Hi folks, 2021 isn’t getting any better by the day with disasters occurring almost on a regular basis. While the nation barely had time to process the Sriwijaya Air crash, the flooding in Kalimantan and the landslide in Sulawesi, Jakarta’s annual flood swept the city adding more grief on top of the challenges of having to deal with Covid-19. The President wants the controversial ITE Law revised, but how? And, really? Meanwhile, Pepsico’s laying off the chips in Indonesia and companies will be allowed to purchase their own Covid-19 vaccines for employees.
Jakarta’s Annual Flood
The Greater Jakarta Area was hit with devastating floods on Saturday affecting major streets in the central business district to small back alleys in congested kampongs. In some areas the floods came just as they were cleaning the mess caused by the ones which hit the day before.
Meanwhile, there have been areas which were inundated for the first time in decades, perhaps ever, including one section of the Jakarta Outer Ring Road which had become inaccessible.
As of Sunday afternoon the death toll from the flood was five, including four children who were swept by the water or drowned and an elderly gentleman who found himself trapped at his home in Jatipadang, South Jakarta. Neighbors tried to get to him but his doors and windows were locked. More than a thousand people had to be evacuated from their homes.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said Jakarta and the upstream areas had been swept with moderate to extreme rainfalls over the past few days. The condition could last until late February or early March.
Vox has a great explainer on land subsidence in Jakarta, one of the reasons why floods are becoming more and more devastating, which coincidentally or not was published on the day of the floods. Then there this long and quite comprehensive piece from Channel News Asia, which was published way too early it’s almost prophetic.
Meanwhile, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan downplayed the floods saying that they only affected 0.6% of the number of RTs (neighborhood units) in Jakarta and displaced a mere 329 families out of 2.6 million families living in the city. Ummmm… okay…
Lay Off the Chips
Starting in August, you will no longer see Lay’s, Doritos, and Cheetos on the shelves of supermarkets, warungs, and minimarts across Indonesia at least for the next three years. This is because Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of Pepsico, has decided to part ways with the Indonesian F&B giant Indofood and sell its 49% stake in their joint venture, Indofood Fritolay Makmur (IFL). Indofood bought Fritolay’s shares for Rp 494 billion.
As part of the deal, IFL will no longer produce and sell Frito-Lay products – the above mentioned Lay’s, Doritos, and Cheetos – starting in August and Frito-Lay cannot simply look for a new Indonesian partner or set up its own company to manufacture these products and be a direct competitor to IFL for the following three years.
If it gives you any solace, IFL will continue to produce products which they develop on their own and are not owned by Frito-Lay, namely Chiki, Chitato, JetZ and Qtela.
The exit was spurred by a report that Indofood had exploited its workers and Indofood affiliate IndoAgri had not abide by the rules of maintaining sustainable palm oil production, which led them to exit the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil organization and terminate the partnership with Pepsico as Indofood claimed that RSPO hadn’t been fair in its assessment.
Independent Vaccine Program
At least 5,300 companies have signed up for the so-called “independent vaccination” program after President Joko Widodo announced this week that companies will soon be able to pay state-owned company Biofarma, which has the monopoly to import Covid-19 vaccines from across the globe, to have their employees vaccinated.
Labor intensive factories will be given priority and the vaccines used in the program will be different from those used for the current program, the Health Ministry said, so it won’t take away supply for the government’s program. Companies will also be barred from abusing their allotted vaccines for commercial means, including charging fees to employees and their families or reselling them for profit.
The program does not bode well with some people arguing that it will cause people with money to jump the queue and take away vaccines from those who really need them. Epidemiologist Pandu Riono, sociologist Sulfikar Amir and Irma Handayani of LaporCovid-19 have even started a petition at Change.org to have the program repealed.
Register or Get Blocked
Vocal media Clubhouse, which shot to fame in Indonesia over the past month, will have to be registered with the Communications and Informatics Ministry if the developers of the app wish to maintain the app’s availability in Indonesia.
The surprising revelation actually surfaced a little known Ministerial regulation which was passed in November 2020 that requires all online services, apps, or games that allows users to create accounts and make purchases, to register with the government by end of May 2021. Yes, this includes Twitter, Netflix, Google, Facebook, even newspaper sites like The New York Times, Washington Post, and Guardian because they offer paid content.
The ministry however has yet to disclose the purpose or reasoning behind the requirement. This effectively creates a whitelist of websites that are allowed to operate in the country, much like whitelisting the IMEI numbers of cellular devices which prevents imported units from being used in Indonesia unless they are registered with the government..
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has decried the regulation as being repressive.
ITE Law to be Revised. Maybe?
In last week’s edition we pointed out that President Jokowi’s call for the public to be more critical of the government shows how out of touch he is with the controversies regarding the ITE Law. Since the law was passed in 2008, many Indonesians had been imprisoned or penalized for openly criticizing not just the government but also individuals as well as privately owned businesses.
While the law was meant to regulate electronic transactions, it includes an ambiguously worded article which regulates online speech. Perhaps embarrassed by his lack of knowledge, the President issued a sternly worded statement calling for the revision of the law or even its removal if it fails to provide a sense of justice.
The President’s call, while lauded by some, is met with skepticism especially as Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law, and Security Mahfud MD said that the government will be releasing an official guide to interpret the ITE Law.
Until Next Week
Before we go, check out today’s vaccination numbers. The government is supposed to be vaccinating up to half a million people a day if they want to get 181.5 million people vaccinated in one year, but they only managed to do fewer than 8,000 people combined today.
Catch y’all in the next edition, hopefully with better news. Give us a follow on Twitter or subscribe to this Nuiceletter if you haven’t, share it to your friends if you love what we do, and send us feedback if you have any. Have a safe week, mask up and maintain a distance if you have to meet people.