May 16, 2016
ASIA / PACIFIC
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5
Incoming Philippine government
to continue high-growth path
VEHICLE VIBRATION. Tourists look at the view of the Angkor Wat temples at sunrise, outside Siem
Reap, Cambodia, in this July 14, 2014 file photo. The main road alongside Cambodia’s famed Angkor Wat tem-
ple is now off-limits to cars as authorities seek to ease traffic jams at the site that draws 2.1 million tourists each
year. The volume of cars driving near the temple has increased so dramatically in recent years it raised concerns
that vibrations caused by the vehicles could harm the temples, which were built between the 9th and 15th centu-
ries. (AP Photo/Anat Givon, File)
Cambodia bars cars near Angkor
Wat temple to ease congestion
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The
main road alongside Cambodia’s famed
Angkor Wat temple is now off-limits to
cars as authorities seek to ease traffic jams
at the site that draws 2.1 million tourists
each year.
“From now on, only tourists walking by
foot or riding bicycles are allowed to travel
on the road in front of Angkor Wat temple,”
Prime Minister Hun Sen said in a
Facebook post that announced the
measure.
The new rule applies to a 985-foot
stretch of road in front of Angkor Wat.
Cars and tourist vans are still permitted
on other roads in the Angkor Archeological
Park, a 160-square-mile complex with
dozens of ancient temples.
Long Kosal, spokesman of the Apsara
Authority, a government agency that
oversees the Angkor complex, said a new
parking area has been built near the main
temple.
He said the volume of traffic near the
temple has increased so dramatically in
recent years it raised concerns that
vibrations caused by the vehicles could
harm the temples, which were built
between the 9th and 15th centuries.
Angkor Wat, the country’s biggest
tourist attraction, is a UNESCO World
Heritage site and a symbol of national
pride that is emblazoned on the
Cambodian flag.
U.S. sticking with calling Myanmar minority ‘Rohingya’
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar
and the United States appear to have
agreed to disagree on what to call the
Southeast Asian nation’s beleaguered
Muslim minority that Washington and
most of the world know as Rohingya.
Many Buddhists inside Myanmar prefer
to call them “Bengalis,” arguing that the 1
million or so members of the minority are
mostly illegal immigrants and not a native
ethnic group.
U.S.
Ambassador
Scot
Marciel
explained that normal official U.S.
practice is to call communities by the name
they themselves prefer.
Myanmar foreign ministry official Aye
Aye Soe acknowledged his office had asked
Marciel not to use the term “Rohingya.” He
said Marciel has the right to call the
minority whatever he likes, but calling
them Rohingya could enflame communal
tensions.
MANILA, The Philip-
pines (AP) — The transi-
tion team of Rodrigo
Duterte, the presumptive
Philippine president, said
his administration will
continue
the
macro-
economic policies of his
predecessor that put the
Southeast Asian nation on
a high-growth path.
Duterte’s team says they
also plan to stamp out cor-
ruption in revenue-col-
lecting agencies, adjust in-
come taxes, lift restrictions
on foreign investment, and
accelerate infrastructure
spending as part of their
eight-point economic agen-
da.
Carlos Dominguez, a
former agricultural secre-
tary likely to be part of
Duterte’s cabinet, said the
new administration will
continue Aquino’s target of
spending five percent of
gross domestic product on
infrastructure and will
remove bottlenecks to pri-
vate-public partnerships
projects.
The new government will
also focus on eliminating
corruption in the Bureau of
Internal Revenue and the
Bureau
of
Customs
through reforms in the
bureaucracy. It will adjust
income tax tables to
inflation that will lower
taxes for lower-income
earners.
The
current
income tax rates have not
been adjusted since 1997
and are among the highest
in the region.
“This will fulfill the
president-elect’s promise
that there will be less cor-
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Beware, Everest graffiti artists, China is watching you
BEIJING (AP) — Next time you leave
silly messages on the world’s highest
mountain, beware: China is watching
you.
Mountaineering officials have scrubbed
graffiti from two granite tablets on the
Chinese side of Mount Everest’s northern
base camp and plan to name and shame
future defilers.
State-run mobile news site The Paper
reported that workers removed the
signatures, dates, doodles, and messages
left by scores of visitors. They include “let’s
wander together,” “farewell to the
mountain,” and “here I come.”
The graffiti grew so thick it covered the
information about the mountain carved
into the tablets in Chinese, Tibetan, and
English.
The base camp at roughly 17,060 feet is a
popular tourist site and has fallen prey to
the sort of behavior the Chinese govern-
ment says is uncivilized and vows to
punish.
Along with publicizing the names of
those leaving behind graffiti, base camp
management is considering setting aside
separate wall space just for visitors to
write their names and other messages, a
local tourism official, Gu Chunlei, told The
Paper.
“It’s a way of getting travellers to change
their habits without even knowing it,” Gu
was quoted as saying. Similar graffiti
walls have been set up at other scenic sites,
including the Great Wall outside Beijing
that has long been a target for those
seeking to leave a mark of their visit.
As personal incomes have risen, Chinese
have become avid travellers and bad
behavior by some of them has become
something of an embarrassment. Along
with sharp criticism in the media and
online forums, the government has set up
an online national database naming those
involved in particularly egregious behav-
ior and giving airlines, hotels, and other
travel outlets the option of refusing them
service.
In 2013, a Chinese teenager scratched
his name on an ancient Egyptian temple
and was roundly condemned by his fellow
Chinese.
Everest itself has accumulated garbage,
pollution, and other ills brought by the
vastly increased numbers of climbers and
visitors to the peak that straddles China
and Nepal.
PILIPINO PRESIDENT. Presumptive Philippine president Rodrigo
Duterte smiles during a news conference shortly after voting in a polling
precinct at Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School, Matina district, his
hometown in Davao city, southern Philippines. Duterte was the last to vote
among five presidential hopefuls. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
ruption in the govern- “This also means that we
ment,” Dominguez said of are going to promote
the revenue agency re- tourism in the rural areas.”
The land administration
forms.
To ensure the attractive- system will be improved to
ness of the Philippines to encourage investments in
foreign direct investments, rural areas and make
he said the government projects more bankable
will address restrictive through security of land
economic provisions in the tenure, he said. Under the
constitution and laws, cut current system, there is
red tape, and reduce crimes very little coordination
to increase the security of among four land titling
businessmen and con- agencies, he added.
Dominguez said basic
sumers.
It will also focus on education will also be
supporting small farmers’ strengthened and college
productivity,
improving scholarships offered. The
market access, forging new administration will
partnerships with agricul- also expand and improve
tural business companies, the implementation of a
and encouraging more program offering direct
agriculture processing in cash aid to poor families on
agricultural areas as part the condition they keep
of a rural development their children in school and
have them get health
strategy.
“We are going to focus on check-ups.
Aquino has said that
the two-thirds of the
population that are poor program has lifted 7.7
and who live in the rural million Filipinos out of
areas,” Dominguez said. poverty.
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