MANILA: Sweltering heat in the Philippines can curb farm production, disrupt water and power and weigh on businesses, but it also takes a toll on students, hampering the Southeast Asian nation's efforts to catch up to its neighbours in education.
Heat indices have hit 50 degrees Celsius in various regions in the Philippines, as the weather phenomenon El Nino intensifies the heat enveloping the nation in its summer months of March to May.
The Philippines scores among the lowest in the world in mathematics, science and reading, partly because of years of inadequate remote learning during the pandemic, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment, an international study of education systems.
"It is extremely hot now. The heat burns my skin, it's not like the usual (summer) heat that is tolerable," said senior high school student Kirt Mahusay, 23, whose education was halted during COVID-19.
"In May, we're expecting more class suspensions because of the heatwaves. We're seeing an average of more than 52 degrees Celsius, so you could imagine how stressful that would be for learners," said Xerxes Castro, basic education adviser for Save the Children Philippines.
"This is the hottest I've ever experienced here," said Nancy Bautista, 65, whose resort in Cavite province near Manila was fully booked.
"Many of our guests are friends and families. They swim in the pool to fight the heat."
March, April and May are typically the hottest and driest months of the year in the region but this year's conditions have been exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon.
"All places in the country, not necessarily just Metro Manila, are expected to have hotter temperatures until the second week of May," Glaiza Escullar of the state weather forecaster told AFP.
Camiling municipality in Tarlac province, north of Manila, recorded a temperature of 40.3 degrees Celsius on Saturday - the highest in the Philippines this year.
As the mercury rose, Gerise Reyes, 31, planned to take her two-year-old daughter to a shopping mall near Manila.
"It's hot here at home. This is the hottest I've ever experienced, especially between 10am and 4pm," she said.
"We need a free aircon to cut our electricity bill."
BANGKOK: Thai former energy executive Pichai Chunhavajira was named the country's finance minister on Sunday (Apr 28), facing a tough task to revive Southeast Asia's second-largest economy.
Pichai, 75, an adviser to Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, takes over from Srettha as finance minister and becomes deputy prime minister, the official Royal Gazette said, announcing his appointment by the king.
Pichai was the chair of the board of Bangchak Corp since 2012. He headed the board of the Stock Exchange of Thailand for less than three months this year and was on the central bank board from 2014 to 2017.
Lagging its regional peers, the Thai economy faces high household debt and borrowing costs, as well as China's slowdown.
Gross domestic product unexpectedly shrank in the final quarter of 2023 from the third, while growth last year slowed to 1.9 per cent from 2.5 per cent in 2022. The state planning agency in February cut its 2024 growth forecast to between 2.2 per cent and 3.2 per cent from a previous 2.7 per cent-3.7 per cent projection.
The controversial stimulus has been delayed to late 2024 due to a lack of funding and concerns about the impact on public debt, with economists and some former central bank governors criticising it as fiscally irresponsible.
The government, rejecting that criticism, is forging ahead with the scheme, although the central bank recommends it be targeted only towards vulnerable groups.
Srettha, a real estate mogul and political newcomer, has been finance minister since taking office last year.
He has been at loggerheads with the Bank of Thailand over the direction of monetary policy, repeatedly asking it to cut rates to help an economy he describes as at a "critical" stage.
The central bank has resisted that pressure, leaving its key interest rate unchanged at 2.5 per cent, the highest in more than a decade, for a third straight meeting in April. Its next rate review is on Jun 12.
Analysts said Pichai's seniority and political and economic knowledge should help policy coordination with the central bank.
Pichai holds a master's degree in business administration from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and also served as director at PTT Exploration and Production from 2001 to 2013.
Late Cantopop diva Anita Mui’s mother Tam Mei Kam recently turned 100 and the centenariancelebrated the milestone with a small gathering with friends and family.
Snaps from the celebration have since made the rounds online, and in the pics, Mei Kam looked to be in good spirits as she posed with her birthday cake and longevity buns, alongside pink balloons spelling her age.
A sumptuous-looking spread was prepared for the celebration, which appeared to have taken place at Mei Kam’s home.
But perhaps the best birthday present are the ang pows and framed letter Mei Kam received from the Hong Kong government.
According to reports, since 2002, it has been a tradition for the Secretary of the Labour and Welfare Bureau, together with the Chairman of the Elderly Commission, to send birthday greetings to Hong Kong residents who are 100 years old.
They will receive another letter when they turn 105, as well as their birthday every subsequent year.
At the same time, the Ministry of Public Security crushed any discussion of bank runs from social media, imprisoning several people who had posted stories about SCB as a deterrent to others.
The case against Lan and Van Thinh Phat expanded, and eventually prosecutors made the explicit link between them and SCB. The government case showed that Lan had secretly acquired 91.5 per cent of the bank, through 27 nominees, following its 2012 establishment, when three insolvent banks were merged to create SCB.
Cross-ownership among banks and real estate companies, alongside poor management and high levels of corruption, have long been a slow-burn crisis in Vietnam’s banking sector. Without strong and timely solutions from the authorities, it will soon damage Vietnam’s reputation as one of the best investment destinations in Asia.
Truong My Lan, chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Holdings, during her trial at the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court on April 11. Photo: EPA-EFE
From 2016 to 2022, Lan ordered bank officers, who were in on the fraud, to steer 2,500 loans worth more than US$44 billion to some 1,100 shell companies that she and allies controlled. That accounted for 93 per cent of the bank’s total lending and led to some US$27 billion in losses.
Lan got away with it by bribing a senior regulator at the central bank, and some 23 other government regulators, with US$5.2 million to falsify their oversight reports of SCB and hide bad debts and evidence of wrongdoing.
When it all came crashing down, there were some 1,300 outstanding loans to Lan and her affiliates, worth a total of 677 trillion dong (US$27 billion). Seventy per cent of the loans were deemed “unrecoverable”. In addition, the bank is not getting any of the interest payments on the loans.
Lan was convicted and sentenced to death for masterminding the fraud and personally embezzling US$12.5 billion.
But with her conviction and the scope of her fraud revealed, public confidence in SCB plummeted again.
In mid-2023, the State Bank of Vietnam submitted for government approval a restructuring plan for SCB, and in September it appointed a new chairman for the bank. Yet the bank remains saddled with the non-performing loans to Van Thinh Phat, its subsidiaries, and some 1,000 or so shell companies.
The Vietnam Asset Management Company, which was established in 2013 to buy up distressed assets, has been involved, but SBC’s losses dwarf VAMC’s assets and ability to raise funds through bond offerings.
A Vietnamese flag flies atop the State Bank building in central Hanoi. Its bailout of SCB amounted to 6 per cent of Vietnam’s GDP last year. Photo: Reuters
To put it into perspective, the current SCB bailout amounted to 6 per cent of Vietnam’s gross domestic product of US$430 billion in 2023.
But, according to Reuters, deposits at SCB fell by 80 per cent to US$6 billion between October 2022 and December 2023. At the same time, consumers have been withdrawing their funds at record rates.
SCB was once one of the largest banks in the country in terms of assets, as it attracted depositors with high interest rates. In de facto receivership, its rates are no longer above market. And added to that is a lack of trust in the bank’s solvency, or the government’s ability to guarantee deposits.
Compounding SCB’s woes, non-performing loans are now over 97 per cent of its lending portfolio – while under 3 per cent is considered “healthy” in Vietnam.
The court ordered Lan and her family to come up with US$27 billion in restitution, and is now liquidating 1,112 assets, including the iconic Saigon One Tower and Saigon Peninsula hotel. Lan’s husband sold roughly US$1 billion in assets in Hong Kong as part of the restitution process.
Lan argues that the court’s valuation of Van Thinh Phat’s assets, roughly US$12 billion, is a fraction of her valuation of more than US$30 billion.
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Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death for US$12.5 billion fraud
Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death for US$12.5 billion fraud
While liquidation should recover 30 per cent of the Van Thinh Phat fraud, roughly US$13 billion to US$14 billion, it will be a slow process. And that has forced the government to quietly inject an unprecedented US$24 billion in “special loans” since March 29 to keep SCB solvent, a number that seems suspiciously large, given the bank’s overall size.
“Without lending, SCB will collapse,” an insider told Reuters. “Yet the scale was absolutely unsustainable. If the lending continues, the national treasury will gradually dry up.” The lending amounts to nearly one-quarter of the country’s US$100 billion in foreign reserves.
Historically, when similar banking crises happened, the central bank sought help from other local banks to bail out the troubled ones. Given the economic slowdown since the Covid-19 pandemic, no local bank appears to have sufficient capital to rescue SCB at the moment.
It is much less attractive to foreign investors given the 30 per cent cap on foreign ownership and how fragile the banking and real estate sectors are at the moment, plus the lack of trust in the banking system’s corporate governance and transparency.
Already, the government and State Bank of Vietnam have a lot on their plate. The economy is slowing, and the government has had to intervene to shore up the dong against the dollar, while the government announced the first auction of gold since 2013, to stabilise the precious metal’s soaring price.
Signage atop a Saigon Commercial Bank branch in Ho Chi Minh City. SCB was an important commercial lender before the fraud was uncovered. Photo: Bloomberg
Impact on the banking system
This has huge repercussions for the economy. First, SCB was an important commercial lender.
To make matters worse, other banks have drastically reduced their lending, despite the fact that their deposits are substantially up. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh recently held a meeting where he chastised bank executives for failing to lend.
Yet banks have reason to be cautious in their lending given the scope of the Van Thinh Phat and SCB fraud.
Moreover, as a result of the scandal, financial regulators are under intense scrutiny right now and are looking at the banks’ balance sheets with a bit more rigour than in the past.
A container port in Quy Nhon, Vietnam’s Binh Dinh province. Vietnam’s economy grew by 5.66 per cent in the first quarter, below target. Photo: AFP
There are also market forces at work. Vietnam’s economy is still too tied to exports and is too vulnerable to externalities. Nikkei Asia Review reported a 20 per cent year-on-year increase in corporate failures in 2023, which has caused banks to be even more cautious.
Third, the loss of confidence in SCB could very likely have a contagion effect on the entire banking system. The government has been stretched to the limit dealing with SCB; it cannot afford to deal with multiple simultaneous bank runs.
All of this comes when Vietnam’s growth in the first quarter, though still at 5.66 per cent, is below the target and the 6.72 per cent growth rate in the last quarter of 2023. Vietnam’s target is 6-6.5 per cent growth for 2024, but a major banking crisis would thwart that.
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington, DC, where he focuses on Southeast Asian politics and security issues. The views are his own and do not reflect those of the National War College or Department of Defence.
Truong My Lan was found guilty in April of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank for over a decade.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
HANOI – A top Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death in a US$27 billion (S$36.8 billion) fraud case has launched an appeal against her conviction, state media said on April 26.
Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, was found guilty in April of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank for over a decade.
The 68-year-old was found to have embezzled US$12.5 billion, but prosecutors said the total damages caused by the scam now amounted to US$27 billion – one of the biggest frauds in history, equivalent to 6 per cent of Vietnam’s 2023 gross domestic product.
Thanh Nien news site said Lan has filed an appeal against the verdict and sentence and that the court in Ho Chi Minh City had received it.
Lan said in her appeal that she took on risks through the bank but did not appropriate the bank’s money.
After a five-week trial, 85 others were sentenced alongside Lan on charges ranging from bribery and abuse of power to appropriation and violations of banking law.
Four were given life imprisonment, while the others received jail terms ranging between 20 years and three years suspended.
The police have identified around 42,000 victims of the scandal, which has shocked the South-east Asian country.
The case was part of a national corruption crackdown that has swept up numerous officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.
The latest scalp was the head of the National Assembly, who resigned on April 26 because of “violations and shortcomings”, according to a party statement.
On April 25, the head of one of Vietnam’s top soft drinks companies was jailed for eight years in a US$40 million fraud case. AFP
NEW YORK: New York prosecutors said on Friday (Apr 26) they had returned to Cambodia and Indonesia 30 antiquities that were looted, sold or illegally transferred by networks of American dealers and traffickers.
The antiquities were valued at a total of US$3 million, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.
Bragg said in a statement that he had returned 27 pieces to Phnom Penh and three to Jakarta in two recent repatriation ceremonies, including a bronze of the Hindu deity Shiva ("Shiva Triad") looted from Cambodia and a stone bas-relief of two royal figures from the Majapahit empire (13th-16th century) stolen from Indonesia.
Bragg accused art dealers Subhash Kapoor, an Indian-American, and American Nancy Wiener in the illegal trafficking of the antiquities.
Kapoor, accused of running a network trafficking in items stolen in Southeast Asia for sale in his Manhattan gallery, has been the target of a US justice investigation dubbed "Hidden Idol" for more than a decade.
Arrested in 2011 in Germany, Kapoor was sent back to India where he was tried and sentenced in November 2022 to 13 years in prison.
Responding to a US indictment for conspiracy to traffic in stolen works of art, Kapoor denied the charges.
"We are continuing to investigate the wide-ranging trafficking networks that ... target Southeast Asian antiquities," Bragg said in the statement.
