Maniolas

THE Philippines must look beyond the European Union’s Generalized System of Preferences+ (EU-GSP+) and explore additional protection and promotion tools for its exports, specifically through the use of Geographical Indications (GIs). Geographical Indications are a form of intellectual property recognition accorded a particular place for its distinctive products or processes, such as Champagne in France for its Champagne wines or Scotland for its Scotch Whiskey, that other producers are prohibited from using on their own labels or promotions. The Philippines acquired a 10-year EU GSP+ membership last December that significantly reduces tariffs for some 6,000 lines for EU imports from the country. However, the Philippines cannot be complacent, since its neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have started building up their GI certifications to gain an advantage in an increasingly competitive global market. This is the message of EU economists and analysts at a recent conference on “EU-GSP+ & Geographical Indications: Leveraging on GIs to Access the EU Market” held in Makati City. Guy Ledoux, ambassador of the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines, said GIs are bestowed on a group, community, locality, region, or country for the quality or craftsmanship of a certain product and protect the commodity from being imitated or claimed by others as their own. He said a likely candidate for GI recognition is the mango from Guimaras in Western Visayas. With GI protection, mango producers elsewhere cannot use “Guimaras Mangoes” on their label. Laurent Lourdais, director-general for agriculture of the Read More …

THREE weeks ago, I ordered P2,000 worth of products from an online store where products sold are from various merchants in different parts of the country. In the past three weeks, deliveries were made and saw that there were several instances where the things that arrived were more than what I ordered or not the brand I asked for. This is a challenge that entrepreneurs have when thinking of putting up a portal that will sell products from various sources and where the deliveries will have to be made by the supplier themselves. If coordination is not made in a documented manner, it can result in errors. Customers asking to return and correct their orders would mean additional costs, as it is not the customer’s fault if wrong deliveries were made and misunderstandings occured on how an item should be delivered in terms of quantity and other concerns. When putting up an e-commerce site, an online store owner must build a front and back-end that should be ready to scale to accommodate 10, 100 or 1,000 orders a day. Such figures are no longer impossible, as there are several local e-commerce providers already processing that volume. Coordinate with suppliers to find out how much can they deliver to you in a month before going full blast in your marketing efforts for a product. If they are only capable of selling 50 items and you sold 100, that is half of your marketing spend that could have been used on other Read More …

OUR 1987 Constitution provides for a uniform, equitable and progressive system of taxation, wherein taxes are based on one’s ability to pay. The poor and the middle class should not be taxed at the same level as the upper class. This is not the case, however, looking at our current tax rates. The Philippines has one of the highest personal income tax rate at 32 percent. This rate has not been adjusted for decades, distorting the lines between the poor, the middle class and the wealthy. The result is, an ordinary employee who earns more than P500,000 annually pays the same 32 percent tax rate as that paid by a company president. Recently, the government increased the tax exemption for bonuses and other benefits. On Jan. 5, 2015, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) released Revenue Regulation (RR) No. 1-2015, expanding the list of tax-exempt benefits to include those received via collective bargaining agreements, as well as productivity incentive schemes to the extent of P10,000 per employee per taxable year. 13th month pay On Feb. 12, 2015, President Benigno Aquino III signed into law Republic Act No. 10653, which increased the ceiling on tax-exempt 13th month pay and other benefits to P82,000 from P30,000. The new law also mandates that the President adjust this threshold every three years to its present value using the consumer price index as published by the National Statistics Office. Despite these developments, the tax savings may only be felt by those receiving 13th month pay Read More …

SOME areas in Mindanao will still experience brownouts despite having an optimistic power supply situation on the island, an official from Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) said. Romeo Montenegro, director of investment promotions and public affairs of MinDA, told Sun.Star Davao earlier that some electric cooperatives in Mindanao are buried in debts. “They are saddled with debts, that is why their ability to contract is limited to their cash flow,” he said, adding that many of these electric cooperatives are mostly located in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (Armm). He said they are working closely with the Department of Energy (DOE), National Power Corporation (NPC), and the National Electrification Administration (NEA) to look into the situation of these electric cooperatives. “Definitely, one of the discussions way forward is coming up with specific plans to be able to address their financial debacle,” Montenegro said. He also said the collection efficiency of these electric cooperatives should also be improved. “Before these electric cooperatives would be able to expect improve supply situation for their respective areas, it is important that they are also able to demonstrate headways and improvements in terms of collection efficiency,” Montenegro said. Aside from that, another factor why some areas will still be experiencing problems is that these electric cooperatives have contracted power projects that are yet to operate in 2016 and 2017. “There are some electric cooperatives who may find themselves still having short fall because their contracts are not yet available since the power plants are still Read More …