Oceana Partners with Stakeholders to Champion Benham Rise

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Together with its allies in the government and private sector, Oceana Philippines is urgently pushing for the legal protection of Benham Rise (renamed recently as Philippine Rise) as a marine protected area including the declaration of Benham Bank, the shallowest portion of Benham Rise, as a no-take zone, where human activity is not allowed.

In a policy dialogue called “Bayanihan Para sa Benham” hosted by Oceana and graced by representatives from various government agencies and other stakeholders, Director Mundita Lim of the Biodiversity Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources shared that Benham Rise was designated as an Ecologically and Biologically Significant Marine Area (EBSA) by 196 countries during the 13th Meeting of the Convention of Parties (COP) to the Convention of Biological Diversity in Mexico in December 2016.

EBSAs are said to be “geographically or oceanographically discrete areas that provide important services to one or more species or populations of an ecosystem or to the ecosystem as a whole, compared to other surrounding areas or areas of similar ecological characteristics, or otherwise meet the following scientific criteria: Uniqueness or rarity, Special importance for life history stages of species, Importance for threatened, endangered or declining species and / or habitats, Vulnerability, fragility, sensitivity or slow recovery, Biological productivity, Biological diversity and Naturalness.” Benham Rise scored high in four of the seven criteria, a global recognition of its importance, and of being pristine and unique.

The COP Decision described Benham Rise as “relatively pristine … of critical ecological importance, including for offshore mesophotic coral reef biodiversity and for the sustainability of fisheries.” It added that “aside from being an important source of biodiversity and contributing to the resiliency of threatened ecosystems,” Benham Rise was also cited as “forming part of the only known spawning area of the Pacific blue fin tuna, Thunnus orientalis.” Other world famous EBSAs include the famed Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and the Rajah Ampat Park in Indonesia.

“We need to conduct more research on Benham Rise to know exactly what there is to protect,” explained BMB Director Mundita Lim.

Tugade Leads Groundbreaking of LRT East Extension Project

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“Life must go on”.

This was how Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Arthur P. Tugade described the administration’s eagerness to pursue projects and initiatives that could move the economic development of the country, despite the ongoing situation in Marawi City.

In a speech during the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Masinag and Emerald stations of the LRT-2 East Extension Project on Tuesday morning, Secretary Tugade took the said rail line extension project as an example of how the government is taking its infrastructure commitments seriously, while also equally attending to other significant state concerns.

“Kahit may sigalot sa Marawi, life must go on. This should not deter us from pushing for our economy to grow and prosper,” Secretary Tugade stressed.



A little inconvenience in construction

Secretary Tugade also appealed for patience and understanding from the commuting public while the two new stations are being constructed. He mentioned that the construction may cause traffic congestion in the affected areas.

“This will cause a bit of inconvenience. The construction will cause a bit of traffic but we should get this done. Panandaliang hirap pero ang kapalit ay pangmatagalang ginhawa,” he quipped.

The LRT-2 East Extension Project involves the construction of a 4.0 kilometer extension of the existing LRT-2 System from Santolan, Pasig City to Masinag in Antipolo. Rizal. Two (2) additional stations will be built: (a) the Emerald station, which will be located in front of Robinsons Metro East and Sta. Lucia in Cainta, Rizal; and (b) the Masinag station, which will be located before the Masinag Junction in Antipolo City. These stations are expected to accommodate 80,000 passengers/day.

Once completed, the extended line is expected to significantly cut the commuting time from Masinag in Antipolo to Claro M. Recto in the city of Manila by 30 to 40 minutes from an average of 3 hours of driving on the road.

The construction of stations is set to be finished in August 2018.


Noble project

Rizal Governor Rebecca Ynares describes the new additional stations in the LRT Line 2 as a “noble project” as she expressed her gratitude to the administration for making this long-desired plan of their province possible.

“In behalf of the people of the province of Rizal, I would like to thank the administration of President Duterte for bringing this noble project in the province of Rizal. For quite a long time, traffic has always been a problem of our province. Kaya sobrang-sobra ang aming kagalakan at pasasalamat… na magkaroon ng katuparan ang matagal na naming hinahangad sa lalawigan ng Rizal,” Governor Ynares said.

Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Mark A. Villar, on the other hand, lauded his “partner” Secretary Tugade and the DOTr for the successive constructions that the department is doing.

“Bilib na bilib po ako kay Sec Art dahil sunod-sunod po ang kanyang mga openings. Eto at kakatapos lang po ng opening dun po sa LRT 1. Ramdam na ramdam po ang presence ng DOTr,” Secretary Villar said.

Aside from Secretaries Tugade and Villar, and Governor Ynares, the groundbreaking ceremony was also attended by Light Railway Transit Authority (LRTA) Administrator Gen. Reynaldo I. Berroya (Ret.), Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Gen. Danilo D. Lim (Ret.), Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC) President Rogelio L. Singson, Antipolo City Administrator Mr. Robert Nacianceno, Senior Vice President of DM Consunji inc. (DMCI) Mr. David Villaviray, officers of DMCI, and representatives from the cities of Marikina, Antipolo, Cainta and Pasig.

Robinsons Supermarket Automates Inventory and Replenishment with JDA

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Large supermarket chain in the Philippines addresses highly segmented customer base, increase productivity of its stores and improved efficiency with its processes

Supermarket retailing is a highly dynamic industry. Hundreds of products are introduced and delisted week to week. To remain relevant to its customers, Robinsons Supermarket needs to ensure it offers the right products, at the right place, at the right time, and at the right price, and turned to JDA Software Group, Inc. Robinsons Supermarket – a JDA customer for almost two decades – recently upgraded its JDA Merchandise Management System and JDA Space Planning footprint to improve and streamline its database management capabilities and automate its relevant operational processes.  

Robinsons Supermarket is a subsidiary of Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI), the second largest multi-channel retailer in the Philippines with $2.1 billion in net sales in 2016. Founded in 1980, RRHI operates six business segments, with nearly 1,600 stores and an additional 1,912 franchised stores of The Generics Pharmacy as of December 2016.

According to Robina Gokongwei-Pe, President and Chief Operating Officer at Robinsons Supermarket, “As the supermarket is a non-discretionary format that serves the daily needs of our customers, we have to ensure that the products that meet these needs are always available on-shelf. An efficient and equipped supply chain process powered by JDA has enabled us and our vendors to address the persistent challenge of on-shelf stock availability.”

Targeted expansion to different regions in the Philippines coupled with strong organic growth, has ushered in an increase in the volume of transactions, vendors, SKUs, and database records. As Robinsons ventured into three more sub-formats under the tradenames of Robinsons Easymart (minimart), Robinsons Selections (premium supermarket), and Jaynith’s (discount supermarket), it required a scalable ecosystem of solutions that could proactively handle the ever-changing and increasing demands of the business. More than ever, Robinsons needed to view its stores, customers, and SKUs through different lenses to create more customized and engaging programs for shoppers. This upgrade enables Robinsons Supermarket to address the changing needs in price, promotions management, analytics, database management, backend processing and record management.

Robinsons operates an integrated ecosystem of solutions from stores to a central office where JDA Merchandise Management System serves as its core transactional and operational system handing PO management, price and cost, transfer, and database management, rebate and adjustments as well as warehouse management. Its point-of-sale (POS) solution sends data to JDA Merchandise Management System, where a customized auto-replenishment system generates suggested orders that are pushed to vendors via a supplier portal. Deliveries to the distribution center (DC) and stores are also handled in JDA Merchandise Management System. JDA Space Planning is used to create generic planograms which are incorporated with display guidelines to help stores execute the proper and equitable display of the items on-shelf.

Robinsons can now create purchase orders with larger amounts and quantities to cater to growing consumer requirements, attach unlimited attributes to SKUs and stores to help provide a deeper analysis of data, and assign longer reference series to transactions to avoid constant purging of records. It also provided improved backend processing of data and transaction management capabilities, allowing Robinsons to focus on its customers. Planogram visualizations created from JDA Space Planning made display guidelines easier to understand and follow, and has improved the compliance with plans and strategies in stores.

“At Robinsons Supermarket, we consider JDA as one of our core solutions,” said Anthony Paul Pasia, Information Systems Delivery Manager. “By tapping into the JDA’s transactional and database management capabilities, we streamlined our processes, increased our productivity, enhanced our understanding of our customers, and completed our operational tasks and activities more efficiently. Simply put, JDA helped us achieve our mission of putting our customers at the heart and center of our business.”

Moving forward in 2017, Robinsons plans to improve and upgrade its category management capabilities by implementing JDA Assortment Planning, JDA Floor Planning, and JDA Space Planning Automation solutions.

“With this solution, Robinsons can address its highly segmented customer base, each with different demands,” said Vishal Dhawan, Vice President, Sales, ASEAN & India, JDA. “We are pleased to work with a customer such as Robinsons for so many years and see their evolution take place in line with market shifts, helping them keep pace with consumer needs and allow them to focus on its core business.”