for their efforts in conceptualizing this program, and also the tireless and always strong efforts of Ambassador Joey Quisha and the Philippine Embassy for making the program happen. So CSIS is really the third wheel here. We are just happy to be able to host you all, but we really appreciate the leadership of both these organizations. It's my honor to introduce today the chairman, the co-chair of the U.S. Philippine Society, a man who was ambassador to the Philippines, ambassador to Mexico, head of the U.S. intelligence agencies, someone who held many important positions in the U.S. government is also vice chairman of McClarty and Associates Consulting, John Negroponte. John, would you tell us what we're all about? Very much, Ernie, and good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon to Secretary Sing Song, Ambassador Quicia, Secretary Romulo, Secretary Gary Lau, other distinguished participants from the Philippines in the United States, ladies and gentlemen. The U.S. Philippine Society is privileged to join with CSIS in sponsoring this timely symposium on Typhoon Haiyan one year after the most powerful storm in history struck the Visayan Islands. I'm delighted to welcome such an impressive lineup of participants, including leaders from the Philippines, from the State Department, USAID, foundations, the private sector, and experts on preparedness, all of whom worked hard over the past year to assist those in need after the storm and who continue to provide leadership needed to complete the recovery and build resilience. Their job this afternoon will be to share with you insights on response and recovery in the wake of an unprecedented natural disaster. They will review lessons learned with an eye on shaping responses to future challenges. Each sector represented here has a vital role to play. Philippine institutions, international donors, including U.S. agencies, the NGO community, and business. Their complementary efforts over the past year were in many ways a model of good response teamwork. But the involvement of so many different entities can pose challenges to effective overall coordination. Our goal today is to learn through sharing perspectives and to increase public awareness of continuing recovery needs. You'll also hear about the Philippines' continuing vulnerability to the forces of nature. The good news is that the public-private partnerships, partnership initiatives from leaders like Secretary Romulo are underway to strengthen resilience even as rebuilding after Haiyan continues. Today's Philippines is reaching new heights of achievement from responsive democratic governance to record-setting economic growth. Completing the Haiyan recovery and building preparedness can help assure this progress continues and offer people the prospect of a safer and more secure future. So I want to thank you for your interest and support and welcome you all to this symposium. Thank you very much. I'd like to now invite our moral leader, Joey Cuisia, the ambassador of the Philippines. Ambassador. Thank you, Ernie, for those very kind words. Secretary Rogelio Singson, Secretary Roberto Romulo, U.S. Philippines Society Co-Chair, Ambassador John Negroponte, Mr. Ernie Bauer, Chair of the Sumitral Chair for CSIS. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon to all of you. First of all, let me thank Ernie and his team at CSIS for having collaborated, cooperated with the U.S. Philippines Society and the Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C. in organizing this forum. I'm pleased that so many of you have joined us this afternoon, one year after Typhoon Haiyan. The massive devastation brought about by this tragedy makes the effort of rebuilding an unenviable task. It is, in fact, it is difficult to imagine the scope of the work that must have been done in the affected areas, roughly the size of Portugal. However, this isn't an impossibility given the concerted effort between the national local governments, aid organizations, and concerned organizations and individuals. Thankfully, the collective efforts have been immense. Indeed, this unprecedented natural disaster was met with an unprecedented global response that continues today. Resources were mobilized quickly and a massive scale. We're grateful to organizations like Project Hope, which delivered more than $23 million worth of medicine, medical supplies, and deployed over 80 medical volunteers. We have so many other organizations to thank, that USAID, Team Rubicon, Mammoth Medical Missions, and many, many other NGOs. And as we have said before, we thank the American people for their generosity and the US government for the very immediate and massive response that they extended to our suffering people. We're also witnessing individual stories of heartwarming generosity. For example, we received a check for $1,000 from Sam, the Korean American owner of the coffee shop across the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, where some of us in the embassy once in a while take lunch. With a troop of young Girl Scouts come to the embassy, donating all of their cookie sales for the victims of Taekwun Haiyan. With members of a Vietnamese American organization go house to house in their neighborhoods to solicit donations. Today, one year after Taekwun Haiyan, it is important for us to celebrate this acts of selflessness. Yes, but also to reassess the lessons learned from this tragedy. We want to ensure that when faced with similar occurrences, we're better prepared to serve and protect our people. It is our hope that as we reflect upon this in the Philippines, we also inspire others to prepare for the challenges of the future. Our keynote speaker as Secretary of Public Works and Highways may be the best individual to help us reflect on lessons learned from Haiyan as his office works on the rehabilitation and development in areas affected by the storm. I have great pleasure then introducing Cabinet Secretary, loaded by President Benigno Kino during his last State of the Nation address as well as in other State of the Nation addresses as having cut corruption in the Philippines, particularly in his department, once known to be one of the most corrupt, the Department of Public Works and Highways. That citation merited a lot of interest. A lot of people asked, why was that important? Well, in a nation whose public service history is filled with stories of selfishness and self-sicking interests, it was interesting to hear a feel good story. But more than just a story, I can assure you it is a new reality for the Philippines at its cease marked improvements in the public works and highway sector. As the President said, under speakers leadership, the department has covered holes in the old system and smoothened processes in the agency. Small but very meaningful changes such as reducing the number of documents required for bidders from 20 to five have had dramatic impact. It has not only expedited processes, but more importantly, eliminated many opportunities for frauds and bribes. The Secretary takes pride in the fact that he has reduced his entire workforce by 25%, but triple the output of his department. A speaker's career spans decades of work in both the private and public sectors as an industrial engineer and businessman, working successfully in the areas of public-private partnership, water and power utilities management and privatization, management of airports, seaports, resorts, tall roads and expressways. He helped transform former U.S. military bases into thriving economic zones under the basis conversion development authority and managed private water services company of the western zone of Metro Manila. No doubt, the attention to detail and focus on efficiencies have been honed over years in the private sector and the ability to maneuver treacherous politicking, something he has developed in working with the government. This combination of skills, his very low key demeanor and distaste for the limelight has kept him under the radar, but not for long. He's continuously being recognized for his efforts which speaks loudly enough for someone who'd rather be quietly working. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming my fellow Lassal alumni, businessman and public servant, the current Secretary of Public Works and Highways of the Republic of the Philippines, the Honorable Rogelio Lasso-Singsun. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador Quisha, and thank you for inviting me here. Despite the long travel, I had to oblige knowing that you're also from Lassal. Thank you. Ambassador Jana Groponte, Co-Chair of the U.S. Philippine Society, Ambassador Quisha, Ambassador Roberto Romulo, Ambassador John Maisto, my old friend, good friend, Ambassador Tom Hubbard, Mr. Ernest Bauer. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Allow me again to thank the Philippines, U.S. Philippine Society for inviting me to this event, Typhoon Haiyan, one year after. Before I start, I would like to also express on behalf of the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, our heartfelt gratitude for the assistance given to our countrymen. Can we have these slides on please? Let me get used to this setup. Allow me to start by saying that it has definitely been very challenging to make the decisions and necessary actions as quickly as we could, given the scale and magnitude of the devastation, the huge funding needed and considering the effect on the government facilities in the Typhoon path, and as well as on government employees who were also themselves victims. In addition to Typhoon Haiyan was, we had two other calamities, one manmade, and this was in the Sambuanga siege by Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines, and a month prior to Haiyan was the devastating earthquake in the province of Bohol, so this was coming one after the other. Having said that, the Typhoon Haiyan should not have been so surprising since the Philippines experiences an average of 20 Typhoons every year, and that the Philippines, we are aware, is considered among the top three countries most vulnerable to climate change. However, the only difference is that Typhoon Haiyan was packing the strongest Typhoon to make landfall in recorded history. This is the path of Typhoon Haiyan with a width of 100 kilometers, we call this the Typhoon Haiyan Belt. It affected close to 1.5 million families and displacing over 900,000 families. Total recorded fatalities, 6,300, and 1,600 more persons missing. The initial estimated total damages and losses is placed at close to 13 billion US dollars, and the initial estimated costs for recovery and rehabilitation for both public and private is estimated at 8.2 billion US dollars. The affected, six affected regions has a total population of 29.5 million, and this contributes 17.4% of the country's GDP. Unfortunately, the bulk of the population of these regions are already considered relatively poor, with the average income of these affected provinces only at 75% of the national average. And also these provinces have already high malnutrition rate. So this area that was hit is already considered poor with high malnutrition rate. President Aquino thought it best to create the Office of the Presidential Assistance for Rehabilitation and Recovery, or OPAR. This is headed by Secretary Panfilo Laxon. Unfortunately, I understand Secretary Laxon could not make it today. Secretary Laxon, after consultations with line agencies, local government units, and coordinating donor institutions and humanitarian organizations, submitted the Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Plan to President Aquino sometime last August, we call this the CRRP. With the completion of the plan, it also signaled, keep in mind, we had already transitioned from relief to rehabilitation at that point. The CRRP total funding requirement is placed at 3.82 billion US dollars. The breakdown is as follows. There are four major components. The infrastructure has a budget of 35 billion or 0.8 billion, and this is infrastructure component or cluster is headed by the Department of Public Works. So we handle or put together all the requirements for rebuilding damaged roads, bridges, airports, and all the other infrastructure facilities. The resettlement component, which is the biggest component of all four, accounts for 75.6 billion or 1.75 billion US dollars. This requires the construction of 205,000 housing units which was identified jointly by the local government and the National Government Agency. This called for a resettlement requirement of close to 2,000 hectares, and which was not easy to locate or to identify in those areas. The third is the livelihood component which involves the provision of livelihood assistance, fishing boats. This was also done in collaboration with the private sector. And the fourth component, the social services which accounted for 26.41 billion. This included cash for work, shelter assistance, scholarship grants to those victims so that they could finish their schooling for that calendar year. And construction materials assistance. The construction materials assistance component are given to those families whose houses were damaged and who could be allowed to rebuild where they stayed. Because what we did was remove all those families or informal settlers that were staying in what we referred to as high hazard areas or those on the shorelines. So that's what the resettlement component is resettling the 2,205,128,000 housing units. So far, of the total amount needed of 167 billion, 52 billion pesos has been released to the various agencies, including some of the local government needs for their own rehabilitation of local facilities. Now let me share, because of limited time, go straight into lessons learned. President Aquino adopted the Build Back Better policy in the reconstruction efforts. We did not agree to just allowing them to reconstruct based on old designs. We had to redesign and upgrade our standards for more resilient school buildings, hospitals, even houses to be able to withstand 250 kilometer force wind. The Department of Science and Technology and the Weather Station Pagasa, or Weather Bureau Pagasa, have been directed to modify warning systems for more effective early warning and better community awareness, including the new storm surge alerts. We did not have storm surge alerts before. This is now part of their warning systems. We also realized that many of the national agencies and local government units did not have the capability to plan, design, and implement infrastructure projects of the scale and magnitude brought about by Yolanda. Local government units did not have enough engineering staff to be able to assess and design the damaged facilities. Finally, we realized the need for more resilient public infrastructure that could continue to be operational during and after a typhoon or major disaster. In this case, we have identified in these areas either a school or a hospital or a municipal facility to be built with enough, with backup power, backup water, as well as backup telecommunications so that they become effective evacuation centers in the event of another calamity of this magnitude. Let me mention some of the strategic policies that have been adopted. There now, there has been an existing cabinet level climate change commission which focuses on tracking budgets of the different departments for climate change adaptation and risk reduction. We are deliberately increasing our investments in climate change and disaster reduction management. We believe in the principle that $1 of investment in disaster prevention can save us $7 of rehabilitation costs in the future. The second major policy decision was the adoption of an IWRM or integrated water resources principles as well as a river basin approach for effective utilization of water resources and flood management. This is something new in the thinking of government. The president recently approved the creation of a cabinet level water board as we pursue a major institutional restructuring of some 30 agencies of government involved in the water sector. Finally, because precisely of the scale and magnitude of the damage brought about by Yolanda, the president decided to create a special purpose office, the office of the presidential assistant for rehabilitation recovery to focus on coordinating the efforts of government, the private sector and the international humanitarian organizations. Let me though mention that there needs a better coordination between national government and the hundreds of NGOs, CSOs and the humanitarian organizations because of the level three category of the Typhoon Haiyan. Let me mention some of the challenges and the measures that we have adopted. First, as I mentioned, the damage public buildings did not have enough proper design engineering, construction materials, construction workmanship was poor. So we have upgraded the science. We have been providing technical assistance to LGUs. We've even issued a complete guide to constructing more resilient houses. We have in the case of absorptive capacity of NGAs or national government agencies, we have provided with the help of USAID as well as some other international agencies to provide engineering support to LGUs to help them design, implement as well as monitor the proper construction of the rehabilitation. Project monitoring, OPAR has implemented what an IT based empathy for project monitoring and fund utilization. The availability, quality and cost of construction materials and supplies are being monitored strictly. In fact, OPAR has impounded or confiscated, I believe over 100 million worth of substandard materials. Location of safe sites, this has always been a challenge. As I mentioned, because of the scale and magnitude, we had to identify some close to 2000 hectares for resettlement and this was not an easy task. Availability and time release of funds, this has been addressed and the president has already authorized the timely releases of funds for rehabilitation. Let me show you one major intervention and this is the structural intervention that is planned for Takloban, Palo and Tanawan. The first slide on the left shows you what happened in Yolanda. A 100 year return data, as the colors get darker, that means the tide, the storm surge is about five meters, four to five meters. So in this area that would be five meters, four meters and then as the color gets lighter, that's about one meter. We are designing for a 50 year return period and the intention is to create a road dike. The plan is to raise the existing national road and create a sea wall total of 27 kilometers that will protect some 28,000 square kilometers of Takloban, Palo and Tanawan. Now the president has already authorized the implementation of this major structural intervention starting next year. So we are confident that we will be able to protect these major areas, Takloban, City, Palo and Tanawan from another storm surge, maybe not in the scale of a 100 year, but a 50 year. Should another Yolanda happen, this is the effect. As you can see, there would be less dense. This would still be about less than one meter of flooding, but substantially safer than without any protection at all. Let me just mention in passing that we have also another project, a similar project in Metro Manila and the bidding is ongoing for a 47 kilometer expressway dike in Metro Manila. I have decided to come here to thank you again in helping our countrymen rebuild lives of the victims of Yolanda. And I hope that I've given you an overview of what we've done one year after. Thank you very much and good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I'd like to, are we gonna do questions? Now we'll change out the table and I'll invite the first panel to join us up at the podium. Thank you very much for your comments. So can I invite the first panel to join me? We're back. Our next panel will look backwards, a retrospective, lessons learned and the challenges from the experience of Haiyan. We're honored to have a great lineup of guests. Oh, we need one more chair. Now that we have seats for our first panel, we'll start the panel. We have a great panel. I will briefly introduce them and ask them each to share about five to seven minutes. Because it's a large panel, I ask you to work with me on that timing and try to keep to time. Our first panelist is Karen Jimeno McBride. She's head of communications and external affairs for the President's Office, the Philippine President's Office, an assistant for rehabilitation and recovery. I think that's the office the Secretary just mentioned. She's also a lawyer trained both in the Philippines and at Harvard. And for those of you who visit the Philippines, you see her on TV quite a bit. She's a TV star there in the news. Jason Foley is the senior deputy assistant administrator in the Asia Bureau for the US Agency for International Development. He has his portfolio includes disaster relief across Asia. Jason, thanks for joining us. Ernesto Guerrillau is President of the Zwellig Family Foundation, whose mission is to improve health outcomes for the poor. He's joined us from the Philippines. Next to him is Claude Zuckowski. Her name is Claudine, but she goes by Claude, which I really like, you know. I like that name. She is the Global Disaster Relief Coordinator for Procter & Gamble and leads the company's disaster response program. P&G, as you'll find out, was very involved in the response to Haiyan. And finally, last but certainly not least, my friend Renee, we call him Butch. Butch Mele is President of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation, which is the world's first permanent private sector disaster management organization. And he's also the head of Pacific Global One, which is an aviation firm. So Karen, without further ado, can I ask you to take us away? Over a week ago, we marked the first year since Typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda struck the Philippines. And conflicting assessments have been made as to whether our country was prepared for this type of disaster or how the government responded. Some international observers have said that the pace of recovery in the Philippines is faster than what they've seen in other countries. But there have been criticisms against the government and even some protests, sorry, and even some protests complaining that the government has not done enough. But rather than convince you as to how to think one way or another, I think we can all agree that an objective assessment as to where we are today is crucial to determine what we've accomplished, what gaps need to be filled, and how far we are from accomplishing the goals that we have set. But to give us a perspective, to this date, Typhoon Haiyan is still the strongest typhoon to make landfall in recorded human history. And the numbers reflect this. There are 171 cities and municipalities that were affected. Secretary Seng Son gave the demographics earlier, the demographics. 6,300 people died. It affected about almost 1.4 million families and displaced almost a million families. But a year after we've seen changes, roads have been cleared and structures have been rebuilt. The comprehensive rehabilitation and recovery plan that was prepared by the presidential assistant for rehabilitation and recovery seeks to make Haiyan affected communities better and more resilient. And this was prepared by having the government agencies prepare sector-specific rehabilitation plans at the national level and area-specific plans prepared by local government units at the provincial level. But to give you an idea of how much, how big this undertaking is for the government, I will let the numbers speak for themselves as well. The CRRP requires funding of 167 billion pesos or approximately four billion US dollars. Now, the question I always encounter is, how much has the government accomplished so far? And again, I'll let the numbers speak for themselves. As of this date, 50 billion pesos has been spent by the different national government agencies to address the needs in various sectors, from infrastructure to resettlement to social services and livelihood. And in addition, 1.498 billion pesos has been spent or delivered by the national government agencies through donations. And from the private sector, 13 billion pesos or exactly 12.98 billion pesos has been spent on programs, projects and activities for rehabilitation efforts. Now, these figures would give us an idea of whether the changes we now see can be attributed to the government or the private sector. And the numbers point to both with the government outspending the private sector by a factor of around four to one. But whether that proportion is appropriate or sufficient is for another discussion since I only have five minutes. But moving forward, the government plans to spend 80 billion pesos by 2015 and 35 billion pesos in 2016. And the aim is for all PPAs in the CRRP to be met by the time the president, President Aquino and sister in 2016. But based on the 50 billion pesos that has been spent by the national government agencies, the completion rates vary per sector. For instance, in infrastructure, there are completion rates ranging from 20% to 100% of the targets. In livelihood, for instance, there are some completion rates that even exceed the targets. For instance, in cash for building livelihood assets program, there are completion rates of about 126% of the targets. Now, for resettlement, the permanent housing units that have been built so far is less than 2% of the targets set by the resettlement cluster. And I would be happy to answer questions on why that is the case. But more than rebuilding structures and chasing after the targets in the CRRP, we have made it a point to develop best practices as we go along the way. And for one, we've established the electronic management platform Accountability and Transparency Hub for Yolanda, or Empathy, which is meant to track government and non-government projects for transparency. And we hope that this system could be used even post Yolanda efforts. We also established the initiation or the preparation and use of multi-hazard mapping as scientific basis for identification of safe sites for reconstruction and also to empower local government units and communities in strategic planning and disaster preparedness. We've also partnered with the Development Academy of the Philippines in order to train planning officials in area development plan preparation. And through this program, LGU officers will have a master's degree in area development planning for free. Typhoon Haiyan has taught lessons to the Philippines and even the rest of the world. In the holding room, I was listening to Jason and Chuck sharing lessons they've learned from Typhoon Haiyan. But for the Philippines, I think those lessons came at a great expense, not only in terms of the financial costs of the CRRP, but more significantly in terms of lives lost or destroyed. And with that, we are reminded of the words of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in terms of where we want to see ourselves a year from Haiyan and moving forward. And he said, we must above all shift from a culture of reaction to a culture of prevention. This is not only cheaper, but also more humane. With that, I think I've kept within the five minutes, right? Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, Karen. Jason, can we turn it over to you, please? Great, thank you. Thank you, Ernie, to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the U.S. Philippines Society for convening this important event. It's an honor to be here alongside my fellow panelists from the Government of the Philippines, Proctor Gamble, the Zouie League Family Foundation, and the Philippines Disaster Recovery Foundation. First, Ms. Hime Ngo, the USAID is pleased to have supported the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery to coordinate recovery efforts in all affected areas during this past year, including assistant local governments in preparing rehabilitation and recovery plans. We commend you for your leadership. Ms. Zukowski, Proctor Gamble is a valuable partner of USAID on improving the health of men, women, and children in countries around the world. In the Philippines, we are proud to partner with you and Coca-Cola on rebuilding and restocking up to 1,000 small family-owned convenience stores. We completed our first sorry-sorry stores in Tacloban City in June and have since handed over over 50 stores to Tefalun survivors. Mr. Gary Lau, we congratulate the Zouie League Family Foundation for its ongoing support throughout the Philippines. USAID enjoys a strong partnership with your foundation for innovative health programming that improves outcomes by enhancing leadership and governance of local chief executives and health officers. Finally, I'd like to acknowledge Mr. Ray Miley, President of the Philippines Disaster Recovery Foundation. Earlier this year, USAID put out a call to the Filipino Diaspora to submit their ideas to partner with USAID on long-term recovery efforts, for being selected our finalist. The partnership between the United States and the Philippines, Southeast Asia's oldest democracy is critically important. Our relations are based on strong historic and cultural links and a shared commitment to democracy and human rights. As President Obama said immediately after the typhoon struck, when friends are in trouble, America helps. And thanks to the generosity of the American people, we have contributed over $140 million to help the people of the Philippines respond to and recovery from the devastating effects of typhoon high on. We gathered today to reflect and learn from our collective efforts responding to one of the deadliest typhoons on record, so that next time the disaster strikes will be steps ahead and communities will be more resilient. While we cannot stop shocks from happening, USAID is committed to helping people withstand them. Through our resilient efforts, we aim to save and improve lives and decrease the need for repeated humanitarian assistance. Before we take a look at how USAID is working with the Philippines to improve its resiliency, I'd like to reflect on our immediate relief efforts. After the storm hit, the United States was among the first international responders on the ground to provide aid. We have contributed to the excellent, coordinated teamwork with the government of the Philippines across the U.S. government and with the private sector, NGOs, faith-based community, and diaspora. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, we provided immediate life-saving care and distributed emergency food aid and relief supplies, including hygiene kits and tarps to 3 million people. And together we evacuated 21,000 people during the immediate aftermath of the storm. We also pre-positioned disaster response experts in Manila before the storm made landfall and deployed flexible cash support that facilitated immediate purchase of rice in the Philippines. Right away, we incorporated protection measures for the most vulnerable people, including women, children, and the elderly, and those with special needs. We supported programs that reunited unaccompanied children with their families, as well as measures to prevent and combat trafficking. After helping to turn the water back on, build shelters, and repair roads, we turned our attention to longer-term recovery and resiliency. Our recovery efforts are helping affected communities to build back stronger than before the typhoon hit. Over the past year, we forged partnerships with the government of the Philippines, the private sector, NGO, faith-based communities, and diaspora to rebuild lives and livelihoods and improve the preparedness of vulnerable communities throughout the affected region. Together with these partners, we are reconstructing 10 rural health units in district hospitals and building up to 200 classrooms. These are designed to withstand winds exceeding those produced by typhoon high-on and shocks from an 8.5-magnitude earthquake. We are training up to 8,000 farmers on alternative crops using climate-adaptive technology and up to 5,500 fisher persons on climate-resilient, high-value agriculture, which utilizes all-weather resilient fish cages for milkfish production. Based on current early warning systems and evacuation plans, our technical experts are promoting community-based disaster-risk reduction in management to help local government units develop rehabilitation and recovery plans. In conclusion, I want to stress that our successful efforts in the aftermath of the typhoon were magnified due to the government of the Philippines' decisive leadership in responding to and recovering from this great catastrophe. The unwavering commitment and clever of efforts between the Philippines' local, regional, and national governments saved lives and restored normalcy. USAID has partnered with the Philippines for more than 50 years, with President Obama, President Aquino, reinforced last April by committing to work together to build climate-resilient communities. We have come a long way in a year, and USAID is proud to be a partner with the Philippines going forward. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ernesto, would you like to go ahead? Over a year ago, Ambassador Rommel and I talked to the same group, and we were supposed to talk about the work of the Zwillig Family Foundation in improving health outcomes of the rural poor. But Hayan got into the way, hence the appeal for assistance. ZFF was especially concerned on south of summer, and you can see the map here. Specifically, 12 municipalities severely affected by the typhoon, and this was mentioned by Secretary Singson. Basically, you have it except for two municipalities of Pasei and Marabot on the left, really from eastern summer, and as mentioned earlier, 60% of the population is poor, 62,000 families affected, 100% of the health facilities in those municipalities were destroyed, and aside from that, you also have sources of income like coconuts destroyed. Since ZFF was working basically on rural health systems and to improve maternal mortality, naturally we looked at the plight of the vulnerable population, especially pregnant women and lactating mothers during times of distress. What we did was an on-the-ground assessment and consultation. The need for support for pregnant mothers were identified, who were potentially at risk at childbirth complications. Since this was not being addressed at the moment, a lot of the first responders were on fixing the facilities, giving relief, doing food for work program, but the program with the vulnerable population, especially specific pregnant mothers, were not being addressed. We were therefore grateful for the support of the United States Philippine Society for its support of almost $463,000 or 20 million pesos, which went to the support of the Recovery Assistance Program for pregnant mothers in 12 municipalities in southern summer affected by the Typhoon Haiyan. The program was implemented from January to July 2014. It was assumed that after July 2014, the health systems would have been stabilized, and there was no need for a transitional program like this. Major activities, if you can see, first was consultation with the mayors and health staff on the program. It was important that the local chief executives had support for the program. We got their thoughts, their commitment on the program. The next one was incentivizing health workers to identify the pregnant mothers. The health workers likewise were victims of the Haiyan, and they were giving incentives to go to the very far villages to be able to identify the pregnant mothers. We also conducted health summits for the pregnant mothers, specifically why they had to be protected, what the mechanism will be, and what has to be done insofar as the program is concerned. Leadership training for mayors were conducted, as well as municipal health officers, because at the end of the day, they have to own their vulnerable population and they have to take care of them on an ongoing basis. So after the mothers identified, the next is to get the mothers to seek maternal care services. They received $6 for every prenatal visit, so that would be at maximum of four. If they give birth in a facility, facilities-based delivery, if it's a normal delivery, they got $23. If it's cesarean, they get $57. For postnatal visits, they got another $6, especially for the immunization of the newly born. Further, as I said earlier, mayors were given training on health leadership and governance program, and this was what Mr. Jason Foley mentioned as part of the AID program. What were the results? Initially, around 2,900 mothers were identified. 4,200 mothers, in fact, received incentives. As a matter of fact, when the incentives program was given, a lot of the health workers said a lot of these mothers were not seen before, which means that they delivered at home, they were not reached by the health services, and the incentives program brought them to the facilities. Almost 4,000 received prenatal checkups, at least one. 1,732 mothers delivered at the facilities, 139 delivered by C-section in hospitals. Remember, initially, the referral hospitals in the area were destroyed, and if you are cesarean section by cesarean, you either had to go to Katharman or to Tacloban, but this was rehabilitated early, and 1,739 mothers had postnatal checks. But if you look at it, when you look at facilities-based delivery, that's FBD, starting at 78% in 2013, really jumped to 92% by the second quarter of 2014, which is even higher than the targeted Philippine target, national Philippine target of facilities-based delivery, at 90% by 2015. These are phenomenal movements, because here to 4, you really get the mothers who had no access to go to the facilities-based delivery. So even more, so if you can see the facilities-based delivery, you can move from 61% to 92%, really moving there. And the way to interpret it is that you protect the mothers more if they go to the facilities-based delivery. The next one is that this is another example of building back better. In 2012 and 2013, there were three maternal deaths each year, and it was dropped to zero by 2014, first half. Zero, primarily because the lone maternal fatality happened in Tacloban. Since it was in Tacloban, it's not counted in the area. But nonetheless, normally in crisis, if you do not have a protective program, the maternal deaths will spike. The same is also true with neonatal deaths, but in this particular case, it was really even brought down to a lower level. What are the implications of this? The first one is that the mayors are continuing the incentives program, and this is really good news because they felt that if they're supposed to protect the mothers, how can they continue the program themselves? They're also in discussion with the field health, the government insurance corporation, together with LGUs continuing the incentives program as part of the maternal care package. I think this is very good development because at the end of the day, since this is a pilot program, it now moves to it being institutionalized because both local governments and the field health recognize the need really for providing incentives for very poor mothers very far away who normally do not have access to this. The other one is that from data that we have together with DOH, 20% of maternal deaths are really accounted for by mothers who give birth at home and who die at home, which means that they don't even have access to the health facilities. In the long run, a social protection program like these incentives would have to be put in place to be able to reduce the deaths from that particular segment. Finally, the whole issue of how do you now develop a local health system to be resilient such that when another typhoon comes, they will not only be better prepared, but they would have in a sense fixed their health systems, transform it such that come disasters, they can easily rise up and continue. Again, let me thank the United States Philippine Society for the generous assistance given and we're very proud that the resources were put to very, very good use. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ernesto Claude. May I invite you all? Good afternoon. In 1935, the Philippines became PNG's first international operation in Asia and our second outside of North America. In 2010, we recognized the 75th anniversary milestone of delivering on our purpose of touching and improving lives in the Philippines and we confirmed our commitment to investing and expanding our local operations and throughout the nation. Currently, PNG has over 1,300 employees in the Philippines with a manufacturing plant and a global business center located in Manila that supports one-third of our global operations. PNG Philippines markets leading brands like Tide, Ariel, Joy, Downey, Ole, and Whisper. When typhoon high-end struck in 2013, we quickly responded working with our local disaster relief partners like the Philippine Red Cross, the UBS Sagi Kapa Melia, GMA, Capuso Foundation, and others to provide personal care and household product donations from brands like Safeguard, Pantene, Pampers, and DoorSelf. We also mobilized and provided trucks to be able to get those distributed to those that needed them. Working with groups like Save the Children, we helped to provide PNG purifier of water packets to help those without access to clean drinking water. These packets helped to provide 20 million liters of water to those that needed it. Our own PNG employees gave their hearts and times organizing charity events like Aid Couture, which was a used-clothes fashion fundraiser which donated designer clothing was sold to the public. Our employees spent days sorting through clothing, packing relief kits, participating in cleanup efforts to help the families that were impacted. Globally, our employees also generously gave from their own wallets to high-end fund drives, proceeds of which the company matched. In companies where we work, we're often aligned with well-established NGO organizations who have in-country teams, a solid record for delivering on programs, and to build a strong relationship with the government. World Vision is one of these partners that we've worked with in the Philippines since 2010. Following the typhoon, we provided grant support to assist their continuing efforts that are still ongoing to restore livelihoods in the Visayas region. Throughout this program, we're helping to support families, farmers and farmers, and fishing communities via skills training and crop production. Our largest effort over the past year, however, has been a partnership with USAID and Coca-Cola, which Mr. Foley mentioned, that's committed to rebuilding, rehabilitating and replenishing the stocks of community stores. The purpose of this program was to help people regain their livelihoods and serve the communities by providing access to products and other essentials. In the first phase, along with Draenex, we helped rehabilitate 38 public markets and 3,000 sorry-sorry stores. We stocked these hope stores, as we came to call them, with P&G products as starting capital. Along the way, we overcame some challenges, such as being able to source skilled labor and materials and infrastructure challenges of getting goods from point A to point B. We've also encouraged store owners that we assisted when it comes time to restock their stores with both P&G and other products. We thought it was important to allow them to make personal choices for their business and choose the type of products they wish to provide to their customers. Today, we're continuing to help. Over the next two years, along with USAID and Coca-Cola, we plan to rebuild and restock an additional 500 hope stores in Litte. We're very thankful for the support of the Philippines government, for USAID, Coca-Cola, and all of our NGO partners, which have enabled us to reach and help so many people. Thank you. Thank you, Claude Butch. The floor is yours. Thank you, Ernie. I'm going to take you back to a previous typhoon, in 2009. If I think... This is what happened to Metro Manila in 2009, and that's how the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation started. The president at the time issued an executive order. This typhoon devastated much of the city. The rains came in from up in the mountains. Secretary Singson mentioned the building a dike around Laguna Lake, and that's designed to prevent a similar flood happening. Out of that whole tragedy, there was born a public-private sector partnership, the PDRF. It's made up of many of the top corporations in the country. The whole idea is that it provides a neutral setting in which companies that may not necessarily like each other or talk to each other normally, and that are normally fierce competitors, can come together and work for a common cause. One of the more enduring projects that came from that was the reforesting of the Marikina watershed, in which a lot of companies send their workers to replant trees. We also work with the communities in that area to encourage them not to cut the trees for charcoal and, in fact, to go into nurseries and establish alternate forms of making a living. Now, let me turn to what happened last year. There were three straight disasters that hit the Philippines. The Department of Education turned to the PDRF and they said we need to feed the students that are still in the schools. And if we do it through our normal processes, we won't be able to get any of the... We'll have to go through an extensive bidding process, so they asked us to do it. And actually, with the help of the U.S. Philippine Society, we were able to feed 27,000 kids for one month in 607 schools. And that's something that only the private sector could have done that quickly. Okay, thanks. Here's another example of how we worked with the government. The Department of Trade and Industry had this great idea about helping restart the entrepreneurs that had gotten hit hard by Typhoon Yolanda. Again, with the help of the U.S. Philippine Society, we were able to provide these entrepreneurs with a means in order to restart their businesses in things like dressmaking, food vendors, as cafeterias. This is, again, an area that the private sector was able to come in. The Department of Trade and Industry said that had they waited for the normal government process to take place, they would have had to go back to Congress and it would have taken over a year, so they asked us to do it. We're also partnering with the Office of Secretary Laxon that Karen mentioned. They've gotten some funds from NGOs overseas, and they've placed those funds under the care of the private sector just to ensure transparency and everything. This is a hanging bridge in a very isolated, forgotten area of the country. No one's ever heard about it, but that's how students get to school today. There used to be a bridge there. Now it's a bridge made of vines, and our whole intention is to rebuild that bridge and give them a safer way to cross over to get to school. Now, this might interest the lacrosse aficionados among you. We were able to bring lacrosse over to this elementary school in Tacloban. It gave the kids something else to look forward to. One of the kids in this lacrosse team had lost three of his sisters during the typhoon. One of the teachers in this school had lost, wasn't able to hold on to her four-year-old son, and he died, so there are all these stories, but things like this helped lighten the load. Last thing I just want to say is that the funds of the private sector are limited, CSR funds, so you can't really see the private sector as a donor all the time. The real power of the private sector is if you'll unleash us, if you'll create incentives for the private companies to want to invest, to make profits in these disaster areas, create jobs, and each of these disaster areas has what they call economic free trade zones, but they haven't been in use. They were created as far back as 1998, and the only thing they have there is just grass, so we're encouraging them to make use of these, they call them PESA zones. If you put the business in there, there's no taxes for six years. After that, it's 5% on the gross, so the means is there. It's an easy, quick win, and it's a way to bring the private sector, not just in the Philippines, but throughout the world to invest in these areas. The second idea that we've been working on is that the best way we can honor the 7,000 people or so that died during Typhoon Haiyan is to set up an agreement before the next one happens to ensure that it won't happen again, and this agreement includes everybody, the international agencies, the national and local governments, the military, and the private sector. We have a draft of that agreement, and we hope to have it signed within the month. The third area, and this really goes to the next panel, is that in case of a major disaster hitting a large city in the Philippines like Metro Manila, the private sector is working on building alternate hubs for business continuity outside of these areas so that we can continue to operate and we'll have the government participate in that as well. And the last thing that we learned is that who your mayor is and who your governor is matters. People lived or died based on the equality of their local leadership. Cities and towns are getting aid based on the quality of their local leadership, and we've seen that time and again. So, you know, I guess the last thing I just want to say, and the last thing that we've learned is that it really is true that one person can make a difference, and that all of you in this room, the U.S. Philippine Society and many of the people throughout the United States have been a huge help to the people over there, and we want to thank you for that. We've got some Christmas packages. Some of the other back of the room has them. In case you'd like to help personally, give drinking water to a family or a solar-powered lamp, that's all available as a Christmas present. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I'd like to thank all of our panelists. And, Ben, could we turn the projector off just for a second? Yeah, just so Karen's not blinded by the time she answers her question. Thank you, panel, for those great remarks. I'd like to open up the floor to some questions. Please just identify yourself and your affiliation, and let us know if your question is directed to any specific panelist. So we'll start here, James. Hi, thanks. Mike Bellington from Executive Intelligence Review. It may be that Secretary Singsone is best to answer this, but he and several of you indicated how important it is to rebuild better. And obviously you have to start with a disaster area, but that implies that really the entire country, or at least the entire East Coast, has to be drastically upgraded because the next storm's not going to hit the same spot. And I'm wondering what your plans are for that and whether there's been any progress in dealing with how to transform the entire coast, or at least. Let me mention, in the Philippines, you have Batanes Island. Batanes Island is in the southernmost tip of the Philippines. And northern tip of the Philippines, I'm sorry. Jet lag. Now, historically, Batanes experiences or encounters about 75% of the typhoons that pass the Philippines. Their houses there are made of stones. They're no longer made of wood. They have adapted, in other words. Now, we're hoping that in these areas we have started to propagate typhoon or cyclone-resistant houses. This means we've distributed one-pagers and we've started training even the local carpenters so that they start using proper design. For example, instead of using A-frames, they now put what they call cuatro aguas, four-cornered houses. They're much thirdier against typhoons. We've also encouraged them to use cyclone straps. These are materials often used in the islands of Honolulu, Hawaii and so on. But we've never used them in the Philippines. So we've started introducing cyclone straps. Another intervention is we've given them the science on how to build your roofs stronger against wind force. So these are small additions. They don't necessarily increase the cost of houses. We call them non-engineered houses. These are just constructed by regular carpenters. They don't even follow any designs. They don't submit them for building permits. But we said, since these are prevalent in those areas, we at least can help them build better houses than how they used to construct them. So yes, we are concerned that another typhoon like this does not affect the whole typhoon belt or the eastern seaboard. So we are concerned about building back better. Thank you. Do you want to comment? Yeah, Karen. I'm going to speak on behalf of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery. And I think on our part, one of the challenges is that we were created under a memorandum order by the president. So our mandate is limited to the typhoon high-end affected areas. But one thing we're trying to do is that we are trying to develop best practices and including them in the comprehensive rehabilitation plan in the hopes that this or the things that we include there would be adopted all over the Philippines. So when we say build back better in accordance with the CRRP, this includes building typhoon resilient structures. So now we have structural standards with a minimum of being able to withstand wind speeds of 250 kilometers per hour. And prior to that, most structures in the high-end affected communities could only withstand about 150 kilometers per hour. High-end reached wind speeds of about 320 to 350 kilometers per hour. On top of that, based on the CRRP, in terms of livelihood, for instance, we've encouraged exploring typhoon resilient crops and to end value change. Chains and even included climate change adaptation measures and also social protection mechanisms because we do recognize that, for instance, gender sensitivity is also an issue because males and females respond to disasters differently. And an overall arching principle there is also making sure that poverty is reduced because this affects the vulnerability of the communities. And this is all part of building back better. So I think the challenge there is making sure that once we implement the CRRP, in terms of most areas in the Philippines not having these types of measures in place yet, that this is adopted in all other parts of the country as part of building back better and be more resilient. Hi, my name is Angelita Felix Berto. I'm from GMA 7 and Catalyst Writer. First of all, I'd like to commend and thank you everyone for all the dedicated efforts you have given to Typhon Hyan. And as member of the media, our job is to do the watchdog. So in relation to that, I have questions for you with regards to the master plan, big picture and confidence. With regards to the master plan, Secretary Singson has mentioned earlier that the magnitude and the challenge of the task in terms of coordinating the government agencies, the NGOs and all that is very difficult. And critics of the government have also mentioned that President Nino Yakino has only signed the master plan October 29th, a few days before the anniversary of the Typhon Hyan. So I think you have laid out sort of a master plan for the Typhon Hyan rehabilitation. But my first question is that, will that include also the NGOs and the NGAs and all the other people working towards the Typhon Hyan rehabilitation? My second question is about the big picture. I mean, the difficulty of a journalist is that I look at the government as statistics and then I look at, for instance, Ibon Foundation, an independent think-tank, and they're claiming that although the government has made progress, the majority of the people in the affected areas have not yet benefited from the government programs. Although I do understand the magnitude and the challenge, this is what the critics of the government is saying. So I mean, I also have looked at agency reports, media articles, and there's a big disparity and almost people, I mean, other journalists are saying the same thing. There's disparity of statistics and claims. The third question I have is about the confidence. The confidence in the Philippine government. Maybe Mr. Miley has made a point about involving businesses in private sectors. I mean, I'm sure everyone knows a few months ago there was the scathing report about the Department of Social Welfare about double accounting for the funds that have been given for the Typhon Hyan. And the other important thing too is that, one, I don't see illegal accountability of those people who are responsible for these plans. And then thirdly, Typhon Hyan rehabilitation does not exist in a vacuum. I mean, the economy of the Philippines and job, I mean, developing jobs, developing livelihoods is all part of putting the Philippines forward and not just focusing on Typhon Hyan. Thank you so much. Karen, would you... I'll start with the first question. And thank you for bringing that up because I couldn't really expound on the CRRP given the five-minute limitation. But with respect to engaging the private sector, I think one of the benefits of Memorandum Order No. 62 which created our office is that it included and demanded the power to call on all entities including the private sector to assist in the rehabilitation efforts. And in fact, when Secretary Laxón was appointed as par, he was alone. And he up until December had just another staff and undersecretary, Danilo Antonio. But one of the first thing they did was to engage the private sector. So January 7, 2014, they actually gathered members of the private sector and organized the 171 cities and municipalities into 24 areas of intervention and development and laid out to members of the private sector the situation and how they can help. And with this, we were able to get what we call now development partners. So basically, we have two ways or two mechanisms as to engaging the private sector. And this is having development partners that initiate programs in any of the 24 areas and also sector partners that are more sector-specific that can span different areas. But basically, these mechanisms are laid out and included in the CRRP because we do recognize that public and private partnership is not only beneficial but very important to achieving meaningful rehabilitation. And this is one thing that we want to institutionalize. It's actually one thing that we're also proposing as a matter of policy. We have currently legislation that recognizes the importance of the private sector, but this is more in the construction industry. But we want this to be institutionalized in terms of disaster response as well. Now, as to the second question, I understand that there are disparities in numbers, especially even with us when we were preparing the disaster master plan. The numbers were moving. Initially, we had the reconstruction assistance on Yolanda as the basis for the damage and loss assessment, and they pegged the needs of 360 billion pesos. But by the time the post-assassure needs came out, which was prepared by the Office of Civil Defense, this number was already 104 billion pesos.  But even before that, when we first submitted it to the President, it was 170 billion pesos. And this actually shows why it's very difficult to pin down a number because the targets are moving. Sometimes while we're meeting, and Secretary Sun can attest to this, when we're meeting the clusters of the different government agencies, while we're meeting there, some of the needs are being met not only by the government, but also by the private sector. So by the time we are updated, the numbers move again. But to give you an idea, I understand why the survivors or the communities would feel that the private sector did more. Because if you look at what happened here, Typhoon Haiyan hit November 8. And November 8, that is still the relief, relief or humanitarian face. And when I was looking at the numbers, of course we can never agree, of course, as to assessing who did more. But for me, I like to rely on the numbers because at least that gives you kind of like an accurate or more or less accurate picture. But based on the spending, I mentioned earlier that in terms of the rehabilitation or at the rehabilitation phase, 13 billion pesos has been spent by the private sector. And those are the donors that work with or report to PAR. And we have about 1,289 private donors that are working with us. And when I look at the figures for the recovery phase, they've spent about eight billion pesos for the relief stage. Compared to the social services cluster, which is the cluster in charge of the relief phase, they only spent about less than three billion pesos during the relief stage. So that gives you an idea who was felt first. And again, you're right, the president approved the rehabilitation plan only October 29. So that means the 50 billion pesos I showed earlier came from the regular budget of the national government agencies and some from the Calamity Fund, but not sufficient to jumpstart several of the rehabilitation projects or the PPAs under the CRRP. So that means I think that the presence of the government will be felt more now that the rehabilitation plan has been approved. And that would mean the release of the budget from the Department of Budget and Management all the way to the national government agencies and the LGUs. And three, lack of confidence in the government. Again, I cannot speak for any double counting with the social services sector by the DSWD or the Department of Social Welfare because they were in charge of the relief stage and we don't have figures for that because our mandate only includes the recovery stage. That means that we only know what their funding requirements are and how much they've spent so far with respect to the rehabilitation phase and not with respect to the recovery phase. Thank you very much. Comprehensive questions and comprehensive answers there. The young lady here in front, please. And this will probably be our last question for this panel. Good afternoon. I am Vaughan Kathleen Eyingar. I am part of Salomon University Community Disaster Response Team as well as a volunteer of Gawad Kalina. And I've had the privilege and the challenge of being at the forefront of helping people who are really there, especially in Leyte, in Taklauban as well as in the earthquake in Bohol. So one of the challenges that we've faced when we talked to these people was the help that they needed were not able to reach them at the right time and also how do you make sure and ascertain that the right people get the right help? Who would like to take a swing at that one? How do you make sure the right people get the right help?  I'm not familiar with Leyte, but I'm familiar with Samar. And I would agree with Karen that the first responders in terms of... because of the magnitude of the calamity were really the international NGOs. Medicine San Frontier, Plan International, et cetera, et cetera. And what was not lacking was the relief in Samar. What was not lacking was the relief because we would go from municipality to municipality and they actually had adequate relief because I always ask, we always ask, is there enough? The mayor's and the QAN would say there's enough. To the extent that we would store that and they would do regular distribution by barangays. To the extent that they were gaining weight because of wrong foods, because of noodles, rice, et cetera, et cetera. I could not speak of Samar, but I don't know of Leyte, but I could speak of Samar, at least the QAN. And when you ask with reference to the initial relief, I personally, we didn't see problems of complaints, but you got a lot of complaints in Leyte. I just wanted to ask you, you sort of said, you implied that governance matters in this area, and I wonder if that's part of the answer to the young lady's question? Yeah, I was thinking about that, actually. What we saw is that the mayors who are very aggressive, they're the ones who got the aid and there are certain towns in Leyte and Samar that have moved much farther in terms of the recovery than the others, and that's a problem. But let me also say that Secretary Laxman's office did ask us, the private sector, to focus on the areas which were neglected. There are about three or four sections of the areas which had been hit by the typhoon, which nobody wanted, which nobody had heard about and there was no help coming in terms of recovery. So they asked us to fix those things. Like that bridge I showed you, and no one was moving to help that place. So they've tried to help us direct our aid there. From the point of view of a lawyer, we have a law in the Philippines called Republic Act 10121. It's the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction Management Act, and this actually delineates the functions as to who is supposed to take care of what in times of a disaster. And under this law, you have the Department of Social Welfare Development in terms of relief and humanitarian stage. You have the Department of Interior Local Government in terms of the capacitating and the Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council for rehabilitation and recovery. But again, so ideally the NDRRMC would have taken care of the high-end area for rehabilitation and recovery. That's why there were people questioning why OPAR, our office, had to be created. But again, I think when this law was crafted, it did not foresee the magnitude of high-end. So they were also undermanned under staff to take care of something like this along with other typhoons that kept hitting our country. But one thing that that law is lacking is the participation or the institutionalization of the participation of NGOs or the private sector in times of disaster, which is very valuable as we've seen in Typhoon Haiyan. So based on the CRRP, which also includes the participation of multilaterals and bilateral institutions, we hope that this is something that can be included in legislation. I'd like to thank the panel and invite you all to a coffee break for about 10 minutes. We'll switch out the seats and back to the panel.


Great one visual asset news. My name is Rob and we got a ton of things to go over first up We'll take a look at the markets in how it it is down and how originally everything was uncorrelated as of like 20 minutes ago Then all of a sudden traditional markets just flipped over They won't take a look at the crypto bear market turning bullish and I put that as a pretty big question mark We're talking about how Bitcoin wallet is that an all-time high? Accumulation zone is in a good place But I've got my concerns and it's gonna really come down to the macro environment And we're gonna talk about how amp the crypto token amp is getting the ripple treatment It's going to be delisted is real limits cash payments again and metropolitan bank helps avoid your depositors And then we're gonna talk about what the heck is going on with iTrust as their website was down now It's up, but people still can't get into their accounts And then we'll take a look at the July winners and tune out for a sweat coin. So before we get in all that stuff Let's first take a look at the market.  Woke up and market wasn't doing too bad Now here we are so we can see I know this this way that's better so we can see for some reason just about 20 minutes ago it was Like down 1.25% 1.2 1.3 wasn't that big and almost said another 2% of drop and we got Bitcoin down Ethereum down that's the last 20 last hour. That's what I really care about. Who's down the biggest Ethereum? Cardano Solana polka dot polygon And that's why DCA folks because you never know, you know people who say Robby should just go all in Well, I mean you can you can do that But I don't know what's that the right thing to do and you can just see right here This what's going on and what's going on with the traditional markets? Well In the beginning, which which is why I labeled this uncorrelated. It wasn't correlated The NASDAQ and the S&P 5 were having a nice final time and all of a sudden everything just kind of turns The opposite way. So that is what is what is going on into the market. Let's jump into Crypto markets turning bullish and some other stuff So I know everybody gets gets happy and jubilant when the price goes up especially in the weekend last week was a great week Right, we're all happy. Yay And of course everybody's like the bottom's in the bottoms in the bottoms in I can't tell you how many times I've heard the bottoms in and what's the other one? Oh, this is your last chance to get Bitcoin Under 20k I don't know if that's that the truth. I'm not a TA experts And I think some of the TA experts aren't TA experts, but whatever and I can just tell you anything that happened in crypto That's what it is. But there are some bright points Coming about and one of those is this If you took a look at a website called look into Bitcoin, we've got a pretty nice stance here as far as Bitcoin wallets Over one Bitcoin meaning a whole coin or is actually at all-time highs Let me let me blow this up so you can see what I see. Let me see here Alright, I'll go right there. Great. So Okay, yeah there. So this is all Bitcoin wallets on the blockchain on the Bitcoin blockchain Which can say these wallets hold Currently more than one Bitcoin and we can see that it's come up quite a bit over the last. Oh years July 2020 21 22 so roughly two years. We can see that has everything has kind of fallen down There's been some investors out there who say, you know what? This is a great buying opportunity and they did just that especially you can see not so much here when Bitcoin was 63,000 That's not the greatest time to buy but right around here when I went to 36,000 38 And of course, everybody was saying the same thing. This is the last chance to get below 40,000 This is the last chance to get before 50,000 sure foul whatever and then you can see it come here and then as we dropped off a cliff from 37,000 all the way down to 288. That's when people are like, you know what I don't know where things are going But if this is exchange if this is a difference between expensive and not expensive I think this is inexpensive and of course It went down even more but as I went down look at what people do they buy even more But there is there is a caveat here and you have to understand that this is on chain data and on chain Did it can always be manipulated. It's quite easy actually so for this type of thing You could have somebody who has 10 bitcoins in one wallet. So, you know what I like keeping on this one wallet I'm gonna make 10 different wallets and I'm gonna spread out those bitcoins now one Bitcoin and every single wallet And that's gonna increase this does it happen all the time? I have no idea. I personally keep mine in a couple different Ledgers, so it's not like I have them all in one place, but I've been doing this for quite some time I don't know if that is what it is But just so you know that's how on chain data can be a little bit manipulated So that's actually good news. We take a look at I don't know if everybody's doing that So there's a lot of whole coiners out there. Congratulations. And then also If we take a look at this is also from looking at Bitcoin another great website is Ben's Website in the cryptiverse app dot in the cryptiverse. I don't have an affiliate link But I got a link in the description. It's really good But this one same same type of stuff look into Bitcoin You don't have to it's free you can check it out But this is there's a lot of great tools But Bitcoin investor tool two-year MA multiplier and we talk about this and and the MVRB scores and things like that all you got to know is this is I just scroll down here This highlights periods are buying or selling Bitcoin during these times of view would have produced outsized returns Use the moving average to your MA Buying Bitcoin when the drop when the price drops below the two-year moving average the green line has historically generated Outsized returns selling Bitcoin when price goes above the two-year MA times five Has historically been effective for taking profit. So what are we talking about here? Well again? And I'm not saying this is investment advice. I can't tell you what to do not your dad I like great stuff, but you can see that around this time frame Historically potentially could have been a pretty good accumulation time, right? So even as we start to come up people like this is it. I think things are going great I think we're we're out of that this bearish market We're maybe just chop sideways but keep going up and the crypto winter is here or it's over I don't really think that's true. Unfortunately, but there are some good things to look at and that's the positive So now let's take a look at the flip side of that. So we know that the Fed is here to squash Inflation right and they've done their best. I mean look 75 basis points two months in a row how they're gonna take a month off come back in August Hopefully it all works out But you know, they're taking a look at retro data data That's they can kind of look at back and say well, I think we're doing okay But in all honesty, they take a look at the one that I'm always talking about true flation Things are going pretty good actually and again true flation link in the description They take 30 different data points use chain link as an oracle to pull an outside data You can see that their data was much much higher than the eight points, whatever five percent That the government said we were at inflation at much higher than that But things were working out as far as like April goes looks like the Fed did their job and then down here Looks like it was doing well, but unfortunately It came down here and then just kicked up again So ten point zero seven percent and that's just on the USA part remember I know people remind us all meet to me all the time Rob, you know, USA isn't the center of the universe. I Know what I forget sometimes it's it's a fault. I have so let's take a look at the UK. Jeez my lease So there's your interest rates or there's your excuse me inflation rates For the UK and this was just added on true flation and you can see check in 2021 six point not bad UK, but then just just exploded Upwards so I'm still concerned about inflation. I don't think we've had a grasp on it Maybe we've peaked out, but it seems like it's climbing again. And also If we take there's just some odd things that are going on We talked about this before and one of those is the unemployment rates and the unemployment rates usually in a recession two consecutive Quarters of GDP decline Which we can all agree on except if you're the White House, that's fine There are some factors that don't lead to that as far as inflation rates One of those is unemployment rates and unemployment rates Bureau labor statistics We've been at three point six percent for months and Usually anything around four to five percent is acceptable. It's just that's what Traditionally we have called it, but three point six percent has just been going sideways for quite some time And we can sit here as far as June 2022. Also, there's one more thing I'd like to make mention of on page four, which is this in June Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-form payrolls rose by ten cents or point three percent to thirty two dollars That's pretty good over the past 12 months average hourly earnings have increased by five percent We said again over the past 12 months Over the past 12 months average hourly earnings have increased by five percent.  That's pretty tough to do Especially when you're trying it when you live in paycheck to paycheck, and I believe people are On top of that. I know we talked about in The unemployment rate is pretty good, but just as a quick reminder three point six some people think that's high That's not high This is how high it could go Here's the great recession 2007 2009 2007 is four point four and people were like that's acceptable five point two thousand eight nine percent in two thousand nine nine point five In 2010 eight point nine eight percent 2012 2013 seven point four six point one So you can see that even after a session you got a lot of people laid off and that was just 2007 2009 1990 Five point eight nine percent nine and a half percent again the same thing over and going eight point nine eight percent So if we're sitting here and we're going at this rate Which is three point six percent? There's some kind of disconnect going on and I will just say this Do you know how they calculate? Unemployment rates. Well, I have been spouting off and talking about. Ah, well, it's just you it's just the unemployment Unemployment numbers as they as they come to the government offices and and register. Well, that's not how it goes This is how the US. I don't know where you're at This is how the US monthly unemployment rate is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses a population survey Unemployment is measured through the current population survey conducted monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Only residents who are in the labor force are Counted an unemployment rate those who have given up looking for a job or not So if you're like in between you're like that I think I got this this side hustle I'm gonna be good. I'm not gonna look for anything or I just stop looking because I can't find anything I was gonna live here with my parents or live here and we're in a group housing or something that they don't count That's just how it is Critics argue that not counting workers have given up looking paints a brighter picture of unemployment that really exists Which is good for the government. I must admit especially in midterms But that's that's been going on forever. So it's not like this is something new, but this is interesting So what they do despite what many people believe the unemployment rate is not measured by calculating the number of people collecting unemployment insurance In fact, the government comes up with this much anticipated number each month by following a process That closer resembles a US census government agency conducts a monthly survey Called the current population survey that involves only 60,000 households now we got like around three and twenty three million people in America So 60,000 not a huge sample size, but bigger than most These households are selected using random sampling methods designed to generate as close and approximation as possible to the larger population Number of households in the sample may seem small But not too bad each month US Census employees contact the households in the sample and ask specific questions term and employment status So and it goes on for an example, but that's pretty much how it is They just like here's a sample tell me tell us who's looking for job Who is employed and who is not and then we put out those numbers and that's it So 60,000 sample size, which leads me to this point If you got people who are getting 5% every hopefully every year, but the Inflation rates going up higher There's a disconnect somewhere and there's a big disconnect between what's happening on Wall Street What's handing in the traditional markets and pretty much what's happening in crypto and I think things are gonna catch up to us Just take a listen to this. I just see it. This is just how I see things. I See people out there and I see people. They're all struggling. I know they live in paycheck and shape paycheck I know they're using the credit cards to the maximum I know they're over leveraged credit cards are leveraged and I see some problems coming up I don't know when it's gonna come up. I just see some things just listen to this Let me stop the screen. It's like two minutes or so It's not what you think after this if you think, yeah, should be a good time. I mean, it could be not for sure take a listen For Jamie Rickliffe's it has become a twice a week ritual selling her plasma Originally, the plasma was just like a safety net and now it's becoming more of a necessity Her family's two-income household is struggling to keep up with runaway inflation and they're far from alone Two-thirds of Americans are blowing through their savings because of sky-high prices We should be in a class and we should have a nice savings but Everything's going up workers wages have increased but not at the same pace as historic levels of inflation New numbers today show a key gauge for prices. We pay up 6.8 percent year over year the steepest spike since 1982 What's the bottom line from this week? buckle up And get ready Melissa Bradley is a venture capitalist and says small businesses have witnessed recession warning signs for months We see it every day in our receipts and we need to really figure out how to make some changes Markets meanwhile rose for the week the Dow up nearly 1,000 points Buoyed today by oil giants Exxon and Chevron reporting record second quarter profits Thanks in part to what have been record high gas prices Consumers now finding some relief in falling gas prices down 76 cents a gallon from their peak and job security Nationwide the unemployment rate sits at near 50 year lows in Marion County, Iowa It's practically non-existent. Do you feel like you're at risk of being out of work if we move into a recession? At the moment no Just because there's such a high demand and where we've already got so many orders already in Americans navigating a dizzying economy the demand for labor high but prices even higher for the news I'm Emily Iketta There's the thing it's just there's a little bit of a disconnect to remember There's a difference between the economy What's happening in the economy and what's happening on wall street trad fi and even crypto So let me know what you think about that in the comment section I just see that it seems like sometimes it's just a It's a slow-moving train and then when it gets here, then there's just a little bit more chaos But it could just be me being a little bit More bearish. Who knows? Anyhow, I'll let you think about that in the comment section. Let's move on to our next piece amp It's the ripple treatment. This is a bummer I'm not gonna spend much time on it, but this is what's happened. This was just came out 10 minutes ago 20 minutes ago This is binance.us update on amp and it just says out of an abundance of caution We've decided to delist the amp token from binance us effective august 15th and it talks about regulatory clarity us supports responsible regulation blah blah blah blah blah And what this really comes from is when the sec clamped down on the insider trading with coinbase they listed Ah, gosh, I mean was it seven or nine different cryptos that they said were securities And app was one of those. So it's the same thing that happened With xrp as they came after ripple. They said this is A security and that's why that court case is going to be so darn big on top of the voyager in this lc's case So this is an investment advice, but uh, if it was if it was me And you were taking a look at your amp holdings Might be a good opportunity to take a real hard look at where you think that coin is going and again It's just in america. So america is not the center of the universe However, it seems like there was a ripple effect pun intended anyhow, let me know in the comments and let's move on to Oh, yeah, this one is strange Not that strange if you see things going on is real Is one of the countries among others that's going to ban cash payments over $4400 on Monday is that today? Yeah, it is today shoot So beginning august 1st Israel And they're not the first not the last Will ban cash for personal transactions over $4400 and business transaction over 1760 why is that such a problem? Well If you've transacted in cash, you know what i'm you know, how great it can be It's kind of a hassle But if you want to oh, I don't know not report everything cash is king The country will impose fines between 15 and 30 of the relevant transaction value on those who violate the law The law is meant to file a financial crime by promoting the use of digital payments Which are easier to monitor these amounts represent a reduction from transaction limits that is real previously set in 2019 at that time Transactions were limited to 11 000 shekels or 3200 bucks and personal transaction limited to 50 000 Which is 14? Well, I can kind of stand 14 660 Uh, well, I mean it's up to you. So that is what's going on in the world As far as like cash, let me just you think about that I think that's just the start of it and uh, I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, but It is what it is. So that's all we have And then uh, also to finish up this this part. This was uh Put into the courts This is for the voyager case the voyager bankruptcy case, which is going on right now Metropolitan commercial bank put in a Filing with the southern district from new york, and this is pretty much what it sets what it states Metropolitan commercial bank here by cemets the statements support a debtor's motion for entry of an order authorizing the debtors to honor withdrawals from the fbo accounts Look what a crypto from customer accounts with a negative balance Sweep cash held in third-party exchanges connect order and of course reconciliation And continue staking crypto and granted related relief. What's this really just saying is this They're going to try to allow The people like us which have usd Dollars in the voyager account which voyager opened up for us as the for For us essentially And they're going to try to allow them so people to actually uh be able to Withdraw now there's going to be some type of Audit to go through before they're able to do that, but at least things are moving. This was just filed Last week on july 30th. So there's only so much time that the judge has to respond. So hopefully soon People who have dollars on voyager are going to be able to take that off I am not a lawyer, but i'll let you know when it actually happens Anyhow, that's what's going on the three pieces there and then lastly to finish this up I trust uh there was a problem this weekend with iTrust and Since we've all had our issues with the two two platforms voyager sells you as bald you take your pick Much of the ones it's concerning when the website will go down. So this was From iTrust they stated that's on saturday and sunday Later parts of friday website was down. I noticed it myself that on sunday I was given access or I got into my account and then today can't get into my account again. So here we are So what happened? This is what we got. So on friday I trust capital experienced a network incident That disrupted our dns hosting service and took our website down. All right As soon as the incident occurred we requested our custody vendor lock customer assets to ensure their security While we investigate before I go on If this had happened six seven months ago Wouldn't have been a big thing people like well that sucks, you know, these things are down But everything that happens right now With essentialized authority Especially with iTrust Roth IRAs and things like that Is amplified to the nth degree So I am begging iTrust To get the information out as fast as possible. I use my contacts contacts and people they say we're going with their meetings Looks like everything's safe in these good That's great But tell us exactly what's going on as soon as possible And I will remind everybody is this and I will remind iTrust as well You guys work for us not the other way around So when these things start to happen, I don't give a I don't care That you guys are talking to me through twitter Send out some emails and as many updates as you possibly can I know it may not be like a big thing But sweet mary jose, I mean if you're going to let this happen for I don't know how long I get bombarded with requests people flip out especially what's going on You have to gauge the temperature in the room and be a little bit more Transparent that's all I'm saying if it was me Emails every every so often as much as I could not just on twitter I didn't get an email. Maybe it was my my service Let me know in the comment section, but it just It just makes me a little bit cautious. That's all I'm saying Anyhow Since friday, there have been no access to or trading with customer assets I trust does not hold customer assets, which is true It is the ability to access from that To access crypto from our system that is down. So I trust doesn't hold customer assets. Well, who does? The question And that you can find their website if I can't hold the crypto assets. Who is throwing them for me? First of all, this is who Coinbase custody Is their digital asset security provider? That's who it is. Well, who is coinbase custody? Well, it's the same ones That micro strategy picked up to use for so Okay, that sounds pretty good. I like that part Here's what else log and access will be restricted and assets will remain secured with the custody vendors Until our investigation is complete for individuals who access their accounts this weekend They're all represented zero balance because our system was isolated from the custody vendors. True Additionally, there are reports of fraudulent phishing activity regarding clients. I trust accounts I trust is not currently contacting clients by phone. You know, otherwise asking For credentials. So that's a big thing So just make sure that you understand that everything is a scam until proven otherwise No one is asking for your credentials and if they are they are probably scammers. But again, I gotta tell you Again five six months ago wouldn't be a big thing I would just try to shore that up. I trust and try to move that way Anyhow, let me know what you think about that in the comments section and then lastly just for everybody Winners the wieners Um for sweat coin So congratulations to all the winners for this month. You get 50 sweat coin. I just sent them all out Let me know if you didn't get them Uh chi sheng sang which crushed everybody in steps. That's a lot of steps I don't know what that breaks down to a per day 20,000 25,000 20 23 24,000 a day that's a lot of steps Michael Peters and trade jordan vader lord ice rishi andy jweb theodore jagger meister and lance turner and Of course, I put this out on On my twitter accounts and some other people already contacted me and said hey, I got more steps in that year It's not following me. I've already paid out. So I usually just pay a little bit more As far as sweat coins, but that's it. That's what's going on For the news congratulations and also let me say this that uh, if you've won twice For the sweat coin challenge. Uh, it's a two man out. So chi sheng sang you are uh, unfortunately retired now from from this From this, uh, this competition because I don't think it was gonna beat you at 747 000 You must have a heck of a job and that'll just free up other people to move in there and try to win So that's it. That's what's going on. So look, um, that takes care of today's news If you got to take off take off get out of here I just want to say thanks for sticking with me. Hit the like button your way out


Life is good all this month at Appalachian Wireless. Get the LG G5 for just one penny with sign up or renewal of a two year service agreement. That's almost $100 off the regular price. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless. Early this morning, the parking lot of Kentucky State Police post nine looked a little different than it does most Monday mornings as 32 anxious children boarded a bus for summer camp at Trooper Island on Dale Hollow Lake. Well this is the main event. This is what we've been leading up to all year. You talked to me several times throughout the year about different programs that we're doing, different events that we're doing, different fundraisers that we do to raise money for Trooper Island and today's the day. For the next five days, 16 girls and 16 boys from Pike County will spend time swimming, canoeing, fishing, learning archery and doing other outdoor activities. And it's all possible because of Trooper Island fundraisers and donations made throughout the year and for many of these children it's the highlight of their summer. Without this camp they wouldn't have the opportunity to have anything else for a vacation. And it's a chance for troopers to show the kids that they too like to get out and have fun. All week long they've just seen us as a buddy in shorts and a t-shirt and we want to incorporate that over into the uniform as well. We don't want the uniform to scare them but we do want to bring it in as a whole to allow them to see we can have fun with them but also this is who we are, this is what we do for a job. Trooper Island is for boys and girls between 10 and 12 and Brandy Brown's two children liked it so much last year they begged to go again this summer. They just had a blast, they just went on about it and this year they were excited and ecstatic to go back.  Bye! Bye! Let's go to the beach! Let's go! Reporting in Coal Run, I'm Shannon Deskins for EKB News.