him. “Art really helps no?” he remarked.

I am not your typical Filipino since I’m not really that interested in going to the US even for a visit. I mean it’s a lot of hassle getting the visa and all. I only entertained the idea because of J. But otherwise it’s not a priority. If I get seconded to our New York office (two-week trip for senior staff), I’m just interested in visiting museums, seeing musicals and straight plays, and eat. That’s it. My older sister did a three-week European trip in 2019 to see museums there because she was already running out of ideas. She was stumped and her painting stopped for a while. I want to do that trip as well. The girls are older now and since we will be moving closer to my mom, the girls can stay with her if I’m away for two to three weeks. I can do that during spring, when they’re on their summer vacation from school. They’re the reason why I limit my trips within Asia. I only can be away for a week or less than two weeks. Once I was away for 11 days (Japan), they were asking and crying why was I away for so long?

Let’s see if I can go to a photography exhibit this weekend.

We’re f*cked up so much

Posted on by

The markets are on a tailspin and commodities traders are going nuts. I’ve never seen prices like this before, not even in 2008 when the world had gone mad.

LME halts nickel trading after contract soars to $100,000 a ton

Price doubles to new high after short squeeze after Russia invades Ukraine

The extraordinary surge in the price of nickel has led the London Metal Exchange to suspend trading in those contracts.   © Reuters March 8, 2022 18:45 JST

Nickel miners here in the Philippines and Indonesia must be very happy right now but industrials are not. Steel bars are going to be very expensive and it would hit real estate companies that are building high rises. I remember one former Ayala Land president getting fired for hedging steel bars in 2007-2008, when prices were sky-high (according to grapevine). I was the one who interviewed him when he revealed that they hedged. That was also the problem with Philippine Airlines around that time, they hedged jet fuel—and registered losses when it just exited receivership. I clearly remember those times when I had been busy writing about those things…writing about going into the red. By that time I was already used to writing so much negative news having been seasoned by the global financial crisis–especially after Lehman Brothers fell.

I remember asking real estate companies then if they would make their units smaller or scale back project launches given that all prices of raw materials shot up. Their answer: both.

Younger local reporters ought to ask the corporates the same questions now if these reporters are enterprising and not boxed in like the usual lazy reportage that I had seen in my time with local media. During this time I should also have to ask them about possible refinancing or deleveraging given that interest rates would soon swing to an unfavorable direction. Let’s see how their financing programs would pan out with this crazy market that we have right now.

I’ve been watching sketching and urban sketching lessons online along with my Domestika subscription to level up my basic skills whenever I couldn’t sleep. I draw until I feel sleepy. It’s hard to have your mind blank when you’re waiting for your brain to stop working.

My facial proportion exercise no. 1. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
I purchased this course but I haven’t been following it step by step because I have a day job.

Initial oputput. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I let this scene of Metro Manila viewed from Padi’s Point, Sumulong Highway, Antipolo dry first before layering.

Waiting for it to dry again. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

It’s hard to get the light colors right because the watercolors sometimes look like they’re enough when wet but when they dry up they look very transparent. So I need to layer again and again just to get it right. I’ll do the third layering tomorrow. My sister-in-law said this looks like the start of a zombie apocalypse.

Two nights ago I had a dream that I was performing in the musical Beauty and The Beast. I was at the backstage changing costumes. I was layering a costume underneath and was putting another one on top—the usual technique for actors when they had to deal with quick wardrobe changes. I was playing Belle.

When I woke up, I searched in my heart if I was missing theater. I think I do. It has been more than 20 years since I last performed on stage.

I played a nagging wife here circa 1890s. My partner here died in Oct 2020 but not due to Covid. RIP to you, B.
This was so blurred!I haven’t seen my co-actor here, E, for 25 years!

Theater was so much part of my high school and college life that I still dream about acting on stage. That’s why I love watching musicals and plays. The last adult musical I watched was Les Miserables, (I think), which was the Sydney production, which also performed in Singapore after their Manila run. Before that was PETA’s Rak of Aegis (the original cast) and ohhhh that was a very good one! The very last musical I watched was Repertory Philippines’ Beauty and The Beast when I watched it with the girls. The girls and I also watched one Ballet Philippines performance but I can’t remember if it was Rama and Sita (it’s the Philippines’ version of the Indian epic Ramayana–all Southeast Asian countries influenced by Hinduism have their own versions of Ramayana) or Ballet Manila’s Ibong Adarna

I wish theater will come back. I wish live concerts are back. They were my life then. Now that the girls are much older, I can bring them along with me to more stage performances. When I didn’t have kids, I vowed that I will expose my future children to the arts. Which I eventually did. Even when they were little, I brought the girls to different museums so they can be exposed to visual arts.

The girls at BenCab Museum, Baguio City 2017. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Hmmm…Maybe we could go back to Pinto Art Museum this weekend. I’ll check also some art galleries that might be open now.

Gallery 7, Pinto Art Museum 02 February 2020. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Woke up a few hours after I dozed off. I should go back to sleep but I can’t. I’m angry. Oh fuck you.