BusinessMirror December 23, 2025

Revenue momentum a hard climb–Go W

HILE “extraordinary” measures caused tax collections at the Bureaus of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Customs (BOC) to come in “softer” than targets, Finance Secretary Frederick D. Go said restoring momentum hinges on moving past the public works investigation and maintaining fiscal discipline.

In a recent press chat, Finance Secretary Frederick D. Go said tax revenue collection will be “softer than what was expected,” given that there was still no issue with public works when the targets were set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC).

WORLD » A7

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The DBCC has set the revenue collection target of the BIR and the BOC to P3.219 trillion and P958.714 billion, respectively.

As of end-October, the BIR has raised 82.35 percent or P2.651 trillion of its goal, while the BOC collected 81.84 percent or P784.633 billion.

“The whole key to all of this is for us to get over the hump of this public works investigation,” Go said. “I think most of it is behind us, and people’s expectations now are proper prosecution, proper restitution and genuine reform in the public works arena.”

“The sooner people move on from it, the better for the economy and the better, therefore, for rev-

enue collection,” the Finance chief said.

Go said the government has announced about P12 billion in restitution linked to the investigation, stemming from frozen bank accounts and the sale or repossession of assets from individuals involved.

At the same time, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has worked on reforms, including lowering the unit costs for public works projects and improving transparency in procurement.

Going into 2026, Go said it is “extremely important” for the government to exercise fiscal discipline.

All agencies must take a very good look at their budgets and focus on the expenditures with the highest efficiency and productivity, Go said.

“That’s what I’m asking from them, to help us in this whole process of fiscal discipline and really spend money where the economic multiplier is highest,” the Finance chief added.

“I think it’s a very unusual, it’s a very extraordinary year,” Go said.

“The previous performances cannot be used as a basis to compare against what happened this year.”

Go said collections at the BOC were significantly affected by the rice import ban, which started See “Revenue,” A2

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Tuesday, December 23, 2025 Vol. 21 No. 76

P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 24 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK

BANG CHECK: PASS OR FAIL Philippine National Police Acting Chief Police Lieutenant General Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr., together with Bulacan Governor Daniel Fernando and Vice Governor Alex Castro, leads an ocular inspection of designated firecracker and pyrotechnic zones in Bocaue, Bulacan,

on Monday, December 22, 2025, ahead of the expected surge of buyers for New Year’s Eve. Authorities used the inspection to reinforce public awareness on the difference between legal firecrackers, which comply with safety and sound regulations, and illegal firecrackers—commonly known by names such as Goodbye Philippines, Goodbye Chismosa, Yolanda, and Bin Laden—which are banned due to their high explosive power and history of causing serious injuries. Officials urged the public to buy only certified products from authorized vendors to ensure a safer holiday celebration. NONOY LACZA

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By Reine Juvierre S. Alberto @reine_alberto

HE country paid less for its external debt in the first nine months on the back of lower principal repayments, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

Latest BSP data showed the country’s external debt service burden (DSB) decreased to $10.080 billion from January to September 2025, down by 21.15 percent from $12.785 billion in the same period in 2024.

DSB is the total principal and interest payments the country has to pay after the debt has been rescheduled.

About 58.65 percent of the DSB during the nine-month period consisted of interest payments worth $5.912 billion.

Interest payments marginally dropped by 0.58 percent year-onyear to $5.912 billion from $5.947 billion.

Meanwhile, principal payments plunged by 39.04 percent year-onyear to $4.168 billion from $6.838 billion.

According to Michael L. Ricafort, chief economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation, the lower

year-on-year foreign debt principal payments may have to do with reduced maturities of external debts, while interest payments declined due to rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve since last year.

The national government has also reduced its reliance on foreign borrowings in its overall financing mix to mitigate foreign exchange risks, resulting in a smaller stock of external debt that needs to be serviced, Ricafort added.

“Overall national government borrowings, both external and domestic, would depend/be a function of future budget deficits to be financed,” Ricafort said.

“Fiscal reform, tax reform, anticorruption, good governance reform measures would help narrow the budget deficit and, in turn, reduce the need for the national government to borrow more locally and from abroad to finance the budget See “Debt,” A2

USE E-WALLET FOR CASH GIFTS THIS CHRISTMAS–BSP TO PINOYS

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S Christmas approaches, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) issued this suggestion to the public: use digital or e-money for a convenient and safe way to give cash gifts.

On Monday, the BSP said it is encouraging the public to use digital or e-money as cash gifts to their godchildren, family and friends.

“Using e-wallets and online banking offers a safe and more convenient way to send cash gifts during the Christmas season,” the central bank said.

In anticipation of the expected surge in cash demand during the Yuletide season, the BSP said that it continues to produce fresh banknotes and coins for distribution to banks nationwide.

The BSP also reminded the public that exchanging their unfit banknotes through banks is free of charge.

“The public is advised to transact only with authorized

banks to avoid paying service fees charged by unauthorized individuals or other parties,” it said.

The BSP operates the country’s core payment infrastructure and establishes the regulatory framework to ensure that money transfers are fast, secure and reliable.

Data from the BSP showed digital person-to-person (P2P) transfers accounted for 20.6 percent of digital payment volume in 2024, totaling 680.5 million transactions.

This represents a 34.7-percent increase year-on-year, driven by broader access to transaction accounts.

The rise in digital payments is reflected in the growing use of platforms such as QR Ph P2M, InstaPay and PESONet. More BSP-supervised institutions are also joining QR Ph P2M, enabling Filipinos to make payments easily by scanning or uploading QR codes at merchants nationwide.

Reine Juvierre S. Alberto

’25 budget rises to ₧6.3T on UA items T HIS year’s national budget was pushed to P6.335 trillion after about P8.976 billion in additional unprogrammed appropriations were activated.

According to the latest data from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the national budget for the year has been adjusted to P6.335 trillion as of the end of November.

This includes an extra P8.976 billion added to the original P6.326trillion budget.

Unprogrammed appropriations act as a standby authority, allowing agencies to cover additional obligations for priority programs or projects when revenue collections exceed targets or when extra grants or foreign funding become available.

DBM data showed that unprogrammed appropriations increased to P169.679 billion as of end-November.

Of the unprogrammed appropriations in November, P13.501 billion was given as assistance for the infrastructure and social programs of the Department of Social Welfare

and Development.

Another P478.880 million also went to the Department of Transportation as support to its foreignassisted projects.

Release of special purpose funds also reached 91.9 percent, equivalent to P486.960 billion, which has been handed out from the P529.595-billion program.

On the other hand, 94.2 percent or P1.992 trillion of the P2.115 trillion in automatic appropriations has also been disbursed.

The entire P1.034 trillion in national tax allotment, P83.421 billion in block grant, P480 million in pensions of former presidents or their widows, P37.352 billion in special account in the general fund and P14.5 billion in tax expenditures fund/customs duties and taxes have also been made available.

Additionally, the DBM allocated P68.549 billion for retirement and life insurance premiums (RLIP) of government employees and added P9.675 billion in extra funds as of end-November.

See “Budget,” A2

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 58.6450 n JAPAN 0.3719 n UK 78.4846 n HK 7.5371 n CHINA 8.3293 n SINGAPORE 45.3733 n AUSTRALIA 38.7468 n EU 68.7495 n KOREA 0.0398 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.6366 Source: BSP (December 22, 2025)

News

BusinessMirror

A2 Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Conflict…

Continued from A16

meeting, joining Asean Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn and foreign ministers from Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, TimorLeste, and Indonesia. Myanmar participated virtually.

Flashpoints on the ground

THE latest round of fighting began December 8, a day after a border skirmish wounded two Thai soldiers.

Since then, clashes have erupted on several fronts, with Thailand launching airstrikes in Cambodia using F-16 fighter jets, while Cambodia fired thousands of BM-21 rockets.

Officials report more than two dozen deaths and over half a million displaced civilians.

Land mines remain a flashpoint.

The Thai navy said one of its marines was seriously injured after stepping on a mine, accusing Cambodia of deliberately planting new explosives.

Cambodia denied the charge, insisting the mines were remnants of its civil war that ended in 1999.

Asean unity tested

ASEAN leaders reiterated that resolving the Cambodia–Thailand conflict must be rooted in dialogue, wisdom, and mutual respect, reaffirming the bloc’s collective responsibility to safeguard peace in the region.

With the Philippines set to take over the Asean Chairship in less than two weeks, Secretary Lazaro’s offer to mediate signals Manila’s intent to play a central role in steering the bloc through one of its most pressing security challenges.

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DTI extends to Dec. 31, 2026 voluntary Trustmark listing

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By Andrea E. San Juan @andreasanjuan

HE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said it is keeping Trustmark registration voluntary until December 31, 2026 to give online businessmen more time to join at their own pace.

At a briefing on Monday, Trade and Industry Secretary Cristina A. Roque explained to reporters what prompted the Trade department to hold the

mandatory registration for the Ecommerce badge.

“If the government can give it, why not,” Roque said, adding: “We just

Revenue…

imports are largely dollar-denominated, which tends to lift peso-based collections.

For the BIR, Go said the tax take was strong in the first half of the year, but gradually softened in the latter months.

Still, the BIR continued to post increases in collections every month, and December revenues appear “encouraging,” Go said.

Continued from A1

last September 1 and will last until December 31, as well as the typhoons that forced the temporary shutdown of port and customs operations.

Despite these, Go said the weaker peso could provide some relief to customs collections toward year-end, as

Reine Juvierre S. Alberto

tried to benchmark also in other countries...How they do it.”

The Trade chief said 18,405 have already applied for the Ecommerce Trustmark.

However, DTI explained in an advisory that joining now would mean having the “immediate benefit” of helping build a safer digital marketplace while boosting their respective businesses.

“Early adopters gain key advantages right away: Enhanced consumer trust that drives more sales and loyalty; Stronger operational credibility to stand out from competitors; and Clear market distinction with a badge that signals reliability,” the Trade department noted.

The Philippine Trustmark is a digital badge that serves as a government recognition for online merchants and platforms that commit to trustworthiness, safety, and fair e-commerce practices.

In October 2025, Senator Bam Aquino asked DTI to review and reconsider the mandatory “Trustmark” requirement for online traders, calling it an “unnecessary burden” on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

The Trade department also reminded the public earlier that, while it remains voluntary, all existing laws related to e-commerce continue to be “strictly enforced.”

Bank secrecy easing…

Continued from A16

adding that the measure complements the recent decision to restore public access to officials’ Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALNs).

“Lifting the secrecy of bank deposits will certainly complement the government’s drive for greater transparency with the recent decision by Ombudsman [Jesus Crispin] Remulla to restore public

Raps…

Continued from A16

“I will let my lawyers address those issues,” he added.

While he noted that the case is the first of it kind, which he confronted in his 30 years of public service, Recto assured people it will affect his ongoing initiative to initiate reforms in the government.

$3.5-B…

Continued from A16

n Information sharing: Enhanced protocols under the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) signed in November 2024, which allows secure exchange of classified defense information and opens access to advanced US technologies. n Humanitarian readiness: Pre‑positioning of disaster relief equipment in the Philippines. n Organizational reforms: Review of JUSMAG‑P to streamline bilateral planning.

access to the SALNs [Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth] of both appointed and elected public officials,” he said.

“The approval of this bill further addresses the push by business groups for the government to strengthen transparency and accountability in government as a better means to combat official corruption,” he added.

“Nevertheless, I will not get distracted by political noise. The work of improving government performance and services is my priority,” he said.

Citing the said SC decision, Recto said he cannot be held criminally liable when he authorized it since he did it “in accordance with a direct mandate from Congress in ordering the remittance of PhilHealth’s unused funds.”

n Counter‑coercion measures (Sec. 1270): Explicit mandate to safeguard Philippine sovereignty and counter coercive military activities in the South China Sea.

Strategic impact

THE NDAA FY2026 elevates the Philippines from being a recipient of US aid to a cornerstone of Washington’s Indo‑Pacific strategy. By combining financial support, infrastructure development, trilateral drills, intelligence sharing, and disaster relief readiness, the US Congress has positioned Manila as a central operational partner in regional security planning.

9-month external debt…

Continued from A1

deficit,” he added.

BSP’s DSB data consists of principal and interest payments on fixed medium- and long-term (MLT) credits, including International Monetary Fund (IMF) credits, loans covered by the Paris Club.

It also includes interest payments on fixed and revolving short-term (ST) liabilities of banks and non-banks, but excludes prepayments on future years’ maturities of foreign loans and principal payments on fixed and revolving short-term liabilities of banks and non-banks.

As a percentage of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the DSB eased to 2.9 percent in the first nine months of 2025, lower than the 3.9 percent in the same period last year.

In terms of other ratios, that of

DSB to export shipments dropped to 21.1 percent in the nine-month period from 30.2 percent a year ago.

The DSB ratio to exports of goods, and receipts from services and primary income also declined to 8.5 percent from last year’s 11.5 percent.

The country’s external debt, meanwhile, increased by 6.76 percent to $149.093 billion in the January to September 2025 period, from $139.643 billion in the same period in 2024.

The bulk of the external debt was accounted for by the public sector at $96.293 billion. This was up by 10.83 percent from $86.882 billion a year earlier.

Private external debt inched up by 0.06 percent year-on-year to $52.796 billion from $52.762 billion.

DPWH to give to Ombudsman Cabral records, data devices

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

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HE Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will immediately turn over all data storage devices, documents, records, and files from the office of the late former Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral, in full compliance with a subpoena issued by the Office of the Ombudsman.

In a statement on Monday, the DPWH said it will submit the data storage devices to the Philippine National Police-Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG) for forensic examination as part of the ongoing investigation.

“The department remains committed to transparency and will continue to cooperate fully with investigating bodies to provide any further assistance required in the ongoing inquiry,” the agency said.

Cabral, 63, died on December 19 after she was found unconscious at the bottom of a ravine along Kennon Road in Tuba, Benguet.

An autopsy conducted by the Philippine National Police showed Cabral died of blunt traumatic injury consistent with a fall.

Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla has said forensic findings, including fingerprint comparison, confirmed the body was Cabral’s and that no foul play was detected, with no gunshot wounds, ligature marks, or stab wounds found.

Cabral’s family, including her husband Cesar and their children, have maintained they believe she had an accidental slip.

Cabral is implicated in the corruption allegations in the DPWH. She had resigned from the department in September after being linked to alleged budget insertions and kickback schemes, though she consistently denied involvement.

She had been summoned by the Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) for questioning but died before she could provide testimony.

The chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson, had strongly lamented Cabral’s death, saying that despite her initial tepid cooperation with probers, there were indications that she would provide useful information eventually.

He revealed that through her lawyer, Cabral had twice discussed with his committee lawyers the possible cooperation she could extend to the Blue Ribbon.

’25 budget rises to ₧6.3T on UA items Continued from A1

Some obligations also remain pending, such as the P7.175 billion in net lending and P124.814 billion in interest payments that have yet to be released.

Moreover, the DBM recorded P262.668 billion in other releases as of end-November, of which 61.18 percent or P160.702 billion went to unprogrammed appropriations.

Continuing appropriations from the previous year reached P25.581 billion, while other automatic appropriations stood at P76.384 billion.

In 2024, the DBM began adjusting the national budget in September, with the additional programs reaching P668.881 billion by the end of the year.

This brought the 2024 national budget to P6.436 trillion from the original P5.767 trillion.

Reine Juvierre S. Alberto

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Tuesday, December 23, 2025

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Comelec to submit DOJ files criminal charges own anti-political vs Atong Ang, 21 others dynasty bill version

By Joel R. San Juan

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@jrsanjuan1573

HE Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced the filing of kidnapping with homicide and kidnapping with serious illegal detention cases against businessman Charlie “Atong” Ang and 21 police officers in connection with the disappearance of 34 cockfighting enthusiasts or “sabungeros” four years ago.

It may be recalled that on December 9, the DOJ released its resolution finding prima facie evidence with “reasonable certainty of conviction” to put Ang and his co-respondents on trial for the disappearance of the 34

sabungeros.

However, the Justice department failed to immediately file the cases in court owing to voluminous attachments and documents that would have to be attached to the information, Prosecutor General

Richard Anthony Fadullon said.

DOJ spokesman, Polo Martinez earlier told the media that the information was under review.

When asked for an update on the case, Martinez confirmed that the criminal information were officially filed in Friday (December 19) before three different courts— the Regional Trial Courts in Lipa City; Sta. Cruz, Laguna; and San Pablo City, Laguna.

Ang has filed a motion for reconsideration before the DOJ seeking the reversal of the resolution issued by the panel of prosecutors recommending his indictment.

The DOJ has 30 days to resolve the appeal under Department Circular 015, s. 2024.

As to the possible issuance of arrest warrants against Ang and his co-accused, Martinez said it would be entirely up to the trial court’s determination of probable cause.

“Under the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, the courts wherein the information are filed

will issue the corresponding warrants of arrest upon its determination of the existence of probable cause based on the evidence submitted and the resolution by the panel of prosecutors,” the DOJ spokesman said in response to the statement of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla’s statement that Ang’s arrest could be imminent.

Ang’s lawyer, Gabriel Villareal, said the businessman has remained in the country and has consistently cooperated with authorities since the start of the investigation.

The charges against Ang were filed based on the testimonies of whistleblower Julie Aguilar Patidongan and his brother, Ellakim.

The DOJ said based on the sworn confessions of the Patidongan brothers, Ang, who owns Pitmasters that operates e-sabong, acted as the mastermind in the kidnapping and killing of the missing sabungeros who were allegedly involved cheating activities.

Mindanao not a ‘terror hotspot’–Galvez

By Rex Anthony Naval

M

INDANAO is not a “terror hotspot” even as the suspects in the bloody

Bondi Beach shooting in Australia travelled there a month before the incident, the presidential peace adviser, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., said on Monday. “[We] must fir mly address and reject the misleading insinuations branding Mindanao as a ‘terror hotspot’ following reports regarding the per petrators’ travel histor y. T hese claims are not only unvalidated by intelligence, but it is also dee ply u nju st to t he peace loving people of Mindanao,” he said in a statement.

Earlier reports said these individuals travelled to Davao City through Manila on November 1-28, 2025.

Galvez added that such narratives ignore the monumental strides the Philippine government had made in transforming the region from a theater of conflict into a bastion of peace and

development. “ The true identity of Mindanao today is defined by the successful implementation of peace agreements, the transformation of former combatants, and the effective integration of former extremist groups into the mainstream of society. Through the Bangsamoro peace process, Mindanao has shed its old identity and emerged as a land of fulfillment and economic growth,” he said.

Galvez also called upon the international media to exercise discernment and responsibility.

He said that branding an entire region based on the transient movements of individuals creates dangerous generalizations that unfairly stigmatize a population that has sacrificed so much for stability.

See “Terror,” A11

By Justine Xyrah Garcia

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HE Commission on Elections (Comelec) is drafting its own version of an Anti-Political Dynasty bill, Chairman George Erwin M. Garcia confirmed.

Garcia said the move comes after the House of Representatives’ Committee on Electoral Reforms sought the poll body’s inputs on proposed measures aimed at curbing political dynasties.

“Our draft is moving toward a prohibition covering relatives up to the fourth degree. Some proposals limit this to the second degree, but ours extends to the fourth degree of relationship,” Garcia said.

He said the Comelec would propose what it considers an “absolute” ban on political dynasties, in contrast to other bills that impose narrower limitations.

“More or less, our proposal is an absolute anti-political dynasty measure,” Garcia said.

“Other proposals allow certain relatives with limitations. Ours is better because it is what is provided for under the Constitution,”

he added.

Garcia also said that the poll body is “strongly supportive” of legislative initiatives that seek to limit the concentration of political power within families.

The development follows President Marcos’ call earlier this month for Congress to fast-track priority electoral reform measures, including a long-delayed ban on political dynasties, before the end of his term.

In response to the President’s pronouncement, several lawmakers have filed their own versions of an anti-political dynasty bill.

Among them are Speaker Faustino Dy III and Majority Leader Ferdinand A lexander Marcos, who authored a measure seeking to prohibit spouses, siblings, and relatives within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity of an elected public official from simultaneously holding certain elective positions.

The measure also bars immediate succession to the same office, a provision intended to prevent relatives from directly taking over a post vacated by a family member.

It’s Senate’s turn to tackle bill creating water department

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HE House of Representatives on Monday endorsed for Senate approval a landmark measure that establishes a national framework for water resource management, creates the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Water Regulatory Commission (WRC), and provides funds for their operations.

This, after lawmakers, voting 263 affirmative and seven negative, approved on the third and final reading House Bill 6789, or the proposed National Water Resources Management Act. T he p r o p o s a l i s i n c lu d e d among t he pr ior it y bi l ls endorsed by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisor y Council (Ledac).

The bill, hailed as a major step toward ensuring sustainable and equitable access to water across

the country, outlines key objectives such as accelerating universal access to water supply and sanitation services, promoting responsible private sector participation, and prioritizing water infrastructure projects imbued with national interest.

Under the bill, the DWR will serve as the primary government agency responsible for comprehensive identification, mapping, and management of the nation’s water resources, except for fisheries and aquaculture. The department will also oversee water-related projects, including sanitation, flood control, drought mitigation, and wastewater management.

The DWR is empowered to coordinate w ith various gover n ment agenc ies, i nc lud i ng See “Water,” A11

Navy ship fires main gun at WPS

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HE Navy (PN) on Monday said that one of its offshore patrol vessels, the corvette BRP Emilio Jacinto (PS-35), conducted a maritime patrol off Los Frailes Island, Zambales, where it also successfully test-fired its Oto Melara 76mm main gun on December 18.

BRP Emilio Jacinto is assigned to the PN’s Northern Luzon Naval Command (NLNC) based in Naval Station Ernesto Ogbinar, Poro Point, San Fernando City, La Union.

“Dur ing t he patrol, PS -35 maintained heightened maritime domain awareness while monitoring vessel movements and engaging in presence operations in key sea lanes, particularly in areas vulnerable to transnational maritime threats,” the PN said in a statement.

It added that the test firing of the ship’s 76mm Oto Melara main gun was to ensure operability, accuracy, and effective operation of the weapon and “amplify the operator’s skill proficiency.”

BRP Emilio Jacinto is the first

among three Peacock Class ships purchased by the Philippines from England in 1997, when that country turned over sovereignty over Hong Kong to China.

The former HMS Peacock and her sister ships were used to patrol the waters of Hong Kong.

The PN added that all NLNC and its assets will continue to monitor the area and ensure the safety of Filipino fishermen within the West Philippine Sea. In a related development, the Western Naval Command, based in Naval Station Carlito Cunanan, barangay Macarascas, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, conducted an arrival and welcoming ceremony for the outgoing security personnel from Lawak and Patag Islands in the Kalayaan Island Group following their safe arrival at WNC headquarters on December 17.

“The activity marked the successful completion of the rotation and resupply [Rore] mission and recognized the dedicated service of personnel deployed in forward areas,” it added. PNA

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Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Economy

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Senate, House extend session for ratification of ’26 natl budget

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

& Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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@joveemarie

HE Senate and the House of Representatives on Monday extended their session to give more time for the completion and ratification of the Bicameral Conference Committee (Bicam) report on the proposed P6.793-trillion General Appropriations bill (GAB) for fiscal year 2026, which House leaders said would result in “a budget that the people can trust.”

Majority Leader Sandro Marcos, in a manifestation, said additional time is necessary to ensure the continuity of government operations and the faithful

implementation of the national budget for the coming year. He moved to amend the legislative calendar by resetting the resumption of session from December 22

to December 29, 2025, and the adjournment of session from December 23 to December 30, 2025, noting that the Senate will make a similar adjustment.

“All other dates in the previously adopted calendar shall remain the same,” Marcos said, adding that the ratification of the Conference committee report is imperative.

The House is set to reconvene brief ly on December 29 to ratify the bicameral conference committee report, the final step before the 2026 national budget is signed into law by President Marcos.

The House Committee on Appropriations chairperson, Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Suansing, said Bicam members are scheduled to sign the Conference Committee Report on December 28, after which copies will be distributed to House members on the same day.

Majority Leader Marcos also assured lawmakers that all members will be provided copies of the report and given ample time to re-

view it prior to ratification.

Senate extends session too

IN the Senate, Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri made a similar motion to amend the legislative calendar, noting that they have also been informed of the developments in the House.

The senators convened briefly on Monday, and then suspended session until December 29.

Zubiri particularly moved to change the resumption of sessions from December 22-25; to December 29; and the adjournment from Dec. 23 to Dec. 30.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Finance committee that shepherded the 2026 budget, said extending the calendar will give time for printing of the draft enrolled bill; which can then be shared with the bicameral conferees and other senators.

The ratification can be done by December 29.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said he fully supported Zubiri’s motion, stressing that this batch of lawmakers wanted to ensure

that the enrolled copy “is a faithful reproduction” of the bicameral conference committee report, and extending the calendar would preclude any errors that may be made by the rush and prevent any possibility of suspected “insertions.”

This Congress under my leadership would never allow a “blind ratification,” Sotto said.

Watershed moment

SPEAKER Faustino Dy III described the conclusion of the bicameral negotiations as a watershed moment for transparency and accountability in the budget process.

“This was the first open bicameral conference in our history—an important step toward a more open, clearer, and more trustworthy national budget process,” he said.

“We have completed a budget that the people can trust—a budget without insertions, not hidden, not rushed, and not kept out of sight, but open to public scrutiny,” the speaker said.

Dy said the House version of

the 2026 budget delivers tangible gains for Filipinos, highlighted by record allocations for education, health care, and agriculture.

He noted that education received the largest allocation in Philippine history, equivalent to 4.1 percent of gross domestic product, with more than 25,000 classrooms scheduled for construction or rehabilitation and the full restoration of funding for the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education program.

On health care, the Speaker said the budget strengthens the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

(PhilHealth) and the Medical Assistance to Individuals and Financially Incapacitated Patients (Maif ip) prog ram to suppor t zero-balance billing for indigent patients in public hospitals.

Agriculture funding was likewise increased to support farmers and fishermen through expanded farm-to-market roads, irrigation systems, mechanization, crop insurance, and subsidies, Dy said.

See “Budget,” A11

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Angel R. Calso

The World BusinessMirror

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

A7

Southeast Asian ministers meet in Malaysia to address Thailand-Cambodia border conflict

B

ANGKOK—Southeast Asian foreign ministers gathered Monday in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur for a special meeting to discuss an ongoing border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia that escalated into deadly combat two weeks ago.

The meeting marked the second time this year that the regional Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, served as a platform to promote de-escalation between its two member states.

The new fighting derailed a ceasefire promoted by US President Donald Trump, which ended five days of combat in July.

The agreement was brokered

by Malaysia and pushed through under pressure from Trump, who threatened to withhold trade privileges unless Thailand and Cambodia agreed. The ceasefire was formalized with more detail at an October regional summit in Malaysia attended by Trump.

The fighting has drawn international concern. The US Department

of State on Sunday released a statement calling for Thailand and Cambodia to “end hostilities, withdraw heavy weapons, cease emplacement of landmines, and fully implement the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords, which include mechanisms to accelerate humanitarian demining and address border issues.”

Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said on social media Sunday that he spoke with the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and conveyed “Thailand’s strong intention to work toward a ceasefire and outlined our clear path forward.”

Thailand will engage constructively at Monday’s meeting in Kuala Lumpur, he said.

Cambodia’s Foreign Minister

Malaysian court rejects former prime minister’s bid to serve remainder of sentence under house arrest

K

UALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—A Malaysian court Monday rejected former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s bid to serve the remainder of his graft sentence under house arrest.

The High Court ruled that a rare royal order issued by the nation’s former king was not valid as it wasn’t made in accordance with constitutional requirements.

Najib’s lawyer told the court they plan to appeal the verdict.

The 72-year-old former prime minister will serve the remainder of his term in prison, scheduled to end in August 2028 after the Pardons Board cut the 12-year sentence by half last year.

Najib is serving time after

being convicted in a trial linked to the multibillion-dollar looting of the 1MDB state fund that toppled his government in 2018.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2020 for abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering involving 42 million ringgit ($10.3 million) channeled into his bank accounts from SRC International, a former unit of 1MDB. He began his sentence in August 2022 after losing his final appeal, becoming Malaysia’s first former leader to be jailed.

He filed an application in April 2024, saying he had information See “Razak,” A11

Taiwan tightens security after deadly attacks shock the island

By Cindy Wang & Philip Glamann

T

AIWAN stepped up security at transport hubs across the island after knife attacks in the capital killed three people and injured several others—a rare violent spree that shocked the democracy of 23 million people.

Armed police were stationed at major subway stations in Taipei on Monday morning. Police were also sorting through a spate of reports of threatened copycat attacks, including one involving a bomb on the subway.

“We have received dozens of security threats since the incident occurred,” Lu Chun-hung, a Taipei police commander in the Criminal Investigation Division, told Bloomberg News by phone.

Police would step up security at transport hubs, New Year’s celebrations, concerts and large activities, Lu said, adding that law enforcement would “strengthen police deployment and enhance on-site response mechanisms and capacity, and safeguard public safety.”

The heightened focus on security comes after a man authorities have identified as Chang Wen, 27, carried out smoke bomb and

knife attacks in Taipei’s main train station.

He later slashed several people in a nearby shopping area. Police say he killed three people, then fell to his death from a building.

Some 11 others were injured.

Chang has been wanted since July for breaking military law, officials have said. Local media reports say he left the armed forces after a drunk-driving incident and later failed to appear for reserve training. Chang started buying the equipment and materials used in the attack as early as April 2024, police said.

Separately, officials in Taiwan lauded a 57-year-old man named Yu Chia-chang who tried to stop Chang in the train station and later died of wounds he suffered in the confrontation. Local media reports say Chang first threw a series of smoke bombs and, as he was about to throw firebombs, Yu stopped him.

Officials in Taipei and Taoyuan said they would seek to have Yu given a spot in the Martyrs’ Shrine, an honor Taiwan bestows on individuals who sacrifice their lives for the good of the public.

Spree attacks like the one carried out by Chang are rare in Taiwan. Last year, a 20-yearold in the western city of Taichung stabbed people on a train, causing injuries. With assistance from Adrian Kennedy/Bloomberg

Prak Sokhonn plans to attend the meeting, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Sunday, reaffirming its position of “resolving differences and disputes through all peaceful means, dialogue and diplomacy.”

The fighting is a result of a dispute over patches of territory claimed by both nations along their shared border.

The latest round of fighting began Dec. 8, a day after a border skirmish wounded two Thai soldiers. Since then, combat has broken out on several fronts, with Thailand carrying out airstrikes in Cambodia with F-16 fighter jets and Cambodia firing thousands of medium-range BM-21 rockets from truck-mounted launchers that can launch up to 40 rockets simultaneously.

More than two dozen people on both sides of the border have officially been reported killed in the past week of fighting, while more than half a million have been

THAILAND Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow addresses the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 27, 2025, at U.N. headquarters. AP/PAMELA SMITH

displaced, according to officials.

Under the October truce Thailand was to release 18 Cambodian soldiers held prisoner and both sides were to begin removing heavy weapons and land mines along the border. But the two countries have

carried on a bitter propaganda war with minor cross-border violence.

Land mine explosions have been a par ticu larly sensitive issue for Thailand, which has lodged several protests after alleging Cambodia laid new mines

that wounded soldiers patrolling the frontier. Cambodia insists the mines were remnants of its decades-long civil war, which ended in 1999.

The Thai navy said Sunday one of its marines on the front line sustained serious injuries to his right leg from stepping on a land mine.

The navy also claimed to have discovered a large number of abandoned weapons and explosive ordnance while securing an area described as a Cambodian stronghold, which showed “deliberate planning and intentional use of anti-personnel landmines” against Thai troops.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said it would send letters of protest to Cambodia and Zambia, the current chair of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, also known as the Ottawa Convention, to pursue further action under the convention’s mechanisms.

Cambodia did not immediately respond to the Thai claims. AP

A8

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

TheWorld

www.businessmirror.com.ph

India and New Zealand finalize free trade agreement as global uncertainties persist

By Rajesh Roy

N

The Associated Press

EW DELHI—India and New Zealand announced Monday they have reached a free trade deal, seeking to deepen economic ties and shore up growth at a time of mounting global trade uncertainties.

The move comes as New Delhi accelerates efforts to diversify export destinations as part of a broader strategy to offset the impact of steep US import tariffs.

A formal signing of the agreement between India and New Zealand is expected in the first

quarter of next year after legal scrubbing of the negotiated text, India’s chief negotiator Petal Dhillon told reporters.

The India-New Zealand trade agreement, negotiated over nine months, aims to lower tariffs, ease regulatory barriers and expand

INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, greets visiting New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon before their meeting in New Delhi, India, Monday, March 17, 2025.

AP PHOTO/MANISH SWARUP

cooperation across goods, services and investments.

It underscores India’s push to lock in trade partnerships beyond traditional markets as global

commerce faces strains from unpredictable tariffs and geopolitical tensions, slowing growth and raising protectionism.

As part of the deal, India would

get zero-duty-export access for all its goods to New Zealand while Wellington would get duty concessions and market access for about 70% of New Delhi’s tariff lines, covering 95% of its exports in a phased manner, Indian officials said.

India’s major sectors that will gain from tax free exports include textiles, apparel, engineering goods, leather and footwear, and marine products, while New Zealand’s major gains will be in horticulture, wood exports, coal, and sheep wool and meat, among others.

New Zealand has committed investments worth $20 billion in India over a period of 15 years as part of the agreement, India’s Trade Ministry said.

New Delhi has excluded from the deal dairy imports such as milk, cream, whey, yoghurt, and cheese, along with animal and

vegetable products, including goat meat, onions and almonds, citing “domestic sensitivities.”

Bilateral trade between India and New Zealand remains modest compared with New Delhi’s bigger partners, but officials said the deal has strong growth potential.

Two-way trade that includes merchandise goods and services stood at $2.4 billion in 2024, which the two sides hope to double in about five years, Trade Secretary Rajesh Agarwal said.

“Given the limited scale of bilateral trade, the agreement is less a trade breakthrough than a framework for deeper cooperation,” trade analyst Ajay Srivastava said.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said in a post on X Monday that he spoke to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on conclusion of the talks.

See “India,” A13

Emerging markets prepare for strong start in 2026 as Wall Street turns bullish on investment inflows

By Srinivasan Sivabalan

E

MERGING markets are poised to start 2026 as a favored trade on Wall Street, with money managers betting a multi-year cycle of investment inflows is underway.

This year ’s capital rush into the sec tor—the best since 2009 across all emerging-market securities—is a sign more investors are allocating to a sector that’s been out of favor after years of lackluster performance. For the first time since 2017, emerging stocks are outperforming US peers, the gap between its bond yields and those of US Treasuries have shrunk to the lowest in 11 years and carry trade strategies— which largely consist of borrowing in a lower-yielding asset to fund purchases in higher-yielding ones—have reaped the best profits since 2009.

Enthusiasm for the sector was on full view at Bank of America Corp.’s recent investment conference in London. The bank hosted 300 investors and found scant pessimism on emerging markets. The verdict from David Hauner, BofA’s head of

emerging fixed income: “EM bears have gone extinct.”

What may be underway is a more fundamental shift in global investment flows. Portfolio managers are keen to diversify from the US, while also increasingly drawn by developing nations’ progress in cutting debt and taming inflation.

It’s a turnaround few saw coming.

Until recently, investors were avoiding the asset class after years of weak returns and fearful of a US trade war. Money managers found it tough pitching it to clients, while hedge funds said they saw the best opportunities in betting against emerging markets.

“2025 was an inflection point,” said Sammy Suzuki, head of emerging-market equities at AllianceBernstein LP in New York. “The question a year ago was whether emerging markets were even investable, but that’s no longer a query we receive.”

The market remained upbeat on Monday, with the MSCI emerging-market stock index rising 1%, extending its gains for the year to 28.5%.

See “Wall Street,” A9

TheWorld

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

A9

Starlink in crosshairs: How Russia could attack Elon Musk’s conquering of space

By John Leicester

T

The Associated Press

WO NATO-nation intelligence services suspect Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation with destructive orbiting clouds of shrapnel, with the aim of reining in Western space superiority that has helped Ukraine on the battlefield.

Intelligence findings seen by The Associated Press say the socalled “zone-effect” weapon would seek to flood Starlink orbits with hundreds of thousands of highdensity pellets, potentially dis-

abling multiple satellites at once but also risking catastrophic collateral damage to other orbiting systems.

Analysts who haven’t seen the findings say they doubt such a

Danish foreign minister reaffirms territorial integrity in response to US envoy appointment for Greenland

C

OPENHAGEN, Denmark— The Danish foreign minister said Monday his country insists that everyone, including the United States, must respect

“the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark” after President Donald Trump announced See “Danish,” A10

DENMARK’S Foreign Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen speaks during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, at U.N. headquarters. AP/YUKI IWAMURA

Wall Street. . .

Continued from A8

More upside

BANKS such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley have joined the bullish chorus, predicting emerging markets will benefit from dollar weakness and the investment explosion in artificial intelligence. JPMorgan projects as much as $50 billion of inflows into emerging-debt funds next year.

“One of our best ideas is still to hang with local emerging-market debt,” said Bob Michele, global head of fixed income

at JPMorgan Asset Management Inc. “We should get a little price appreciation, we should collect carry, and we think EM FX has a little bit more upside.”

Morgan Stanley too advises clients to hold local-currency bonds, and to buy more dollar-denominated emerging debt.

BofA expects hard-currency emerging bonds to repeat this year’s double-digit returns.

A key driver could be positioning; despite the rally, investment flows are relatively small so far. US ETFs focused on EM stocks absorbed almost $31 billion in 2025, Strategas Securities estimates.

Emerging debt funds have taken in over

weapon could work without causing uncontrollable chaos in space for companies and countries, including Russia and its ally China, that rely on thousands of orbiting satellites for communications, defense and other vital needs.

Such repercussions, including risks to its own space systems, could steer Moscow away from deploying or using such a weapon, analysts said.

“I don’t buy it. Like, I really don’t,” said Victoria Samson, a space-security specialist at the Secure World Foundation who leads the Colorado-based nongover n ment a l orga n i z at ion’s annual study of anti-satellite systems. “I would be very surprised, frankly, if they were to do something like that.”

But the commander of the Canadian military’s Space Division, Brig. Gen. Christopher Horner, said such Russian work cannot be

is accurate and that they’re willing to develop that and willing to go to that end, well it wouldn’t strike me as shocking that something just short of that, but equally damaging, is within their wheelhouse of development.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t respond to messages from the AP seeking comment.

Russia has previously called for United Nations efforts to stop the orbital deployment of weapons and President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear space weapons.

IN this time-exposure photograph, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the 25th batch of approximately 60 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network lifts off from the Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., late Wednesday, April 28, 2021.

AP/JOHN RAOUX

ruled out in light of previous US allegations that Russia also has been pursuing an indiscriminate nuclear, space-based weapon.

“I can’t say I’ve been briefed on that type of system. But it’s not implausible,” he said. “If the reporting on the nuclear weapons system

Weapon would have multiple targets

THE intelligence findings were shown to the AP on condition that the services involved were not identified and the news organization was not able to independently See “Starlink,” A10

Russian general killed in Moscow car bomb blast; Ukraine suspected

M

OSCOW— A Ru ssi a n general was killed Monday morning after an explosive device detonated underneath his car in Moscow, and investigators said Ukraine could be behind the attack, the third such killing of a senior military officer in a year.

Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, died from his injuries, said Svetlana Petrenko, the spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, the nation’s top criminal investigation agency.

“Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of enquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” Petrenko said.

Just over a year ago, on Dec. 17,

$60 billion, according to EPFR Global data compiled by BofA, yet that follows outflows of $142 billion in the previous t h re e ye a r s. Th at m e a n s e m e rg i n g markets remain under-represented in global portfolios.

The year marked “the return of asset allocators after a brutal five-year stretch,” said Todd Sohn, senior ETF and technical strategist at Strategas in New York. “Many realized they were overexposed to US large-cap growth equities and moved to globally diversify.”

Meanwhile, emerging markets’ share of global stock and bond benchmarks is on the rise. Equities added more than

THIS image taken from video provided by Investigative Committee of Moscow on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, shows the scene where Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed under his car in Moscow. INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE OF MOSCOW VIA AP

2024, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hid-

den on an electric scooter outside his apartment building. Kirillov’s assistant also died. Ukraine’s security service claimed responsi-

one percentage point of weight versus developed markets to approach 13% in the Bloomberg World Large & Mid Cap Index, while emerging debt also gained share in the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Total Return Index.

R ajeev D e Mello at Gama Asset Management SA says investors are finally re-engaging with emerging markets, but sees scope for them “to move toward a more meaningful overweight.”

a challenge as it exports excess capacity into other developing countries, heaping pressure on local industries.

But the biggest test lies in the dollar. Its 8% slide this year helped buoy emerging assets, but many reckon it could rebound should the Federal Reserve deliver fewer interest rates than expected. Citigroup Inc. strategists for instance advise clients to buy only emerging assets that can withstand a potential greenback bounce.

Despite that, the bank expects 5% total returns from emerging bonds next year. JPMAM’s Michele too is sticking with bullish emerging-debt positions; he expects “very high” real yields to

Dollar question

THIs year’s rebound may be obscuring vulnerabilities in the asset class. China, stuck in a deflationary cycle, could pose

bility for the attack.

An Uzbek man was quickly arrested and charged with killing Kirillov on behalf of the Ukrainian security service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described Kirillov’s killing as a “major blunder” by Russia’s security agencies, noting they should learn from it and improve their efficiency.

But in April, another senior Russian military officer, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car parked near to his apartment building just outside Moscow. A suspected perpetrator was quickly arrested.

Mo s co w a l so h a s bl a me d Ukraine for several bombings and other attacks in Russia. AP continue drawing investors even in a stronger-dollar scenario.

Fo r n o w, c a s h i s p o u r i n g i n — emerging-debt funds absorbed $4 billion in the week to Dec. 17, the biggest weekly flow since July. And should emerging markets withstand dollar and Fed policy shifts, cautious investors may become convinced a structural re-allocation is indeed afoot, according to Suzuki of AllianceBernstein.

“This uncertainty provides investors with a window of opportunity to jump in,” he said. “Once everyone believes in it, it might be too late.” With assistance from Vinícius Andrade and Andras Gergely/Bloomberg

A10 Tuesday, December 23, 2025

TheWorld

www.businessmirror.com.ph

energy boom: Utilities rely on record India’s big-bang financial reforms AI-driven bond sales amid growing risk in credit markets target new wave of foreign capital

By Josh Saul & Gerson Freitas Jr.

T

noi and Ashutosh Joshi/Bloomberg

HE great artificial intelligence boom that’s fueling US economic growth now depends heavily on credit markets to finance the investments, and utilities are among the key borrowers.

In the process, they could potentially turn one of the safest parts of the corporate-bond market into a slightly riskier one. Companies will borrow more, boosting the supply of the bonds and potentially weighing on valuations. At the same time, industry profits could face pressure as regulators try to keep a lid on rate increases.

Bond sales by US utilities grew 19% this year to a record $158 billion, funding rampant growth in power demand driven by the artificial-intelligence boom. A lot more is coming: electric companies are expected to spend more than $1.1 trillion on power plants, substations, and other grid infrastructure over the next five years, according to industry group Edison Electric Institute, up about 44% from the previous period. Debt will help fund it.

Investors aren’t expecting utilities to struggle financially, for a simple reason: generating and delivering electricity in the US is by and large a regulated industry, and that determines how much the companies can charge their customers. Electric companies usually don’t start building projects until they have regulatory approval to recoup costs from customers, along with a healthy rate of return.

But the industry might become at least a little riskier for investors because so much more debt is coming. JPMorgan Chase & Co. recently forecast an 8% rise in utility-bond issuance next year, citing new data centers as well as investments to make the electric grid more resilient.

The upshot of more sales might be lower valuations in the form of wider spreads.

Investor fears of an AI bubble have also increased in recent months, sparking concern that power-sector investments might not be as safe as they once were.

While utilities have some protection from a tech pullback because of power contracts that require minimum payments and termination fees, a significant slowdown or contraction in AI-related spending would undermine the growth story they’ve been telling investors.

And there is a political risk for investors: Nationwide, electricity prices

By Siddhi Nayak & Saikat Das

I

NDIA’S long-awaited package of financial services reforms is setting the stage for a surge of foreign capital into the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

In the latest step, lawmakers passed a bill this week allowing up to 100% foreign ownership of insurance firms, bolstering an industry long viewed as under-penetrated and capital-starved. Regulators have also overhauled rules for banks, pension funds and capital markets as they aim to shift savings from idle assets such as gold and property toward equities, bonds and long-term investments to finance factories and infrastructure.

All these reforms come as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his administration want to make India a developed economy by 2047, a goal that requires economic growth of about 8% per year, and policymakers are betting on rapid industrialization and deeper capital markets to achieve this target.

The drive to attract foreign capital has gained urgency after US President Donald Trump slapped tariffs of 50% on Indian goods in August, one of the highest rates in the world. The move has crimped exports to India’s biggest market, potentially threatening its manufacturing ambitions.

“The latest spate of reforms will help revive global investor sentiment amid tariff worries,” said Pramod Kumar, chief executive officer of Barclays Plc’s India business.

Foreign investment flows are likely to increase, which should create more opportunities for banks like Barclays, he added.

A flurry of recent deals highlights the growing appetite for Indian assets. Mizuho Financial Group Inc.

Danish. . .

Continued from A9

the appointment of Louisiana’s governor as the US special envoy to Greenland.

Trump called repeatedly during his presidential transition and the early months of his second term for

Strarlink. . .

Continued from A9

verify the findings’ conclusions.

The US Space Force didn’t respond to e-mailed questions. The French military’s Space Command said in a statement to the AP that it could not comment on the findings but said, “We can inform you that Russia has, in recent years, been multiplying irresponsible, dangerous, and even hostile actions in space.”

Russia views Starlink in particular as a grave threat, the findings indicate. The thousands of loworbiting satellites have been pivotal for Ukraine’s survival against Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its fourth year.

Starlink ’s high-speed Internet service is used by Ukrainian forces for battlefield communications, weapons targeting and other roles and by civilians and government officials where Russian strikes have affected communications.

agreed this week to buy a controlling stake in KKR & Co.-backed investment bank Avendus Capital. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. is nearing an agreement to buy a minority stake in Shriram Finance Ltd. for more than $3.2 billion, Bloomberg News reported.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. became the biggest shareholder of Yes Bank Ltd. in a landmark deal earlier this year.

In all, India recorded net foreign direct investment—typically long-term capital—of $7.6 billion from April to September, more than double the rate of a year earlier, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India.

The opening of the insurance and pensions sectors, new bank licenses and the big investments from Japan demonstrate “deregulation in action,” said Vivek Ramji Iyer, a partner at Grant Thornton Bharat.

The insurance move caps years of debate inside government and industry, and signals a willingness to let global players run insurers on their own if they commit capital and expertise. Firms including Allianz SE, Axa SA, and Nippon Life Insurance Co. have operated in India for years, but full ownership is expected to give companies greater flexibility to scale up investments and pursue growth opportunities.

The shift also applies to the $177 billion pension fund sector, paving the way for 100% foreign ownership of companies in that space, the top pension regulator said in an interview this week. Overseas

investment in both industries had been capped at 74%.

Bold moves

FOR some market participants, the reforms are the boldest since the early 2000s, when India liberalized the telecommunication and electricity sectors and rolled out fiscal and foreign investment guidelines.

Pension and insurance money, whether domestic or foreign, tends to be patient—precisely the kind of capital needed for highways, power plants and industrial corridors. In a separate move this week, India’s parliament passed a bill that will open up its nuclear industry to private firms and unlock investment opportunities worth $214 billion. Modi has also enacted tax cuts and labor-law reforms to spur consumer and business spending.

Encouraging consolidation is also a central plank of India’s strategy. The total volume of transactions targeting Indian firms has climbed 15% this year to nearly $90 billion, with Japanese buyers involved in big banking deals.

Easier rules for mergers and acquisitions, combined with a more supportive stance from regulators, are aimed at helping Indian companies scale up. State-run banks, still dominant lenders, are now allowed a more active role in funding takeovers, giving them a chance to compete with their foreign counterparts.

Elsewhere, capital markets are also booming. Indian firms have raised a record $22 billion via initial public offerings so far in 2025, while the Nifty 500 Index - the broadest gauge for local stocks - has delivered total shareholder returns of 122% over the last five years, outperforming the S&P 500.

To enhance trading further, India’s securities market regulator this week reduced the fees paid by domestic mutual funds to brokerages, while also slashing the basic management charge, in one of the most sweeping changes ever to the industry’s fee structure.

Despite the reforms, stocks have underperformed global rivals this year, with the Nifty 50 Index rising just 10% as valuations appear stretched. Foreign investors have withdrawn about $18 billion this year from equity markets, and are set to mark their biggest annual withdrawal on record. The rupee’s 5% slide this year, making it Asia’s worstperforming currency, is emerging as a near-term threat to a recovering stock market.

Still, the current volley of reforms, along with rate cuts and the relative underperformance, make the market more attractive, said Joshua Crabb, head of Asia-Pacific equities at asset manager Robeco.

“Reform is always good, but it takes time and impacts happen with a lag,” he said. With assistance from Abhishek Vish-

rose 5.1% during the 12 months through September, hovering near a record, government data shows.

Politicians in multiple elections in November ran on promises to cut utility bills. Regulators are facing pressure to keep rate increases relatively low, which could cut into returns for investors instead, said Tim Winter, an equity portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds.

“It’s really easy to run on, ‘Let’s beat up the utility, they’re making life hard for you guys,’” he said. “The more the public is concerned and the more they’re unhappy customers, the more likely it is that it’ll be a challenging regulatory environment and then you don’t get the returns you want on your investment.”

For bond holders, the best bet way to insulate themselves against this kind of pressure might be to stick with buying notes issued by the regulated utilities themselves, and not the holding companies that are further away from the income-generating assets. Andy DeVries, an analyst at bond research firm CreditSights, said that debt issued by operating companies is secured by actual assets like power plants and transmission lines, as well as the franchise to service customers in a particular service territory.

“With operating companies, no bondholder has lost principal in 50 years,” DeVries said. “With holding companies, some people have.”

PG&E Corp., holding company for Pacific Gas & Electric, has filed for bankruptcy twice in the last 25 years.

There is an upside to this investment: it will likely fuel profit growth for utilities.

“The utility sector is investing way more money than the cash flow it’s generating,” said Brian Savoy, chief financial officer at Duke Energy Corp.

“Investors are happy with the risk they’re buying into, knowing that utilities are growing.”

Big utility bond sales this year have seen strong demand. A $1.15 billion sale of 2066 bonds by Florida Power & Light, a unit of NextEra Energy Inc., earlier this month was five times oversubscribed, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Duke and Evergy Inc. saw demand for some notes they sold in November exceed offerings by more than six times. That compares with an average book coverage of 3.9 times for dollar-denominated highgrade bonds issued in 2025, the data showed. With assistance from Taryana Odayar and Rheaa Rao/Bloomberg

US jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, and has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island. In March, Vice President JD Vance visited a remote US military base in Greenland and accused Denmark of underinvesting there.

The issue gradually drifted out of the headlines but, in August, Danish officials summoned the US ambassador following a report that at least three people with connections to Trump had carried out covert influence operations in Greenland. Denmark is a NATO ally of the United States.

On Sunday, Trump announced

the appointment of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland. He said that “Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security, and will strongly advance our Country’s Interests for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Allies, and indeed, the World.”

Landry wrote in a post on X that

“it’s an honor to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US.” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a brief statement emailed by his ministry that “the appointment confirms the continued American interest in Greenland.”

“However, we insist that ev-

eryone—including the US—must show respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” he added.

Earlier this month, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service said in an annual report that the US is using its economic power to “assert its will” and threaten military force against friend and foe alike.

Russian officials repeatedly have warned that commercial satellites serving Ukraine’s military could be legitimate targets. This month, Russia said it has fielded a new ground-based missile system, the S-500, which is capable of hitting low-orbit targets.

Unlike a missile that Russia tested in 2021 to destroy a defunct Cold War-era satellite, the new weapon in development would target multiple Starlinks at once, with pellets possibly released by yet-to-be launched formations of small satellites, the intelligence findings say.

Canada’s Horner said it is hard to see how clouds of pellets could be corralled to only strike Starlink and that debris from such an attack could get “out of control in a hurry.”

“You blow up a box full of BBs,” he said. Doing that would “blanket an entire orbital regime and take out every Starlink satellite and every other satellite that’s in a similar regime. And I think that’s the part that is incredibly troubling.”

System is possibly just experimental

international response.

“Often times people pushing these ideas are doing it because they want the US side to build something like that or...to justify increased spending on counterspace capabilities or using it for a more hawkish approach on Russia,” she said.

“I’m not saying that this is what’s happening with this,” Samson added. “But it has been known to happen that people take these crazy arguments and use them.”

Tiny pellets could remain undetected The intelligence findings say the pellets would be so small— just millimeters across—that they would evade detection by groundand space-based systems that scan for space objects, which could make it hard to pin blame for any attack on Moscow.

Clayton Swope, who specializes in space security and weaponry at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based security and policy think tank, said if “the pellets are

not trackable, that complicates things” but “people would figure it out.”

“If satellites start winking out with damage, I guess you could put two and two together,” he said.

Exactly how much destruction tiny pellets could do isn’t clear. In November, a suspected impact by a small piece of debris was sufficient to damage a Chinese spacecraft that was meant to bring three astronauts back to the Earth.

“Most damage would probably be done to the solar panels because they’re probably the most fragile part” of satellites, Swope said. “That’d be enough, though, to damage a satellite and probably bring it offline.”

Starlink’s orbits are about 550 kilometers (340 miles) above the planet. China’s Tiangong space station and the International Space Station operate at lower orbits, “so both would face risks,” according to Swope.

The space chaos that such a weapon could cause might enable Moscow to threaten its adversaries without actually having to use it, Swope said.

“It definitely feels like a weapon of fear, looking for some kind of deterrence or something,” he said.

Samson said the drawbacks of an indiscriminate pellet-weapon could steer Russia off such a path. “ T he y ’ve i nvested a hu ge amount of time and money and human power into being, you know, a space power,” she said.

Using such a weapon “would effectively cut off space for them as well,” Samson said. “I don’t know that they would be willing to give up that much.”

THE findings seen by the AP didn’t say when Russia might be capable of deploying such a system nor detail whether it has been tested or how far along research is believed to be.

The system is in active development and information about the timing of an expected deployment is too sensitive to share, according to an official familiar with the findings and other related intelligence that the AP did not see.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the nonpublic findings.

Such Russian research could be simply experimental, Samson said.

“I wouldn’t put it past some scientists ... to build out something like this because it’s an interesting thought-experiment and they think, you know, ‘Maybe at some point we can get our government to pay for it,’” she said.

Samson suggested the specter of a supposed new Russian threat may also be an effort to elicit an

‘Weapon of fear’ could threaten chaos

AFTER such an attack, pellets and debris would over time fall back toward Earth, possibly damaging other orbiting systems on their way down, analysts say.

Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.

Economy BusinessMirror

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Global action against corruption

By Henry J. Schumacher

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AST week, governments gathered in Doha, Qatar for the UN’s biennial anti-corruption conference. They discussed global action against corruption and assess the commitments they have made under the world’s only global anti-corruption treaty and agree how it should be updated to meet today’s political and economic realities.

The stakes could hardly be higher. Political systems are straining under the weight of opaque money and eroding public trust in authorities that is fuelling the wave of anti-government and anti-corruption protests that have erupted in countries around the world in recent months. Citizens everywhere are living with the con-sequences of money in politics operating out of sight, from public contracts steered to well-connected donors, to anonymous funding schemes that tilt competition without voters ever knowing who is bankrolling power.

In this context, a central test of governments’ ambition will be whether they back the firstever resolution on transparency in political finance to the UN Convention against Corruption (Uncac). A resolution is a negotiated agreement which guides governments on how the convention is interpreted and implemented in their coun-tries.

Political finance—the money used to run election campaigns and sup-port parties—has long been a focus of Transparency International’s push to strengthen openness and accountability, and securing this resolution is some-thing we have been advocating for years.

Although the convention already calls on states to enhance transparency in the funding of political parties and candidates, implementation has been patchy at best. Weak regulation, permissive loopholes and poor enforcement in many coun-tries still allow private—and at times foreig n—interests to shape elections and policy without public scrutiny.

This is why the political finance resolution tabled by Norway, Albania, Ghana and Mongolia is so significant. If governments back it, their commitment would send a clear signal that they mean business. It would also give citizens and civil society stronger leverage to demand reforms at home and hold leaders to account for the promises they make on the global stage.

There is strong public appetite for reform. At least 159 organizations from all continents urged governments to endorse a strong resolution. Their message was clear: publish political

Water. . .

Continued from A4

the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Health (DOH), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPW H), and local governments, among others. It may also enter into domestic and international partnerships and establish subsidiaries for water distribution, wastewater treatment, and sanitation services.

Several key agencies will be attached to or subsumed under t he DW R , i nc lud i ng t he Metropolitan Water works and Sewerage System (MWSS), National Irrigation Administration (NI A), Laguna Lake Development Authorit y (LLDA),

DAR set to meet 300K hectares distribution target this year

By Jonathan L. Mayuga

finance data online and promptly, identify donors, shut down the channels that allow anonymous money to flow through the shadows, and protect election observers and whistleblowers who expose abuses.

A nti-government protests have flooded streets across the globe in 2025. Last month, tens of thousands of people took part in mass demonstrations in Manila, against government corruption.

Public outrage focused on officials implicated in corrupt floodcontrol infrastructure projects across the flood-prone country, with Gen Z protesters in particular demanding accountability.

Corruption, of course, reaches beyond the conduct of elections.

It drives environ-mental destruction and climate harm, from illegal logging and illicit mining to the diversion of climate finance for private gain. In a positive step, this year’s UN convention devoted an entire day to environment and climate issues.

A new resolution on crimes that affect the environment, tabled by Brazil and Namibia, alongside an initiative from Small Island Developing States on climate, gives governments a chance to acknowledge the role of corruption in environmen-tal destruction and commit to stronger enforcement to tackle it.

Alongside new resolutions, governments will also determine the next phase of the UN convention’s Implementation Review Mechanism—the backbone of how states assess progress and follow through on their commitments. A more transpar-ent, inclusive and effective mechanism would allow governments, civil society and oversight bodies to better track whether reforms are actually happening in practice, identify where support is needed, and sustain momentum.

For obvious reasons, let’s be part of the anti-corruption conversation.

Pl e a s e a c c e p t t h at I a m a d d re s s i n g t h i s i mp or t a nt a nt i- cor r upt ion debate just before C hr ist m a s. But I feel t hat we have to enter 2026 w it h a c lea r concept rega rdi ng t h i s i mpor t a nt subjec t a f fect ing a l l of us.

In conclusion, allow me to wish all of you a Merry Christmas. Best regards from hjschumacher59@gmail.com.

National Water Resources Board (NWRB), Local Water Utilities A d m i n i st r at ion ( Lw u a), a nd s e v e r a l w at e r - r e l at e d u n it s from DENR and DILG. The newly created WRC will handle the economic regulation of water supply and sanitation ser v ices, including licensing, tar if f approva l, enforcement of performance standards, and quasi-judicial functions to adjudicate water-related disputes. It will also require registration and licensing of all water utilities to ensure compliance with technical and financial standards.

In addition, the bill establishes a Water Trust Fund under the Bureau of the Treasury to finance water development, sanitation, wastewater management, and sustainability programs.

Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Tuesday, December 23, 2025 A11

@jonlmayuga

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HE Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) recently conducted a regionwide ceremonial distribution of land titles and Certificates of Condonation with Release of Mortgage (CoCRoMs) in Region XII, benefiting 29,382 Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) in Central Mindanao.

The distribution held on December 18, at the South Cotabato Gym and Cultural Center, was part of DAR’s effort to meet the 300,000-hectare land distribution target for the year directed

by President Marcos.

The ceremony highlighted the administration’s commitment to inclusive growth by securing land tenure and easing long-standing financial burdens on farming

Budget. . .

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Safeguards

PARAÑAQUE Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan, a member of the House contingent to the Bicam, said the reconciled 2026 national budget includes safeguards to ensure government programs are insulated from politics and felt directly by the people.

Yamsuan said technical staff from both chambers are working to finalize the reconciled bill and its special provisions following Bicam deliberations held from December 13 to 17. He cited notable increases in funding for education—amounting to P1.38 trillion—and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), which rose to nearly P130 billion.

Terror. . .

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“Let us not allow unverified reporting to undermine our hardwon gains or sow division. We must focus on healing and reconciliation, ensuring that our shared future is built on truth and the protection of our common humanity,” he added.

Earlier, National Security Adviser (NSA) Eduardo Año said that there is no evidence to suggest that the two gunmen received any form of training while in the Philippines.

“There is no valid report or confirmation that the two received any form of military training while in the country and no evidence supports such a claim at present,” he added.

One of the suspects, Sajid A kram, travelled on an Indian

Razak. . .

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that then-King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah issued an addendum order allowing him to finish his sentence under house arrest. Najib claimed the addendum was issued during a pardons board meeting on Jan. 29, 2024, chaired by Sultan Abdullah, that shortened his punishment and sharply cut a fine.

While there was no dispute over the existence of the addendum order, Judge Alice Loke said the house arrest wasn’t raised nor discussed at the Jan. 29 pardons board meeting. The king’s preroga-

families.

During the event, DAR distributed 28,633 land titles—including e-titles, Certificates of Land Ownership Award (Cloass), and CoCRoMs—covering 63,454.4955 hectares.

The department also granted P832.29 million in debt condonation, freeing farmers from unpaid land amortizations and enabling them to reinvest in farm productivity, expand livelihoods, and improve family welfare.

Agrarian Reform Secretar y Conrado M. Estrella III, who led the distribution, said the Soccsksargen (South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos) rollout forms part of a broader national effort to meet the President’s target.

“We are distributing land titles all over the country in line with the President’s directive for

DAR to distribute about 300,000 hectares this year. What we are doing here in Region XII is part of that national effort—to ensure that farmers finally own the land they have long cultivated,” Estrella said.

He emphasized that secure land ownership and debt relief strengthen the agricultural sector, helping to build a resilient nation.

“When farmers are freed from uncertainty and debt, they gain the confidence to invest, to produce more, and to contribute meaningfully to our economy.

Empowering farmers is nationbuilding at its core,” he added.

For beneficiaries, the distribution marked the fulfillment of long-held aspirations.

Maria Lina Raposa, an agrarian reform beneficiary from South Cotabato, described the occasion

as life-changing.

“This is a dream we waited for a long time to come true. I will take good care of this land and make sure it is preserved so that I can pass it on to the next generation,” she said.

Meanwhile, Hilario Castillo, an ARB from Sultan Kudarat, said the land title finally brought certainty after decades of waiting.

“After 25 years of waiting, we are finally assured that the land we have been tilling truly belongs to us. This gives us peace of mind and hope for the future,” Castillo said.

The Region XII distribution reaffirmed the Marcos administration’s commitment to agrarian reform as a cornerstone of rural development, food security, and social justice, ensuring that farmers remain central partners in national progress.

“What is important is that these programs and projects approved by the Bicam are executed properly so that these would be truly felt by the people,” he added. “We are a key partner of the Executive Department to ensure that all programs and projects of the government are truly felt by the people.”

Under the Bicam-approved budget, the Department of Education and attached agencies will receive P961.3 billion, up by P86.7 billion from the National Expenditure Program (NEP). State Universities and Colleges will get P138 billion, the Commission on Higher Education P47 billion, and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) P26 billion, with the remainder allocated to other education-related programs.

PhilHea lth ’s a l location increased from P53.2 billion under

the NEP to P129.7 billion, following additions by the House and savings generated from adjustments to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) budget. The recomputation, based on updated Construction Materials Price Data for around 10,000 projects, generated P20.7 billion in savings—P16.5 billion of which went to PhilHealth and P4.25 billion to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund.

Health sector funding also rose, with increased allocations for DOH-run hospitals, regional hospitals, and the Health Facilities Enhancement Program.

Yamsuan said safeguards were built into DPWH projects, including requirements for clear geographic coordinates and station numbers, as well as a transparency portal for public scrutiny. He also

backed the increase in the Local Government Support Fund from P28 billion in the House-approved bill to P37 billion, citing the need to strengthen local autonomy.

Addressing concerns about “pork,” Yamsuan said special provisions prevent patronage politics, including in so-called “soft projects” such as Medical Assistance to Indigents and Financially Incapacitated Patients (Maifip). He clarified that Maifip funds are held by the Department of Health, with lawmakers only issuing recommendatory guarantee letters subject to DOH approval.

Yamsuan said Maifip remains essentia l until the Universa l Health Care program is fully and effectively implemented, ensuring indigent patients receive timely medical assistance without incurring crippling debt.

passpor t whi le his son Naveed travelled on an Australian passport.

“A mere v isit does not sup por t a l legat ions of ter ror ist t ra in ing a nd t he du rat ion of t heir st ay wou ld not have a llowed for a ny mea n ing f u l or str uctured training,” A ño said.

The NSA also said the Philippine government is currently investigating the travel to the countr y of two suspects.

“We are also coordinating with our counterparts in the Australian government for information and intelligence sharing in order to determine the purpose of their visit to the Philippines,” he added.

Año also added that media reports describing Mindanao as a hotspot for violent extremism or Islamic State ideology are outdated and misleading.

“Since the 2017 Marawi Siege, Philippine security forces have sig-

nificantly degraded Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis)-affiliated groups in the country. The remnants of these groups have been fragmented, deprived of leadership, and operationally degraded,” he added.

The NSA also said the loss of senior figures has weakened organizational structures and diminished the ability of these groups to plan, direct, and sustain operations.

And with this, there had been a marked decline in manpower, firearms, influence, and violent incidents.

“As a result, there have been no recorded terrorist training activities or significant operations by these Isis-affiliated groups since 2017,” Año said.

He added that both official UN and US government assessments indicate that only remnants remain of these groups owing to

sustained security operations, peace-building efforts, and strong community involvement.

“Meaningful political autonomy and development funds has also been granted by the Philippine government to the Muslim areas in Mindanao through the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao leading to significant improvements in the domestic security environment,” Año said.

He added that these developments reflect the sustained efforts of our security forces and the resilience of communities in advancing peace, order, and development in Mindanao.

Año also stressed that the Philippines maintains a vigilant, intelligence-driven counterterrorism program and works closely with international partners to ensure that Philippine territory is not used for terrorism purposes.

tive of mercy must be carried out based on the advice of the pardons board under the constitution and cannot be made independently as it would “invite arbitrary decision,” she said.

The house arrest therefore, was “not a valid order” she ruled.

Najib didn’t show much emotion, and later smiled when his lawyer described the ruling as “shocking” after the judge left the courtroom.

Najib denies wrongdoing, alleging that Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho duped him. Low, thought to be the mastermind of the scandal, remains at large.

Separately on Friday, the former leader will also find out if he is

acquitted or convicted in a second graft trial that ties him directly to the 1MDB scandal. The High Court will rule on four charges of abuse of power to obtain over $700 million from 1MDB that went into Najib’s bank accounts, and 21 counts of money laundering involving the same amount.

If found guilty, Najib faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of abuse of power and up to five years for each of the money laundering charges.

Najib set up the 1MDB development fund shortly after he took office in 2009. Investigators allege at least $4.5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib’s associates through layers

of bank accounts in the US and other countries.

The funds were allegedly used to finance Hollywood films and extravagant purchases that included hotels, a luxury yacht, art and jewelry.

A national outrage over the 1MDB scandal led to the historic 2018 election defeat of the party that had governed Malaysia since independence from Britain in 1957.

Despite his conviction, Najib still holds clout in his party, the United Malays National Organization, which is now part of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim ‘s unity government that took power after the 2022 elections. AP

A12 Tuesday, December 23, 2025

‘Don’t bury the truth’: Solons seek inquiry on Cabral’s death, graft ties

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie

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AW M A K ER S on Monday called for a comprehensive congressional investigation into the death of former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Undersecretar y Catalina Cabral and her role in anomalies surrounding flood control and infrastructure projects.

Reps. Chel Diokno of Akbayan, Edgar Erice of Caloocan, Leila De Lima of Mamamayang Liberal, Perci Cendaña of Akbayan, Dadah Ismula of Akbayan, Kaka Bag-ao of Dinagat Islands, Krisel Lagman of Albay, Leandro Leviste of Batangas, and Eli San Fernando of Kamanggagawa filed House Resolution 606 calling for an investigation into Cabral’s death.

Diokno said that based on legislative inquiries, Cabral had deep knowledge of irregularities linked to infrastructure and flood control projects, including the contractors, proponents, and individuals allegedly behind the anomalies.

“We have to get to the bottom of this, we have to know not only what happened to her and what her actual genuine cause of death is, but also to find out what she knew and what we can still unearth

Aboitiz Foundation provides ₧8.5-M housing aid to ‘Tino’ victims in Liloan

By Carmel Loise Matus

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EBU CITY—The Aboitiz Foundation, through OneAboitiz, has extended P8.5 million in home recovery assistance to families in the Municipality of Liloan, Cebu, who were affected by typhoon “Tino,” providing support to 285 households whose homes were totally damaged by the disaster.

Each beneficiary family received P30,000 to help jumpstart the rebuilding of their homes as the community continues its recovery, particularly during the Christmas season.

Anton Perdices, chief operating officer of AboitizPower Distribution Utilities, said the assistance ref lects the importance of unity and compassion, especially for communities recovering from calamities.

“The flash floods brought by typhoon Tino caused fear, loss, and uncertainty for many families. Dili lalim ang inyong naagian. Through this support, we want every family to know that you are not alone,” Perdices said in a press statement.

The assistance was provided under the Home Recovery Assistance Program, which aims to help families rebuild safer homes.

The program includes cement and construction materials vouchers, as well as cash support for labor.

The Liloan initiative follows a similar turnover of home recovery assistance last November to 225 families in San Remigio, Cebu, whose houses were damaged by the 6.9-magnitude earthquake that struck the province in September.

Perdices emphasized that the initiative goes beyond physical reconstruction.

“Seeing families smile again— especially during the Christmas season—reminds us that this work is also about restoring hope, dignity, and confidence as communities move forward together,” he said.

See “Aboitiz,” A13

based on the investigation that we will conduct,” he added.

Diokno also said he will push for the passage of a death investigation and autopsy law to address similar cases.

Cyber warrant

MEANWHILE, lawmakers called for the strict preservation of electronic evidence and files, stressing that cyber warrants should have been applied much earlier.

“Two months ago, when Secretary Vince Dizon appeared before the House of Representatives, I already emphasized that all electronic devices of DPWH officials should be preserved and cyber warrants applied. Yet, it was only recently—after the passing of Usec. Cabral—that applications for cyber warrants were filed. This delay raises serious questions that must be addressed in our ongoing investigation,” said Diokno in a news conference.

In the same conference, Leviste echoed these concerns, urging the government to ensure the safety of former Cabral staff in the DPWH Planning Services at the Central Office, including Assistant Secretary Alex Bote. Leviste noted that Cabral’s files contained sensitive information on more than

20 “encoders” connected to budget insertions, who could be critical witnesses in investigating alleged irregularities.

“The most important step today is ensuring the security of all staff associated with Usec. Cabral. Some DPWH officials have already passed away under questionable circumstances in recent months, making it even more crucial to protect those who remain,” Leviste added.

“Many are reluctant to reveal the list of budget insertions, which makes it even more crucial to safeguard the DPWH personnel who could assist in the investigations,” he added.

According to Diokno, Cabral held extensive knowledge regarding anomalies in infrastructure and flood control projects. This included information not only on contractors and proponents but also potentially on the individuals behind alleged irregularities in government projects. “We cannot allow this knowledge to be buried with her,” he stressed.

The lawmaker further emphasized the need for a thorough congressional investigation, not only to clarify the circumstances of Cabral’s death but also to recover the evidence she maintained. He also highlighted the urgency of pursu-

ing a death investigation and autopsy law to prevent similar gaps in future inquiries.

Leviste noted that some officials and staff involved in past budget insertions had avoided public scrutiny, and many were reluctant to disclose information, making the protection of those willing to cooperate even more important. “The names of those who may have knowledge about budget insertions are in Cabral’s files, and they must be shielded from any threat or intimidation,” he said.

The delayed application of cyber warrants has raised questions about the Department of Justice and DPWH’s handling of sensitive electronic evidence. Diokno pointed out that preserving gadgets and digital records is critical for transparency and accountability, especially in uncovering potential anomalies that could involve high-ranking officials or contractors.

As the probe continues, both Diokno and Leviste reiterated the importance of shielding DPWH personnel from harm or harassment, underscoring that their cooperation could be key to exposing irregularities and ensuring justice for Cabral.

SC affirms conviction of 3 police officers behind the killing of Kian during Duterte’s anti-drug war

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

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HE Supreme Court (SC) has affirmed the conviction of three Caloocan policemen for murder for the killing of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos in 2017, at the height of the anti-illegal drug war ordered by former President Rodrigo Duterte.

In a 40-page decision penned by Associate Justice Jhosep Y. Lopez, the SC’s Second Division affirmed the decisions of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Caloocan City and the Court of Appeals, which found police officers Arnel Oares Jeremias Pereda and Jerwin Cruz guilty of murder.

The Court sentenced the policemen to reclusion perpetua, or up to 40 years in prison, and ordered to pay Kian’s family P 275,000 in damages.

It held that the prosecution was able to establish that Kian was summarily executed by the police officers.

The police officers claimed they were responding to reports of drug activity in the area.

They argued that shots were fired towards them, prompting Oares to chase the shooter and fire back, resulting in Kian’s death.

However, witnesses testified that the police officers stopped and frisked the victim in Baesa,

Caloocan City on the evening of August 16, 2017.

After allegedly finding suspected drugs, the officers punched him as he cried and begged to be allowed to go home because he had an exam the next day.

The officers then forced Kian to hold a towel covering what appeared to be a gun and made him stand with his shirt raised to cover his head.

Witnesses heard one officer ask whether they should take K ian to the police station, to which the others replied, “ ibaba na lang natin ito.”

T he of f icers drag ged K ian toward a dark area near a river where he was shot multiple times

by Oares and Pereda while Cruz stood guard.

The SC gave credence to the findings of medico legal officers that Delos Santos sustained two gunshot wounds to the head which were fired from around two feet away and that the victim was in a sitting or kneeling position at the time the gun was fired.

“Next, we note that the prosecution evidence showed the chain of events that led to Kian being particularly put in this location and in that position by the accused, allowing them to shoot Kian with impunity and ensuring the execution of the crime. Considering all these circumstances, treachery

was present,” the ruling stated.

The SC explained that treachery exists when the victim has no chance to defend themselves, and the attacker deliberately chooses the means or method of attack.

This includes shooting the victim in vital areas, such as the head, or attacking from behind to prevent any defense.

“This Court also affirms the findings of the RTC and the CA that there was conspiracy among the accused, and as such, they are all equally liable for the crime,” it added.

The SC rejected the officers’ claim that inconsistencies in the witnesses’ testimony affected their credibility, ruling that these minor differences did not relate to the elements of the crime.

The SC also dismissed Oares’ argument that he was merely performing his duties, noting that such defense applies only when the harm is an unavoidable result of a lawful police action.

“In this case, the SC ruled that the officers were not acting within the bounds of their duty – and even if they were, killing Kian was neither necessary nor justified,” the SC pointed out.

The SC stressed that “the killing of a minor could not be considered standard in this operation” and that the “performance of duties does not include murder.”

DAR distributes land titles, writes off debt of Caraga ARBs

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EPARTMENT of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Caraga has distributed 14,100 land titles to Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) across the region. The land titles cover a total of 20,044 hectares and 10,424 ARBs. Aside from land titles, the DAR also distributed Certificates of Condonation with Release of Mortgage (CoCRoMs), which cleared a total ofP80.28 million worth of land amortization debt. The DAR stated that this will enable the farmers to reinvest in their farms

and enhance household income.

In addition to the land titles and condonation certificates, agrarian reform beneficiaries’ organizations (ARBOs) received Certificates of Registration from the Cooperative Development Authority, thereby strengthening their access to government support, credit, and livelihood opportunities.

The distribution ceremony was held at the Buenavista Municipal Gym. It marked a major milestone in Caraga’s agrarian reform program,

DAR Caraga Regional Director Atty. Merlita S. Capinpuyan said.

“Today, farmers finally hold secure and legally recognized ownership of the land they have long cultivated.

This will not only protect their rights but also strengthen their farms, their families, and their communities,” Capinpuyan said in a statement.

Undersecretary for Finance, Management and Administration Office (FMAO) and Office for Mindanao Affairs (OMA) Amihilda J. See “DAR,” A13

‘26 budget helps local farmers, solves students’ malnutrition

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

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SIDE from being the most transparent, the 2026 national budget also tackles hunger on two fronts by improving child nutrition while putting income directly into the hands of Filipino farmers, Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan said.

Speaking partly in Filipino, Pangilinan, bicam panel member as Vice Chairperson of the Committee on Finance, said: “At present, the national budget requires that public schools buy milk from local dairy farmers. This way, we fight hunger on two fronts: nutrition for children and income for farmers.”

There is thus a “convergence in expanded school-feeding, earlychildhood interventions, and Sagip Saka principles because our children’s health is related to the price of food and to the income of those who feed us,” he added.

Sagip Saka prov ides direct purchase of food by government agencies from local food producers without public bidding.

Budget documents show that funding for the Philippine Carabao Center more than doubled to P2.08 billion, driven largely by a P1.12billion milk feeding component for the Department of Education (DepEd) schools, while the National Dairy Authority received a P2.38-billion allocation, including

P1.85 billion for the milk component of the School-Based Feeding Program.

Linking local dairy production to school feeding programs reflects Pangilinan’s long-standing push for outcome-focused agriculture that supports both farmers’ incomes and people’s health.

A joint study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) and the United Nations Children’s Fund Philippines revealed that one in four Filipino children is stunted because of chronic malnutrition due to economic inequalities. In the poorest households, the rates reach 40 percent.

Released in the new book “Raising the Bar: Understanding and Solving Chronic Malnutrition in the Philippines” last October, the study said that that 24 percent rate of stunting is equivalent to about 2.6 million Filipino children under five.

Such study means, Pangilinan said, “that if we don’t act right away, 2.6 million Filipino children will become weak not only physically but mentally.”

“Malusog ang hinaharap ng bansa kung malusog ang kabataan [Healthy young people means a healthy future for the country],” he added, noting that sustained funding and stronger coordination with health and education agencies will be needed to ensure long-term impact.

ERC gives PA to Davao Light on new franchise areas

By Manuel T. Cayon @awimailbox

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AVAO CITY - The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) granted provisional approval to Davao Light and Power Co. (DLPC) to start connecting customers in Davao del Norte and Davao de Oro, a belated report from the Aboitiz subsidiary said on Friday.

The approval was made on December 12 in an en banc commission meeting. The provisional authority (PA) was granted to Davao Light’s Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN), which “would mean that Davao Light now has provisional approval to connect customers and collect payments for its service, subject to final approval by the commission.”

“We welcome this decision of the ERC. For months, Davao Light has laid the foundation of our network in our expanded areas. With this decision, we can now accept applications for connections,” Davao Light President and Chief Operating Officer, Enriczar Tia, said.

The company said customers who want to transfer to Davao Light may apply online. Links to the application process can be found on the Davao Light Facebook page, website, and other channels.

Tia said, however, that Davao Light could not take over the entire area covered by Republic Act 12144 just yet with the continued refusal of Northern Davao Electric Cooperative, or Nordeco, to sell its assets to the private utility. He said Davao Light “has only been able to string a connection in Kapalong municipality due to its proximity to the original DLP area.”

The Nordeco was the previous electric cooperative holding the franchise for the two provinces.

Through RA 12144, government granted Davao Light the franchise to these areas after local government, business and consumer groups petitioned to replace Nordeco with Davao Light.

“We still hope to enter into negotiations for the assets of Nordeco so

we can connect as many customers as we can,” he said. Customers in Kapalong may start receiving their Davao Light power before the year ends, and receive their Davao Light bills after their respective billing cycle, starting January next year.

He said Davao Light planned to put its own lines, poles, and substations, “but it will take many years before it can start connecting customers in areas like Samal or Tagum.”

Davao del Norte Governor Edwin Jubahib said the provisional authority “spells a brighter future for the people of Davao del Norte.

With the CPCN, Davao Light can now connect customers in Davao del Norte. This would mean lower rates and better service for all of us – something I have been fighting for our people since 2019. I will not stop until we have achieved this dream of ours. We hope for a smooth transition between NORDECO and Davao Light for the benefit of our consumers.”

As of November, Davao Light’s overall residential rate is P10.06 per kilowatt hour, while Nordeco residential customers paid P12.90 per kWh, or a difference of almost P3.00. For a residential customer with an average consumption of 120 kWh per month, the difference amounts to over P350 less for DLPC customers.

The Davao Consumer Movement said it welcomed the ERC issuance of the provisional authority, saying that consumers “stand to gain two major benefits: a reliable and transparent power system and affordable electricity.”

“With dependable and cost-efficient electricity, Davao del Norte can unlock its full potential as an economic powerhouse in the Davao Region and Mindanao. A stronger economy means better goods, services, and opportunities for consumers,” said Ryan Amper, convener of the DCM. “This marks the end of unreliable and costly power service. It signals the start of a new chapter of economic growth for Davao del Norte,” Amper added.

Tuesday, December 23, 2025 A13

Red Cross rescues Israeli child after flight delay; Gordon calls for better provincial medevac assets

T

HE Philippine Red Cross (PRC) mounted an urgent emergency medical response overnight to assist in a medical evacuation of a three-yearold Israeli child from El Nido, Palawan after the flight could not proceed due to the lack of night-flight navigational instruments at the local airport.

As time working against them, the PRC immediately deployed an ambulance with a medical team composed of a doctor, an emergency medical technician, and a nurse to transport the child by land the patient in critical condition.

The PRC ambulance was dispatched to meet the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO) ambulance carrying the child from the Northern Palawan Provincial Hospital, coordinating a midpoint transfer en route to Puerto Princesa. The journey spans nearly four hours by land, underscoring the logistical challenges faced by patients in remote areas during lifethreatening emergencies.

The PRC is calling for concrete measures to improve safety in touristdense areas, including the presence of trained First Aiders and lifeguards in every resort, fully equipped and strategically located ambulance stations, and stronger partnerships with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine Coast Guard, and Philippine National Police to support medical evacuation operations by land, sea, and air.

Aboitiz. . .

Continued from A12

The program was made possible through the collaboration of the Aboitiz Foundation, UnionB a n k , R e publ ic Cement , V ic Enterprises, local government units, and volunteers, highlighting the spirit of bayanihan among the private sector, government, and communities.

The Liloan assistance forms part of the broader OneAboitiz

DAR. . .

Continued from A12

Sangcopan served as the guest of honor, representing DAR Secretary Conrado M. Estrella III. Undersecretary Sangcopan emphasized the program’s transformative impact. “May this early Christmas gift empower you to become more productive and prosperous.

With secure land and reduced financial burden, you can now build a better future for your families. The government remains your partner in this journey,” she said.

Fa r m e r - b e n e f i c i a r i e s e x pressed gratitude for the lifechanging support. Edgardo C. Madjos, 53, of But u a n C it y, shared that receiving his land title fulfilled a lifelong dream.

“This is the best Christmas gift I could receive. Securing our land brings peace of mind and hope for our family’s future,” he said.

PRC Chairman and CEO Richard J. Gordon emphasized that while the Red Cross will always act swiftly to save lives, systemic solutions are urgently needed.

“The Philippine Red Cross will always respond when lives are on the line, even under the most difficult circumstances,” Gordon said.

“Our country must invest in medical evacuation aircraft to save lives and 24hour airport navigational instruments in the provinces, should local health facilities be incapable or inadequate in managing and handling emergencies,” he added.

Following the successful transport and medical intervention, the child’s condition has significantly improved.

Laboratory tests show normal results, and the child has since regained strength and activity.

The child’s father confirmed that the condition is much better compared to the previous day.

To ensure continued recovery and support, the PRC has assigned a social worker to regularly check on the child and family.

PRC further reminded that safety is a key reason tourists choose to visit the Philippines.

Tourists come because they perceive the country to be safe, and that perception must be matched by real, on-the-ground emergency readiness, not only in Palawan, but in all major tourist destinations nationwide.

Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

disaster response, which has reached more than 63,000 families nationwide, with over P28.8 million in total relief and recovery support. These efforts include earthquake recovery in Cebu and Davao, typhoon response in the Visayas, and flood and storm relief in Northern Luzon.

The Aboitiz Foundation expressed hope that the assistance would help families regain strength and optimism as they rebuild their homes and work toward a safer and more resilient future.

Meanwhile, Alberto España, 56, from San Francisco, Agusan del Sur, highlighted the importance of debt relief. “With our debts condoned, we can now invest more in our farm and improve our livelihood. This day truly changes our lives,” he said.

By ensuring secure land ownership, financial relief, and stronger farmer organizations, DAR Caraga has given thousands of farmers renewed confidence and opportunity—allowing them to welcome the Christmas season with hope, dignity, and the promise of a brighter future.

The initiative aligns with Secretary Estrella’s 9-point agenda, which brings government services closer to communities while advancing food security, rural development, and poverty reduction.

Through secure land tenure, debt relief, and strong farmer organizations, DAR continues to empower farmers toward sustainable livelihoods. Jonathan L. Mayuga

Thousands of teachers promoted as DepEd rolls out expanded career progression reform

By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco @claudethmc3

W

ITH the aim of clearing promotion backlogs, recognizing years of actual classroom service, and ensuring timely career advancement for teachers in active service, the Expanded Career Progression (ECP) for Teachers was implemented after it was enacted through Republic Act No. 12288, the Department of Education (DepEd) said on Monday.

Under the administration of Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and leadership of Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara at DepEd - one of the largest employers in the government, overseeing a workforce of almost 900,000 public school teachers, has address the mentioned gaps - making long-standing promotion delays a system-wide problem felt across generations.

From Luzon to Mindanao, advancement often came late, not due to lack of performance, but because of rigid structures and persistent backlogs, the DepEd noted.

For nearly three decades, Nardito Dalman Tomampil Jr.’s classroom at Santiago National High

School in Iligan City has been shaped by patience and steady service. Teaching science and values education for 27 years, he learned early that career movement in public education often required waiting far longer than expected.

Teacher Nardito began his teaching career as a Teacher I in 1998. Just two years later, he was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, causing gradual vision loss.

Rather than stepping away, he stayed in the classroom, adapting quietly as his vision declined. Over the years, he taught by relying on routine, memory, and a deep sense of responsibility to his learners.

But for many years, advancement felt distant. Not because of his performance, but because the system struggled to recognize long service in real time. While his role in the classroom expanded, his career rank remained unchanged.

His first promotion came only in 2021, when he advanced to Teacher II, more than two decades after entering service and long after his diagnosis.

Little did he know that four years later, the system would no longer allow such prolonged waiting to continue. Under the ECP,

meaningful progress arrived. In 2025, Tomampil was promoted to Teacher IV, joining more than 500 teachers in the Division of Iligan City whose years of service were finally matched by timely career advancement under the reform.

For Teacher Nardito, the promotion affirmed something deeply personal. His visual impairment did not define his capacity to teach, and years of commitment, even when unseen, were finally recognized by a system beginning to correct its own delays.

“Ang maipapayo ko po sa ating mga kapwa-guro na may kapansanan ay huwag silang panghinaan ng loob at dapat magsumikap at panatilihin ang commitment sa pagtuturo at darating din ang pagkakataon upang kayo ay ma-promote,” he said.

In the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Teacher Rebecca M. Macaiba’s story echoes the same patience from the north. At Manadapig Elementary School in Tabuk City, Kalinga, she remained a Teacher III for 19 years, gaining experience while advancement remained elusive.

Her promotion to Teacher VI, a three-step leap, under the Expanded Career Progression marked a

shift from waiting to movement.

Macaiba reflects that perseverance, no matter how long tested, is eventually recognized. She credits President Marcos for placing teacher recognition at the center of the national agenda, and Secretary Angara for turning policy direction into real outcomes for teachers.

“After many years in service, this reclassification stands as a quiet but powerful reminder that patience and perseverance, no matter how long tested, are never in vain,” she shared.

Tomampil’s and Macaiba’s stories stand as proof of what the system once failed to do—and as markers of where it is now heading as 16,000 are officially promoted and 41,000 more are lined up.

As Marcos has made clear in his 2024 State of the Nation Address (SONA), the goal is to end career stagnation altogether.

With the reform anchored in law and carried out at scale, DepEd is working to ensure that dedication is recognized sooner, service is valued consistently, and the next generation of teachers experiences a career that moves forward with them, not behind them.

160,000 OFWs benefit as DMW utilizes 98% of AKSYON Fund

By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

T

HE Depar tment of Migrant Workers (DMW) announced that it achieved a 98 percent utilization rate for the Agarang Kalinga sa mga OFW na Nangangailangan (AKSYON) Fund, thanks to the opening of additional regional and overseas offices.

Created by Republic Act No. 11641 or the Department of Migrant Workers Act, the AKSYON Fund is a special use to provide legal, medical, and financial aid

to distressed OFWs. In 2023, DMW was able to use 49 percent of its P1.2 billion AKSYON Fund to benefit 46,049.

The following year, it was able to utilize 59 percent of its P2.46 billion of the said special fund to help 131,440 workers.

Dur ing the year-end press conference of DMW last Monday, DMW Secretary Hans J. Cacdac said they were able to accelerate the spending of the fund, they were already able to address the “growing pains” in the implementation of the AKSYON Fund.

From focusing on regulations,

he said DMW has shifted to becoming oriented in the delivery of social welfare services through its offices.

“Finally in 2025 after our third year of full existence...we hit our stride. [And achieve] 98 percent utilization [rate],” he said.

Most of t he P2.20 bi l l ion AKSYON was used to benefit more than 160,000 OFWs as of October.

DMW Undersecretary Dominique R. Tutay said they were able to accelerate their utilization as DMW was able to establish its offices in all of the 16 regions and the Negros Island Region and the

creation of more Migrant Workers Office abroad.

“We were able to fill up positions, especially those in the regional offices because if its full operations, it means you can spend more. You can implement the programs and spend more of the budget of the department,” she said.

Cacdac said they are still targeting to achieve a 100 percent disbursement this year by releasing more funds in the following days.

Tutay said only P18 million of the AKYON Fund this year remains unspent.

Groups want lead chromates to be listed as hazardous chemical in Rotterdam Convention

T

HE EcoWaste Coalition and International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) are calling on the Philippines to join countries seeking the inclusion of lead chromates as hazardous chemicals in the Rotterdam Convention.

The Philippines ratified the Rotterdam Convention in 2006.

It is the UN treaty for managing hazardous chemicals by promoting shared responsibility and cooperation in their trade, primarily through a Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure to assist countries in making informed decisions on accepting industrial chemicals and pesticides banned or restricted for health and/or environmental reasons.

The EcoWaste Coalition and other participating organizations of IPEN from low- and midd le-income countr ies a re

India. . .

Continued from A8

He said New Zealand’s exports to India are forecast to increase by $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion annually over the coming two decades as a result of the agreement.

“Boosting trade means more Kiwi jobs, higher wages and more opportunities for hard working New Zealanders,” he said.

New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay said the agreement gives the country access to markets that India has not provided to any other country.

“New Zealand is the first country to secure

advocating for the listing of lead chromates, which are lead-based chemical compounds used as pigments in paints, as an essential measure to control their trade and the paints containing them.

The groups reiterated their appeal for the government, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in particular, to file the necessary notification to the Secretariat of the Rotterdam Convention as the country’s regulation banning lead in all paints entered its 12th year of implementation.

DENR Administrative Order No. 2013-24, or the Chemical Control Order (CCO) regulating lead and its compounds, was promulgated on December 23, 2013.

Among its salient provisions were the establishment of 1) a mandatory 90 parts per million (ppm) limit on lead in paints (the

strictest legal limit for lead used in various paint applications), and 2) the phase-out of lead-containing decorative and industrial paints, which were completed on December 31, 2016, and December 31, 2019, respectively.

The landmark regulation, which won the Future Policy Award (special category on lead in paint) in 2021, was adopted through a consultative process led by the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) and with the active engagement of stakeholders from the industry (i.e., Philippine Paint & Coatings Association, Inc., or the PPCAI; known before as the Philippine Association of Paint Manufacturers) and the civil society (i.e., EcoWaste Coalition and IPEN).

“As our nation marks the 12th anniversary of the CCO, which laid the ground for the successful industry-wide transition to nonlead paint production, we urge

the authorities to embrace other measures that will uphold the lead paint ban from persistent lead paint imports,” said Manny Calonzo, Campaigner, EcoWaste Coalition. “We appeal to the DENR in particular to follow the lead of Cameroon, Morocco, Switzerland, and Australia in nominating lead chromates for listing in the Rotterdam Convention.

“IPEN calls on countries like the Philippines with lead paint ba ns to suppor t l ist ing lead chromates under the Rotterdam Convention, as this will give importing countries the right to know and refuse imports of these common pigments in lead paint and finished paint products containing lead chromates to protect their market and people,” said Jeiel Guarino, Global Lead Paint Elimination Campaigner, IPEN.

any access for apples and honey into India in an FTA. We have secured the best access for kiwi fruit into India of any country in the world,” he said.

Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said the agreement demonstrates India was “rapidly expanding” its trade relations with countries that complement the Indian economy rather than competing with it.

India is betting that a wider network of trade agreements will help cushion external shocks and anchor its export ambitions. In recent months, New Delhi has accelerated a push to finalize several free trade agreements. The country is in advanced talks with the European Union and Chile, among others, and hopes to

finalize terms of reference soon to negotiate a pact with Canada.

The stepped-up negotiations come as Indian exporters face pressure from higher US import tariffs, which went into effect in August. The tariffs include an additional 25% levy on India for its unabated purchases of discounted Russian oil, bringing the combined tariffs imposed by the United States on its ally to 50%.

India has been the second biggest importer of Russian crude after China, drawing criticism from Washington that it was helping finance Moscow’s war machine against Ukraine.

While India and the US have been negotiating a bilateral trade agreement, the tariffs have weighed on sectors such as textiles,

auto components, metals and labor-intensive manufacturing.

India signed comprehensive economic cooperation and trade agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Australia in recent years, lifting bilateral trade with both countries.

In May, Britain and India announced a hardwrought FTA that will slash tariffs on products including Scotch whisky and English gin shipped to India, and Indian food and spices sent to the U.K. Last week, India signed a comprehensive economic partnership agreement with Oman.

Jonathan L. Mayuga

AP video journalist Mayuko Ono in Tokyo contributed to this report.

A14 Tuesday, December 23, 2025 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

www.news.businessmirror@gmail.com

editorial

UMIC status awaits, but only meaningful growth will make it count for the masses

T

HE Philippine economy currently finds itself in a state of “so near, yet so far.” According to recent data, the country missed the threshold for upper middle-income country (UMIC) status by a mere $26 in gross national income (GNI) per capita. While this narrow margin might seem like a statistical frustration, it serves as a wake-up call for the Marcos administration. Finance Secretary Frederick Go’s recent pronouncement—that the government is prioritizing job creation to bridge this gap by 2026—is a necessary pivot from chasing mere numbers to fostering meaningful, inclusive growth. (Read the BusinessMirror story: “Government focuses on job creation to attain missed UMIC status,” December 20, 2025).

For too long, the country’s macroeconomic success has been a story of “jobless growth,” where GDP figures climb while the average Filipino struggles with underemployment and stagnant wages. Secretary Go’s assertion that economic growth must translate into higher incomes is the correct diagnostic approach. Reaching UMIC status is not merely a branding exercise for the nation; it is a metric that should reflect the improved purchasing power and quality of life for the masses. If the transition to a higher income bracket is driven only by the gains of the ultra-wealthy, the “upper middle-income” label will be a hollow victory.

The challenges ahead are formidable. As Secretary Go rightly pointed out, the “dollar dilemma” poses a significant hurdle. Because the World Bank’s classifications are denominated in US dollars, the peso’s volatility can erase domestic gains in an instant. This highlights the need for an economy that is not only growing but resilient—one that can withstand global currency fluctuations through strong exports and diversified industries.

However, the roadmap provided by the World Bank offers a clear set of instructions for sustained elevation. To hit the required 6.8 percent annual growth rate over the next quarter-century, the government must move beyond rhetoric and focus on three pillars: infrastructure, human capital, and governance.

Investing in infrastructure is the traditional engine of growth, but “human capital” is the fuel. This means fixing the education crisis and ensuring the workforce is equipped for high-value industries. Furthermore, the 0.18-percentage point boost expected from increased labor force participation reminds us that we are underutilizing our greatest resource: our people. By improving regulations and mobilizing private capital, the government can create an environment where small and medium enterprises—the backbone of Filipino employment—can flourish without being strangled by red tape.

The $26 gap is a reminder of how close the Philippines is to a historic milestone. But as we eye the 2026 target, the administration must remember that the goal is not just to cross a financial finish line. The goal is to ensure that when the Philippines finally enters the upper middle-income bracket, it does so with a workforce that is gainfully employed, a middle class that is expanding, and a population that no longer feels “left behind.”

Secretary Go says he is hopeful. For that hope to be contagious, the Filipino people need to see that growth reflected not just in the national ledger, but in their daily take-home pay.

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Physics not policy rules the world John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

T

HE holiday season is supposed to be a pause, a time for colorful parols, family fiestas, and “good tidings of great joy.” Yet even amid these rituals, it is hard to ignore the anxiety from the troubles that swirl around us like a never-ending storm.

Trying to guess what headline happens next is a losing game. “Sydney Terror Attack: Hanukkah Massacre.” “Russia Launches Massive Missile Barrage.” “Weak economies: Manufacturing Plummets Globally.” “EU Plots Economic Sabotage to Block Ukraine Peace.”

These events look scattered on the surface but treating them as unrelated accidents misses the point. Between holiday décor and grim news alerts sits an uncomfortable question that rarely is asked: What is actually holding the global order together?

It is tempting to view each crisis as a separate eruption of chaos, driven by personalities or politics. A closer look suggests something more basic is at work. These shocks share a common foundation rooted less in ideology and diplomacy and more in the physical systems that quietly determine how societies function.

At the center of those systems is energy.

Vaclav Smil, the Czech-Canadian scholar of energy and industrial systems, has spent decades making this argument with stubborn consistency. The modern world, he writes,

is not primarily a financial or political construct. It is an energy system.

“Modern civilization is an energy civilization, and fossil fuels are its foundation.”

In Smil’s framework, energy flows determine real economic capacity, while markets, policies, and narratives follow. His blunt summary is difficult to refute: energy is the only universal currency. Without energy, nothing happens.

There is a habit of labeling every crisis as unprecedented. A better argument is that the ‘unprecedented’ phase began some time ago. What people loosely call World War III is not arriving with formal declarations or synchronized invasions. It is unfolding as overlapping military, economic, and resource conflicts.

The war in Ukraine, the economic confrontation between the United States and China, and the global scramble for fuel and minerals are not separate stories. They are parts of the same process, even if many observers still insist on reading them as isolated headlines.

Ukraine offers a clear example.

The conflict has settled into a war of attrition, a form of warfare that rewards proximity, industrial depth, and energy security. Russia holds advantages in all three. Ukraine relies on Europe, and Europe relies on imported energy priced far above historical norms. This is not a moral judgment. It is arithmetic.

The same arithmetic explains why the US economic campaign against China has not produced collapse. Tariffs, technology controls, and financial pressure have slowed Chinese growth but not broken the system. China has redirected trade toward Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Economic gravity, not ideology, has guided these choices.

As global energy systems become more complicated, strategic attention is shifting closer to Washington’s home. Central and South America matter again, not because of slogans, but because of resources and supply chains. Oil in Venezuela and Guyana, lithium in Argentina and Chile, manufacturing capacity in Mexico, and agricultural output in Brazil are becoming increasingly valuable. Canada and Mexico are no longer peripheral partners but essential pillars of US energy and industrial strategy.

Pressure to ensure alignment will rise, because energy polarization leaves less room for neutrality.

A world of clearer spheres of influence is emerging. Russia, China, and India anchor much of the Global South. The US consolidates North America and the Western Hemisphere, while Western Europe plays a reduced supporting role.

The US occupies a rare position, producing more oil and gas than any

country in history, according to the US Energy Information Administration. This abundance underwrites both reindustrialization and leverage, regardless of the noise of domestic politics.

Europe provides the clearest example of what happens when energy realities are subordinated to political signaling. Cutting off Russian pipeline gas replaced a cheap and stable supply with liquefied natural gas shipped across oceans, resulting in declining industrial competitiveness.

The Middle East remains a useful exception. It produces far more energy than it consumes and sells to everyone. Saudi Arabia can cooperate militarily with Washington, price oil with China, and invest alongside India without contradiction. Mutual dependence enforces restraint more effectively than diplomacy alone.

Seen through this lens, energy rather than ideology organizes global politics. Analyses that start with rhetoric often end in confusion.

Those that start with energy tend to reach clearer and better policy conclusions. The Philippines should pay close attention.

Energy security is economic security. Nations that understand this will adapt with resilience. Those that confuse ideals and hope with physics will struggle. In the world now taking shape, energy literacy is no longer optional. It is the difference between barely managing the decline and instead shaping destiny.

E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis provided by AAA Southeast Equities Inc.

Rich families face tax audits as Indonesia races to plug deficit

By Grace Sihombing, Faris Mokhtar & Harry Suhartono

I

NDONESIA is seeking to plug an unusually deep revenue shortfall before year-end by scrutinizing wealthy individuals and big businesses for extra tax payments.

As the country’s budget deficit projection edges toward a 3 percent gross domestic product cap, tax officials have stepped up scrutiny of the rich, summoning some to review their returns in an effort to boost collections in what has been an anemic year for receipts in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

Several people familiar with the situation said officials have recently told big firms run by local tycoons to pay additional dues this year. A few family businesses were asked to pay more than $5 million.

When several of those family-run companies pushed back, tax officials proposed they pay 30 percent of the requested amount as a compromise, without giving a reason as to how they

landed on that figure, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is sensitive.

The tax office push has extended to some white-collar professionals as well, with investigators auditing returns for any errors, one person said.

Bimo Wijayanto, the Finance Ministry’s director general of taxes, confirmed recent summons of highwealth taxpayers, describing it to reporters at a briefing on Thursday as “essentially a routine task of the tax office in order to clarify data.”

The ministry’s data, he added, is “increasingly complete,” and the summons “give taxpayers the opportunity to provide explanations, voluntarily correct their tax returns and ensure compliance.”

Wijayanto didn’t identify the summoned taxpayers and it’s unclear how many businesses and individuals have been approached.

A spokesperson for the Directorate General of Tax declined to comment on individual cases, but said the office routinely monitors and clarifies data with large taxpayers as part of a standard supervision process. Any tax corrections are ultimately based on clear grounds, and taxpayers have the right to respond or pursue legal remedies, the spokesperson said.

Year-end efforts to boost tax revenue are relatively common in Indonesia, where critics and business elites describe the practice as “hunting in a zoo”—a reference to efforts often directed at a relatively small group of large, formal taxpayers that are easy to monitor rather than broadening compliance across the sprawling informal economy of the world’s fourth most-populous nation.

But the size of this year’s gap has raised the stakes. Tax income is run-

ning unusually short of targets, with finance ministry data last week showing that collection through November had reached 79 percent of an already lowered full-year goal, down from nearly 90 percent at the same time last year. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, tax collection exceeded annual targets.

“Definitely, it is more aggressive” this year, said Wijayanto Samirin, an economist and lecturer at Paramadina University in Jakarta.

The weak collection—partly a reflection of lackluster economic conditions and softer commodity prices, economists say—has pushed the country’s much-watched budget deficit forecast to 2.78 percent of GDP, the highest in two decades not including the pandemic years, Bloomberg data going back to 2005 show.

Kevin O’Rourke, a principal at Jakarta-based consultancy Reformasi Information Services, said last minute “last-ditch efforts to reach revenue targets tend to take place See “Rich,” A15

Opinion BusinessMirror

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Death and taxes: Is the estate tax an archaic burden?

Atty. Irwin C. Nidea Jr.

TAX LAW FOR BUSINESS

A

S we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in a few days, it is worth noting the quiet irony of the season: this time of hope and renewal is also one of the busiest periods for funeral parlors.

Imagine that your loved one passes away, and instead of quiet space to grieve, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) seems to be standing at the door—not to console you, but to remind you that you have 30 days to file a formal notice of death. While still mourning, you are already burdened with the task of identifying, valuing, and collating all the real and personal properties left behind, because these must be declared to the BIR within one year from the date of death through the filing of an estate tax return. Within the same period, you are required to pay the estate tax at the rate of 6 percent of the net estate, meaning the total assets less allowable deductions.

In brief, the procedure requires the filing of a notice of death, preparation and filing of the estate tax return, payment of the estate tax, and securing a Certificate Authorizing Registration (CAR) from the BIR before property can be transferred to the heirs. Against this backdrop, there is now a proposal pending in the House of Representatives to completely remove estate tax, prompting a renewed discussion on whether this tax should be retained at all.

First, estate tax is widely viewed as counterproductive to the economy and, in practice, anti-poor. If the deceased-maintained bank deposits, heirs are generally unable to withdraw these funds unless the bank withholds the 6 percent estate tax or the corresponding BIR clearance is presented. For real property, no transfer can be registered in the names of the heirs unless the estate tax has first been fully paid. This may not be problematic for heirs with sufficient cash, but for those who are not liquid, the only option is often to sell inherited property just to settle the tax obligation.

More importantly, estate tax creates a “chokehold effect” on property.

Non-payment prevents the transfer of assets to the heirs, making it extremely difficult to sell the property since buyers almost always demand clean titles in the seller’s name. Instead of contributing to economic activity through the buying, selling, and development of property, these assets remain idle—sometimes for generations—undermining their potential multiplier effect on the economy.

Second, it bears emphasizing that failure to file and pay estate tax is not merely a technical lapse. Like other tax obligations, non-compliance may expose heirs to surcharges, interest, and even civil and criminal liability under the Tax Code, placing additional legal risk on families already dealing with loss.

Lastly, many countries have abandoned estate or inheritance taxes because these levies tend to generate relatively low revenue compared with the administrative and political costs of enforcing them. They are

Rich. . .

Continued from A14

around this time most years.”

“It would be understandable if these efforts are particularly assertive this year, given the shortfall in collections to date,” he said.

In past drives, one common practice by some taxpayers is to pay up at the end of the year and then set

Many countries have abandoned estate or inheritance taxes because these levies tend to generate relatively low revenue compared with the administrative and political costs of enforcing them. often seen as economically distortive, encouraging tax avoidance, capital flight, and complex estate planning that undermines their effectiveness. In several jurisdictions, inheritance taxes were perceived as unfair or emotionally burdensome, taxing wealth that had already been subjected to income or capital taxes during the decedent’s lifetime.

Governments also found that such taxes could disproportionately affect family-owned businesses and farms, sometimes forcing asset sales simply to pay the tax. Over time, sustained public opposition and political pressure led many policymakers to repeal these taxes in favor of simpler and more broadly accepted tax systems.

At a time when the government is striving to stimulate economic activity, promote ease of doing business, and project a more compassionate tax system, it is worth asking whether the estate tax still serves a meaningful public purpose. What was once conceived as a tool for revenue and equity now functions, in many cases, as a barrier to property circulation, a burden on grieving families, and a deterrent to productive use of assets. With global trends moving away from death-based taxation and toward more efficient and growthoriented revenue measures, the Philippines should not be afraid to reexamine long-standing assumptions.

The question is no longer whether the estate tax can be collected, but whether it should be collected at all.

It may be time for policymakers to seriously consider whether the estate tax has become an archaic concept— one that no longer belongs in a modern, inclusive, and forward-looking tax system.

As we gather around our tables this Christmas to celebrate life, family, and new beginnings, perhaps it is also timely to reflect on how our tax system treats those moments when life inevitably ends. In the spirit of the season, a serious rethinking of the estate tax may be a fitting place to begin. Merry Christmas.

Chill and prevail Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.

THE PATRIOT

S

HE had the credentials. She was first woman to lead the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers and had reportedly earned two doctorate degrees and three master’s degrees in business administration, economics, and strategic business economics. She was a dedicated career official who advanced through the ranks of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to become the first female rank-and-file employee to attain the position of undersecretary.

She was also reportedly recognized in the 2020 Excellence Award from the Philippine Federations of Professional Associations and the 2021 PRC Outstanding Professional of the Year in Civil Engineering.

Yet, despite all of these achievements, the life and legacy of former Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral ended abruptly amid corruption allegations in government infrastructure projects. Reports say that she was willing to become a state witness but was refused due to some unknown reasons.

Pending the autopsy to know more about how she died, the fact remains that Cabral most likely felt the pressure of investigative hearings in Congress and even before the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), which invitation to appear as resource speaker she declined.

Pardon the morbid topic but some people may be interested to know when they will die. Since it is an inevitable fact the we all die, it would be nice to know beforehand so we can “prepare” for such passing.

Other people would even go further and wonder how they will die. The gruesome death of former DPWH Undersecretary Cabral reminds me of the death of another government official 14 years ago whose credentials are even much more impressive than most.

He earned his academic degrees from the Philippine Military Academy, the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He became the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces

of the Philippines. He was appointed to the Cabinet, not once nor twice, but many times. He led the Departments of Defense (DND), Interior and Local Government (DILG), Environment and Natural Resources Secretary (DENR), and Energy (DOE). In one of his public interviews, he said then: “I want to be remembered as an officer who spent 30 years in the service, as one who tried to do his best.”

Yet, despite all these credentials, he took his own life as the public image he built over his professional career was tarnished by serious allegations of graft. General Angelo Reyes killed himself in 2011 with a single gunshot to the chest at his mother’s grave in a cemetery in Manila.

Similar to Cabral, several congressional hearings exposed some alleged irregularities and acts of embezzlement. By way of their respective deaths, both Cabral and Reyes were freed from the external pressure to testify or even perhaps serve as witnesses in the ongoing investigation of corruption charges.

A few minutes before their death, darkness likely prevailed over light.

However, for government prosecutors who are running after the ultimate brains and beneficiaries of these anomalies, their deaths became roadblocks. In the death of Cabral, government investigators appear to have become more fixated to secure her gadgets (phones

Tuesday, December 23, 2025 A15

and laptops).

It is extremely difficult to speculate how the life of Cabral ended. Woe to media and even other government personalities who dare surmise foul play a few hours after her death.

Evidently, all of us carry burdens in whatever shape or form. How we respond to these burdens or trials ultimately depends on our fortitude sharpened by our faith in our Almighty God. We all stumble and fall. Yes, even the most holy persons, priests or pastors, commit sin. All believers understand that we are all sinners.

We live in darkness. We are all dying and should have been dead, spiritually speaking, for the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). But there is hope. It was prophesied 700 years ago—“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” (Isaiah 9:2).

Hence, for all believers who fail to have a relationship with Our Savior, they will remain in darkness. Fortunately, there is Jesus whose promises never fail us.

Knowing their hopelessness against sin, believers are taught to do something worthwhile and wise in every moment they have here on earth, just what the Bible prescribed—“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalms 90:12).

We have to learn the lessons from those who died before us. Before our name is called, let’s seek to be closer to Him. “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” (James 1:5) Once we internalize these biblical doctrines, we will be able to relieve ourselves of any kind of pressure.

My pastor friend taught me that Jesus died for my sins and yours.

Despite my sinful nature, I am saved

by His death on the cross. Hence, I feel little or no pressure for I know victory is at hand, not because of my works, but solely because of His grace.

The apostle Paul puts in this wise —“The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count

yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”

(Romans 6:10-12) I dare not say how Cabral felt during those last few seconds of the “fall to her death.” One thing is certain for me. In contemplation of death, I will just “chill and prevail,” borrowing the words of one public servant in the Philippine Coast Guard.

Chill simply means to feel zero pressure amid trials in life knowing that God is in total control of events.

He has my back at all times. Prevail means to feel victorious knowing that in all these times of adversity, God has an eternal purpose to which we need not know.

As the birthday of our Lord Jesus comes in a few days, let’s remember who He is then, now, and forever.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

(Isaiah 9:6) All of us, especially those in government who were implicated or involved in whatever way in the latest corruption scandal, should realize that no sin is left unrevealed in His eyes, even in death. Some may evade accountability from the laws of the land; no one can evade justice from the law of the Lord. Let’s stay Chill, for He will always Prevail.

Siegfred has a diversified set of education and experiences which has made him a game changer and a servant leader in organizations such as the Philippine Army, Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Malcolm Law Offices, a US based software development company called Infogix Inc, University of the East, Bureau of Immigration, Philippine Airlines and SM Prime Holdings. His professional degrees came from the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York, Ateneo Law School, and University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. He has delivered leadership and management talks in government agencies. Siegfred is a former soldier and a lawyer by profession, a teacher by passion, and a writer with a mission.

Support for Japan’s Takaichi stays firm as China dispute festers

By Sakura Murakami

The author is a senior partner of Du-Baladad and Associates Law Offices (BDB Law) (www. bdblaw.com.ph).

The article is for general information only and is not intended, nor should be construed as a substitute for tax, legal, or financial advice on any specific matter. Applicability of this article to any actual or particular tax or legal issue should be supported, therefore, by a professional study or advice. If you have any comments or questions concerning the article, you may e-mail the author at irwin.c.nideajr@ bdblaw.com.ph or call 8403-2001 local 330.

Surveys conducted over the weekend showed that about 70 percent of respondents were in support of Takaichi’s administration. The Nikkei newspaper put her approval rating at 75 percent, the Yomiuri at 73 percent and Kyodo newswire at 67.5 percent, while the Asahi and Mainichi newspapers put the figure at 68 percent and 67 percent respectively. An FNN poll gave the premier a support rating of 75.9 percent.

The poll results tracked a continued trend since she became the first woman to take the top job in October. She took over at a time when the ruling bloc’s grip on power was weakened by its loss of majorities in both chambers of parliament.

Since then, she has weathered the collapse of a long-standing coalition between her Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito and ushered in a new partnership with the Japan Innovation Party as well as the influx of a handful of independent lawmakers

that allowed her to reclaim a razor thin majority in the lower house.

The premier has also passed an extra budget with the help of some opposition parties.

Her ratings are the highest for a Japanese prime minister in about two decades stretching back to the administration of Junichiro Koizumi, according to the Yomiuri.

The extra budget funds an economic package that includes ¥8.9 trillion specifically meant to help households cope with inflation—a top policy priority after frustration over soaring costs of living led to election setbacks for the LDP. The package includes rice coupons, subsidies for electricity and gas, as well as a cut to gasoline taxes.

Inflation continues to be at the top of voters’ minds. Half of respondents to the Nikkei survey said they wanted to see Takaichi implement inflation countermeasures as a top priority, with defense and diplomacy

coming in second at 31 percent, and then pensions at 29 percent.

Japan’s pace of inflation stayed at or above the Bank of Japan’s 2 percent target for a 44th straight month in November, data released Friday showed.

While keeping a handle on domestic issues, Takaichi has also had to navigate the ire of China after she said that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could possibly be a “survivalthreatening situation”—a legal justification for Japan to deploy troops to aid other countries in a contingency.

China has sought a retraction of the comments, but Takaichi has refused to do so, saying that Japan’s policy on Taiwan remains unchanged.

Beijing has since railed against Tokyo, inflicting economic and diplomatic threats by warning its citizens against traveling to Japan and sending letters of complaint to the United Nations. Tokyo has also alleged that Chinese fighter jets trained fire-control radars on at least one of its jets.

A majority of respondents have supported Takaichi’s stance against China. People who said they agreed with Takaichi’s position on China amounted to 55 percent in the Asahi poll, while 30 percent disagreed. The Kyodo poll showed that 57 percent of respondents didn’t think Takaichi’s comments were careless.

about reclaiming sums via appeals in the new year.

This particular year’s end push is adding to unease among rich Indonesians already rattled by what many see as a crackdown on the affluent under President Prabowo Subianto. Indonesia is home to some of the wealthiest billionaires in Southeast Asia, where 10 of the richest have a combined net worth of more than $180 billion.

The government earlier this year

called on the country’s wealthiest tycoons to buy so-called Patriot Bonds with below-market coupons to support investments by fledgling sovereign wealth fund Danantara.

Prabowo’s new administration has also confiscated millions of hectares of what it describes as illegal palm oil and forest lands, including tracts held by wealthy landowners.

While some high-net worth families are frustrated and anxious about

the administration’s moves, many also feel helpless, concerned about the repercussions should they not comply with the requests, the people familiar with the situation said.

Indonesia’s tax ratio is among the lowest in the world, at about 10 percent of GDP last year. Hashim Djojohadikusumo, Prabowo’s younger brother and one of his closest advisers, recently criticized the country’s tax system as weak and having failed

to make significant improvements over the past decade.

The Finance Ministry has been trying to boost tax collection. A new online system was rolled out earlier this year to simplify and unify procedures, and officials have been using more third-party data to determine taxation.

In September, Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa said the government would pursue about

J

APANESE Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s support ratings held steady at historically high levels according to polls conducted over the weekend, in a sign of her continued popularity despite the fallout from a dispute with China over comments she made on Taiwan last month.

The public appears to be wary of the impact from the dispute, however. The Nikkei poll showed that 46% were concerned about the economic impact of a deterioration in ties between Tokyo and Beijing, while 48 percent said they were not concerned.

Some 53 percent of respondents were at least partially concerned about the economic impact in a separate Asahi poll, while the Kyodo poll put that rate at 59.9 percent.

Over the weekend, Itsunori Onodera, who heads the LDP’s research on security, said that Japan should not shy away from discussing nuclear weapons, while emphasizing that Japan is under the US nuclear umbrella.

The comments came after a senior government official last week expressed a personal opinion that Japan should have nuclear weapons.

The official said that there were no formal discussions on the matter within the government, and added that the possibility of obtaining such weapons was remote. Still, the remarks sparked backlash from opposition parties and also from China.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun called the situation “severe” if true, saying it exposes the attempts of some in Japan to break international law and possess nuclear weapons. Bloomberg 200 cases of tax evasion, with total arrears of around 60 trillion rupiah ($3.6 billion), mostly owed by companies. His office has collected about 13 trillion rupiah through mid-December.

Using tougher tactics could lead to a possible loss of trust in the tax authority, worsening future compliance, said Fajry Akbar, chief of tax research at the Center for Indonesia Taxation Analysis in Jakarta. Bloomberg

A16 Tuesday, December 23, 2025

2nd Front Page BusinessMirror

PHL SECURES HISTORIC $3.5-B U.S. DEFENSE AID VIA NDAA ‘26

By Malou Talosig-Bartolome

T

HE United States Congress has approved a record US$3.5-billion (P205.5 billion) defense package for the Philippines, combining grants and loans to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine Coast Guard.

The measure, signed into law

by US President Donald Trump on December 18, 2025, under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2026, marks the largest US defense commitment to Manila in decades.

But the NDAA FY2026 does not only provide funding for Philippine military modernization. It also embeds the Philippines into Washington’s Indo‑Pacific strategy.

Congress directed the State and Defense Departments to conduct annual oversight, accelerate EDCA site development, expand trilateral cooperation with Japan and Australia, strengthen GSOMIA information‑sharing, pre‑position humanitarian assets, pursue organizational reforms, and implement explicit measures to counter coercive military activities in the South China Sea.

Breakdown of the US$3.5-B package

FOREIGN military financing grants: Up to US$500 million

(P29.35 billion) annually from 2026–2030.

Direct loan authority: Up to US$1 billion (P58.71 billion) repayable within 17 years, with a grace period of not more than one year on repayment of principal.

Loan guarantees: Up to US$1 billion (P58.71 billion) in commercial loan guarantees, covering 80 percent of principal.

Modernization priorities: Coastal defense, long‑range fires, integrated air defenses, maritime security, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), unmanned aerial systems, mechanized vehicles, and defensive cybersecurity.

Indo‑Pacific strategy directives

THE US Congress has embedded the Philippines into a wider US Indo‑Pacific security plan through specific mandates: n Annual reports (Sec. 1269): Continuous oversight of bilateral defense guidelines and absorptive capacity of the AFP and Coast Guard. n EDCA site development: Priority facility investments and timelines for Philippine bases to serve as forward‑deployed hubs. n Trilateral cooperation: Expanded drills and capacity‑building with Japan and Australia.

See “$3.5-B,” A2

www.businessmirror.com.ph

PHL willing to mediate in Thailand–Cambodia conflict

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By Malou Talosig-Bartolome

HE Philippines signaled readiness to step in as mediator between Cambodia and Thailand once it assumes the Asean Chairship in January 2026, should both parties agree to make use of the good offices of the Chair.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) issued the statement Monday after Asean foreign ministers gathered in Kuala Lumpur for an emergency session convened by Malaysia to address the escalating border conflict between the two Southeast Asian neighbors.

Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan, who chaired the meeting, underscored Asean’s responsibility to “do whatever is necessary” to preserve regional peace and stability.

The ministers exchanged views on the situation and weighed possible steps to support ongoing efforts toward de-escalation and cessation of hostilities.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro, in a post on X, said both Thailand and Cambodia were “open and sincere” in pursuing dialogue and a ceasefire.

“Following the discussions today, the Philippines said that it is prepared to assume the role of facilitator/mediator between Cambodia and Thailand should both parties decide to make use of the good offices of the Chair once the Philippines assumes the Chairship in January 2026,” the DFA added.

Malaysia’s push for peace

ACCORDING to Malaysia’s state news agency Bernama, Hasan expressed sorrow over civilian casual-

PROMOTING PEACE IN ASEAN Foreign Affairs Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro addresses

Asean foreign ministers during an emergency meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, December 22, aimed at de-escalating the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. Lazaro expressed support for dialogue and a ceasefire under Asean facilitation. PHOTO VIA @SECLAZARO/X

ties and displacement, highlighting Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s continued engagement with Cambodian and Thai leaders since hostilities erupted in July, including efforts to secure the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accord.

The Accord, brokered in October, was meant to formalize a ceasefire promoted earlier by US President Donald Trump. But the truce collapsed in December amid renewed clashes and propaganda battles.

Thailand’s diplomatic outreach

ON the eve of the meeting, Thai

Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said he had spoken with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to follow up on the situation.

“I conveyed Thailand’s strong intention to work toward a ceasefire and outlined our clear path forward. I stressed that progress will depend on clear readiness and sincerity from the Cambodian side, demonstrated through concrete actions on the ground,” he wrote on X. Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn also attended the See “Conflict,” A2

Recto ready to face raps on transfer of PhilHealth funds

By Samuel P. Medenilla and Joel R. San Juan

A

HOMEWARD BOUND FOR THE HOLIDAYS Passengers wait for provincial buses at the GV Florida Bus Terminal in Sampaloc, Manila, as the annual holiday exodus gains momentum. Thousands of travelers are heading back to their home provinces to reunite with family and loved ones ahead of Christmas, marking one of the busiest travel periods of the year. Transport terminals across Metro Manila typically see heavier foot traffic during this season, prompting operators and authorities to heighten safety checks and manage passenger flow. ROY DOMINGO

Bank secrecy easing hurdles HOR vote

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

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@joveemarie

HE House of Representatives on Monday approved on third and final reading a measure aimed at promoting transparency and instituting anti-corruption mechanisms in the operations of banks by easing restrictions under the country’s bank secrecy law.

In a unanimous vote of 270-0, lawmakers passed House Bill 6707.

The bill, which is part of the 44 priority measures under the Common Legislative Agenda (CLA) endorsed

by President Marcos and the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC), seeks to ease restrictions under the coun-

try’s bank secrecy law and enhance the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) ability to investigate financial crimes.

The legislation empowers the BSP to examine bank deposits of stockholders, owners, directors, trustees, officers, or employees of BSP-supervised institutions when there is reasonable ground to believe fraud, serious irregularity, or unlawful activity has occurred.

The measure also applies to foreign currency deposits in banks operating in the Philippines, including off-shore branches of domestic banks, while explicitly excluding non-stock and savings loan associations (NSSLAs) catering only to their members. Results of bank examinations are to be used

exclusively by the BSP, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), Department of Justice (DOJ), and the courts.

The bill also includes provisions to safeguard financial institutions and their personnel from liability when complying with BSP orders, prohibits the use of bank secrecy for harassment or anti-competitive purposes, and prescribes penalties of imprisonment from two to 10 years or fines ranging from P50,000 to P2 million for violations.

Lawmakers emphasized that the measure addresses calls from business groups and the public for stronger transparency and accountability mechanisms, ensuring that RA 1405’s protections are

balanced with the need to combat fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, and other financial crimes.

Deputy Majority Leader Luigi Villafuerte noted that the bill amends Republic Act 1405, also known as the Secrecy of Bank Deposits Law, which has been in effect for over 70 years and is intended to prevent the misuse of bank secrecy protections for fraudulent or illegal activities.

“The congressional approval of this proposed amendment to RA 1405 is timely, given that it is among the priority bills of the Marcos administration in the 20th Congress and aligns with Malacañang’s efforts to strengthen the anti-graft drive,” Villafuerte said, See “Secrecy,” A2

CTING Executive Secretary Ralph G. Recto said he is ready to face charges on the transfer of P60-billion funds of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to the national treasury, which the Supreme Court has ruled as unconstitutional.

The Palace official made the statement as the Save the Philippines Coalition filed technical malversation, plunder and grave misconduct for the fund transfer before the Ombudsman.

He said he respects the right of Save the Philippines Coalition and other parties to seek redress before the courts since it will also give him the chance to explain his side on the issue.

Members of the SPC have asked the Ombudsman to prosecute Recto and former president and chief Executive of Philippine Health Insurance Corporation Emmanuel Ledesma for technical malversation, graft, plunder and grave misconduct.

The complaint stemmed from the transfer of the P60 billion out of the P89.9-billion excess funds of PhilHealth to the treasury during Recto’s term as finance secretary in 2024.

The transfer was made in line with Special Provision No. 1 (d) of XLIII of the General Appropriations Act of 2024, and Department of Finance Circular No. 003-204.

The DOF circular directs the transfer of unused subsidies from government-owned-and-controlled corporations (GOCCs), specifically PhilHealth, to the national treasury to bolster the government’s unprogrammed appropriations.

It was issued in line with Section 1(d) of XLIII of the GAA 2024 which states that “unprogrammed appropriations shall be sourced from any remainder resulting from the review and reduction of the GOCC’s reserve funds to reasonable levels taking into account the disburse-

ments from prior years.”

Last December 6, the Court declared the DoF circular and the 2024 GAA special provision void for being unconstitutional and ordered Malacañang to return the P60 billion PhilHealth funds that were transferred to the treasury.

In their complaint before the Ombudsman, the SPC said Recto and Ledesma moved to transfer PhilHealth’s excess funds to the national treasury despite knowing that this would violate the provisions of Republic Act 11223 or the Universal Health Care Act which mandates the “the preservation and safekeeping” of PhilHealth’s funds.

“Despite full and complete knowledge of these very specific prohibitions both respondents knowingly, willfully, maliciously, with evident bad faith, dishonesty and grave misconduct, unlawfully, illegally and intentionally transferred the P60 billion PhilHealth Reserved funds to the National Treasury resulting and amounting to great damage and prejudice to the government and the Republic of the Philippines,” it added.

“Thus, the transferred existing P60 Billion PhilHealth Reserved Funds covered by a Special Law which was illegally and unlawfully done and removed from PhilHealth without any special amendatory law and/or specific enabling legislation authorizing the same is evidently intentional and malicious transgression that must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” it added.

The group also asked the Ombudsman to place Recto and Ledesma, if still in government service, under preventive suspension to prevent them from using their posts to suppress possible evidence against them.

Recto won’t get distracted

“I WELCOME the opportunity to clarify the issues raised by the Save the Philippines Coalition, with representation by the Office of the Solicitor General,” he said.

See “Raps,” A2

Companies BusinessMirror

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

B1

Rockwell Land to shell out PHL, Poland seal investment deal ₧21.6B for stake in ATC

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By VG Cabuag

@villygc

OPEZ-LED Rockwell Land Corp. has acquired a majority controlling interest in Alabang Town Center (ATC), a 17.5-hectare project in Muntinlupa, for P21.6 billion.

The deal involves the purchase of a 74.8-percent stake in Alabang Commercial Center Corp. (ACC), the Madrigal family-led company that owns and operates the shopping mall in the southern part of Metro Manila.

The said amount is payable in three equal installment payments due on or before December 22, 2025, December 15, 2026 and December 15, 2027, Rockwell Land said.

“Earlier this year, Mr. Francisco

M. Bayot (of ACC) invited us to consider redeveloping Alabang Town Center. It presented a compelling opportunity for Rockwell Land to further expand our presence in the south of Metro Manila, particularly given the scale and long-term potential of the property,” Rockwell Land Chairman and CEO Nestor Padilla said.

“We are very grateful to Mr. Bayot and the Madrigal family for this opportunity. Our immediate focus is on ensuring a smooth transition

and planning its redevelopment.”

Ayala Land Inc. last week sold its 50 percent stake in Alabang Town Center to its joint venture partner, the Madrigal family, for P13.5 billion.

ALI said the proceeds will be “a key driver” in funding the company’s leasing pipeline, which includes nearly 700,000 square meters of new gross leasable area in the next five years, set to transform the landscape in key growth centers across the country.

Rockwell Land is best known for its flagship mixed-use development, Rockwell Center Makati, which is anchored by the Power Plant Mall, regarded as a premium retail and lifestyle destination in the country.

Over the years, the company has enhanced its retail developments by integrating experiential and lifestyle-oriented spaces into its masterplanning, supported by curated tenant mixes.

These efforts have enabled Rockwell Land to establish a strong track record in delivering a highend retail experience.

The acquisition of a majority stake in Alabang Town Center further builds on Rockwell Land’s previously announced retail expansion initiatives, which include Power Plant Nepo in Angeles City, Pampanga; the addition of new retail spaces within Rockwell at IPI Center in Cebu City; and Power Plant Mall Bacolod in Rockwell Center Bacolod, among others.

Alabang Town Center currently hosts more than 500 retail and office tenants, and given the size of the property, it offers significant development opportunities, Rockwell said.

The existing assets of ACC will add 137,000 square meters of gross leasable area to Rockwell’s existing retail and office portfolio, representing a 58-percent growth.

FLI mall in Clark to open in 2026 F

ILINVEST Land Inc. (FLI) on Monday said construction of its shopping mall in Clark, Pampanga is in full swing and that it will open next year as scheduled.

The Mimosa Lifestyle Mall, also known as Filinvest Mall Mimosa, will be operated by FLI through its subsidiary Filinvest Clark Mimosa Inc. “Our commitment to delivering the Mimosa Lifestyle Mall is unwavering. This development is progressing as planned, and once completed, it will serve as a dynamic commercial anchor for the Filinvest Mimosa estate. We are excited to bring a modern, thought-

fully curated lifestyle environment that will elevate the overall experience in Clark,” Tristaneil D. Las Marias, the company’s president and CEO, said.

The said mall will feature a carefully curated selection of food and dining outlets, retail shops, and lifestyle and wellness establishments. This modern retail hub has been designed to enhance commercial and retail support for the Filinvest Mimosa+ estate and uplift the broader community experience within Clark.

FLI also asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to shorten

the corporate term of Filinvest Lifemalls Mimosa Inc. as part of ongoing efforts to enhance operational efficiency.

Filinvest Lifemalls contains no assets, does not operate any business and has no registered employees, making the closure a rational organizational step for the group.

The company has not commenced commercial operations since its incorporation.

“As we continue to strengthen our organizational structure, it is important that every entity within the Filinvest Land group contributes to our growth objectives. Since

FLMI has no assets, operations, or employees, its closure allows us to focus on subsidiaries that are actively driving value and development,” Las Marias said.

FLI said this step ensures that all corporate entities within the group remain aligned with long‑term strategic and operational priorities.

The said closure will not affect any ongoing developments, especially within the Filinvest Mimosa estate.

“This administrative step ensures our resources and structures remain strategically aligned with our long‑term growth priorities,” Las Marias said. VG Cabuag

Seven & i’s IPO of US arm hinges on faster turnaround, CEO says

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EVEN & i Holdings Co.’s chief executive is pressing its US convenience-stores business to deliver a faster turnaround as the retailer seeks a public listing of the unit to fund new investment and lift shareholder returns.

The timing of an initial public offering (IPO) will depend on execution and the market, said Stephen Dacus, who became CEO six months ago.

“How long that takes depends on actual performance, which is unpredictable. It’s a fact that we haven’t yet fully realized 7-Eleven Inc.’s potential, and that its performance is still insufficient,” he said, referring to the company’s US operations.

Seven & i, which took the American convenience store concept and turned it into a global retailing empire, has been revamping itself by selling its Japan-based supermarket and specialty-store operations, installing new leadership and seeking a partial sale of the US unit. Those efforts accelerated after Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. made a ¥6.77-trillion ($43 billion) takeover proposal last year.

Although the Canadian operator of Circle K stores dropped its pursuit in July, Seven & i is forging ahead.

The goal is to maximize shareholder value, not to just “do an IPO on a schedule,” Dacus said. The company has said it’s aiming for a listing for the latter half of 2026.

As part of the broader changes, Joe DePinto, the CEO of the US unit, will retire at the end of this month, the company said in a statement late Friday. Two years ago, DePinto’s com-

A 7-ELEVEN store in Chicago. PHOTOGRAPHER: CHRISTOPHER DILTS/BLOOMBERG

pensation was ¥7.7 billion, more than 20 times that of the CEO at the time, making him the top-paid executive at the company and one of the highest within corporate Japan.

The US business is made up of the original 7-Eleven chain of stores that got their start almost a century ago in Texas, before Seven & i took full control in 2005. Over the past decade, it expanded through the $3.1 billion acquisition of Sunoco LP gasoline stations in 2018 and the $21 billion purchase of Speedway outlets from Marathon Petroleum Corp. in 2021. DePinto was instrumental in those deals.

A turnaround in North America rests on four key initiatives outlined earlier this year, according to Dacus. First is boosting sales of private-brand products—items that are made and sold by the company under its own name. Second, because large-format shops bring in more profit and sales, the bulk of a

planned 1,300-store expansion will focus on those.

Third, cost reduction is critical because “our selling and administrative expenses per store are higher than our competitors—that’s a fact, you can see it in the numbers,” Dacus said.

For the six months through August, operating profit at the US unit rose 2.7 percent to ¥134 billion, helped by cost reductions. At the same time, total chain sales slid 10 percent to ¥4.8 trillion as inflation dampened consumer demand.

Finally, extracting more profit out of fuel sales; even though the company sells the most gasoline in retail, it’s not deeply involved in the supply chain. By doing so and cutting costs, earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation could go up by $400 million annually, as targeted, by fiscal 2030, Dacus said.

Longer term, North American convenience stores are evolving into hybrid food outlets, blurring lines

with fast-food chains. Seven & i’s success in making food central to its Japan business should help improve US prospects, Dacus said. “We’re not trying to simply sell Japanese food in America; more than that, we want to bring the Japanese way of thinking about quality.”

Since taking the helm in May, Dacus has pledged to open thousands of new stores, set clear priorities, reorganize teams and optimize capital allocation. That’s helped Seven & i’s shares recover from their steep drop when CoucheTard said it would no longer pursue a deal. Even so, the stock remains down 11 percent this year, while the benchmark Topix Index has climbed 21 percent.

Part of that was due to lackluster sales in Japan, but there are early signs of recovery, with same-store sales climbing 2.7 percent in November from a year earlier, the fastest pace in two years. Rivals Lawson Inc. rose 4.6 percent and FamilyMart Co. also advanced 1.9 percent.

Overall, for the fiscal year ending February, operating profit is forecast to shrink 4 percent to ¥404 billion on sales of ¥10.6 trillion, Seven & i said in October. Analysts are projecting ¥411 billion in operating profit on the same revenue.

Seven & i has said it plans to raise a total of about ¥7.5 trillion through the IPO and improving profitability, in addition to the divestments of other units. Roughly 40 percent of that will be returned to shareholders with the rest earmarked for investments and debt reduction. Bloomberg News

A HYUNDAI foreman shows media visitors ship painting works being done at the Agila Subic Shipyard last August 7. PHOTO BY HENRY EMPEÑO

By Andrea E. San Juan @andreasanjuan

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HE Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) has inked two deals with the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) to expand bilateral trade and investment flows with the European country, including an agreement which aims to strengthen the country’s maritime capabilities and the shipbuilding industry.

Peza said the first MOU designates PAIH as agency’s official Investment Promotion Partner, “reinforcing both agencies’ commitment to expand bilateral trade and investment flows.”

“As Poland’s lead agency for international investment and business expansion, PAIH supports foreign and Polish companies by navigating administrative and legal requirements, identifying suitable locations, and connecting investors with reliable partners and suppliers,” the investment promotion agency noted.

Through this partnership, Peza and PAIH aim to create an “enabling and synchronized” environment that accelerates investment collaboration, facilitates project development, and promotes “mutually beneficial” economic growth.

The agency said the tieup is a “ma-

jor step forward” following Peza’s June 2025 investment mission to Poland, which unlocked “promising” investment leads in sectors such as renewable energy, data centers, and shipbuilding.

Alongside this, a second MOU was signed between Peza and PAIH, representing JPP Marine, a Polish company engaged in shipbuilding and the operation and maintenance of vessels.

“This agreement establishes a framework for a feasibility study to identify potential ecozone sites and explore partnerships with existing Peza-registered shipbuilders for localized shipbuilding activities aimed at both domestic and international markets,” the agency said in a statement on Monday.

Further, Peza said this initiative supports the Philippines’s aspiration to strengthen its maritime capabilities and elevate shipbuilding as a globally competitive industry.

“With these two MOUs now in place, Peza and its Polish counterparts are ready to translate investment leads into concrete, long-term projects and expand opportunities for technology-driven, sustainable, and job-generating investments that contribute to the Philippines’ industrial transformation and Poland’s global expansion efforts.”

Prime Energy commits to help govt fast-track PEP implementation

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

T

HE Department of Energy (DOE), Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), and Razon-led Prime Energy formalized a three-year Joint Energy Action Agenda (JEAA) for 2026-2029.

Signed during the 2nd MAP Energy CEO Forum last December 1, the JEAA marks the first time government and the private sector have aligned under a single, coordinated work plan to accelerate implementation of the Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) 2023-2050. The agenda aims to close supply gaps, strengthen infrastructure and market frameworks, and manage costs to ensure reliable, affordable and sustainable power nationwide.

Prime Energy underscored the indispensable role of indigenous natural gas in supporting national energy security.

Donnabel Kuizon-Cruz, Prime Energy President and CEO, served as technical working group lead for the JEAA, which was developed through a series of MAP-led roundtable discussions with the DOE and industry leaders.

The JEAA strengthens publicprivate collaboration to deliver reliable electricity to both major demand centers and off-grid communities, while advancing national goals for accessibility, resiliency and a balanced energy transition. It recognizes indigenous natural gas as a stabilizing

component of the country’s power mix, providing essential baseload support as renewable capacity continues to scale up.

Beyond indigenous supply, industry stakeholders emphasized the broader role of natural gas in supporting affordability and system stability. Gas complements domestic resources in fueling power plants while exploration for new indigenous supply continues—an area Prime Energy is actively pursuing. Industry collaboration across the value chain is also focused on improving access to natural gas for a wider range of consumers.

“Indigenous natural gas remains a strategic anchor of our energy system,” Cruz said. “As we expand renewables, gas—supported by domestic production and efficient midstream infrastructure—helps keep power secure and affordable for Filipino households and businesses.”

Prime Energy, as operator of Service Contract (SC) 38, is undertaking the $893-million Malampaya Phase 4 drilling and exploration program as part of its ongoing efforts to extend the life of the Malampaya gas resource.

Malampaya currently supplies around 20 percent of Luzon’s power needs and, at its peak, supplied up to 40 percent of Luzon’s energy requirements.

Prime Energy is the natural gas exploration and development company of Prime Infra, the infrastructure arm of Filipino businessman Enrique K. Razon Jr.

B2

Companies BusinessMirror

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS

December 22, 2025

Net Foreign Stocks Bid Ask Open High Low Close Volume Value Trade (Peso) Buy (Sell) FINANCIALS

ASIA UNITED BDO UNIBANK BANK COMMERCE BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK CITYSTATE BANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PB BANK PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK PHILTRUST RCBC SECURITY BANK UNION BANK BRIGHT KINDLE COL FINANCIAL DOMINION HLDG FERRONOUX HLDG NTL REINSURANCE PHIL STOCK EXCH VANTAGE

38.95 133 9.01 117.7 56.1 16.62 11.42 67.3 7.74 52 55.4 97 25 64.4 26.25 0.65 1.37 1.4 4.84 0.76 205 0.92

39.2 133.7 9.19 119.3 56.55 17.98 11.46 67.5 7.82 52.05 55.85 100 25.5 66 26.7 0.66 1.39 1.46 4.99 0.77 207 0.93

38.95 128.5 9.2 116 57 17 11.4 67.2 7.84 50.95 55.9 97 25.5 66.9 26.9 0.65 1.36 1.31 5.32 0.74 204 0.97

39.2 133.7 9.3 119.3 59.05 17 11.5 68.3 7.84 52.1 55.9 97 26 67 26.9 0.65 1.42 1.57 5.32 0.77 206 0.98

38.95 128.3 9.11 116 56 17 11.4 67.05 7.82 50.95 55.85 97 25 64.4 26.25 0.61 1.36 1.31 4.81 0.73 204 0.91

39.2 133.7 9.19 119.3 56.1 17 11.42 67.5 7.82 52 55.85 97 25 64.4 26.25 0.65 1.39 1.46 4.85 0.76 205 0.93

20,800 3,729,870 4,100 1,919,410 1,583,930 200 332,800 2,374,770 800 454,700 170 20 74,200 1,280,510 20,200 16,000 113,000 2,278,000 171,500 1,167,000 11,220 416,000

810,315 488,860,579 37,741 226,141,074 89,686,760 3,400 3,795,340 160,174,227.50 6,266 23,315,514.50 9,502 1,940 1,888,910 83,364,753 534,325 10,300 154,200 3,314,440 833,188 868,770 2,301,960 389,970

-280,440 95,197,109 24,449,443 13,958,035 268,344 16,451,190.50 3,479,835.50 -216,750 -43,190,746.50 -8,035 -60 -136,000 -18,420 9,700 219,000 178,420 -

INDUSTRIAL ACEN CORP 2.7 2.71 2.77 2.77 2.67 2.7 12,932,000 35,130,940 -5,805,360 ALSONS CONS 0.465 0.465 0.455 0.46 0.46 0.465 240,000 110,600 0.85 0.85 ALTERNERGY HLDG 0.83 0.85 0.82 0.85 35,000 29,420 -1,700 ABOITIZ POWER 42.5 43 41.9 42.95 41.9 42.5 373,900 15,887,945 7,746,660 RASLAG 0.84 0.78 0.83 0.84 0.78 0.82 19,000 15,670 0.117 0.117 BASIC ENERGY 0.113 0.116 0.113 0.114 940,000 107,300 4.28 4.28 CITICORE RE 4.2 4.18 4.12 4.28 46,000 194,330 17.38 17.4 17.02 17.4 17.02 17.38 126,000 2,176,640 -12,048 FIRST GEN 73 73.5 73 73 73 73 37,350 2,726,550 -10,950 FIRST PHIL HLDG 578 580 570 585 360,130 208,639,770 1,028,795 MERALCO 585 585 40.25 40.3 40.1 40.5 40.1 40.25 851,200 34,270,455 -2,884,910 MANILA WATER 16.36 16.4 16.5 16.18 16.4 2,963,700 48,556,530 7,923,272 MAYNILAD 16.18 2.46 2.5 2.53 2.44 2.46 542,000 1,333,570 -20,000 PETRON 2.53 PETROENERGY 3.23 3.48 3.24 3.24 3.2 3.22 26,000 83,300 3,240 REPOWER ENERGY 6.35 6.75 6.35 6.35 6.35 6.35 6,200 39,370 5,715 SEMIRARA MINING 28.2 28.2 28.1 28 27.95 28.2 551,700 15,480,080 -3,337,785 SYNERGY GRID 16.92 16.96 16.86 17.24 16.86 16.96 2,809,700 48,008,816 -2,662,028 SHELL PILIPINAS 6.04 6.06 6.01 6.09 5.98 6.06 261,600 1,576,948 -159,001.00 SPC POWER 11.5 11.6 10.68 11.5 10.5 11.5 1,334,100 14,718,158 298,550 SP NEW ENERGY 1.11 1.13 1.14 1.14 1.1 1.13 9,636,000 10,740,580 377,610.00 1.57 1.58 1.57 1.59 1.57 1.58 390,000 614,510 TOP LINE VIVANT 18.28 19.44 18.24 18.24 18.24 1,200 21,888 18.24 AGRINURTURE 0.53 0.55 0.56 0.52 0.54 1,021,000 540,170 -421,850 0.56 2.28 2.31 2.28 2.37 181,000 418,500 AXELUM 2.37 2.37 CNTRL AZUCARERA 9.61 10.2 10.2 10.2 600 6,120 10.2 10.2 CENTURY FOOD 38.85 38.95 38.7 39 704,700 27,461,680 2,250,910 39 39 DEL MONTE 4.82 4.85 5 5 4.82 4.85 17,300 85,193 DNL INDUS 3.63 3.66 3.65 3.7 3.6 3.66 3,246,000 11,890,290 -1,139,490 EMPERADOR 15.32 15.34 15.48 15.48 15.26 15.34 808,500 12,407,496 -10,419,782 SMC FOODANDBEV 54.9 55 54.2 55.45 54.05 55 34,940 1,919,022.50 1,285,279.50 FIGARO GROUP 0.58 0.59 0.56 0.61 0.56 0.59 4,055,000 2,394,140 -132,250 FRUITAS HLDG 0.63 0.63 0.62 0.63 0.62 0.63 579,000 364,760 GINEBRA 285 293 293.4 293.4 284 293 6,250 1,785,866 -556,780 185.3 185.4 183 183 185.4 1,018,470 188,867,435 53,879,996 JOLLIBEE 186.3 2.33 2.35 2.38 2.38 2.28 2.35 2,299,000 5,352,380 -1,402,270 KEEPERS HLDG 34.05 34.15 34.1 34.2 34.05 34.05 1,800 61,405 LIBERTY FLOUR MACAY HLDG 5.6 6.4 5.31 6.39 5.31 6.39 200 1,170 MAXS GROUP 2.33 2.39 2.4 2.4 2.39 2.39 3,000 7,180 MG HLDG 0.06 0.062 0.062 0.062 20,000 1,240 0.062 0.062 MONDE NISSIN 5.89 5.9 5.85 5.94 5.81 5.9 2,935,100 17,229,458 -2,281,835 SHAKEYS PIZZA 6.61 6.8 6.84 6.84 6.82 6.82 1,800 12,310 ROXAS AND CO 2.74 2.8 2.82 2.82 2.72 2.72 10,000 27,810 RFM CORP 4.61 4.65 4.65 4.69 4.58 4.65 823,000 3,804,020 -2,856,140 SWIFT FOODS 0.052 0.054 0.055 0.055 0.054 0.054 100,000 5,440 UNIV ROBINA 65.8 65.9 64.5 65.9 63.5 65.9 1,225,690 79,705,411.50 9,392,106.50 0.54 0.54 0.54 0.55 1,826,000 1,003,230 VITARICH 0.55 0.55 CONCREAT HLDG 1.05 1.08 1.08 1.09 1.05 1.05 33,000 35,410 -1,090 0.265 0.29 0.295 0.295 0.295 0.295 10,000 2,950 EC VULCAN EEI CORP 2.63 2.67 2.63 2.63 2.63 2.63 20,000 52,600 MEGAWIDE 2.96 2.99 3.01 3.05 2.92 2.99 164,000 488,900 SUPERCITY 2.7 2.7 2.7 2.7 25,000 67,500 2.7 CROWN ASIA 1.65 1.69 1.66 1.69 21,000 35,220 13,310 1.69 1.69 EUROMED 1.04 0.99 1.04 1.07 1.04 1.07 6,000 6,330 13.1 13.1 PRYCE CORP 13.02 13 13 13.1 156,000 2,028,856 1,690,000 UNIHOLDINGS 116 150 140 150 115 150 540 73,420 13.78 CONCEPCION 13.6 13.74 13.78 13.78 13.78 2,800 38,584 0.184 GREENERGY 0.18 0.19 0.19 0.18 0.181 2,960,000 540,450 -116,060 INTEGRATED MICR 3.45 3.48 3.5 3.5 3.4 3.48 533,000 1,854,880 -301,950 1 1.01 1 1.01 168,000 169,130 IONICS 1.02 1.02 PANASONIC 10.5 10.7 10.7 10.52 10.52 4,100 43,360 10.52 CIRTEK HLDG 0.64 0.65 0.64 0.66 0.63 0.64 203,000 130,770 STENIEL 2.03 2.1 2.12 2.12 2.02 2.12 73,000 148,800

HOLDING & FRIMS

ABACORE CAPITAL 0.34 0.345 0.385 0.395 0.34 0.34 57,550,000 20,545,150 -14,636,250 ASIABEST GROUP 23.9 23.9 23 23.7 23.6 23.9 168,900 3,990,550 AYALA CORP 453 454 451.6 461.6 450.2 453 159,490 72,174,330 709,858 ABOITIZ EQUITY 26.15 26.25 26 26.45 25.85 26.15 822,800 21,475,640 -1,307,715 ALLIANCE GLOBAL 7.4 7.42 7.29 7.46 7.12 7.4 3,655,200 26,763,388 -3,737,421 ANSCOR 14.42 14.1 14.4 14.42 14.42 14.42 800 11,536 ANGLO PHIL HLDG 0.61 0.66 0.65 0.65 0.65 0.65 21,000 13,650 0.495 0.53 0.495 0.495 0.495 0.495 30,000 14,850 ATN HLDG A COSCO CAPITAL 6.98 7 6.95 6.98 1,473,900 10,265,817 399,660 7 7 10.4 10.4 10.3 10.42 1,285,400 13,353,226 -1,141,236 DMCI HLDG 10.42 10.42 4.65 4.68 4.65 4.65 4.65 4.65 4,000 18,600 FILINVEST DEV FJ PRINCE A 2.23 2.52 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 9,000 21,600 GT CAPITAL 580 580.5 580 581.5 570 580 143,630 83,263,515 21,185,120 HOUSE OF INV 4.4 4.5 4.48 4.48 4.4 4.48 84,000 376,240 -44,800 JG SUMMIT 22.8 22.9 22.7 23.4 22.55 22.8 2,110,600 48,214,140 6,985,345 LODESTAR 0.36 0.34 0.37 0.37 0.37 0.37 20,000 7,400 LOPEZ HLDG 3.6 3.75 3.71 3.71 3.61 3.71 112,000 415,420 -207,660 LT GROUP 14.56 14.6 14.4 14.68 14.4 14.6 2,418,500 35,153,448 13,701,830 MABUHAY HLDG 0.118 0.114 0.115 0.114 0.114 0.114 10,000 1,140 1.15 1.15 PRIME MEDIA 1.11 1.11 1.11 1.12 12,000 13,380 1.26 1.34 1.26 1.26 14,000 17,860 -12,600 1.28 1.34 SOLID GROUP 700 704 700 705 692.5 700 255,210 178,143,305 -100,844,795 SM INVESTMENTS 82 84 82.95 84 80.05 84 281,340 23,218,568.50 -8,894,389.50 SAN MIGUEL CORP 61.9 60.1 60.5 60.1 60.5 1,210 73,201 -60,500 TOP FRONTIER 60.5 0.074 0.075 0.068 0.076 0.068 0.076 2,360,000 165,310 -1,400 ZEUS HLDG

PROPERTY AYALA LAND 21.8 21.9 21.45 21.9 21.35 21.9 9,916,100 215,203,390 -3,330,335 AYALA LAND LOG 1.32 1.35 1.35 1.36 1.32 1.35 62,000 83,610 -4,020 ALTUS PROP 8.4 8.49 8.42 8.42 8.4 8.4 20,700 173,960 ARANETA PROP 0.405 0.425 0.41 0.41 0.405 0.41 230,000 93,350 AREIT RT 43.75 43.8 44 44.05 43.55 43.8 825,800 36,159,645 -1,106,155 A BROWN 0.96 0.99 1 1 0.99 0.99 158,000 156,630 CITYLAND DEVT 0.58 0.59 0.57 0.6 0.57 0.6 73,000 42,980 0.073 0.073 0.073 0.073 10,600,000 773,900 0.074 0.074 CROWN EQUITIES CEB LANDMASTERS 2.35 2.36 2.36 2.36 2.34 2.36 78,000 183,900 2,360 0.67 0.68 0.66 0.68 329,000 221,030 CENTURY PROP 0.68 0.68 CITICORE RT 3.57 3.58 3.56 3.6 3.56 3.58 5,007,000 17,928,790 -14,360 9.15 9.3 9.3 9.1 9.15 87,800 802,980 -73,875.00 DOUBLEDRAGON 9.21 1.02 1.03 1.03 1.04 1.02 1.03 7,681,000 7,862,050 -127,730 DDMP RT DM WENCESLAO 4.81 4.94 4.94 4.94 4.94 4.94 24,000 118,560 FILINVEST RT 3 3.03 2.97 3.04 2.97 3.03 237,000 713,230 -18,140 FILINVEST LAND 0.75 0.76 0.77 0.77 0.75 0.76 1,218,000 917,720 -123,840 GLOBAL ESTATE 0.63 0.67 0.65 0.66 0.65 0.66 1,241,000 807,330 1,004 1,004 GOLDEN MV 903.5 900.5 900.5 1,004 190 182,840 0.34 0.34 PHIL INFRADEV 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.34 490,000 162,700 CITY AND LAND 0.51 0.52 0.51 0.52 0.51 0.52 26,000 13,510 2.06 2.04 2.03 2.08 8,988,000 18,492,750 8,691,550 2.08 2.08 MEGAWORLD 0.9 0.92 0.89 0.93 62,308,000 56,852,730 237,590 MRC ALLIED 0.93 0.93 13.98 14 13.9 14.04 13.9 14 279,700 3,907,480 -1,481,852 MREIT RT 1.02 1.02 1.02 1.03 121,000 123,890 PREMIERE RT 1.03 1.03 PRIMEX CORP 1.11 1.17 1.17 1.17 305,000 390,150 1.28 1.28 RL COMM RT 7.89 7.9 7.98 7.98 7.86 7.89 6,671,300 52,849,472 10,876,629 ROBINSONS LAND 16 16.1 16.02 16.18 16 16.1 553,900 8,897,684 5,854,964 PHIL REALTY 0.11 0.11 0.105 0.11 0.11 0.11 20,000 2,200 ROCKWELL 1.72 1.76 1.71 1.71 952,000 1,648,520 137,600 SHANG PROP 3.36 3.37 3.4 3.42 3.36 3.36 947,000 3,201,070 13,550 STA LUCIA LAND 2.4 2.55 2.45 2.58 2.45 2.58 9,000 22,570 SM PRIME HLDG 22.55 22.6 22.3 22.8 22.15 22.6 5,776,800 129,678,850 3,599,055 VISTAMALLS 1.13 1.12 1.12 1.12 1.12 1.12 18,000 20,160 -11,200 0.61 0.62 0.6 0.61 814,680,000 488,808,240 488,799,000 SUNTRUST RESORT 0.63 0.63 0.9 0.89 0.89 0.9 1,862,000 1,675,810 -1,820 VISTA LAND 0.92 0.92 1.34 1.35 1.33 1.35 770,000 1,035,480 329,310 VISTAREIT RT 1.35 1.35

SERVICES ABS CBN 4 4.23 3.8 4.3 3.76 4.28 1,026,000 4,051,980 GMA NETWORK 5.32 5.35 5.29 5.37 5.29 5.37 151,500 807,232 MANILA BULLETIN 0.167 0.174 0.175 0.175 0.175 0.175 10,000 1,750 GLOBE TELECOM 1,563 1,565 1,542 1,574 1,520 1,565 20,765 32,249,565 8,743,775 PLDT 118,584,980 1,250 1,260 1,252 1,265 1,240 1,260 94,675 -32,152,975 APOLLO GLOBAL 0.0049 0.005 0.0056 0.0056 0.0048 0.005 777,000,000 4,085,600 -21,600 CONVERGE 14.54 14.68 14.5 14.5 14.3 14.5 2,581,500 37,278,106 -8,424,366 0.78 0.82 0.82 0.82 2,000 1,640 -1,640 DFNN INC 0.82 0.82 0.64 0.65 0.65 0.66 0.64 0.65 3,535,000 2,289,870 -518,690 DITO CME HLDG 0.125 0.128 0.128 0.136 0.124 0.128 2,410,000 311,180 ISLAND INFO NOW CORP 0.68 0.7 0.68 0.69 0.67 0.69 324,000 218,300 50,920 0.13 0.136 0.13 0.137 2,180,000 285,290 TRANSPACIFIC BR 0.137 0.137 ASIAN TERMINALS 34.55 34.55 34.5 34.6 40,200 1,388,840 34.6 34.6 CHELSEA 0.95 0.95 0.92 0.91 0.9 0.95 937,000 848,880 33 33 CEBU AIR 32.75 32 31.9 33 181,300 5,910,130 -657,395.00 INTL CONTAINER 574.5 574.5 570 557 555 574.5 1,373,050 781,063,590 258,697,855 LBC EXPRESS 8.1 8.87 8.87 8.87 8.87 8.87 100 887 4.46 MACROASIA 4.33 4.4 4.46 4.4 4.4 85,000 377,540 245,300 PAL HLDG 3.8 3.8 3.75 3.8 3.8 3.8 24,000 91,200 -53,200 HARBOR STAR 0.52 0.52 0.51 0.51 0.51 0.52 11,000 5,710 0.044 0.041 0.04 0.044 40,200,000 1,739,200 -30,800 0.045 0.045 BOULEVARD HLDG 1.09 1.03 1.03 1.1 3,000 3,220 1,090 DISCOVERY WORLD 1.1 1.1 0.425 0.425 0.425 0.43 60,000 25,700 WATERFRONT 0.43 0.43 CENTRO ESCOLAR 15.32 15.36 15.32 15.32 4,000 61,344 15.36 15.36 FAR EASTERN U 800 814.5 810 810 810 810 10 8,100 8,100 5.96 6.28 6.28 6.28 200 1,256 -1,256 IPEOPLE 6.28 6.28 STI HLDG 1.42 1.42 1.4 1.42 1.4 1.42 1,212,000 1,710,660 587,500 BELLE CORP 1.31 1.35 1.37 1.39 1.31 1.31 343,000 458,890 2.58 BLOOMBERRY 2.55 2.56 2.57 2.51 2.55 15,368,000 38,962,360 2,697,030 PACIFIC ONLINE 1.7 1.8 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.7 44,000 74,800 PH RESORTS GRP 0.14 0.146 0.145 0.146 0.145 0.146 20,000 2,910 DIGIPLUS 17.14 17.16 16.28 17.14 16.28 17.14 6,591,800 111,219,114 -1,777,020 PHILWEB 6.17 6.15 5.9 6.2 5.81 6.17 1,159,700 7,054,489 3,344,102 0.031 0.032 0.032 0.032 3,800,000 121,600 -25,600 ALLDAY 0.032 0.032 7.05 8 8 8 200 1,600 BERJAYA 8 8 ALLHOME 0.244 0.25 0.26 0.26 0.25 2,140,000 532,060 -17,360 0.243 1.13 1.17 1.18 1.18 1.18 1.18 3,000 3,540 METRO RETAIL PUREGOLD 38.5 38.8 39 38.5 38.5 1,243,300 47,935,325 640,940 39.25 32.55 32.75 33.25 33.25 32.5 32.75 236,200 7,718,850 -1,574,715 ROBINSONS RTL PHIL SEVEN CORP 35.55 36.25 35.6 36.4 35.55 35.55 2,289,300 82,317,955 -4,724,240 SSI GROUP 2.45 2.46 2.5 2.59 2.45 2.46 172,000 425,440 -62,000 UPSON INTL CORP 0.69 0.72 0.72 0.72 0.72 0.72 10,000 7,200 WILCON DEPOT 6.98 7.01 6.95 7.05 6.95 6.98 501,300 3,508,033 -1,504,074 APC GROUP 0.103 0.11 0.11 0.113 0.103 0.103 920,000 99,060 12,080 EASYCALL 2.59 2.97 2.59 2.59 2.59 2.59 2,000 5,180 5,180 0.24 0.26 0.245 0.26 70,000 17,600 MEDILINES 0.26 0.26 PRMIERE HORIZON 0.234 0.238 0.236 0.236 0.234 0.234 50,000 11,760 SBS PHIL CORP 3.59 3.68 3.68 3.68 3.68 3.68 3,000 11,040

MINING & OIL 2.05 ATOK 2 2.03 2 2 2.05 5,000 10,150 APEX MINING 12.2 12.32 11.88 12.4 11.86 12.2 12,791,900 155,358,812 37,427,146 ATLAS MINING 5.69 5.7 5.6 5.74 5.56 5.69 2,097,800 11,890,527 5,107,133 BENGUET A 4.45 4.6 4.4 4.45 4.4 4.45 55,000 244,390 COAL ASIA HLDG 0.027 0.029 0.028 0.03 0.028 0.028 112,800,000 3,246,000 -180,700 DIZON MINES 4.6 4.98 4.7 5 4.7 4.9 56,000 275,330 -29,200 1.07 1.1 1.1 1.06 1.11 554,000 599,870 -52,380 FERRONICKEL 1.12 0.08 0.083 0.081 0.087 430,000 34,940 GEOGRACE 0.087 0.087 LEPANTO A 0.18 0.18 0.178 0.18 31,050,000 5,596,620 0.182 0.182 LEPANTO B 0.179 0.18 0.179 0.179 1,170,000 211,580 180,990 0.181 0.181 0.007 0.0075 0.0069 0.0072 0.0069 0.007 107,000,000 749,200 MANILA MINING A MANILA MINING B 0.007 0.0072 0.0072 0.0072 0.0071 0.0071 11,000,000 78,400 MARCVENTURES 0.68 0.67 0.68 0.7 0.66 0.67 1,856,000 1,279,910 -21,000 NIHAO 0.35 0.35 0.37 0.35 0.35 0.35 20,000 7,000 NICKEL ASIA 3.53 3.54 3.5 3.55 3.47 3.53 894,000 3,139,410 215,860 OCEANAGOLD 11,505,440 30.4 30.5 30.3 30.9 30.1 30.5 377,000 336,735 ORNTL PENINSULA 0.38 0.385 0.365 0.38 0.365 0.38 60,000 22,200 PX MINING 10.1 10.14 9.7 10.22 9.7 10.1 4,415,200 44,307,287 -18,093 UNITED PARAGON 0.0053 0.0056 0.0048 0.0054 0.0048 0.0053 80,000,000 417,600 400 3.24 3.37 3.24 3.42 3.24 3.42 2,000 6,660 -3,420 ENEX ENERGY 0.011 0.012 0.011 0.011 0.011 0.011 10,300,000 113,300 ORNTL PETROL A ORNTL PETROL B 0.011 0.012 0.011 0.011 0.011 0.011 200,000 2,200 PHILODRILL 0.0087 0.0088 0.0087 0.0087 43,000,000 377,100 0.0088 0.0088 PXP ENERGY 2.37 2.38 2.41 2.41 2.32 2.37 466,000 1,101,080 35,600

PREFFERED ACEN PREF B 1,055 1,065 1,065 1,065 1,065 1,065 5 5,325 AC PREF B3R 1,989 2,016 2,010 2,010 2,010 2,010 10 20,100 -10,050 AC PREF B4R 1,991 2,048 2,000 2,046 2,000 2,046 195 396,430 244,590 ALCO PREF F 500 502 500 500 500 500 160 80,000 BRN PREF A 97 99.5 99.35 99.5 99.35 99.5 13,070 1,300,268.50 -59,610 BRN PREF B 100.4 103.5 103.5 103.5 103.5 103.5 120 12,420 BRN PREF C 102.7 105 102.7 102.7 102.7 102.7 60 6,162 33.25 33.7 33.7 34.4 900 30,830 34.4 34.4 CEB PREF CLI PREF A1 1,001 1,025 1,025 1,025 1,025 1,025 5 5,125 CLI PREF A2 1,050 1,076 1,070 1,079 1,070 1,070 250 269,660 CPG PREF B 100 102.9 102.5 103 102.5 103 720 73,875 DD PREF 96.4 96.5 96.5 96.6 96.4 96.5 15,090 1,455,707.50 EEI PREF B 95.05 98 97 98 97 98 7,630 746,240 GTCAP PREF B 973 1,000 973 973 973 973 520 505,960 JFC PREF B 975 990 995 995 995 995 10 9,950 MWIDE PREF 5 100.3 102 102 102 102 102 40 4,080 MWIDE PREF 6C 101.2 104 104 104 104 104 20 2,080 MWIDE PREF 7A 100.4 101 100.4 100.5 100.4 100.5 70 7,029 SFI PREF 1.67 1.69 1.69 1.69 1.69 2,000 3,380 SMC PREF 2I 74.7 75.75 75.75 75.75 75.75 75.75 10 757.5 79 79.1 79 79 79 79 3,000 237,000 SMC PREF 2L SMC PREF 2N 80 80.5 80 80 80 80 10 800 SMC PREF 2O 80.2 81.7 80.2 81.7 80.2 81.7 7,010 562,217 SMC PREF 2Q 73.75 76.9 73.75 73.75 73.75 73.75 7,520 554,600 737.5 75.2 77.8 77.9 77.9 77.9 77.9 120 9,348 -3,116 SMC PREF 2S 76.6 78 78.85 78.85 76.1 76.7 160 12,563.50 SMC PREF 2U TECH PREF B2C 12.12 13 12.14 13 12.14 13 1,000 12,398 TECH PREF B2D 8.12 8.32 8.13 8.32 8.13 8.32 800 6,618 VLL PREF 2A 84.05 90.75 82.5 90.9 82.5 90.9 260 23,129.50 -7,608 VLL PREF 2B 90.1 91.75 91.75 91.75 91.75 91.75 40 3,670 -

PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR GMA HLDG PDR

WARRANTS

AGI WARRANT

3.51 3.99 5.1 5.31 5.06 5.1 5.06 5.1 800 4,072

1.09

SMALL, MEDIUM & EMERGING

BALAI FRUITAS HAUS TALK ITALPINAS KEPWEALTH MERRYMART XURPAS

0.33 1.04 0.87 1.2 0.4 0.245

1.1

1.07

1.23

0.93

1.1

15,747,000

16,955,220

101,360

0.34 1.08 0.89 1.38 0.405 0.25

0.33 1.07 0.9 1.2 0.4 0.249

0.335 1.08 0.9 1.2 0.4 0.255

0.33 1.04 0.87 1.2 0.4 0.245

0.335 1.08 0.87 1.2 0.4 0.245

50,000 50,000 187,000 2,000 80,000 2,670,000

16,700 52,990 163,870 2,400 32,000 660,250

-2,160 2,630 -391,500

EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS FIRST METRO ETF

98.65

-

99.3

97.9 100 97 99.3 27,680 2,732,811 -1,201,977

www.businessmirror.com.ph

DFNN unit secures contract for Naia biometrics, e-gates

D

By VG Cabuag

@villygc

FNN Inc.’s technology unit iWave Inc. on Monday said it has been named the implementing partner of Amadeus I.T. Group SA for the rollout of the upgraded passenger processing systems with new biometrics and e-gates solutions at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).

The company will be responsible for delivering continuous technical operations and Level 1 and Level 2 technical support, diagnostics and maintenance in a high-volume, government-regulated environment, ensuring that advanced biometric technology translates into consistent, real-world benefits for travelers and authorities alike.

Under a phased rollout, 78 biometric immigration E-gates operating within the Bureau of Immigration’s (BI) workflows are being installed at the Naia, with operational units at Terminals 1 and 3 improving processing time to 20 seconds per traveler. iWave has also won the competitive bid and has received a notice of award naming it the implementing

partner of Amadeus under a P1.52billion contract awarded by the BI for the supply of biometric and border control E-gates solutions.

The contract, which was bid below the approved budget for the contract, supports BI’s broader initiative to enable faster and more efficient processing of international travelers and will be implemented across multiple key airports including Cebu, Clark, Bohol and Davao.

DFNN and iWave said it anticipates a huge demand approaching, one that changes how airports and border systems must operate.

In the aviation environment, the company noted that value increases as passenger volumes rise, and reliability matters more than features, thus operational failure carries significant cost.

“As airports grow busier, the cost of downtime and disruption escalates materially, reinforcing the role of technology operators like iWave that provide real-time diagnostics, rapid incident resolution, on-site response, and ongo-

ing system maintenance to sustain mission-critical airport and border operations at scale.”

Independent market models project that international arrivals could exceed 12.9 million by 2026, alongside the Department of Tourism’s target of around 6.7 million international tourists in the same period, underscoring the long-term growth opportunity for travel infrastructure and supporting services as passenger volumes continue to scale.

“The partnership reinforces DFNN and iWave’s commitment to nation-building through the deployment of innovative digital infrastructure that elevates public service delivery,” iWave president, Ramon C. Garcia Jr., said.

“By helping modernize border control and passenger processing systems, DFNN and iWave aim to be an active partner providing travelers with a faster, secure and more seamless airport experience,” iWave COO Marco Antonio R. Urera said.

Smart workers pitch ideas to improve service

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

S

MART Communications Inc. has recognized six employees for innovative solutions aimed at improving customer service efficiency through its inaugural “Hack the Bottleneck” internal innovation challenge.

The campaign, organized by the wireless unit of PLDT Inc., drew over 100 entries from employees across various departments.

“Our goal was simple: To stop what slows us down, make it easier for our teams, and unlock smarter ways to serve our customers,” said Brenda Dichoso, FVP and Head of Customer Experience at Smart.

Seven finalists emerged from the submissions, with participants proposing solutions ranging from virtual request assistants and artificial intelligence-powered project management tools to self-service platforms designed to expedite

customer concern resolution.

“The ideas we saw were creative, honest and close to the heart -- and that is the spirit we envisioned for this program. We thank you for the courage to challenge the old ways and constantly look for new ways to deliver customer delight. Your dedication and ideas inspire us,” Dichoso said.

Entries were evaluated based on feasibility, innovation and potential impact on customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Sonny Beltran from Smart’s Network Service Operations received first prize for his Self-Service Suite concept, which was inspired by his experience assisting customers with network concerns.

“Through this solution, I want to assist as many clients as efficiently as possible,” Beltran said.

Dichoso said Smart plans to pilot and implement selected ideas from the challenge and conduct annual waves of the innovation campaign.

EDC receives award for geothermal plant

L

OPEZ-LED Energy Develo p m e nt C o r p.’s ( E D C ) 197.27-megawatt (MW) BacMan geothermal power plant in Bicol was recently recognized in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Sustainable Energy Awards under the renewable energy (RE) projects in on-grid areas.

EDC is a unit of First Gen Corp.

The company said the award recognizes the outstanding initiatives of relevant stakeholders in the renewable energy sector that contribute towards the achievement of the country’s RE targets. “This award comes at an opportune time for us at First Gen-Energy Development Corp.

(First Gen-EDC),” said Erwin Avante, EDC’s chief financial officer, said.

The Bac-Man geothermal steamfield straddles Manito, Albay and Bacon, Sorsogon and has been supplying steam to the BacMan Geothermal Power Plant since its inception in 1993.

“In 2026, we are celebrating our 50

years--half a century of geothermal excellence, and Bac-Man, which was commissioned in 1993, is part of that continuing legacy,” Avante added.

When First Gen-EDC acquired the facility from the government, BacMan was operating at zero MW output following the impact of a severe typhoon. First Gen-EDC, through Bac-Man Geothermal Inc. (BGI) undertook an extensive rehabilitation and modernization effort that successfully restored the facility to full capacity within two years.

In 2020, while the country was already grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic, tropical storm Rolly devastated the Philippines, plunging the Bicol Region in total darkness. At this point, BGI extended its services to the public beyond its contract of solely providing power to the Bicol grid.

As the lone power provider in the region, BGI’s “islanding operations” have helped Bicolanos recover from the aftermath of the super typhoon and the pandemic. Lenie Lectura

MUTUAL FUNDS

December 22, 2025

NAV ONE YEARTHREE YEAR FIVE YEAR Y-T-D

PER SHARE RETURN* RETURN STOCK FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (SHARES) ALFM GROWTH FUND, INC. -A209.4 -2.87% 0.34% -1.83% -1.57% -4.54% ATRAM ALPHA OPPORTUNITY FUND, INC. -A 2.0975 17.59% 16.64% 9.36% 6.18% 15.56% ATRAM PHILIPPINE EQUITY OPPORTUNITY FUND, INC. -A 2.7913 -5.11% -1.18% -2.58% -2.61%-6.45% CLIMBS SHARE CAPITAL EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND CORP. -A 0.7452 2.62% 2.93% -1.78% N.A4.44% FIRST METRO CONSUMER FUND, INC. -A 0.5479 -11.06% -5.17% -6.44% N.A -14.07% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN EQUITY FUND, INC. -A 4.2851 -6.28% -2.41% -3.08% -2.01% -7.72% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN PHILIPPINE INDEX FUND, INC. -A 0.6284 -7.41% -3.39% -4% N.A -9.39% MBG EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND, INC. -A 86.33 22.58% 4.83% -3.36% N.A 21.39% PAMI EQUITY INDEX FUND, INC. -A 40.4303 -5.63% -1.95% -3.14% -1.38% -7.52% PHILAM STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 439.6 -3.22% -0.18% -2.31% -1.33% -4.9% PHILEQUITY DIVIDEND YIELD FUND, INC. -A 1.5333 12.62% 10.07% 5.37% 2.76% 9.97% PHILEQUITY FUND, INC. -A33.6984 -2.32% 0.62% -0.8% 0.02% -3.83% PHILEQUITY MSCI PHILIPPINE INDEX FUND, INC. -A 0.8661 -1.23% 0.92% -1.27% N.A -2.27% PHILEQUITY PSE INDEX FUND, INC. -A 4.3692 -3.76% -0.72% -2.07% -0.48% -5.7% PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND CORP. -A 718.84 -4.72% -1.13% -2.39% -0.69% -6.65% SOLDIVO STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 0.6841 -2.8% 0.8% -1.34% -2.17% -4.01% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PHILIPPINE EQUITY FUND, INC. -A 3.1466 -8.47% -2.03% -3.05% -1.89%-9.97% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND, INC. -A 0.8058 -5.7% -1.62% -2.8% -0.96% -7.61% UNITED FUND, INC. -A3.21084.12% 1.45% -0.88% 0.26% 1.5% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (UNITS) COL EQUITY INDEX UNITIZED MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A 1.0101 -4.84% -1.26% N.A N.A -6.64% COL STRATEGIC GROWTH EQUITY UNITIZED MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A 1.0248 -1.82% N.A N.A N.A -2.86% PHILEQUITY ALPHA ONE FUND, INC. -A 0.9201 -8.41% -3.86% -3.51% N.A -11.26% PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND CORP. -A 867.07 -5.4% -1.35% N.A N.A -7.32% EXCHANGE TRADED FUND (SHARES) FIRST METRO PHIL. EQUITY EXCHANGE TRADED FUND, INC. -A,C 97.7757 -5.16% -0.88% -2.12% -0.18%-7.1% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (SHARES) ATRAM ASIAPLUS EQUITY FUND, INC. -B $0.9984 18.81% 5.46% -3.56% 1.25% 20.25% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY WORLD VOYAGER FUND, INC. -A $2.1846 11.59% 15.51% 5.52% N.A 13.44% BALANCED FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (SHARES) ATRAM PHILIPPINE BALANCED FUND, INC. -A 2.1119 0.34% -1.71% -0.7% -0.07% -0.93% ATRAM UNICAPITAL DIVERSIFIED GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 1.618 2.15% 3.49% -0.74% -0.67%3.71% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN BALANCED FUND, INC. -A 2.4311 -2.68% -0.83% -1.69% -0.95%-3.36% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN F.O.C.C.U.S. DYNAMIC FUND, INC. -A 0.2294 7% 6.33% 2.78% N.A5.71% NCM MUTUAL FUND OF THE PHILS., INC. -A,1 1.9806 0.61% 0.66% 0.07% 1.07% -1.56% PAMI HORIZON FUND, INC. -A3.7463 2.22% 2.91% -0.34% 0.57% 1.53% PHILAM FUND, INC. -A15.826-1.16% 1.4% -1.45% -0.04% -1.95% SOLIDARITAS FUND, INC. -A2.081 -0.43% 1.64% -0.25% 0.42% -1.04% SUN LIFE OF CANADA PROSPERITY BALANCED FUND, INC. -A 3.4214 -1.37% 1% -1.01% -0.44%-2.07% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DYNAMIC FUND, INC. -A 0.9056 -1.71% 1.16% 0.16% -0.19% -2.33% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (UNITS) SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2028, INC. -A 0.9736 1.47% 2.18% -1.05% N.A 1.05% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2038, INC. -A 0.8298 -2.24% -0.01% -2.86% N.A -3.59% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2048, INC. -A 0.7955 -4.03% -0.86% -3.35% N.A -5.53% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (SHARES) COCOLIFE DOLLAR FUND BUILDER, INC. -A $0.03401 4.45% 1.59% -2.74% -0.39% 5.95% PAMI ASIA BALANCED FUND, INC. -B $1.1884 10.06% 0.73% 3.08% 21.02% 22.52% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR ADVANTAGE FUND, INC. -A $5.27 9.65% 11.05% 3.18% 5.52%11.17% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR WELLSPRING FUND, INC. -A $1.1747 6.99% 6.36% 0.15% N.A8.17% BOND FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (SHARES) ALFM PESO BOND FUND, INC. -A419.51 4.08% 3.58% 2.49% 2.65% 4.08% ATRAM CORPORATE BOND FUND, INC. -A 1.9569 2.84% 1.37% 0.6% 0.3% 2.65% COCOLIFE FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. -A 3.5811 3.47% 3.55% 2.2% 3.5% 3.27% EKKLESIA MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A 2.4557 3.66% 4.09% 1.37% 1.92% 4% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. -A 2.5722 2.96% 2.4% 0.98% 1.57%3.25% PHILAM BOND FUND, INC. -A4.6147 3.29% 3.35% -0.06% 1.54% 3.93% PHILAM MANAGED INCOME FUND, INC. -A 1.5213 4.87% 4.78% 2.89% 2.76% 4.92% PHILEQUITY PESO BOND FUND, INC. -A 4.3192 3.63% 3.67% 1.59% 2.2% 3.85% SOLDIVO BOND FUND, INC. -A1.1221 4.09% 3.23% 1.55% 2.12% 4.21% SUN LIFE OF CANADA PROSPERITY BOND FUND, INC. -A 3.5697 4.06% 4.17% 2.26% 2.87% 4.38% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY GS FUND, INC. -A 1.8894 3.62% 3.61% 1.57% 2.19% 3.94% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (SHARES) ALFM DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A 3.63% 3.27% 1.79% 2.37% $528.56 3.54% ALFM EURO BOND FUND, INC. -AЄ223.52 1.98% 2.13% 0.39% 0.81% 2.05% ATRAM TOTAL RETURN DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -B $1.075 3.03% 2.03% -3.37% -0.17% 3.6% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A $0.0265 5.58% 3.65% -0.08% 0.87%6% PAMI GLOBAL BOND FUND, INC. -B $1.0597 22.4% 6.87% -0.6% 0.07% 23.22% PHILAM DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A $2.4769 6.33% 4.33% -0.43% 1.61% 6.76% PHILEQUITY DOLLAR INCOME FUND, INC. -A $0.0644012 3.43% 2.4% 0.64% 1.51% 3.51% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR ABUNDANCE FUND, INC. -A $2.9276 6.02% 2.21% -1.93% 0.32%6.54% MONEY MARKET FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (SHARES) AIB MONEY MARKET MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A 1.1654 3.11% N.A N.A N.A 3.01% ALFM MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A 148.5 4.39% 3.71% 2.73% 2.66% 4.23% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A 1.1966 3.93% 3.71% 2.69% N.A3.67% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PESO STARTER FUND, INC. -A 1.4799 3.91% 3.43% 2.69% 2.65% 3.79% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (UNITS) ALFM MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A 113.79 4.36% 4.28% N.A N.A 4.19% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (SHARES) SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR STARTER FUND, INC. -A $1.1755 3.1% 3.2% 2.24% N.A 2.98% FEEDER FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (UNITS) ALFM GLOBAL MULTI-ASSET INCOME FUND, INC. -A 45.9661 1.24% 2.54% N.A N.A 3.51% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY WORLD EQUITY INDEX FEEDER FUND, INC. -A 2.1331 15.61% 20.83% 13.72% N.A21.18% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY WORLD INCOME FUND, INC. -A 1.102 0.86% N.A N.A N.A 4.85% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (UNITS) ALFM GLOBAL MULTI-ASSET INCOME FUND, INC. -A $0.8135 2.1% 0.69% -3.66% N.A 2.97%

A - NAVPS AS OF THE PREVIOUS BANKING DAY. B - NAVPS AS OF TWO BANKING DAYS AGO. C - LISTED IN THE PSE.

1 - EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 1, 2025, ITS FUND MANAGEMENT IS WITH BPI WEALTH.

* THE FIRST TRANCHE (CORPORATE DEBT FUND 1) OF THE ATRAM UNITIZED CORPORATE DEBT VEHICLE, INC. MATURED ON MAY 25, 2025.

“While we endeavor to keep the information accurate, the Philippine Investment Funds Association (PIFA) and its members make no warranties as to the correctness of the newspaper’s publication and assume no liability or responsibility for any error or omissions. You may visit http://www.pifa.com.ph to see the latest NAVPS/NAVPU.”

www.businessmirror.com.ph

BusinessMirror

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

B3

B4

Banking&Finance BusinessMirror

Tuesday, December 23, 2025 • Editor: Dennis D. Estopace

www.news.businessmirror@gmail.com

BSP to restrict banks from issuing call options

T

By Reine Juvierre Alberto

@reine_alberto

HE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is proposing stricter requirements for capital adequacy and liquidity before issuing banks can exercise call options to redeem unsecured subordinated debts.

In a draft circular, the BSP is seeking to amend existing regulations, particularly the exercise of call op-

tions and redemption of mezzanine debts that qualify as “Additional Tier 1 (AT1) Capital” for banks.

Investing for the younger generation

A

S a millennial who started my career in auditing with a modest salary, I learned early that building wealth is more about starting with what you have, being consistent and creating systems to maintain discipline.

When I first received my payslips, I thought, “How am I supposed to build a future with this?”

However, over the last 12 years— after moving from auditing to sales, business development and eventually financial services— I’ve seen how small, steady improvements can outpace the fastest rising cost of living.

My journey taught me that financial success for young people relies on three key pillars: automation; managing lifestyle inflation; and, using smart money strategies that fit today’s economic reality.

First, automation is a powerful tool for young investors. Many assume that the biggest challenge in personal finance is a lack of knowledge, but the real issue is behavior. We often intend to save or invest, but life gets in the way.

Social events, unexpected bills and daily temptations can easily derail our best financial plans.

Early in my career, I promised myself I would budget manually, track my expenses and invest regularly. But as work got busier, I found it hard to keep up. What changed everything was setting up automated systems. I arranged for a portion of my salary to go directly into my investments and another portion into savings as soon as my paycheck arrived.

Whatever was left became my spending money.

This simple shift removed the need for willpower. My money was already working for me before I had a chance to spend it.

Automation not only makes saving easier; it also allows young people to build wealth quietly while focusing on their careers.

In a financial environment full of distractions, automating good habits can set you apart from those who fall behind.

Second, managing lifestyle inflation is vital, especially in a world where social media constantly pushes us to upgrade.

When I changed from auditing to sales and started earning more, I felt I deserved a better lifestyle. I had worked hard, so why not enjoy it? I got a new phone, dined out more, traveled more and justified every purchase by telling myself, “My income is increasing anyway.”

But one day, I realized my expenses were increasing faster than my income, which was a wake-up call. Lifestyle inflation is sneaky because it hides under the guise of reward and self-care. While enjoying the fruits of your labor is important, maintaining control is just as crucial. I made a rule for myself: I would upgrade my investments before upgrading my lifestyle.

When I received a salary increase, I would first boost my investment contributions, then set

Karlo Biglang-Awa

PERSONAL FINANCE aside part of the raise for savings and only after that would I allow myself any lifestyle upgrades. This habit helped me avoid the trap of “earning more but feeling broke.”

For today’s younger generation, lifestyle inflation is one of the biggest threats to wealth. Learning to delay gratification and build strong financial habits early provides a significant advantage later.

Third, young people today need smart money strategies to keep up with rising living costs. The reality is that life is more expensive now, including rent, transportation, food and everyday necessities. Yet, there are practical tips that can help young adults stay ahead financially. Controlling the “Big Three”—housing, food and transportation—has the greatest impact because small changes in these areas lead to significant long-term savings.

In my early years, I made conscious decisions to live simply, cook at home more often and choose affordable commuting options. Technology is also a strong ally. Budgeting apps, online banks and low-cost investment platforms provide tools that weren’t as available when I was starting.

These tools help take the guesswork out of finances and allow young adults to make confident decisions. Another important strategy is protecting your income with insurance and building an emergency fund, two priorities my experience in financial services taught me early on.

Lastly, investing in skills remains one of the best ways to boost earning potential. Every course I took, every certification I earned and every new responsibility I embraced opened doors to new opportunities and increased income.

My experience as a Millennial Investor taught me that wealth isn’t built overnight or through sheer luck. It grows through consistent action, smart systems and intentional choices. For the younger generation, building wealth has never been easier.

Start small, automate your good habits, manage lifestyle inflation and leverage technology and financial tools.

If you begin today, even with small amounts, your future self will appreciate the discipline and clarity you cultivated during these early years.

Karlo Biglang-awa is a Registered Financial Planner of RFP Philippines. The views he expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the BusinessMirror’s. To learn more about personal financial planning, attend the 114th RFP program this January 2026. Email info@rfp.ph or visit rfp. ph to learn more about the program.

For the high-risk debts that are publicly issued, issuing banks can pre-terminate the debt after a minimum of five years from issuance, or earlier under certain circumstances.

This the bank can undertake only if it replaces the redeemed debt with new capital that is neither smaller in size nor of lower quality than the original issue.

The bank’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) must also remain “more than adequate” after reduction; meaning it must meet minimum capitalization and risk-based capital ratios, including additional capital buffers as the issuing bank may determine to be appropriate

and sufficient in the context of its risk profile and prevailing market conditions.

At no point shall the CAR fall below the early warning thresholds set under the “BSP-Supervised Financial Institution Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process” (Icaap) or “Recovery Plan, read the draft circular.

Banks must also ensure full compliance with liquidity coverage and net stable funding ratio requirements, even after redemption, by maintaining an adequate stock of unencumbered high-quality liquid assets sufficient to meet their liquidity needs under stressed

conditions.

This should withstand at least 30 days of liquidity shocks, giving time for corrective actions to be taken by the bank management and/or the BSP. The central bank also wants issuing banks to provide investors with a prior notice of 30 banking days and to bear any tax liability on interest income already earned by holders of the called bond.

Within 10 banking days after board approval of redemption, banks should also submit a written notice to the BSP, along with a notarized board resolution authorizing the redemption and certifications from

the president or CEO and chief risk officer; confirming continued capital adequacy, liquidity compliance and the absence of unsafe or unsound banking practices.

Additional supporting documents, including post-redemption CAR computations and stress test results, may also be required, read the circular.

As for issuing banks’ pre-termination of private or negotiated unsecured subordinated debts, the same rules and reporting requirements apply.

The BSP is currently soliciting feedback from stakeholders until December 29, 2025.

Solon wants to slash 12% VAT on electricity by half

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

R

EP. Nathaniel M. Oducado of the 1Tahanan Partylist wants to slash the value-added tax (VAT) on electricity from 12 percent to 6 percent.

In his House Bill (HB) 6984, Oducado proposes amendments to the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC) to reduce the VAT imposed by distribution utilities, including Meralco and electric cooperatives, on consumers.

The lawmaker cited academic research conducted by the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), which showed that multiple factors, including taxation, make electric-

ity rates in the country the thirdhighest in Asia, behind Singapore and Japan.

“These factors not only cause distress among ordinary Filipinos, it also makes starting a business or investing in the Philippines costlier than it has to be,” Oducado said.

HB 6984 specifically seeks to amend Section 108 (“VAT on the Sale of Services, Including Digital Services, and the Use or Lease of Properties”) and Section 109 (“Exempt Transactions”) of the NIRC. The bill also includes provisions mandating that the VAT reduction be fully passed on to consumers’ electricity bills.

The proposal also assigns the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC),

in coordination with the Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Finance (DOF), to monitor compliance, to issue implementing rules, to submit quarterly reports to Congress and to conduct a full assessment two years after implementation to evaluate the feasibility of entirely removing the VAT. “A complete VAT removal would cost the government an estimated P187 billion annually, whereas a 50-percent reduction to six percent (6 percent) VAT would cost P93.5 billion,” Oducado admitted. “But to an average household consuming 200 kWh per month, the 50-percent VAT reduction would already save approximately P130 monthly or P1,560 per year.”

He also urged lawmakers to consider the broader economic benefits, emphasizing that lower electricity costs could make doing business in the Philippines more attractive to investors.

Oducado noted that business groups such as the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) and the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. previously expressed support for legislative measures to reduce or exempt VAT on electricity sales.

“Stakeholders agree that cheaper electricity would provide immediate relief to consumers, lower operating costs for businesses, attract investments, and support job creation,” he added.

Scams, digital attacks increasing—Kaspersky

By Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

T

BSP, EMEAP SUPPORT

This photo courtesy of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas shows Deputy Governor Zeno Ronald R. Abenoja during the “69th Emeap Deputies’ and Related Meetings” on December 3 to December 5 in Seoul, Korea. The BSP and its peers from the Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks express commitment to promote financial integration and resilience in the region. The meetings also underscored EMEAP’s thrust to maintain robust frameworks for financial stability and innovation in a dynamic global environÒment. The Emeap is a cooperative organization of central banks and monetary authorities in the East Asia and Pacific region. Its primary objective is to strengthen the cooperative relationship among its members. CREDIT: BANGKO SENTRAL NG PILIPINAS

ACEN secures credit line from Metrobank

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CEN Corp. announced last Monday of having struck loan agreements with Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank) covering an omnibus credit line of up to P15 billion.

The listed firm disclosed to the local bourse that the agreements were signed on December 19. It did not provide further details on the terms of the facility or its intended use.

However, the credit line comes as ACEN continues to expand its RE portfolio and manage various financing requirements across its operations.

Last week, the Ayala-led renewable energy (RE) company and its wholly-owned subsidiary ACEN Global Development Group Inc. served as sponsors in a P2.59billion loan facility with the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).

The DBP facility was secured by Green-

core Power Solutions 3 Inc., a joint venture between ACEN and Citicore Solar Energy Corp. that operates the 115.67-megawatt Arayat-Mexico solar power plant in Pampanga.

ACEN has been investing heavily in the Greencore 3 project. The company recently purchased an additional P859.7 million worth of shares in the joint venture to help the project company partly pay off outstanding loan obligations used to finance the development and construction of the solar facility.

The RE firm is targeting to deliver 20 gigawatts of capacity by 2030 and has committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Its current renewables portfolio stands at seven GW spanning the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Laos, and the United States. Lorenz S. Marasigan

HE cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab ZAO warned last Monday that cybercriminals are intensifying scams and digital attacks in the Philippines ahead of the holiday season, as online shopping, digital payments, and money transfers surge nationwide.

Adrian Hia, Kaspersky managing director for Asia Pacific, said the year-end increase in e-commerce activity and financial transactions has historically created a high-risk environment for fraud, with attackers exploiting rushed purchases and heightened online engagement to steal personal data, financial information, and account credentials.

Hia emphasized that the holiday period is a peak season for online activity in the Philippines, making users and organizations more attractive targets.

“During the holiday season, attackers capitalize on time-pressured shopping and transactions to exploit lapses in user vigilance. This makes awareness and consistent security practices especially important,” he said.

Global threat intelligence data from Kaspersky showed that from January to October 2025, the Russian closed jointstock company blocked more than 6.4 million phishing attempts impersonating online stores, banks, and payment systems, with nearly half of the attacks aimed at online shoppers.

These trends are particularly relevant to the Philippines, where digital payments, online shopping, and gaming activity typically spike during the holidays, Kaspersky noted.

Among the most common schemes affecting Filipino users are phishing emails and text messages posing as delivery notifications, bank alerts, or e-wallet advisories that prompt recipi-

ents to click malicious links or disclose sensitive information.

Kaspersky also flagged fake online stores and promotional pages offering unrealistically low prices, often spread through social media advertisements and messaging apps, as well as fraudulent payment requests sent through messaging platforms by scammers posing as sellers, customer support agents, or even known contacts.

Account takeover attempts, where compromised credentials are reused to access shopping, banking, or social media accounts, also remain a key concern.

Kaspersky said the increased threat landscape does not only affect individual consumers, noting that businesses are also exposed to higher risks during the holiday period.

The company warned that phishing and social engineering attacks often intensify when employees are managing year-end workloads and increased email traffic, potentially leading to unauthorized access and data breaches.

To mitigate risks, Kaspersky advised consumers to transact only on trusted platforms, verify payment and delivery notices through official channels, and avoid clicking unsolicited links or downloading unknown attachments.

The company also encouraged the use of strong, unique passwords, multifactor authentication, password managers, and security solutions that offer real-time protection against phishing and online fraud.

For enterprises, Kaspersky stressed the importance of employee awareness training, close monitoring of email and account activity, timely system updates and patching, and the use of advanced endpoint protection and centralized threat detection platforms to improve visibility and response during the “highrisk” holiday season.

LandBank bags ₧80.62M after selling stake in PDS

By VG Cabuag

T

@villygc

HE Land Bank of the Philippines has agreed to sell its 2.15-percent stake in the Philippine Dealing System (PDS) Holdings Corp. to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).

The PSE said it has entered into a share purchase agreement with LandBank for the sale of its 134,372 common shares of stock in PDS worth P80.62 million.

With the PSE’s existing 20.98 percent equity interest in PDS, and the closing of transactions with other groups such as Singapore Exchange Ltd. (SGX), San Miguel Corp., Golden Astra Capital Inc., Finex Foundation Inc. and now the Land Bank, the equities trading operator will beneficially own 94.21 percent of PDS. Those who accepted the PSE’s purchase offer are led by the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) and

some member-banks, SGX, Whistler Technologies Services Inc., San Miguel, Golden Astra, the Finex Foundation, the Investments House Association of the Philippines, Mizuho Bank and the AIA Philippines Life and General Insurance Co. The PSE will be acquiring from these shareholders a total of 3.61 million PDS shares at P600 per share for a total of P2.16 billion and equivalent to a 57.71

percent stake in the company.

“On the other hand, two of BAP’s member banks have not yet fulfilled the closing conditions,” the PSE said.

The PSE earlier said the BAP and its members are selling a smaller stake in PDS than the amount earlier targeted.

The PSE said that it has entered into a share purchase agreement with the BAP, for itself and on behalf of BAP Data Exchange Inc. and certain member-banks.

World Features

www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Angel R. Calso

BusinessMirror

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

B5

Kidnapped, married off and robbed of hope: US aid cuts contribute to exploitation of Rohingya children

By Kristen Gelineau

U

The Associated Press

KHIYA, Bangladesh—In moments when she is alone, when there is a break in the beatings from her husband, the girl cries for the school that was once her place of peace in a world that has otherwise offered her none.

Ever since the military in her homeland of Myanmar killed her father in 2017, forcing her to flee to neighboring Bangladesh with her mother and little sisters, the school had protected Hasina from the predators who prowl her refugee camp, home to 1.2 million members of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority.

It had also protected her from being forced into marriage. And then one day in June, when Hasina was 16 years old, her teacher announced that the school’s funding had been taken away. The school was closing.

In a blink, Hasina’s education was over, and so, too, was her childhood.

With her learning opportunities gone, and her family worried that foreign aid cuts would make their fight for survival in the camps even more perilous, Hasina—along with hundreds of other girls under the age of 18—was quickly married off. And, just like Hasina, many of the girls are now trapped in marriages with men who abuse them.

“I dreamed of being something, of working for the community,” Hasina, now 17, says softly. The Associated Press is withholding her full name to protect her from retaliation by her husband. “My life is destroyed.”

The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed this year by US President Donald Trump, along with funding reductions from other countries, shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and youth training centers and crippled child protection programs. Beyond unwanted marriages, scores of children as young as 10 were forced into backbreaking manual labor, and girls as young as 12 forced into prostitution. With no safe space to play or learn, children were left to wander the labyrinthine camps, making them increasingly easy targets for kidnappers. And the young and desperate were picked off by traffickers who promised to restore what the children had lost: Hope.

In a sweltering building not far from the cramped shelter where her husband tortures her, Hasina plays nervously with the strap of her pink mobile phone case, emblazoned with the words “Forever Young.”

She is still young, she says. But the aid cuts forced her into womanhood and into a nightmare. Not long after marrying her husband, she says, he isolated her from her family and began to beat and sexually abuse her.

She daydreams daily of school, where she was a whiz at English and hoped to become a teacher. Now, she is confined largely to her shelter, cooking and cleaning and waiting with dread for the next beating.

If she had any way to escape, she says, she would. But there is nowhere to go. She cannot return to Myanmar, where the military that killed thousands of Rohingya in 2017 during what the US declared a genocide remains in charge of her homeland.

Now, her husband is in charge of her future, though she no longer sees one.

“If the school hadn’t closed,” she says, “I wouldn’t be trapped in this life.”

Children targeted LIFE has always been dangerous for the 600,000 children languishing in

these chaotic, overcrowded camps, where a squalid jumble of bamboo and tarpaulin shelters are jammed onto landslide-prone hills. But Trump’s decision in January to dismantle the US Agency for International Development has made it even more so, the AP found in interviews with 37 children, family members, teachers, community leaders and aid workers.

Violations against children in the camps have risen sharply this year, according to UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency. Between January and mid-November, reported cases of abduction and kidnapping more than quadrupled over the same time period last year, to 560 children. And there has been an eightfold increase in reports of armed groups’ recruitment and use of children for training and support roles in the camps, with 817 children affected. Many members of the armed groups are battling a powerful ethnic militia across the border in Myanmar. The actual number of cases is likely higher due to underreporting, according to UNICEF, which lost 27% of its funding due to the US aid cuts and subsequently shuttered nearly 2,800 schools.

“The armed groups, with their roots in Myanmar, are operating in the camps, using the camps as a fertile ground for recruiting young people,” says Patrick Halton, a child protection manager for UNICEF. “Obviously, if children are not in learning centers and not in multipurpose centers, then they’re more vulnerable to this.”

Verified cases of child marriage, which the U.N. defines as the union of children under age 18, rose by 21% and verified child labor cases by 17% in the year to September, compared to the same time period last year. Those statistics are likely to be a significant undercount, says Halton.

“With the funding cuts, we had to downscale a lot in terms of the education,” Halton says. “It’s meant that children have not necessarily had things to do, and we’ve therefore seen this rise in children being married, children being in child labor.”

Though the US spent just 1% of its budget on foreign aid, Trump dubbed USAID wasteful and shut it down, a move that has proven catastrophic for the world’s most vulnerable. In Myanmar, the AP found the aid cuts have caused children to starve to death, despite US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement to Congress that “No one has died” because of the dissolution of USAID. A study published in The Lancet journal in June said the US funding cuts could result in more than 14 million deaths, including more than 4.5 million children under age 5, by 2030.

In the Bangladesh camps, the US— which has long been the biggest provider of aid to the predominantly Muslim Rohingya—slashed its funding by nearly half compared to last year. The overall Rohingya emergency response is only 50% funded for 2025, and aid agencies say next year is expected to be far worse.

In a statement to the AP, the State Department said the US has provided more than $168 million to the Rohingya since the beginning of Trump’s term, although data from the UN’s

HASINA, a Rohingya refugee girl, sits inside the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. AP/MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU financial tracking service show the US contribution in 2025 is $156 million. Asked about the disparity, the State Department said the U.N.’s financial tracking service had not been recently updated and “generally does not show the latest information on all US funding.”

The department said it had “advanced burden sharing and improved efficiency” in the Rohingya response, resulting in 11 countries increasing their funding by more than 10% year on year, collectively contributing $72 million.

“The Trump Administration continues to pursue the diplomatic efforts to encourage additional countries to help shoulder the burden,” the statement said.

The department didn’t respond to the AP’s request for evidence that the US had influenced other countries’ funding decisions for the Rohingya response.

W hen the schools shut down, hundreds of underage girls—some as young as 14—were married off, says Showkutara, executive director of the Rohingya Women Association for Education and Development. Her network of contacts across the camps have also reported an increase in kidnapping and trafficking, as well as a huge surge in the prostitution of girls as young as 12 since the aid cuts.

“After the school closures, they had no space to play.... That’s why they’re playing on the roads, far away from their blocks,” says Showkutara, who goes by one name. “There are some groups who are targeting the children.”

While UNICEF managed to repurpose some of its remaining funding, enabling the agency to recently reopen most of its learning centers, scores of schools run by other aid groups are still shut, and thousands of children remain out of class. And aid workers are anticipating even steeper funding cuts next year, leaving the schools’ futures uncertain. Save the Children has only secured a third of its funding target for life-saving services for 2026, meaning 20,000 children attending its schools are at risk of losing their education starting in January, says Golam Mostofa, the group’s area director for Cox’s Bazar, the closest city to the camps.

Meanwhile, Showkutara says, the children locked out of learning by the initial closures are forever lost: Both metaphorically, in the case of girls like Hasina who were married off to men who will never let them return to school even if they reopen, and literally, in the case of children who vanished into the trafficking network.

“It’s too late,” she says.

The death of dreams THE little boy sits slumped on a plastic stool under the punishing sun, his cheeks streaked with sweat, a cooler of freeze pops and other treats at his dirty feet. Ever since 10-year-old Mohammed Arfan’s school closed, this is where he spends 10 hours a day,

seven days a week, selling snacks and daydreaming of the small schoolroom where he once felt safe and loved.

He had just finished his math lessons the day that his teacher told him the school’s funding was gone. As he walked home, he and his friends began to cry.

“I thought that I would not see my friends anymore, and that I was losing my future,” he says.

With no lessons to occupy his time, and his parents worried about their seven children’s survival, Arfan’s mother told him he would need to work to help keep the family fed.

He was terrified. If the camp’s kidnappers or thieves targeted him while he was working, he knew he was too small to fight back.

But he had no choice, and so his daily drudgery began. Each morning, he wakes at 7 and walks for half an hour to the factory to pick up the treats. Then, hoisting the 15-kilogram (30-pound) cooler upon his bony shoulder, he walks another 30 minutes to the corner of the dusty road where he sets up shop among the garbage, rotting banana peels and swarms of flies. For his efforts, he takes home around 200 to 300 taka ($1.60 to $2.50) a day.

There are boys like Arfan all over the camps, selling food they’re desperate to eat and collecting trash in exchange for cash, shoulders slumped with exhaustion, skin seared by the sun.

In a drainage ditch next to a row of stinking latrines, 13-year-old Rahamot Ullah wades up to his waist in water clouded with raw sewage, plucking from the muck discarded pieces of plastic. Five hours of rummaging through the waste will generally net him enough plastic to trade for around 50 taka (40 cents).

His eye blazes with blood from the bamboo that pierced it 10 days earlier while slogging through the sewage.

He began coming here soon after his school shut down, in the hopes he could collect enough trash to pay the 500 taka ($4) a month fee for private lessons. Many months, that fee has remained out of reach.

He worries he will drown in the ditch. And he worries that his dreams of becoming a camp official or a teacher will never come true.

Back on the street corner, Arfan, too, feels his dreams dying. He shouldn’t be here, he says, voice barely audible above the incessant shrieking of horns from the rickshaws racing past, just inches from his cooler.

“I feel shame working,” he says.

“This is the time I should be studying.”

Each night when the sun sets, Arfan packs up and heads back to his shelter. And it is here where he lies on a mat on the bamboo floor, crying himself to sleep and pining for the life he was forced to leave behind.

‘My heart is still crying’ THE laughter that once filled Noor Zia’s classroom has been replaced by

tears. Nearly every day, she says, her former students stop by to see if the school has reopened, only to break down when told it has not.

Zia often finds herself in tears, too.

Before the aid cuts, she was the head teacher of 21 early learning centers that served 630 children aged 3-5.

But the closures left her without a job, making it even harder for her to keep her family alive on the camp’s meager rations.

“My heart is still crying, because my family depends on this job,” she says, sitting in the empty classroom, where the wall behind her is adorned with a drawing of the Myanmar flag— a country most of her students, born in the camps, have never seen.

The funding cuts’ pain goes beyond the school closures. Skills development programs that kept thousands of children occupied were also halted.

Healthcare, nutrition and sanitation services have been reduced. In camps crawling with scabies and other diseases, the results of the reductions are clear on the children’s scrawny bodies.

Lesions line their slender limbs. The wet, rattling coughs of babies fill the fetid air. Atop a muddy hill, clusters of kids scratch ferociously at their heads, while a 4-year-old stoically plucks nits from her friend’s scalp.

Bangladesh has barred the Rohingya from leaving the camps to find work, so they are reliant upon humanitarian aid to survive. But the UN’s World Food Program, which had counted the US as its largest donor, says it only has enough funds to continue providing food rations through March.

The prospect of a ration cut has terrified families. With no country offering the Rohingya large-scale resettlement, many have opted to make a run for it, with devastating results.

Nearly a third of the 1,340 Rohingya who have fled Bangladesh by boat this year have died or gone missing en route, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Noor Kaida, a 17-year-old whose dreams of becoming a doctor were dashed when she was married off after her school shut, says she has lost two young relatives to traffickers.

Shattered by the school closures, the 13- and 16-year-old girls believed traffickers who promised them a better life in Malaysia, Kaida says. Other passengers on the girls’ boats later told Kaida’s family both girls were killed; one by drowning, and the other at the hands of a trafficker.

“If the school wasn’t closed, they wouldn’t have had to take these risks,” Kaida says. “Because of the funding cuts and the school closures, thousands of girls were scattered in different places and their lives have been ruined.”

‘Pray for me’ THE 13-year-old boy had been missing for nine days when the call came in from an unfamiliar number.

“Baba, I’m leaving,” Mohammed

told his frantic father. “I’m on the big boat now. Pray for me.”

The call disconnected, and Mohib Ullah knew his worst nightmare had come true: Just like so many other children in recent months, his boy had been taken by traffickers. Ullah—who has no relation to Rahamot Ullah— called back again and again, but the phone was switched off.

Mohammed—whose full name the AP is withholding for safety reasons— had been miserable since his school closed. The kindhearted boy who loved to read and learn, especially English, had long dreamed of becoming a teacher. When his education ended, he told his father through tears that his life was over. Ullah promised to try and find money for private school, but as a widower caring for four children, it was impossible.

The teen hatched a plan, which he shared in secret with his big sister, Bibi: He would go with a trafficker to Malaysia, and find a future there.

Bibi tried to talk him out of it; traffickers who take children on the long, dangerous journey generally detain the youngsters at the end until their parents pay a fee for their release. The children of parents who can’t pay are often tortured, and sometimes killed.

Bibi warned her brother that their father would never be able to afford the trafficker’s payment.

But Mohammed didn’t care. “It’s better to withstand two years of torture than stay here in a hopeless camp,” he told his sister. “It’s better to die if I can’t continue learning.”

In a panic, Bibi shared her brother’s plan with their father, who was horrified; he knew how deadly the journey to Malaysia can be. He ordered his son to stay put, and to stay patient. The schools will reopen someday, he assured Mohammed. But the teen was convinced they would not.

And so, one morning in October, Mohammed left his family’s shelter and never returned. Ullah scoured the camps and called relatives, searching for any trace of his son. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. He has already lost another son, an 8-year-old who suddenly died on the anniversary of Ullah’s wife’s death, after crying all day about missing his mother and then saying he felt unwell. The prospect of losing one more child was unbearable.

Mohammed’s call came on Oct. 21.

And then, for over six weeks, there was silence.

On Dec. 6, Ullah’s phone finally rang. It was Mohammed—still alive, but sick and sobbing. The traffickers were demanding 380,000 taka ($3,100) for his release—an astronomical sum that Ullah told Mohammed he did not have. But the terrified boy begged his father to try and find it.

Ullah knew if he couldn’t, his son would likely be killed. And so, he pleaded with anyone he could think of for any money they could spare. In the end, he collected just enough, and Mohammed was set free in Malaysia.

Ullah does not know what will become of his boy, who is still so young and wandering around a country that is alien to him.

“If he could have continued his studies, he could have been a teacher, he could have stayed near me,” Ullah says, blinking back tears. “Now he’s left me and I can’t see him. So I lost my dream, too.”

His voice cracks as he describes what was long one of his greatest joys: The sight of his son coming home from school, backpack slung across his shoulders.

Now, the stacks of workbooks Mohammed once pored over sit in his bedroom, untouched. His brown sandals are propped against the wall, alongside the sparkly pink sneakers belonging to the sister who tried in vain to stop him.

And, hanging from a piece of bamboo, gathering dust, is his backpack.

B6 B4

Tuesday, December 23, 2025 • Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

Art

BusinessMirror

businessmirror.lifestyle@gmail.com • www.businessmirror.com.ph

‘Paint for the Planet’ competition champions art of sustainability CLARK MANALO (center) won first place for his artwork Holding Harmony at the inaugural Security Bank and Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) Paint for the Planet Art Competition.

With him are Tanya Deakin, first vice president and corporate communications division head of Security Bank, and Fidel Sarmiento, president of AAP, during the awarding ceremony held at Security Bank Center.

TODAY’S HOROSCOPE

By Eugenia Last

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Noel Wells, 39; Eddie Vedder, 61; Susan Lucci, 79; Harry Shearer, 82.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Detail, observation, unique thinking and taking matters into your own hands are the ways forward. Refuse to limit yourself or to ignore minor details that can hold you hostage when timing is an issue. Unfinished business will be your downfall this year.

Keep your documents and payments up to date and your eye on what you want to achieve. Leave nothing to chance. Forge ahead fearlessly. Your numbers are 2, 10, 24, 33, 36, 42, 47.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Put your excitement and vitality to good use. If you haven’t got a purpose or outlet for your energy, frustration can surface, leading to anger and tension toward situations and the people you encounter. Medication, exercise and keeping busy will help you avoid a run-in with someone who tends to push your emotional buttons. Choose peace over chaos. ★★★★

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Don’t share how much you earn or spend. It’s best to keep your long-term agenda to yourself, along with the personal or financial changes you intend to make. Giving others a chance to weigh in on your plans will add to your confusion and put you in a vulnerable position. Avoid giving others reason to gossip. ★★

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HE inaugural edition of a nationwide art contest promoted the values of sustainability, designed to spark awareness and drive action on environmental conservation.

Titled Paint for the Planet, the recently concluded contest mounted by Security Bank Corp., together with the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP), drew more than 300 submissions across the country.

For its maiden run, the competition carried the theme The Art of Sustainability: People, Planet and Prosperity.

Contestants were invited to “interpret environmental stewardship, inclusive growth, and shared responsibility—translating complex sustainability issues into compelling visual narratives.”

“Sustainability is not just a concept for us; it is central to how we think about progress,” said Tanya Ansaldo-Deakin, Security Bank first vice president and corporate communications division head, during the awarding ceremony at Security Bank Center in Makati City. “As climate impacts become more tangible—through floods, extreme heat, and weather disruptions—we are reminded that progress must move hand in hand with care for people and the planet.”

Fidel Sarmiento, AAP president, added that the contest testifies to the Filipino artist’s ability to inspire change and spark important conversations.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Speak from the heart when dealing with partners or those you hold in high regard, and you’ll gain respect and honesty in return. Resolving outstanding issues you don’t wish to carry into the new year is best addressed now, before you face penalties or regrets. Moving forward with a clear conscience is liberating. Romance is favored. ★★★★★

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Look for an opening and work your magic. How you approach ideas and those in high places will set the flavor for what lies ahead.

A financial opportunity, or pumping up your investments to ensure you get the write-offs you need, is in your best interest.

When in doubt, talk to an expert. ★★★

“Through your art,” Sarmiento told the finalists during the event prior to the announcement of winners, “you have shown how creativity can be a powerful force for sustainability and nationbuilding. We are proud to stand with Security Bank in supporting artists who use their talent for a greater purpose.”

Winning first place was Clark Manalo’s oil painting, titled Holding Harmony, which came with a cash prize of P200,000. Second was Nino Cris Odosis’ Unboxing Nature’s Gift (P150,000), followed by Edu Perreras’ The Future is in Our Hands (P100,000).

Meanwhile, five artists received Honorable Mentions, each awarded P20,000. The list included Ma. Jezshell Nicole Azares for City in the Garden, Armando Flaviano for RE, Ian Maigan for Prosperitree, Johann Padiernos for Cradled, and Pedro Velasquez Jr. for Pag-Asa, Pagbunga ng Likas ng Yaman. There were 12 other finalists who received P5,000.

“The artworks filled our spaces with color, emotion and hope,” Ansaldo-Deakin said. “At Security Bank, BetterBanking is about people at the center, and using our platform to support initiatives that create meaningful impact.”

A beacon of faith: CCP’s parol-inspired façade lights the way to Simbang Gabi

THE Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) ushers in the Christmas season by illuminating the iconic facade of its Main Building with a striking Lubenas parol from Pampanga alongside a belen logo, forming a centerpiece that embodies the enduring spirit of the Christmas season for Filipinos.

Titled Gabay, the display also highlights the building’s ongoing construction, making it a major component of the display.

The façade lighting is on display from 6 pm to 5 am, from December 16, 2025 to January 6, 2026.

This year’s Christmas facade lighting references the

early Filipino belief that a star-shaped lantern (parol) guides churchgoers to the dawn masses (Simbang Gabi).

The light display is directed by CCP trustee and Gawad CCP Awardee for Lighting Design Felix “Monino” Duque. It was conceptualized and designed in collaboration with culture and arts officer and lighting designer Jericho Pagana.

“I wanted to have one clear element, which is the logo of the belen. It serves as the heart of that big parol,” said Pagana.

“Lit in warm colors of red and orange, the CCP Main Building lights the way for our churchgoers to the CCP Annex where we hold our Simbang Gabi.”

For Duque, who wishes to highlight National Artist for Architecture Leandro Locsin’s brutalist structure, the approach to lighting the building was to light it as a major piece, not as a canvas: “We light the building the way it is now, and not the way we thought it was. We light it with all the elements of the construction. So, we don’t just use the building as a surface to project on—we highlight the building.”

Even with its temporary closure in January 2023, the CCP continues its long-standing tradition of lighting the iconic facade during special events and occasions, honoring its rich heritage while delivering a powerful message about Filipino creativity and cultural identity.

“What I want for people to see is the CCP from a different point of view, with elements that are not supposed to be there.

I believe that that may never happen again, at least in my lifetime,” added Duque, whose career in lighting design and theater spans over 50 years. “So, it is a special moment when the CCP takes a different face, a different character. Para sa akin, mahalaga na mailawan ko siya para lumabas ‘yung character na ’yun.”

Tying the elements of the parol, belen, and construction together are the warm colors of red and orange, inspired by the Genesis artwork by National Artist for Visual Arts HR Ocampo, the iconic stage tapestry of the CCP Main Theater.

The CCP logo is also included in the display, placed over the metals and scaffolding.

“Kahit under renovation pa rin ang CCP, hindi nagkulang ang institution sa pagpapatuloy ng mga projects, productions, at outreach programs,” explained Pagana.

“In essence, the CCP logo truly continues to shine despite everything. Behind every metal, every scaffold, every debris falling from the CCP main building due to renovations—it highlights that we’re still here, we’re still standing, and we’re still shining.”

The installation comes to life with technical assistance from the CCP Tech Team, composed of technical director Danilo Villanueva, Shantie De Roca, with execution by Lucio Tapiru, Earl Barrera, Mary Grace Budol, Benjamin Lim, Joefel Alas, and Jovel Bensurto, and with supervision from CCP artistic director Dennis Marasigan and Production Design and technical services division head Ricardo Eric Cruz.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Refuse to let what others do interfere with your words of wisdom and quality of life. Reach beyond any differences you have and make the most of the festive season. Accepting others for who they are will give you the push you need to move forward quickly and without regret. ★★★

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Although others will try to pull you in different directions, it’s essential to be true to yourself, your ideas and your beliefs.

Put your energy where it will encourage you to excel and help you close the year on a high note. Personal change will not go unnoticed and will serve as a stepping stone to future accomplishments. ★★★

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Get your surroundings ready to rock the festive season with friends and family. Opening your heart and your doors to those you love will bring you closer together and help you recognize what and who are valuable in your life. Let past grievances go, and find a way to start anew. Choose kindness over criticism. ★★★★★

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You are best to contemplate situations before you embark on something you may not be able to finish. Refuse to let your emotions take over and point you in a direction of no return. Be the light in the room, and take the high road when someone tries to test your patience and strength of character. ★★

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Be careful what you wish for. Not everyone will respond in a jovial manner. Pull back, wait and watch for signals to guide you cordially. You can’t take back words or actions, but you can adjust your thinking and consider positive alternatives that benefit you. Be grateful and gracious. ★★★★

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Take ownership of what you do and say, and move forward with grace and determination. Enforce the necessary changes to clear your path and to ensure you reach your destination of choice.

It’s up to you to set your course, follow through and enjoy the benefits of hard work, precision and dedication. ★★★

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Pay it forward and do your part, and you’ll get that good feeling that comes from looking out for those around you.

A kind word or a helping hand can go far beyond a donation you cannot afford. Be good to yourself and others through your gestures and kind words, and positive change will follow. ★★★

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Be careful at functions that mix business with pleasure. The key to maintaining your position and reputation is to be thankful, accommodating and kind. Social and networking events require thought and consideration for the people you encounter throughout the day. A joyful persona will turn you into the bright light in the room. ★★★ BIRTHDAY BABY: You are insightful, secretive and resourceful.

You are unpredictable and playful.

‘album cover’ BY TARUN KRISHNAMURTHY

The Universal Crossword • Edited by David Steinberg/Anna Gundlach/Jared Goudsmit/Andrian Johnson/Taylor Johnson ACROSS 1 Clearasil target 5 Car make named after a big cat, for short 8 Not odd 12 Speak highly of 13 Employs 15 Earned 16 CNN host and 60 Minutes correspondent (In this clue’s answer, note the last 4 letters and the first 1) 19 Single-celled organism 20 ___ Museum (Vegas attraction full of electric signs) 21 Finish 22 Wooden piece in some DIY Christmas ornaments (...the last letter and the first 3) 25 “Gangnam Style” singer 26 Outdoor gear retailer 27 Pinch pennies 30 Some Guinness entries 33 Words on a Wonderland cake 34 Sitar melody 37 Like old jokes

39 HS junior’s exam 40 Audibly 42 Merit badge earners 44 Some runway sights 46 CT scan alternative 47 Tabby, for one 50 Speak convincingly (...the last 2 letters and the first 3) 54 Pick up the tab 56 ___! Cherry-O (board game) 57 City on the Illinois River 58 Certain annual music-listening recap, and a hint to this puzzle’s theme 61 Genesis maker 62 Ward (off) 63 Mine finds 64 Old Russian ruler 65 Govt. ID issuer 66 “___ worry about it!”

DOWN 1 Los ___, N.M. 2 Rainforest layer 3 Minimalist paintings?

4 The Bear actress Ayo 5 Roast beef au ___

6 In unison 7 Heredity units 8 American Football genre 9 Smoke shop purchases 10 Genesis garden 11 Character on The Big Bang Theory 14 Many kilt wearers 17 Go-kart competitors 18 Like beer in a cooler 19 iPhone download 23 What kids mail to Santa 24 Dice game with an easy six bet 28 UFC fighting style 29 Fur baby 30 Flora’s counterpart 31 Tic ___ (small mint) 32 Instant replay speed 34 Genre for “Holiday” by Lil Nas X 35 The whole shebang 36 Fitness class with kids?

38 Moon of Jupiter 41 Indian megacity 43 Certain laundry detergent capsule 45 Flat-bottomed boat 47 Lurch

48 Surrounded by 49 Gossip, slangily 51 “Now I remember” 52 Gala garments 53 Camera that may be attached to a ski helmet 54 “Hey, over here!”

55 Orangutans, e.g.

59 Road goo 60 Nutritional stat Solution to today’s puzzle:

www.businessmirror.com.ph • businessmirror.lifestyle@gmail.com

Show BusinessMirror

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • Tuesday, December 23, 2025

B5 B7

The season’s captivating calendar girls Sofia Mallares leads Project Z to ‘The Voice Kids 2025’ victory DUBBED as Project Z’ s “Kween Birit ng Pasig City,” Sofia Mallares took the stage to soaring emotional heights as her heartfelt rendition of “The Prayer” carried her all the way to becoming the grand winner of The Voice Kids 2025.

Under the mentorship of coach Zack Tabudlo, Sofia’s voice echoed louder than ever as she garnered the highest number of public votes online during the show’s live finale on December 14.

The Voice Kids stage turned into a night of pure vocal excellence from Sofia and her fellow grand finalists, Yana Goopio of Team Bilib under Billy Crawford, Marian Ansay of Julesquad with Julie Anne San Jose, and Giani Sarita of Benkada under Ben&Ben. Together, they delivered show-stopping performances, both in their solo numbers and collaborations with their coaches.

Indeed, Sofia’s prayer was heard. From the blind auditions, she had already proven her star power after earning a four-chair turn from the coaches with her soulful rendition of “Ako Naman Muna.” As she advanced through the battles and sing-offs, sealed her spot in the semi-finals, and ultimately emerged as a grand finalist and Project Z representative, Sofia showcased remarkable versatility and artistry at such a young age.

In a social media post, coach Zack reflected on his own journey, recalling that 11 years ago he was also a young contestant with a dream. He returned as Sofia’s winning coach, prouder than ever.

As the grand winner of The Voice Kids, Sofia received a P1 million cash prize and a recording and management contract with UMG Philippines Inc. The Voice Kids continues to be a powerful platform for young voices ready to rise and be heard on the singing stage.

More information can be found at www. gmanetwork.com.

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HERE is so much happening in the career of Andrea Brillantes at the moment that sometimes, her body sends her messages to slow down, pause and take it easy.

Just recently, Brillantes missed the gala night of the movie festival movie Rekonek because she had to be admitted to the hospital. “There are times when we need to listen to what our body tells us, because the body doesn’t lie and if we go on setting these messages aside, more often than not we will regret the consequences,” she intoned.

The 22-year-old actress is aware that she has been working very hard lately because of major transitions in both her life and career. Brillantes has just signed up with MediaQuest ventures, part of the Manny Pangilinan-led TV5 conglomerate.

“I welcome this new development in my career with open arms and a grateful heart. It will certainly be a new adventure in a new home and I am just thankful that this big door opened so that I can explore more possibilities while continuing to improve my craft and my passion,” she said.

Brillantes will be teaming up with another MediaQuest contract star Enrique Gil in a thriller series to be shot in both the Czech Republic and the Philippines during the first half of the new year.

There are also talks about Brillantes being eyed for an international project.

Brands have also been tapping Brillantes left and right. She is the new Tanduay calendar girl for 2026, and the official announcement has been described as her most daring reinvention to date. “As artists, I feel that I should continue to evolve and even though this endorsement has shocked a few who still see me as a teenage celebrity, I am still very happy with this new campaign, and as the latest Tanduay calendar girl I have to admit that it feels very liberating,” she shared.

ONLINE SENSATION IS NEW WHITE CASTLE WHISKY GIRL

CONTENT creator, online star and TV personality Ashley Rivera is the newest face and body of the White Castle Whisky brand.

She gets to join the league of past celebrities who have endorsed the same liquor brand, among them Tetchie Agnbayano, Lorna Tolentino, Carmi Martin, Maria Isabel Lopez and Cristina Gonzales.

“At first I couldn’t believe it when my management team at Sparkle told me that I had been selected to be the new calendar girl of such a popular brand. But when it started to sink in, I just went with the natural flow of things and enjoyed this huge blessing to come into my life. Imagine, I’m relatively a newbie in the entertainment business, then this happens!” she told us during the big launch at the Rampa Club in Quezon City.

Before she started with GMA Network as a member of the gag show Bubble Gang, Rivera became a YouTube and TikTok sensation as Petra Halimuyak, her online comedic persona. Then she started her own podcast called Chick2Go with Hershey Neri which gained tons fo followers.

Whether Rivera will ride with the signature White Castle Whisky white horse to a bigger, brighter year, it will be all up to her and her mother studio to plan and prepare, because at this time, and with this new endorsement, she has made the biggest leap of her career thus far.

Actor James Ransone, known for his role in ‘The Wire,’ dead at 46

ASHLEY RIVERA (left) and Andrea Brillantes

LOS ANGELES—James Ransone, the actor who played Ziggy Sobotka in the HBO series The Wire and appeared in many other TV shows and movies, has died. He was 46.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office said in online records that Ransone died by suicide on Friday.

Ransone’s film credits include It: Chapter Two, The Black Phone and Black Phone 2, and he appeared in TV shows including the cop drama Bosch and Poker Face.

Messages seeking comment were left for representatives of Ransone on Sunday, as well as with a spokesman for the medical examiner’s office. AP

‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ launches with $88M domestically, $345M worldwide

By Jake Coyle The Associated Press NEW YORK—Avatar: Fire and Ash opened with $345 million in worldwide sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, notching the second-best global debut of the year and potentially putting James Cameron on course to set yet more blockbuster records.

Sixteen years into the Avatar saga, Pandora is still abundant in box-office riches. Fire and Ash, the third film in Cameron’s science-fiction franchise, launched with $88 million domestically and $257 million internationally. The only film to open bigger in 2025 was Zootopia 2 ($497.2 million over three days). In the coming weeks, Fire and Ash will have the significant benefit of the highly lucrative holiday moviegoing corridor.

But there was a tad less fanfare to this Avatar film, coming three years after Avatar: The Way of Water. That film launched in 2022 with a massive $435 million globally and $134 million in North America.

Domestically, Fire and Ash fell a hefty 35 percent from the previous installment. Reviews for Fire and Ash were also more mixed, scoring a series-low 68 percent “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yet those quibbles are only a product of the lofty standards of Avatar. The first two films rank as two of the three biggest box-office films of all time. To reach

those heights, the Avatar films have depended on legs more than huge openings.

Avatar (2009), opened with $77 million domestically but held the top spot for seven weeks. It ultimately grossed $2.92 billion worldwide. The Way of Water also held strong to eventually tally $2.3 billion globally.

“The openings are not what the Avatar movies are about,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers.

“It’s what they do after they open that made them the no. 2 and no. 3 biggest films of all time.”

For Fire and Ash to follow in those footsteps, it will need robust ticket sales to continue for weeks.

Working in its favor so far: strong word-of-mouth.

Audiences gave it an “A” CinemaScore.

In interviews, Cameron has repeatedly said Fire and Ash needs to perform well for there to be subsequent Avatar films. (Four and five are already written but not

greenlit.) These are exceptionally expensive movies to make. With a production budget of at least $400 million, Fire and Ash is one of the costliest movies ever made.

“James Cameron is not known for his low budget movies,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “You can’t exactly create the world of Pandora on the cheap. If you’re going to have a 3D movie, an epic film that’s three hours and 17 minutes, it’s a huge buy-in of money, time, resources, and then you have to hope the audience wants to once again go along on that ride.”

Fire and Ash was especially boosted by premium format showings, which accounted for 66 percent of its opening weekend. A narrow majority of moviegoers (56 percent) chose to watch it in 3D. The Avatar films have always been especially popular overseas. Fire and Ash was strongest in China, where its $57.6 million opening weekend surpassed the two previous movies.

Fire and Ash didn’t have the weekend entirely to itself. A trio of other new wide releases made it into theaters in hopes of offering some counterprogramming: Lionsgate’s The Housemaid, Angel Studios’ David and Paramount Pictures’ The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.

In the race for second place, David came out on top.

The animated tale of David and Goliath collected $22 million from 3,118 theaters, notching the best opening weekend for Angel Studios, the Christian-oriented studio that emerged with 2023’s surprise hit Sound of Freedom.

The Housemaid, Paul Feig’s twisty psychological thriller starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, opened with $19 million 3,015 theaters.

The Lionsgate release, which cost about $35 million to make, is set up well to be one of the top R-rated options in theaters over the holidays. Based on Freida McFadden’s bestselling novel, it stars Sweeney as a woman with a troubled past who becomes a live-in maid for a wealthy family.

Trailing the pack was The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, which collected $16 million from 3,557 theaters. The G-rated film, based on the Nickelodeon TV series, is the first SpongeBob theatrical movie since 2015’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

All of this weekend’s new films will hope the ticket sales keep rolling in over the upcoming Christmas break. Starting December 25, they’ll need to contend with some new wide releases, including A24’s Marty Supreme, with Timothée Chalamet; Focus Features’ Song Sung Blue, with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson; and Sony’s Anaconda, with Jack Black and Paul Rudd.

Before expanding on Christmas, Marty Supreme opened in six theaters over the weekend, grossing $875,000 or $145,000 per theater. That was good enough for not only the best per-theater average of the year, but the best since 2016 and a new high mark for A24.

The film, directed by Josh Safdie and starring Chalamet as an aspiring table tennis player in 1950s New York, is the most expensive ever for A24.

THE third installment in the Avatar franchise, Fire and Ash opened as the No. 1 film in North America, plus excellent numbers at the global tills.

Sports BusinessMirror

B8 Tuesday, December 23, 2025

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Trump to FIFA, Olympics, et al in sports: Get in line PHILIPPINE Sports Commission (PSC) chairman John Patrick Gregorio (second from left) and Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) president and CEO Joshua Bingcang (third from left) seal the partnership with (from left) PSC commissioner Eduardo Hayco and BCDA OIC SVP for Conversion and Development Engr. Mark Torres. PSC MCO PHOTO

BCDA, PSC tie-up opens Clark City facilities to PHL athletes year-round

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HE Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) sealed a partnership recently that will provide national athletes sustained and year-round access to “competition-grade” training venues.

The BCDA said that with regular access to competition-grade tracks, pools and athlete housing, national teams can train with “consistency,” reduce logistical costs and follow long-term and science-based training programs aligned with international standards.

According to BCDA, the top government sports body and its accredited national sports association can regularly utilize New Clark City’s sports facilities such as the Athletics Stadium, Aquatics Center and Athlete’s Village.

“The arrangement directly strengthens athlete preparation for major international competitions while ensuring that government-built sports infrastructure delivers continuous public value,” BCDA said in a statement.

The agreement integrates the New Clark City sports facilities into the national sports system, enabling continuous high-performance training operations.

The partnership, the BCDA added, “maximizes” the value of governmentbuilt infrastructure and positions New Clark City as the country’s “primary high-performance sports hub.”

“This is truly a partnership made in heaven,” PSC chairman John Patrick Gregorio said. “BCDA develops and manages high-value land and

infrastructure, while PSC ensures these facilities are maximized for the training and development of our national teams.”

BCDA president and CEO Joshua Bingcang said the partnership ensures that public investments directly support Filipino athletes and deliver measurable outcomes.

“When facilities are fully utilized, athletes benefit, and the public sees clear returns,” Bingcang said.

In August this year, BCDA and PSC also formed a joint task force to identify and assess BCDAowned properties that can be developed into elite training

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By Eddie Pells

T has never been unusual for the leader of the host country to show up for one of the biggest moments of soccer’s World Cup—the gala where the team pairings are revealed.

What made President Donald Trump’s appearance this month different was the “FIFA Peace Prize.”

The newly created honor by the sport’s international federation was, to no one’s surprise, presented to Trump, who’d been angling for a far more prestigious award—the Nobel Peace Prize.

and sports facilities.

Priority sites include New Clark City, which is being advanced as a national training center, and Baguio City, identified for the development of a multispecialty high-performance sports facility to support athlete preparation across different environments.

Trump hovering over soccer’s international spectacle was a fitting moment in a cycle that shifted into overdrive in 2025: The US president, with the help of some US politicians and many sports leaders, took unprecedented steps to bend sports to his own worldview.

“I think sports is one fundamental example of Trump’s belief that he’s in charge of everything,” said David Niven, who teaches a “Sports and Politics” course at the University of Cincinnati.

Though the Trump administration’s policies on immigration, transgender issues and more have repercussions in many areas, all veered into the games people play, and watch, in 2025.

Next year’s World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics—sports events that tout their ability to bring the world together—will be scrutinized for wheth-

er they accomplish that goal in a country that has become less welcoming.

In one example, an executive order Trump signed soon after taking office seeks to reduce opportunities for transgender athletes.

In another, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ramped up activity, leading to more than 605,000 deportations since Trump’s first day in office, according to the administration.

“Fans, whenever you have a major soccer event, they’ll show up and support their team,” said Louis Moore, a Michigan State professor who teaches about sports in society.

He said he suspects ICE will be at some of the venues “and I just hope that FIFA has the backbone to have something worked out where you could protect players and fans.”

Whether ICE shows up at World Cup games is an open question. But the White House has been sending mixed messages that could have an impact on athletes and fans coming to America for these international sports events.

On one hand, the administration has touted the creation of a “FIFA Pass,” designed to allow ticketholders to get expedited appointments for their visas. On the other, it recently announced expansion of travel bans and immigration restrictions—some targeting countries taking part in the World Cup—in reaction to the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington last month.

LOOK WHO’S PLAYING

LA Tenorio is back on the court this time as playing-coach of Magnolia but his comeback since his last stint as a player with Barangay Ginebra San Miguel in Game 7 of the Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup last season went for naught in an 83-94 loss to TNT Tropang 5G in the all-Filipino conference on Sunday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Tenorio played 13 minutes and had four points, three assists and two rebounds. PBA IMAGES

Judge dismisses Enhanced Games lawsuit vs WADA

FIFA President Gianni Infantino (right) awards President Donald Trump with the FIFA Peace Prize during the draw for the 2026 World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington early this month.

Trump’s policies on transgender sports filter to NCAA, Olympics

THE debate over transgender athletes was a touchstone cultural issue that helped Trump win last year’s election.

Early in his term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” empowering federal agencies to ensure schools receiving federal funding comply with the administration’s reading of Title IX, which interprets “sex” as the gender a person was assigned at birth.

The day after Trump signed his order, the NCAA amended its own rules to adhere to the administration’s guidance.

“President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard,” said NCAA President Charlie Baker, a former Massachusetts governor.

Several months later, and with no fanfare, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) changed its policy to conform with Trump’s. It was a move Olympic legal expert Jill Pilgrim said was backed by a “wellreasoned set of arguments.”

“But I’d be pretty shocked if this doesn’t get challenged” in court, Pilgrim said.

Golf brings Trump back into the fold

OVER the summer, Trump was a specially invited guest of the PGA of America at one of its biggest events, the Ryder Cup—a Europe vs. USA golf tournament held outside New York.

The invitation came some three years after the PGA removed the 2022 PGA Championship from one of Trump’s golf courses, saying hosting there would be “detrimental to the brand” in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attacks on Congress.

In addition to his rift with the PGA, Trump supported LIV Golf— the Saudi-backed league that caused a rupture in the sport after dangling nine-figure salaries to lure many of its top players. Early in 2025, Trump held a White House meeting to try to make peace.

Though nothing came of that meeting, both that and his appearance at the Ryder Cup marked his symbolic return into the fold of the sport he cares about most.

Pacquiao among speakers in World Sports Summit

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OXING Hall of Famer Manny Pacquiao will be one of the main speakers in the Dubai Sports Council’s launch of the World Sports Summit (WSS) set on December 29 and 30 at the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai.

Joining Pacquiao are prominent sports figures from around the world including Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Dr. Ahmed Belhoul Al Falasi, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, Ronaldo Nazario, Paolo Maldini, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Reggie Bush, Ons Jabeur and Nick Santonastasso.

The summit is being undertaken under the directives of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense and Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai.

The Summit will be the largest global gathering of its kind, bringing together a

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FEDERAL judge has dismissed an $800 million lawsuit filed by the Enhanced Games alleging that World Aquatics, World AntiDoping Agency (WADA) and USA Swimming led an illegal effort to dissuade swimmers and other athletes from competing in its new series.

US District Judge Jesse Furman ruled against the sports startup in November, giving it 30 days to refile the case to address his objections.

Before the weekend, WADA sent out a news release announcing the deadline had passed.

“It vindicates the strong stance we have taken on this matter,” WADA said in a news release.

A person with knowledge Enhanced’s legal maneuverings told The Associated Press it did not refile because it has had recent success signing swimmers, and also because it does not want to complicate its recent filing for a public offering that it expects will raise around $200 million.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing public-offering process.

Earlier this month, Enhanced announced five more swimmers who planned to compete at its event next May, where athletes will compete for

$250,000 first prizes.

They joined a field that now numbers around a dozen, including Olympic medalists James Magnussen, Ben Proud and Cody Miller. Fred Kerley is the top sprinting name set for the event, which will require strict medical observation of the athletes but will not ban drugs the way Olympics sports do.

The lawsuit centered on a rule adopted by Switzerland-based World Aquatics earlier this year that threatened to banish athletes who compete in “sporting events that embrace the use of scientific advancements or other practices that may include prohibited substances and/or prohibited methods.”

It added WADA and USA Swimming as defendants because they supported the rule. AP

distinguished group of top sports decision-makers, experts, global stars, representatives of international sports federations and organizations, investors and innovators on a unified platform to exchange visions, dialogue and insights about the future of sports on a global scale.

The summit will feature more than 70 speakers from a distinguished roster of global sports leaders, stars, and legends who have left significant marks on the sector throughout their sporting and humanitarian journeys, positioning the evebt as a global platform for expertise, excellence, and inspiring experiences.

Khalfan Belhoul, vice Chairman of the Dubai Sports Council, emphasized that hosting WSS aligns with Dubai’s long-term vision to cement its posi-

Christmas Day Sports

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ESPITE the occasion, professional athletes’ competitive rhythm doesn’t stop because they must prepare and perform at peak levels, which can be mentally and physically taxing on a festive day.

Professional sport on Christmas Day is a mix of evolving tradition, commercial strategy and cultural expectation.

Some leagues embrace it as a marquee event while others avoid it to prioritize personal time and each

athlete experiences it differently from major career moments to personal holiday trade-offs.

Christmas Day events tend to stick in sporting memory because families are home, TVs are on, casual viewers tune in.

Playing on a major holiday adds emotional and cultural meaning and leagues usually schedule stars, rivals or historic teams.

As a result, performances are often magnified beyond their normal sporting context.

The National Basketball Association owns Christmas Day more than any other league.

They often predict playoff rivalries and players treat them like mini-playoff games.

Casual fans associate Christmas basketball with tradition, not novelty.

While Thanksgiving is the National Football

tion as a global hub for leadership and innovation in the sports sector.

He noted that sports today have become a major driver of economic growth and a key element in enhancing quality of life and building healthier, more cohesive communities.

Belhoul added that Dubai’s hosting of the Summit’s first edition aligns with the Dubai Sports Sector Strategic Plan 2033, overseen by Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, president of the UAE National Olympic Committee and chairman of the Dubai Sports Council.

The plan aims to reinforce Dubai’s global leadership, positioning it among the world’s top cities in attracting sports talents and hosting major international sports events, while supporting all elements of the sports sector.

League’s (NFL) traditional holiday, Christmas games have produced major moments.

NFL Christmas games often feel physically brutal due to short rest, which adds drama and controversy.

Christmas Day football is now remembered nostalgically, while Boxing Day which falls on the day after Christmas, carries the torch especially relevant in countries like New Zealand, Australia and the UK. The game and sport of football doesn’t do Christmas Day games because of player welfare, travel issues, and a cultural shift towards family centered holidays.

Christmas Day boxing is uncommon, but when it happens, it’s memorable due to its rarity.

Boxing’s physical toll makes Christmas fights feel especially sacrificial, enhancing their mythos.

Christmas Day in professional sports turns ordinary games into career-defining moments especially in leagues like the NBA, where Christmas Day has become a stage for legacy, rivalry and history.