Philippines launches electric tricycles

MANILA — The Philippines wants to replace millions of petrol-powered tricycles with electric ones as part of efforts to clean up the nation's polluting mass transport system, President Benigno Aquino said Friday.

The government will initially replace 20,000 tricycles that ply minor streets across the capital Manila and eventually expand the project throughout the country, Aquino said in a speech to government employees.

It is hoped the scheme will save the impoverished country tens of millions of dollars annually.

"The (project) is an ambitious multi-year plan to wean public utility vehicles from the use of gasoline and diesel and to encourage them to shift to alternatives like natural gas, electricity and hybrid engines," he said.

"I would like to see the day when nearly all public utility vehicles... run on alternative fuel, freeing the public transport sector and commuters from the threat of unreasonably high oil prices and unhealthy levels of air pollution."

Aquino did not give a definite timetable of the programme, which was launched this week when 20 so-called "e-tricycles" hit the streets of a Manila suburb.

Manila-based Asian Development Bank, which is funding the initial stage of the project, said transport sector emissions accounted for 30 percent of all pollution in the Philippines.

In Manila, vehicle emissions account for 80 percent of all pollution, it said.

"A sizeable proportion of vehicle emissions are attributable to inefficient public transport, particularly from tricycles, jeepneys and buses," it added.

Jeepneys are colourful small buses that make up the backbone of the country's chaotic mass transport system, locally assembled using second-hand truck engines and transmission systems imported from Japan.

Sohail Hasnie, an energy specialist at Manila-based ADB, said more than 3.5 million tricycles operated in the Philippines.

These emitted more than 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and burned nearly five billion dollars of fuel yearly.

"Every 20,000 e-trikes that are introduced to Manila's streets will save the Philippines 100,000 litres of foreign fuel imports each day, saving the country about 35 million dollars annually," Hasnie said.

Though the electronic tricycles, which use rechargeable lithium ion batteries, are costlier, older petrol tricycles are more than twice as expensive to operate in the long run, Hasnie added.

The carbon footprints of the e-trikes, which are locally produced, would be less than a quarter of conventional tricycles, the ADB said.

ADB officials said the Manila-based lender was now in talks with the Philippine government on supporting the expansion of the project.

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Have a techie cinema experience

A new technology will be killing the long line at the box office.

Filipinos will no longer have to endure the long lines at the theater just to watch the hottest movies. SM Cinemas now has the "bcode" feature, where a person's favorite movie is just a text message away.

With this, people just have to buy a ticket online. Then, they'll receive a text message with the date and time of the movie as well as a bar code.

Moviegoers will just have their mobile phones scanned at the theater lobby and their tickets will be printed out.

"You don't need a special app. You don't need an internet connection. All you need is a normal cellphone that can accept text messages," said Manuel Christian Fong III, Chief Information Officer of eCom.

On top of that, moviegoers will also have an educational experience with SM Cinema's "Film Literacy Program."

Paul Arugay of SM Cinema said that this is their way to use the film as an educational tool. "We are going to the schools and we want to offer this to schools," he says. The venue for the program could either be the school or the SM Cinemas.

Film director and historian Nick Deocampo will pick the featured documentaries and movies. After viewing, the audience will have a discussion about the film, using the study guide and syllabus that Deocampo prepares for them.

Through this, people will have a richer movie-watching experience—and most probably avoid scratching their heads just in case they do not understand the plotlines.

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Why things taste bitter for Pepsi

After decades in the shadow of Coca-Cola, Pepsi has slipped to third place in the war of the cola brands, ousted by Diet Coke


Life can sometimes be conveniently distilled down into very simple choices, such as cats or dogs, black and white, bus or car. And when it comes to beverages, two of the most powerful businesses in the world have spent the hundreds of billions of pounds over decades to try and make the choice of what to drink equally simple. Coke or Pepsi?

In a battle more enduring and expensive than most global conflicts, the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo have been locked in a marketing blitz over their core products, Coke and Pepsi. The Cola Wars eclipse all other commercial rivalries.

Recent sales figures however, suggest the war may be over. And Pepsi lost it. Last year Diet Coke outsold Pepsi-Cola by 927 million cases to 892 million cases in the US. This relegated the drink to third place in the national cola league below Coke and Diet Coke. The news has sent commentators scurrying to build aluminium can-shaped coffins for Pepsi, often seen as the eternal underdog.

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