27-member bloc European Union, Santoro said “We want an agreement that provides new market access opportunities not only for marginal trade, but also for services and for investment and for government procurement.”
As to when the talks for this FTA between the Philippines and EU will be concluded, Santoro described the negotiations as “still in the early stages of the process.”
“And like in any negotiation, it is of course difficult to set firmly…the closing date,” the EU ambassador explained.
Given recent developments in the global trade arena, however, Santoro underscored that “it is very important” to conclude the talks for this free trade deal.
“The FTA negotiations cannot but become more important and cannot but continue at an even higher pace. But of course this depends on the goodwill of both sides,” added Santoro.
Among the Southeast Asian countries, Santoro said only Singapore and Vietnam have signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with the 27-member bloc European Union.
“Already, we have [FTAs] with Singapore and Vietnam, already existing. Thailand, now Malaysia, and now of course the Philippines are the countries where we are negotiating with. But existing, we now have with Singapore and Vietnam,” he said.
AMLC eyes casino staff in Que ransom probe
By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario
THEinvestigation being conducted by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) on the ransom paid in the abduction of businessman Anson Que will extend beyond the kidnappers.
In a statement, AMLC said apart from the kidnappers, casino players who initially received ransom through e-wallets, will also be included in the investigation.
AMLC said the ransom monies were originally paid in Philippine Pesos and US Dollars, but were later converted to cryptocurrency.
“The AMLC is actively collaborating with the PNP [Philippine National Police] to gather evidence on the unlawful activities, tracing the ransom funds in all their forms, and pursuing forfeiture proceedings,” AMLC said. Apart from the PNP, AMLC said it is also working closely with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) and the casinos in the investigation.
AMLC said the PNP alleged that junket operators 9 Dynasty Group and White Horse Club facilitated a money laundering operation involving approximately P200-million ransom paid for Que’s release.
The illicit scheme, the Council said, reportedly utilized e-wallets intended exclusively for casino gaming, shell accounts, and cryptocurrency to obscure the money trail.
It also received reports that 9 Dynasty Group and White Horse Club officially ended their junket operations in most, if not all, Philippine casinos on 7 May 2025—alongside 9 Dynasty’s reported announcement of its exit from the Philippine market.
However, the AMLC remains steadfast in its commitment to probe their
alleged money laundering activities.
As to the unlicensed operations of these junket operators of ewallets with cryptocurrency conversion capabilities, the AMLC is also coordinating with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“The AMLC is coordinating with foreign financial intelligence units [FIUs)] to gather more information on the movement of funds originating from the Philippines,” it added.
AMLC, chaired by the Governor of the BSP, affirmed its commitment to uphold financial integrity and support the immediate resolution of this case.
It also ensured that the Philippine financial system does not become a conduit for illicit activities.
In February, the Philippines
officially exited the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list” after nearly four years.
This, AMLC earlier said, is expected to facilitate faster and lower the cost of cross-border transactions, reduce compliance barriers, and enhance financial transparency.
These will also support business, strengthen the country’s position as an attractive destination for foreign direct investment (FDI), and benefit Filipinos, particularly overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
The FATF placed the Philippines on the greylist in 2021, requiring the country to address 18 action items to secure removal.
Greylisted countries undergo close monitoring and must implement corrective measures to avoid being placed on the blacklist, which can lead to serious economic repercussions.
Detained but elected…
chief executive, which started from being appointed as caretaker mayor in 1988 to an uncontested multiterm mayor for the next 22 years, broken only in 1998 to run and win a Congressional seat after he consumed the three-term limit; and in 2010, after another three-term limit and in 2016 to become the country’s 16th President.
Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday disclosed that her father’s lawyers were still discussing the mode of leadership he would adopt should he win the mayoral contest. “Things like, how and where he would take his oath of office, how should he manage the city when he is still in detention in The Hague. That was what the lawyers were talking [about].”
In the social media, some pun quotes and posts include the teaser “WFH?” could be seen occasionally, as a likely option of functioning as the city mayor. “It’s not work from home. It’s work from [The] Hague.”
During the campaign, the Nograles camp said that a Duterte win may pose a dilemma in city governance. Installing an acting mayor or officer in charge will create confusion and uncertainty in personnel management, especially in the hiring of non-plantilla work, they said.
A columnist said that an acting mayor or officer in charge “has no power to appoint contractual workers.”
The article said the city has as many as 14,000 contractual workers and added, “just imagine the paralysis that will be experienced by Davao City under an acting mayor.”
Vice President Duterte stressed however, that no legal questions will arise in a Duterte mayoral term, as the country’s legal system has several remedies for any contingency or changes.
The former president was arrested upon his arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Air-
port (Naia) from Hong Kong on March 11 or two months before the election and was immediately flown to The Hague to face charges before the ICC in connection with his anti-illegal drug war campaign.
Comelec: No presence needed MEANWHILE , the Comelec said the physical presence of a winning candidate is not a legal requirement for proclamation. Comelec spokesman John Rex Laudiangco said the commission is bound by the legal process of proclamation, and, “the raising of hands is only symbolic or ceremonial.”
“The real proclamation happens once the Certificate of Canvass and Proclamation is signed, read aloud, and issued by the Board of Canvassers— whether municipal, city, provincial, or national,” Laudiangco told reporters in Filipino at the Manila Hotel Tent City.
“It’s not the presence that makes the proclamation, but the issuance and reading of the certificate. That’s the proclamation.”
The Omnibus Election Code supports this interpretation, stating that the candidate with the highest number of votes shall be declared elected after canvassing, without any mention of mandatory physical attendance.
As for former President Duterte, who currently faces charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court (ICC), the poll body said it has not received any directive barring his proclamation.
“So our rule is, regardless of whether it’s former President Duterte or any other candidate, if there is no order suspending the proclamation and you won, the boards will proclaim you,” Laudiangco added.
Asked who would assume office, he said that’s a matter for the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to resolve.
“The Comelec’s jurisdiction is to proclaim whoever won the election, and the winner is the candidate who received the highest number of votes for the position,” he said.
The elder Duterte was proclaimed mayor on Tuesday afternoon. With Bless Aubrey Ogerio
upper middle-income status in the coming years, “It would in case lose the GSP plus preference after a transition period.”
“And of course, the FTA would stand as an immediate relay if negotiations could be concluded on time,” added Santoro.
Once the free trade deal between the Philippines and EU is signed, Santoro said EU aims to go beyond the 7,000 product lines covered: “The target should be that with the FTA we make it universal. So not only related to these 7,000 but to all products.”
He expressed hope that the Philippines’s 80-percent utilization rate of the EU GSP+ will be sustained, if not higher, for 2025.
“We are very happy, of course, from the European side when the Philippine side makes the best use of this system of preferences,” said Santoro.
with Starlink. All of them are now on Starlink na, they don’t need to look for a signal,” he said, partly in Filipino.
He added that the poll body was able to follow its transmission schedule, starting with the consolidated election returns for local absentee voting, followed by transmissions from city and provincial boards on Tuesday afternoon.
As of 7:00 p.m., the NBOC had already canvassed 33 COCs. They include those from the Local Absentee Voting, Baguio City, Ifugao, Bataan, and Batangas. Also canvassed were COCs from overseas posts, including Timor Leste, Brunei, Cambodia, Japan, Myanmar, Singapore, Chile, Czech Republic, Jordan, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Qatar, Thailand, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, Austria, Israel, Denmark, Vatican City, and Brazil.
From the National Capital Region, the NBOC has canvassed COCs from Navotas, San Juan, and Las Piñas. Partial and official tallies are expected to be released starting Wednesday.
to the flexibility and scalability of its IT infrastructure. Its front-end system includes a fully automated Straight-Thru-Processing (STP) payment platform that has garnered awards from AUB’s correspondent banking partners for its “almost flawless” record of processing over 99 percent of transactions “in an errorfree manner and consistently over an extended period.”
The bank also invested in relationship management that focused on preaching the benefits of maintaining both PHP and RMB deposit accounts as “settlement accounts” for all clients’ forex trades and other transactional needs. Cai U. Ordinario
BAI reports spike in meat imports
TBy Ada Pelonia @adapelonia
HE country’s meat imports grew by nearly 26 percent in the first quarter on the back of bigger pork and chicken purchases abroad, based on latest government data.
Figures from the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) showed that meat imports grew by 25.93 percent to 344,594 metric tons (MT) in March from 273,640 MT recorded in the previous year.
Pork shipments recorded the
biggest growth in the reference period as it surged by 42.55 percent to 183,188 MT from 128,510 MT in 2024. A chunk of the imports were pork cuts and offals at 67,876 MT and 66,477 MT, respectively.
Industry sources said the Philippines still grapples with the lingering effects of the African swine fever (ASF), which slashed hog output following outbreaks, thus pushing the increase in the meat’s imports.
BAI data also indicated that chicken imports grew by 14.77 percent to 111,361 MT in March from 97,031 MT in the previous year.
The bulk of the chicken shipments were mechanically deboned meat (MDM) at 64,200 MT, with chicken leg quarters trailing behind at 23,634 MT.
Beef shipments expanded by 24.24 percent to 43,881 MT in the reference period from 35,319 MT in the same period last year.
A chunk of the beef imports
consisted of beef cuts at 27,876 MT, based on BAI data.
However, while imports of the favorite meat products of Filipinos recorded growth, other products like turkey registered declines in March, based on BAI data.
In particular, buffalo meat imports fell by 51.80 percent in the reference period to 5,935 MT from 12,315 MT in the previous year.
Turkey and duck shipments also shrank by 82.43 percent to 54 MT from 307 MT and 44.44 percent to 18 MT from 33 MT, respectively.
Brazil was the country’s top supplier of beef (15,868 MT), chicken (66,070 MT), and pork (67,840 MT) imports in the reference period, based on BAI data.
Govt writes off agrarian debt of 189 Zambo Norte ARBs
THE Department of Agrari -
anReform (DAR) said it has granted debt relief to 189 Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) in Zamboanga del Norte by distributing 212 Certificates of Condonation with Release of Mortgage (Cocrom), wiping out in effect their land amortization debts for nearly 2,890 hectares that were awarded to them.
The distribution was held during the “Pledging Session on Empowering Local Communities” at Royal Farm in Gulayon, Dipolog
City. The initiative is part of the implementation of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act (RA 11953), signed into law by President Marcos in July 2023. The law cancels all unpaid land amortizations, including interest, penalties, and surcharges under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), freeing thousands of farmers from decades of financial burden.
Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer Rizzel B. Vil -
lanueva, who led the event, said: “This initiative not only removes the burden of debt but also allows farmers the opportunity to focus on cultivating their lands, increasing productivity, and securing a better future for their families.”
The event emphasized collaboration between government agencies and local stakeholders, signifying a fresh start for the ARBs and reaffirming the government’s commitment to rural development.
Representing the Land Bank of the Philippines, Joselito S. Año
After poll mayhem: The super cleanup
By Bless Aubrey Ogerio & Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco @claudethmc3
AS the polls closed and ballots were cast during Monday’s midterm elections, another kind of problem lingered—piles of campaign litter scattered around voting precincts and surrounding communities.
A total of 6.10 tons or 6,100 kilograms of garbage, including election-related materials, were collected by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) after election day.
Based on the data provided by the Metro Parkway Clearing Group of the MMDA, the city of Malabon contributed most of the trash with 1.48 tons, followed by Quezon City with 1.23 tons, Manila with .98 tons, and Parañaque with .78 tons.
expressed the bank’s continued support.
“The Land Bank of the Philippines remains committed and is proud to stand with the agrarian sector, not just as a lender, but as a partner in nation-building. Our ARBs are vital to our country’s progress,” Año said.
The occasion ended on a hopeful note, reinforcing the message of unity and DAR’s commitment to uplift Filipino farmers and strengthen the agricultural backbone of the nation. Jonathan L. Mayuga
Experts ask WHO FCTC to embrace innovation for smoking cessation
PUBLIC health experts are calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) to modernize its approach to tobacco control in 2025 by embracing innovation.
Speaking at a Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) panel discussion, TPA president David Williams criticized the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for its resistance to tobacco harm reduction strategies.
Williams said the FCTC is failing smokers by not providing them with accurate information and access to less harmful alternatives. He cited the potential of harm reduction to save lives and reduce healthcare costs and questioned the WHO’s continued rejection of innovative solutions.
Other panelists echoed the same sentiment, saying that the WHO should acknowledge harm reduction as a more effective strategy for the over one billion smokers globally. They labeled the FCTC’s two decades of tobacco control efforts as stagnant and criticized its opposition to progress.
Roger Bate, a global health policy expert, said the WHO has a history of
process guided by principles of objectivity, independence and non-interference.
Earlier, the Comelec clarified that election observers will be allowed inside voting precincts—
failures, citing both Covid-19 and tobacco policy. He called for fundamental reform, warning that the organization risks becoming irrelevant if it fails to incorporate modern science and practical solutions.
Martin Cullip of TPA’s Consumer Center described the FCTC as a “good idea that has gone terribly wrong.”
“We’ve lost 20 years of potential progress because of rigid ideology,” he said.
Dr. Lorenzo Mata Jr., president of the Philippine advocacy group Quit for Good, reacted to the panel by saying that the FCTC’s “prohibitionist policy” has marginalized smokers without effectively aiding cessation.
“There are still more than a billion smokers in the world today, and a prohibitionist policy would not make them go away. Smokers who refuse to quit need support and the best tools include smokefree products such as vapes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches,” he said.
The WHO commemorated the 20th anniversary of the FCTC in February 2025. This global treaty, signed by 183 nations, heavily promotes its MPOWER strategy,
provided it is before the start or after the close of the official voting period.
The clarification came after the EU insisted that its observers be permitted inside polling areas even during voting hours to allow them to speak with election board members.
To reach a compromise, Comelec
which focuses on measures such as taxation, advertising bans, and smoking restrictions.
In 2024, Dr. Nuntavarn Vichit-Vadakan, the Committee A chairman for the WHO global treaty on tobacco control and founding dean of the School of Global Studies within the Faculty of Public Health at Thammasat University in Thailand, lauded the Philippine delegation for its collaborative approach and successful defense of national interests at the FCTC Conference of the Parties 10 in Panama City.
Vichit-Vadakan cited the delegation’s cooperation in reaching a consensus, highlighting their ability to balance national interests with the requests of other parties.
Bate said the WHO has always been a politically-driven organization influenced by its Geneva bureaucracy and significantly funded by vested interests, including pharmaceutical companies and wealthy individuals with specific agendas. He advocated for a significant overhaul of the WHO, including reduced central control and greater authority for field offices.
Chairman George Erwin M. Garcia said all observers will be granted access to precincts during two windows: just before voting officially begins and after the last voter has cast their ballot.
“This is a win-win... Once open voting begins—once the precincts are accepting voters—observers can no longer enter. Only electoral board members, poll staff, watchers from majority and minority parties, accredited citizens’ arms,
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military in the WPS. In 2025, the United States continues to provide significant military assistance to the AFP, focusing on strengthening the longstanding alliance and enhancing the Philippines’ defense capabilities. The assistance takes various forms, including financial aid, joint military exercises, and the provision of military equipment and training.
“The WHO needs to reform. It needs its leadership to be slashed. It needs far less control at the top in Geneva and more control at its field offices. But overwhelmingly, it needs to be overhauled,” Bate said.
Williams shared a personal anecdote, expressing regret that his father did not have access to harm reduction products like vaping and heated tobacco in the past.
“I have seen tobacco harm reduction products develop over the last 10 to 15 years. And I’m absolutely jealous because I wish my father back in the 70s and 80s had access to these products, whether it’s vaping, heated tobacco, nicotine pouches or anything to get him to switch from combustible cigarettes. That’s why I’m involved in this on a personal level. I think there is a missed opportunity,” Williams said.
He drew a parallel with environmental policies, where harm reduction strategies like electric vehicles are embraced, questioning why the same logic isn’t applied to smoking. He urged the WHO to adopt new technologies without bias against specific industries.
and the voters themselves are allowed inside,” Garcia explained. Observers may return after the polls close at 7:00 p.m., once all voters have exited.
Under Section 192 of the Omnibus Election Code, access to precincts is limited to the electoral board, official watchers, Comelec support staff, and voters.
Only 10 voters at a time are allowed inside each precinct. With Justine Xyrah Garcia
Washington has recently reinstated its $500 million military assistance to Manila. The financial assistance aims to enhance the Philippines’ defense capabilities and modernize its armed forces. Recently, the United States approved the potential sale of 20 F-16 fighter jets to the Philippines. The estimated cost of the acquisition is $5.58 billion.
SeaLight Director, Founder and Director at Stanford University Raymond Powell revealed their findings that China has been expanding control over Scarborough
Most of the garbage collected were tarpaulins, paper-based campaign materials, and plastic bottles, among others.
While less than .30 tons were collected in other cities, the MMDA said that no trash were collected in the cities of Mandaluyong, Marikina, Makati, Las Piñas, and the municipality of Pateros.
After every election, the MMDA has been appealing to candidates and their supporters to properly dispose of their election materials and encourage “3Rs” or reduce, reuse, recycle.
MMDA stressed the need for proper disposal and recycling so that these campaign materials will not end up in waterways and prevent environmental hazards.
On Tuesday morning, environmental watchdog EcoWaste Coalition led a post-election clean-up drive at Flora Ylagan High School in Quezon City.
The initiative, supported by local volunteers and personnel from the Quezon City Department of Sanitation and Cleanup Works, aimed to send a clear message to
PPCRV. . .
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Comelec explanation
PPCRV coordinated with the Comelec to get an explanation on the issues of duplicate files and delayed posting of usable data in the transparency server.
Based on the explanation of Comelec, the delay was caused by the data conversion conducted by the poll body before it sends the data to the transparency servers from human-readable to machinereadable.
“So we have to process it in a way that all of us can read it. Their [data] is human readable, while ours [stakeholders] are not. The reason for that is because we have different needs. The needs of the media are different, The needs of the political party are different. So they [Comelec] format it in different ways according to the needs of the different groups who work in our transparency servers,” Singson said.
When asked if the explanation
Shoal, doubling over the past 12 months, and that they continue to push further east.
“China doubled its paramilitary force. I define paramilitary as being China Coast Guard and maritime militia, and those were the numbers, of course, along with those dangerous air and sea maneuvers that we discussed earlier,” Powell explained.
Powell also emphasized China’s continuous destruction of the Scarborough Shoal. He said satellite images and data analysis show that China’s giant clam harvest -
candidates: leadership doesn’t end when the polls close.
“This is a recurring problem every election season, revealing how candidates often neglect the environmental impact of their campaigns,” said Crisanto Luague, EcoWaste Coalition zero waste campaigner.
Despite repeated warnings from the Commission on Elections to take them down after the official campaign period ended on May 10, the remnants of the campaign season littered sidewalks and gutters with tarpaulins, leaflets and sample ballots.
“Win or lose, candidates must take the lead in post-election cleanups and demonstrate true leadership by taking responsibility for the waste they generated,” he said.
“This isn’t just about picking up trash. It is about setting the tone for responsible leadership. Candidates should not disappear after election day. The mess they leave behind speaks volumes, and the least they can do is clean it up,” he added He urged local government units (LGUs) to enforce Comelec rules and ensure that both winning and losing candidates are held accountable for the campaign waste left behind.
The environmental advocate also called on the poll body and the Department of the Interior and Local Government to work closely with LGUs to ensure the effective implementation of post-election clean-up policies.
Much of the trash, he added, could have been avoided if candidates had simply complied with the Comelec directive to dismantle campaign materials by midnight of May 11.
The distribution of flyers and sample ballots near polling places on election day violates Comelec Resolution 11086, which bans public canvassing and campaign material distribution during the election proper.
from Comelec assures that there was no irregularities in the results of the 2025 polls, Singson said PPCRV will defer commenting on the matter until the completion of the RMA and the UPC.
“That one we will see in the audits. That’s why the audits are important,” she added.
Singson lamented the “technical issues” since Comelec successfully enhanced its transmission rate.
She commended how Comelec was able to improve the transmission rate of ERs through its use of 5G networks and Starlink satellite internet and make its technical support more accessible during the 2025 NLE.
“And because of that 98 percent [of election results] have already been transmitted,” Singson said. The PPCRV official said the additional technical hub from Comelec helped to promptly resolve ACM-related issues.
“The technical support that was provided by Comelec, was far superior to the technical support that was provided before,” she added.
ing, which is a destructive method of getting resources in reefs, has apparently continued through early 2024,
“We believe that actually Beijing is lying about the condition of Scarborough Shoal that it put out in its assessment, and that, as others on this call have indicated, that the condition of the shoal is actually quite serious, and that what China is telling the world is quite different than what it is telling its own people, which is why the fishing fleet has disappeared since last June,” he added.
Alyansa
senatorial win a ‘vote of confidence’ for Marcos administration’s reform agenda
By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie
WITH six of its eleven candidates securing spots in the “Magic 12,” the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas on Tuesday declared the senatorial race results as a strong vote of confidence in the Marcos administration “Bagong Pilipinas” vision.
Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, campaign manager of the Alyansa coalition, said the victory of more than half of their senatorial bets underscores broad public support for the administration’s reform agenda and its push to deliver real economic opportunities to Filipinos.
“The objective of the Alyansa campaign was to rally support for the election of senators who could bring their competence and experience to the Senate and help the administration in its efforts to uplift the welfare of our kababayans,” he said in a statement.
He added that the outcome of the polls affirms the public’s trust in the “Bagong Pilipinas” brand of governance—one that promises inclusive growth, improved public services, and decisive leadership.
“In this regard, we consider the victory of most of our candidates a vote of confidence in the Bagong Pilipinas vision of progress where all Filipinos can live better lives with real economic opportunities for all,” he added.
“Their vote affirms our shared commitment to continue the country’s economic gains and preserve the momentum of growth,” Tiangco said.
Tiangco emphasized that the mandate from the electorate should inspire elected officials to work with “greater urgency and focus,” especially on issues that directly impact the lives of ordinary citizens.
“We view this as a clear signal to move forward with greater urgency and focus, guided by the aspirations of our people and committed to addressing the issues that concern them the most,” he added.
As of Tuesday afternoon, among those from the administration’s Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas senatorial slate who made it to the top 12 are Erwin Tulfo, Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, Lito Lapid, Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, Pia Cayetano, and Camille Villar.
PNP declares May elections ‘generally peaceful’ with ‘zero major incidents’
PBy Rex Anthony Naval
HILIPPINE National Police (PNP) chief
Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil said there were “zero major incidents” reported in the just-concluded May 12 midterm elections and that the event was “generally peaceful.”
“Upon the clear directive of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to ensure the peaceful, credible, and orderly conduct of the 2025 National and Local Elections, the PNP announced today, May 12, 2025, that the conduct of the 2025 National and Local Elections was generally peaceful with zero major incidents reported across the country,” he said in a statement late Monday.
Marbil added that the PNP, in full coordination with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and partner security forces, carried out its mandate with vigilance and integrity, ensuring that the voice of the people was protected.
He also commended all police units and partner agencies for their dedication and discipline during election duties.
“We stood firm and followed the President’s directive. The Filipino people deserve nothing less than a peaceful and honest election. We did not allow any force to interfere with the voice of the nation. We were ready, we were vigilant, and we delivered,” Marbil said.
Minor technical and logistical issues such
as malfunctioning of automated counting machines (ACMs), delayed opening of precincts, and difficulty in locating voters’ names were reported in several areas but were quickly addressed by concerned authorities. None of these incidents escalated into security threats or disrupted the overall peaceful conduct of the polls.
A total of 205,136 government personnel were deployed nationwide, including 163,621 PNP personnel, 3,698 assigned as Special Electoral Board members, and 37,817 augmentation forces from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine Coast Guard, Bureau of Fire Protection, and other partner agencies.
The PNP also responded to isolated reports of liquor ban violations and alleged vote buying. Investigations are ongoing, and charges will be filed against all individuals found in violation of election laws.
“This success is not just about keeping the peace today — it’s about defending the right of every Filipino to choose their leaders freely and without fear. We will remain vigilant until the last vote is secured and the true will of the people is fully respected,” Marbil added.
He added the PNP remains on full alert as the canvassing and proclamation processes continue.
Marbil also said the public is encouraged to report any post-election irregularities through official hotlines and communication platforms.
Lakas-CMD reaffirms House majority, securing 104 seats in May elections
THE Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) has reaffirmed its dominance in the House of Representatives by winning 104 seats in the May 2025 midterm elections.
Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, who also serves as party president, said that out of the 128 congressional candidates fielded by Lakas-CMD, 104 emerged victorious, based on data from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) relayed by Lakas-CMD Executive Director Anna Capella Velasco. The winning slate includes 79 reelected incumbents and 25 first-time legislators, reflecting what Romualdez described as a “balanced mix of experience and fresh energy” under Lakas-CMD’s expanding national banner.
“This is a vote of confidence not just in our candidates, but in the kind of leadership and unity that Lakas-CMD represents,” Romualdez said, adding the party remains firmly at the helm of the House majority. “As party president, I am deeply grateful to the Filipino people for reaffirming our role as a driving force for progress and good governance.”
PHL sees over 9 million internally displaced by disasters and conflict in 2024, says report
By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario
OVER nine million Filipinos were displaced by natural disasters, violence and conflict in the Philippines at the end of last year, according to the newly released Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025 (GRID) from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Based on the report, this is composed of 8.996 million Filipinos who were internally displaced nationwide due to disasters while another 193,000 were internally displaced due to conflict and violence.
The number of Filipinos who were internally displaced by disasters increased by a million, the third highest jump in the world. The highest increase in internal displacements due to disaster was recorded in Afghanistan at 1.3 million and Chad at 1.2 million.
“Storms, including major cyclones in highly exposed countries such as Bangladesh, China, the Philippines and the United States, triggered more than half of the movements reported in 2024. Governments issued alerts ahead of their landfall and millions of people evacuated out of harm’s way,” the report stated.
The Philippines is considered to be the country with the most number of internal displacements or movements in the East Asia and the Pacific region and the second highest in terms of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
Based on the data, there were 1.036 million IDPs in the country by the end of 2024 due to disasters while another 123,000 were IDPs due to violence or conflict.
The Philippines is second only to Myanmar which has 3.521 million IDPs due to violence and conflict and 126,000 IDPs due to disasters.
These disasters also worsened the plight of those who were forced out of their homes due to violence and conflict. The report noted that the number of countries reporting displacements from both conflict and disasters have tripled since 2009.
“In Mozambique and Myanmar, cyclones Chido and Yagi hit populations already uprooted by conflict and violence, prolonging their displacement and delaying their recovery. Similar events had affected the same areas and vulnerable population groups in previous years,” the report stated.
“The list goes on. From Afghanistan to the Philippines and from South Sudan to Syria, the overlapping impacts of conflict and disasters continue to set back IDPs’ prospects of putting an end
to their displacement,” it added.
IDMC said governments need to craft policies in order to better help IDPs. Some of these policies include displacement in frameworks such as disaster risk reduction, climate action, peace-building and sustainable development.
The report also cited the Philippine legislation passed in 2016 that includes specific provisions to ensure children displaced by disasters have continued access to education, shelter, child-friendly spaces and family reunification.
The legislation, Republic Act 10821 or the Children’s Emergency Relief and Protection Act, was signed into law by former President Benigno S. Aquino III in May 2016.
IDMC said the law also has implications for the education of non-displaced children. This helps minimize disruptions when schools are used as temporary shelters.
“Long overlooked, internal displacement has benefitted from heightened international policy visibility and political attention in recent years, with a strong focus on government ownership and leadership and development approaches,” the report stated.
“At a time of a severe downturn in international assistance, particularly humanitarian funding, its integration into a wide range of national priorities will help to sustain momentum in efforts to address the phenomenon,” it added.
Globally, the IDMC said there was an unprecedented 83.4 million people living in internal displacement at the end of 2024.
Conflict continued to drive much displacement. Last year
Youth vote emerges as game-changer in 2025 midterm elections, defying pre-poll predictions
DBy Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla
EFYING the expected trends in preelection survey results, the outcome of the 2025 National and Local Elections (NLE) showed the rising influence of the “youth vote,” according to the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV).
PPCRV spokesperson Ana Singson made the remark after the partial and unofficial results showed former senators Paolo “Bam” Benigno IV and Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan included in the so-called “Magic 12” in the
PHL
human. . .
Continued from A1
healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living.
Romualdez emphasized that the party’s performance ensures its continued leadership in advancing the legislative priorities of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. and his Bagong Pilipinas agenda. Romualdez, who was also reelected as representative of Leyte’s First District, described the midterm results as a strong foundation for the future of Lakas-CMD.
“Lakas-CMD is not just winning elections—we’re building a long-term vision of leadership, service, and nation-building. With this fresh mandate, we are ready to work harder, legislate better, and serve every Filipino with even greater urgency,” Romualdez said.
He also underscored the party’s commitment to working hand in hand with its allies in the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas, a broad coalition of major political parties united behind the administration’s reform agenda.
“Together with our partners in the Alyansa, we will continue to push for laws that create jobs, protect the vulnerable, improve education, and strengthen our democracy,” Romualdez said. Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz
“For decades, we have been on track to reach a very high human development world by 2030, but this deceleration signals a very real threat to global progress,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner stated about South Asia and East Asia and the Pacific progress.
“If 2024’s sluggish progress becomes ‘the new normal’ that 2030 milestone could slip by decades— making our world less secure, more divided, and more vulnerable to economic and ecological shocks,” he added.
Inequality ON one hand, inequality remains a stubborn obstacle to development gains of the country. The Philippines’ inequality-adjusted life expectancy index stood at 0.652, with life expectancy inequality pegged at 15 percent.
senatorial race despite trailing behind in pre-election surveys.
“You know, the youth are very, very different because they showed us their votes, and you should see the votes in the schools. They’re very different from the ones you see in the surveys,” she said in a press briefing last Tuesday.
“So I’m not surprised with some of those that you seem to be surprised with. Why? Because I saw them when I was in school. They were coming up in the school surveys,” she added.
As of 2:14 pm on Tuesday, PPCRV’s parallel
In education, the inequality index was 0.606 with 12-percent disparity, while income inequality was recorded at 23.6 percent, bringing its income index to 0.540. By comparison, the East Asia and Pacific region reported lower inequality in life expectancy at 7.8 percent, and slightly better scores in both education and income inequality, although income disparity remains a concern across the region.
In terms of gender equality, the nation had a Gender Development Index (GDI) of 0.984 in 2023, slightly higher than the region’s 0.973. However, its Gender Inequality Index (GII) was valued at 0.351, placing it 86th globally and higher than the East Asia and Pacific average of 0.315.
For the fourth year in a row, the gap between countries with very high and very low HDI continues to widen, per the report.
It emphasized that this trend reverses years of progress and is being driven by rising trade tensions, worsening debt burdens,
alone, 20.1 million new conflictrelated internal displacements were recorded, with 9.1 million coming from just two countries— Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“These figures are a clear warning: without bold and coordinated action, the number of people displaced within their own countries will continue to grow rapidly,” said IOM Director General Amy Pope.
“The IDMC report is also a call for preventive action, to use data and other tools to anticipate displacement before it happens, and for the humanitarian and development sectors to work together with governments to develop longer-term solutions to prevent displacement,” Pope said.
The total of 83.4 million internally displaced people at the end of 2024 is an increase of 7.5 million from the 2023 figure of 75.9 million people, which was also a record.
Disasters remained a major driver of internal displacement in 2024, and last year saw a record 45.8 million new disaster displacements, nearly double the annual average of the past decade.
While most people were able to return home during the year, the report stated that 9.8 million remained displaced due to disasters at the end of 2024.
A total of 29 countries and territories reported their highest disaster displacement figures on record, with cyclones accounting for 54 percent of all disaster displacements last year.
As the frequency, duration, and intensity of weather-related events continue to worsen, the report stated that these figures are expected to continue to rise.
partial and unofficial counting showed that former senator Paolo “Bam” Benigno IV got the second highest votes candidates with 20,627,141, while former senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan was in fifth place with 15,079,964.
and the growing phenomenon of jobless industrialization, especially in the lowest-ranking countries.
AI as new devt frontier
AS development stalls across multiple fronts, Steiner pointed to artificial intelligence (AI) as a potential game-changer—if harnessed responsibly.
“As Artificial Intelligence continues its rapid advance across so many aspects of our lives, we should consider its potential for development,” he said.
“New capabilities are emerging almost daily, and while AI is no panacea, the choices we make hold the potential to reignite human development and open new pathways and possibilities,” he added.
According to the UNDP, around two-thirds of people surveyed in low-, medium-, and high-HDI countries expect to use AI in their daily lives within a year. Interestingly, younger respondents are less likely than older ones to feel they are losing control over their lives due to AI.
Singson noted that 35 percent of the over 68 million registered voters nationwide belong to the youth sector or those who are aged 18 to 35 years old.
She said of the outcome of the 2025 Midterm polls that the youth is becoming a potent force in the polls.
“I think there might probably have been a youth vote involved already. And if there is, and I guess we can drill down into those numbers. It would be very interesting to drill down to the numbers. If there is, they’re a very potent force and a major force to look out for,” Singson said.
They were able to beat other senatorial candidates, who ranked high in the preelection surveys of established survey firms such as the Social Weather Station (SWS) and Pulse Asia such as Makati Mayor Abby Binay and Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., but failed to secure a spot in the Magic 12. In the mock elections conducted by for students of the University of the Santo Tomas (UST), Ateneo De Manila, De La Salle University, Far Eastern University, and the University of the Philippines (UP), Diliman, Pangilinan and Aquino consistently took first two highest spots among the senatorial candidates.
In the Philippine context, however, limited public investment in research and development (R&D) may hinder the country’s ability to keep pace with AI advances. R&D spending has remained between 0.14 to 0.18 percent of GDP over the past three decades, well below the Unesco benchmark of 2 percent.
Despite the promise of AI, the UNDP cautioned against the assumption that it can replace human intelligence.
“No AI on the horizon will possess humans’ capacity to diversely, curiously, continuously and actively explore the physical world and share the information gleaned with others through finely tuned social networks that produce emergent human intelligence,” the report stated.
“Rather than awaiting such an AI, we can instead rely on existing technology to augment individual humans in their pursuits—leveraging the existing, multibillionmember human superintelligence we already have and depend on,” it added.
May 14, 2025
Hamas releases Israeli-American hostage after 19 months: A potential step toward ceasefire
By Wafaa Shurafa, Samy Magdy & Tia Goldenberg
The Associated Press
DEIR
AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip—
Hamas on Monday released an Israeli-American soldier who had been held hostage in Gaza for more than 19 months, offering a goodwill gesture toward the Trump administration that could lay the groundwork for a new ceasefire with Israel.
Edan Alexander, 21, was the first hostage released since Israel shattered an eight-week ceasefire with Hamas in March and unleashed fierce strikes on Gaza that have killed hundreds of Palestinians.
He was handed over to the Red Cross and then to Israeli forces before being flown by helicopter to a hospital in Tel Aviv. Israeli authorities released video and photos showing a pale but smiling Alexander in an emotional
reunion with his mother and other family members.
Israel has promised to intensify its offensive, including by seizing Gaza and displacing much of the territory’s population again. Days before the ceasefire ended, Israel blocked all imports from entering the Palestinian enclave, deepening a humanitarian crisis and sparking warnings about the risk of famine if the blockade isn’t lifted. Israel says the steps are meant to pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire agreement on Israel’s terms.
Wearing shirts emblazoned with his name, Alexander’s extended family gathered in Tel Aviv to watch the release. They chanted his name when the military said he was free, while in the city’s Hostage Square, hundreds of people broke out into cheers.
Alexander’s grandmother, Varda Ben Baruch, beamed. She said her grandson looked mostly all right in the first photo of him after nearly
600 days in captivity.
“He seemed like a man. He has really matured,” she said. Reports that Alexander cracked a joke on the phone while speaking to his mother for the first time did not surprise her. “He’s got such a sense of humor,” she said.
Alexander was 19 when he was taken from his military base in southern Israel during Hamas’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which set off the war in Gaza.
In his hometown of Tenafly, New Jersey, hundreds of supporters packed the streets, holding signs with his image and listening to speakers blasting Israeli music. As they watched the news of his release on a large screen, the crowd hugged and waved Israeli flags. Since he was taken hostage, supporters there gathered every Friday to march for the hostages’ release.
Israel says 58 hostages remain in captivity, with about 23 of them said to be alive. Many of the 250 hostages taken by
Hamas-led militants in the 2023 attack were freed in ceasefire deals.
Trump calls expected release ‘hopefully’ a step toward ending war
HAMAS announced its intention to release Alexander shortly before US President Donald Trump was set to arrive Tuesday in the Middle East on the first official foreign trip of his second term.
Trump on Sunday called the planned release “a step taken in good faith towards the United States and the efforts of the mediators—Qatar and Egypt—to put an end to this very brutal war and return ALL living hostages and remains to their loved ones.”
“Hopefully this is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict. I look very much forward to that day of celebration!” Trump said on social media.
Trump, who is traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates, is not scheduled to stop in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Monday with the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and discussed efforts to release the remaining hostages, his office said.
Netanyahu “directed that a negotiations team leave for Doha tomorrow,” the prime minister’s office said, adding that Netanyahu “made it clear that the negotiations would only take place under fire.”
Netanyahu said Alexander’s release “was achieved thanks to our military pressure and the diplomatic pressure applied by President Trump.
This is a winning combination.”
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents relatives of hostages, welcomed the news that an Israeli delegation was headed to the Qatari capital for talks.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu, the ball is in your court,” the group said in a statement after Alexander was released. It urged the prime minister to announce that he was ready to negotiate a deal for the return of all remaining hostages and end the war.
“Don’t miss this historic opportunity facing the State of Israel. Prove to the Israeli public and President Trump that you are willing to take a regional initiative that transcends narrow political considerations,” the group said.
Israel says it still plans to escalate its offensive
ON Monday, a statement from Netanyahu’s office said Israel did not make any concessions for Alexander’s release and had only agreed to create a “safe corridor” to allow Alexander to be returned.
It said Israel would carry on with plans to ramp up its offensive in Gaza.
Israel says it won’t launch that plan until after Trump’s visit to the Mid -
dle East, to allow for a potential new ceasefire deal to emerge.
Early Tuesday, an Israeli strike hit the surgery department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Officials at the hospital said two people were killed and 10 wounded. They had initially reported three deaths but later amended their tally.
The Israeli military said it had precisely struck Hamas militants operating from within a command-andcontrol center at the hospital.
Netanyahu faces criticism for not freeing all hostages
ALEXANDER’S release created a backlash against Netanyahu, whom critics accuse of having to rely on a foreign leader to help free the remaining hostages. At the opening of his trial on corruption allegations, where he is giving testimony, a woman in the courtroom asked whether he was “ashamed that the president of the United States is saving his citizens, and he is leaving them to die there in captivity.”
Critics assert that Netanyahu’s insistence on keeping up the war in Gaza is politically motivated. Netanyahu says he aims to achieve Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in the 2023 attack. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 52,800 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants or civilians.
Israel’s offensive has obliterated vast swaths of Gaza’s urban landscape and displaced 90% of the population, often multiple times.
Magdy reported from Cairo and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
Russian drones attack Ukraine after the Kremlin turns down ceasefire proposal but promises talks
By Illia Novikov & Dmytro Zhyhinas The Associated Press
KYIV, Ukraine—Russia launched more than 100 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine in nighttime attacks, the Ukrainian air force said Monday, after the Kremlin effectively rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in the more than three-year war, but reiterated it would take part in possible peace talks later this week without preconditions.
There was no direct response from the Kremlin, meanwhile, to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s challenge for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to meet him for face-to-face peace talks in Turkey on Thursday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to say who might travel to Istanbul from the Russian side.
“Overall, we’re determined to seriously look for ways to achieve a long-term peaceful settlement. That is all,” Peskov said.
The United States and European governments are making a concerted push to stop the fighting, which has killed tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides, as well as more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians.
Russia’s invading forces have taken around one-fifth of Ukraine in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.
US President Donald Trump said he’s optimistic about the Istanbul talks. There is “the potential for a good meeting” between Putin and Zelenskyy, Trump said in Washington, adding that he was “thinking about flying over” to the talks from his visit to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that day. Zelenskyy supported the prospect of Trump attending the negotiations. “I
supported President Trump with the idea of direct talks with Putin. I have openly expressed my readiness to meet,” he said. “And of course, all of us in Ukraine would appreciate it if President Trump could be there with us at this meeting in Turkey.” In a flurry of diplomatic developments over the weekend, Russia shunned the ceasefire proposal tabled by the US and European leaders, but offered direct talks with Ukraine on Thursday. Ukraine, along with European allies, had demanded that Russia accept a ceasefire starting Monday before holding peace talks. Moscow effectively rejected that proposal and instead called for direct negotiations in Istanbul.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had discussed Russian-Ukrainian peace efforts in separate calls with Zelenskyy, Putin and Trump.
Erdogan said “a new window of opportunity has emerged for peace,” and claimed that previous talks hosted by Turkey in 2022 came close to success but were derailed by “war barons.”
“We support my dear friend Trump’s determination to resolve active conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy,” he said. West increases pressure on Putin Trump insisted that Ukraine accept the Russian offer of talks. Zelenskyy went a step further Sunday and put pressure on Putin by offering a personal meeting.
France added its voice to that offer Monday, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot urging Putin to accept—though Barrot repeated the European position that a truce must be in place before the talks.
Russia’s failure to join the ceasefire offered by Ukraine would bring further
See “Drones,” A8
China seeks to counter US influence with Latin American alliance and $9.2 billion credit line
By Simina Mistreanu The Associated Press
TAIPEI, Taiwan—China is moving to strengthen its alliances with other countries as a counterweight to President Donald Trump’s trade war, presenting a united front with Latin American leaders a day after China and the US agreed to a 90-day truce in their tariffs stalemate.
China’s leaders have positioned the world’s second-largest economy as a reliable trade and development partner, in contrast to the uncertainty and instability from Trump’s tariff hikes and other policies.
On Monday, Beijing and Washington announced their breakthrough on tariffs after weekend talks in Geneva, Switzerland, where they agreed to cut sky-high import duties on both sides for 90 days to allow for negotiations.
Still, Beijing’s ire over the trade war remains apparent. Speaking to officials from China and Latin America on Tuesday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated Beijing’s stance that nobody wins a trade war and that “bullying or hegemonism only leads to selfisolation.”
Having moved to defuse antagonisms with the US, Xi said China stands ready to “join hands” with Latin countries “in the face of seething undercurrents of pure political and bloc confrontation and the surging tide of unilateralism and protectionism.”
“There are no winners in tariff wars or trade wars,” Xi said, reiterating a phrase China has used repeatedly when referring to Trump’s policies.
Also Tuesday, the head of the World Trade Organization appealed to Japan to fight disruptions to world commerce from Trump’s fast-changing tariffs and other policies.
“Trade is facing very challenging times right now and it is quite difficult,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the Genevabased WTO, told Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba while on a visit to Tokyo.
Japan, as “a champion of the multilateral trading system” must help maintain, strengthen and reform the WTO, the Japanese Foreign Ministry cited her as saying.
Japan is among many countries yet to reach a deal with the Trump administration on hikes to US tariffs, including those on autos, steel and aluminum.
The WTO played a pivotal role in past decades as the US and other major economies crusaded for the more open markets that facilitated the growth of global supply chains, many of which are anchored in China.
By dismantling many protectionist barriers to trade, it has aided the ascent of Japan and China, and many other countries, as export manufacturing hubs.
Since taking office for a second time, Trump has prioritized higher tariffs to try to reduce US imports and compel companies to locate factories in the United States, doubling down on a trade war that he launched during his first term.
The realities of Trump’s global trade offensive overshadowed an initial burst of optimism over the China-US deal among investors, as rallies in stocks and oil prices faded on Tuesday.
Speaking to the China-CELAC, or Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Forum, Xi, the Chinese leader, announced
“China,”
Trump arrives in Saudi Arabia for talks on Iran, oil prices, and regional security
By Zeke Miller, Aamer Madhani & Jon Gambrell The Associated Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—
President Donald Trump opened his four-day Mideast trip on Tuesday by paying a visit to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for talks on US efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, end the war in Gaza, hold down oil prices and more.
Bin Salman warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off Air Force One and kicked off his Middle East tour.
The two leaders then retreated to a grand hall at the Riyadh airport, where Trump and his aides were served traditional Arabic coffee by waiting attendants wearing ceremonial gun-belts.
The pomp began before Trump even landed. Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s provided an honorary escort for Air Force One as it approached the kingdom’s capital.
Trump and bin Salman were scheduled to appear at a lunch at the Royal Court. Several major business executives were invited to the event, including Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Musk is also leading the Department of Government Efficiency, a controversial second term effort tasked with waste, fraud and abuse
in the US government.
Later, the crown prince will fete Trump with a formal dinner. Trump is also slated to take part Tuesday in a US-Saudi investment conference.
“When Saudis and Americans join forces, very good things happen—more often than not, great things happen,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih said.
Saudi Arabia and fellow Opec+ nations have already helped their cause with Trump early in his second term by stepping up oil production. Trump sees cheap energy as a key component to lowering costs and stemming inflation for Americans. The president has also made the case that lower oil prices will hasten an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
But Saudi Arabia’s economy remains heavily dependent on oil, and the kingdom needs a fiscal break-even oil price of $96 to $98 a barrel to balance its budget. It’s
questionable how long Opec+, of which Saudi Arabia is the leading member, is willing to keep production elevated. The price of a barrel of Brent crude closed Monday at $64.77.
“One of the challenges for the Gulf states of lower oil prices is it doesn’t necessarily imperil economic diversification programs, but it certainly makes them harder,” said Jon Alterman, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Trump picked the kingdom for his first stop because it has pledged to make big investments in the US, but Trump ended up traveling to Italy last month for Pope Francis’ funeral. Riyadh was the first overseas stop of his first term.
The three countries on the president’s itinerary—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates—are all places where the Trump Organization, run by Trump’s two elder sons, is developing major real estate projects. They include a highrise tower in Jeddah, a luxury hotel in Dubai and a golf course and villa complex in Qatar.
Trump is trying to demonstrate that his transactional strategy for international politics is paying dividends as he faces criticism from Democrats who say his global tariff war and approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine are isolating the United States from allies.
He’s expected to announce deals with the three wealthy countries that will touch on artificial intelligence, expanding energy cooperation and perhaps new arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The administration earlier this month announced initial approval to sell $3.5 billion
worth of air-to-air missiles for Saudi Arabia’s fighter jets.
But Trump arrived in the Mideast at a moment when his top regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are far from neatly aligned with his approach.
Ahead of the trip, Trump announced that the US was halting a nearly two-month US airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, saying the Iran-backed rebels have pledged to stop attacking ships along a vital global trade route.
The administration didn’t notify Israel—which the Houthis continue to target—of the agreement before Trump publicly announced it. It was the latest example of Trump leaving the Israelis in the dark about his administration’s negotiations with common adversaries.
In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t notified by the administration until after talks began with Hamas about the war in Gaza. And Netanyahu found out about the ongoing US nuclear talks with Iran only when Trump announced them during an Oval Office visit by the Israeli leader last month.
“Israel will defend itself by itself,” Netanyahu said last week following Trump’s Houthi truce announcement. “If others join us—our American friends—all the better.”
William Wechsler, senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, said Trump’s decision to skip Israel on his first Middle East visit is remarkable.
“The main message coming out of this, at least as the itinerary stands today, is that the
governments of the Gulf ... are in fact stronger friends to President Trump than the current government of Israel at this moment,” Wechsler said.
Trump, meanwhile, hopes to restart his first-term effort to normalize relations between the Middle East’s major powers, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump’s Abraham Accords effort led to Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco agreeing to normalize relations with Israel.
But Riyadh has made clear that in exchange for normalization it wants US security guarantees, assistance with the kingdom’s nuclear program and progress on a pathway to Palestinian statehood. There seems to be scant hope for making headway on a Palestinian state with the Israel-Hamas war raging and the Israelis threatening to flatten and occupy Gaza. Bin Salman last week notably hosted Palestinian Vice President Hussein Sheikh in Jeddah on the sheikh’s first foreign visit since assuming office in April.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the crown prince appeared to be subtly signaling to Trump that the kingdom needs to see progress on Palestinian statehood for the Saudis to begin seriously moving on a normalization deal with the Israelis.
“Knowing how the Saudis telegraph their intentions, that’s a preemptive, ‘Don’t even think of asking us to show any goodwill toward normalization,’” AbdulHussain said.
Madhani reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Mercury use in artisanal gold mining poses dire health risks for Senegalese women and children
By Annika Hammerschlag The Associated Press
KEDOUGOU, Senegal—The quickest way to separate gold from rock, Sadio Camara says, is with a drop of mercury. She empties a dime-sized packet of the silvery liquid into a plastic bucket of muddy sediment outside her home in southeastern Senegal. With bare hands and no mask, she swirls the mixture as her children look on.
“I know mercury isn’t good for your health—that’s why I don’t drink the water it comes into contact with,” she said. “I only process small amounts of gold, so there’s no danger.”
But even small-scale exposure can carry serious risks.
Across West Africa, mercury—a potent neurotoxin—remains the dominant method for extracting gold from ore in the region’s booming informal mining sector, much of it illegal and unregulated.
In Senegal’s gold-rich Kedougou region, women like Camara use the metal regularly, often without protective gloves and masks, to make a living.
Mercury exposure can cause irreversible brain damage, developmental delays, tremors and loss of vision, hearing and coordination. Once released, it spreads easily through air, water and soil. Particularly after heavy rains, it contaminates rivers, poisons fish and accumulates up the food chain.
A 2018 Duke University-led
Gaza. . .
Continued from A8 principles.
“As the Secretary-General has made clear, the UN will not engage in any arrangement that fails to uphold the humanitarian principles: humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality,” the agency’s emergency aid office said in a statement Friday.
Elder, of UNICEF, said that the plan as presented in the GHF document appears “designed to reinforce control over lifesustaining items as a pressure tactic.”
Aid workers say Palestinians would be forced to move to the distribution hubs or walk for miles to reach them, triggering a forced displacement depopulating large parts of Gaza. Though hub locations haven’t been set, aid workers say that according to briefings they received, it appears none will be located in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are located.
Throughout the war, Israel has repeatedly called for Palestinians to leave the north, including Gaza City, saying it’s for their safety as troops battle Hamas militants.
Elder said that the plan would entrench forced displacement “for political and military purposes.” The most vulnerable, including children, older people and those suffering from illness, may not be able to get to the hubs, he said.
In a statement last month, 20 aid groups operating in Gaza said the plan would force Palestinians into “de facto internment conditions” in pockets around the hubs. Israel has also told UN officials it wants to vet aid recipients, aid workers say, raising fears it could withhold aid from some for political or military reasons, though the GHF proposal says aid would be distributed according to need.
Elder also warned civilians will be endangered as they seek aid in militarized areas.
study found mercury levels in soils, sediments and water near artisanal gold mining villages in southeastern Senegal that exceeded safety thresholds set by the World Health Organization and US Environmental Protection Agency by 10 to 100 times.
In artisanal mining, mercury is prized for its ability to bind quickly and easily to gold. Miners mix the liquid metal into crushed ore, and the mixture is then heated—often over open flames—to evaporate the mercury and leave behind a lump of gold. The process is cheap, effective and dangerous.
“If it hurt right away, like a knife, people would stop. But the issue is that it takes years for the dangers to manifest,” said Doudou Dramé, president of the Observatoire Territoriale du Secteur Extractif, an organization that advocates for safer conditions for gold miners in Kedougou. “People are dumping it directly into the river. They’re burning it in the open, releasing toxic smoke into
“More children are likely to suffer and risk death and injury as a consequence of this plan,” Elder said.
UN says new plan can’t match scale of aid need
AID officials say the new system also simply won’t provide enough aid. Relief groups have operated hundreds of distribution points around Gaza distributing food, water, shelter supplies and other goods, even as they support medical centers, run shelters and implement other programs.
The operation has been led by UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Israel banned the agency last year, alleging its staff have been infiltrated by Hamas. UNRWA, which employs more than 10,000 people in Gaza, said that it acts quickly to remove anyone suspected of militant ties, and that Israel hasn’t given it evidence of its claims.
UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said the agency has “the largest reach” and “it is very, very difficult to imagine any humanitarian operation without UNRWA.”
Ruth James, Oxfam regional humanitarian coordinator, said large networks are needed to get aid to everyone. “That takes time and expertise,” she said. “Any new system that comes in this quickly and without humanitarian expertise and trust from communities will not be able to do that.”
Huckabee called on UN agencies and aid groups to join the new mechanism.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office, said Friday that UN concerns have not been addressed in multiple meetings with Israeli officials. He dismissed claims that theft of aid was significant in scale.
“The problem is the blockage of hundreds of aid trucks that should go into the Gaza Strip every single day. That is the root cause of the humanitarian crisis.”
El Deeb reported from Beirut, and Keaten from Geneva.
the air. It’s extremely dangerous.”
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining is the largest global source of mercury emissions, even more than the burning of coal, according to the UN Environment Programme. In Senegal alone, artisanal mines are estimated to release between 12 and 16 metric tons of mercury each year.
“Kedougou has rich land—very rich land,” Dramé said. “Now mercury is everywhere. Our animals consume it, and it comes back to us. Even the soil is no longer fertile.”
For women, a life that puts them in mercury’s way ALONG the muddy banks of a rustcolored pond, dozens of women wade knee-deep as they rinse piles of sediment in search of gold. Children dart between mounds of earth while the runoff pools around their feet. With little access to clean water, many women spend long hours in local waterways to work, bathe their children, wash clothes and clean dishes.
“Women are much more exposed than men,” said Modou Goumbala, the monitoring and evaluation manager at La Lumiere, an NGO that supports community development in southeastern Senegal. That exposure can be especially dangerous for pregnant and nursing women. Mercury can cross the placenta, putting fetuses at risk of developmental delays and birth defects. Infants may also absorb the toxin through contaminated breast milk.
Inside her kitchen hut not far from the stream, Camara heats a nugget of mercury-laced sediment with a metal spoon over an open flame. The toxic metal evaporates and leaves behind a kernel of gold. There’s no mask, no gloves—just
the raw materials and her bare hands. Her children stand just a few feet away, watching and breathing the fumes.
Camara said she doesn’t usually handle the burning herself; that task is typically left to men. But she and other women regularly mix and shape the mercury amalgam with no protection. One of her children suffers from frequent stomachaches, though she hasn’t noticed any other symptoms. Still, the risks loom.
Why take the risks? Because gold pays “ THE easiest way to earn money today is gold mining,” Camara said. “Subsistence agriculture will not provide you enough for food or other needs.”
In Senegal, gold processors like Camara typically process between 5 and 10 grams of gold per month, earning the equivalent of $370 to $745—more than double the national average salary of about $200.
Senegal ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2016, pledging to reduce mercury use
and pollution. But the substance remains widely accessible. Most of the country’s supply comes from Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana, with smaller amounts smuggled from dental clinics in Dakar, according to a 2022 report by the Institute for Security Studies.
In 2020, the government promised to build 400 mercury-free gold processing units. So far, only one has been constructed—in Bantaco, about 15 miles from Camara’s home. The facility uses gravity to separate gold from ore, eliminating the need for mercury by relying on sluices and shaking tables.
During a recent visit, the rusting slab of metal sat unused beneath a corrugated roof.
“People used it for a while, but then they stopped, because one single unit can’t cover an entire community,” Goumbala said.
“Naturally, those who were nearby could use it. But for those who are very far away, they can’t afford to transport the ore all the way, process it and then go back. It’s extra work. That’s a problem.”
Camara said she tried the unit,
but in addition to being far away, it was less effective at isolating gold – some was lost in the process.
Repeated efforts to schedule an interview with Senegal’s director of artisanal and small-scale mining were unsuccessful. The director later said the department had been suspended. He did not provide a reason.
Senegal swore in a new president in 2024, but residents say the problems remain.
“There’s a new administration in place, but promises are still just promises,” Goumbala said. He believes the lack of progress is due to limited funding.
In an effort to curb pollution, authorities temporarily suspended mining within 500 meters (1,640 feet) of the Faleme River, which cuts through Senegal’s gold belt and forms part of the border with Mali.
But enforcement is weak as officials struggle to stem the influx of informal miners, many of whom arrive from neighboring countries. Critics say the measure barely scratches the surface of the problem.
“The solution is to install the gold processing units within the communities—at least one per village,” Goumbala said. Even so, he acknowledged the challenges: The machines are expensive, difficult to maintain and require replacement parts that are only available abroad.
There’s also resistance among miners, who say mercury is more efficient and profitable.
“We need to convince communities that even if they make more money using mercury, in the end, they’ll spend that profit on treating illnesses caused by it,” Goumbala said. “The long-term consequences are far worse.”
Trump administration welcomes 59 white South Africans as refugees
By Matthew Lee, Rebecca Santana & Mogomotsi Magome
The Associated Press
DULLES, Virginia—The Trump administration on Monday welcomed a group of 59 white South Africans as refugees, saying they face discrimination and violence at home, which the country’s government strongly denies.
The decision to admit the Afrikaners also has raised questions from refugee advocates about why they were admitted when the Trump administration has suspended efforts to resettle people fleeing war and persecution who have gone through years of vetting.
Many in the group from South Africa— including toddlers and other small children, even one walking barefoot in pajamas— held small American flags as two officials welcomed them to the United States in an airport hangar outside Washington. The South Africans were then leaving on other flights to various US destinations.
A group of 49 Afrikaners had been expected, but the State Department said Monday that 59 had arrived.
“I want you all to know that you are
plans to build closer ties with Latin America through political, economic, academic and security exchanges.
He promised to boost imports from the region, to encourage Chinese companies to increase their investments, and said Beijing plans to expand cooperation in clean energy, 5G telecommuni -
really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said.
President Donald Trump told reporters earlier Monday that he’s admitting them as refugees because of the “genocide that’s taking place.” He said that in post-apartheid South Africa, white farmers are “being killed” and he plans to address the issue with South African leadership next week.
That characterization has been strongly disputed by South Africa’s government, experts and even the Afrikaner group AfriForum, which says farm attacks are not being taken seriously by the government.
South Africa’s government says the US allegations that the white minority Afrikaners are being persecuted are “completely false,” the result of misinformation and an inaccurate view of the country. It cited the fact that Afrikaners are among the richest and most successful people in the country.
The view from South Africa SPEAKING at a business conference in Ivory Coast, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday that he spoke with Trump recently and told him
cations and artificial intelligence. He also announced a new 66 billion yuan ($9.2 billion) credit line to support Latin American and Caribbean financing.
China’s trade with the region has been growing rapidly, exceeding $500 billion for the first time last year, as it imported more farm products such as soybeans and beef, energy resources such as crude oil, iron ore, and critical minerals.
Beijing’s investments in the
his administration had been fed false information by groups who were casting white people as victims because of efforts to right the historical wrongs of colonialism and South Africa’s previous apartheid system of forced racial segregation, which oppressed the Black majority.
“I had a conversation with President Trump on the phone and he asked me, ‘What’s going on down there?’ and I told him that what you are being told by those people who are opposed to transformation back in South Africa is not true,” Ramaphosa said.
Afrikaners make up South Africa’s largest white group and were the leaders of the apartheid government, which brutally enforced racial segregation for nearly 50 years before ending it in 1994. While South Africa has been largely successful in reconciling its many races, tensions between some Black political parties and some Afrikaner groups have remained.
The Trump administration has falsely claimed white South Africans are having their land taken away by the government under a new expropriation law that promotes “racially discriminatory property confiscation.” No land has been expropriated.
Trump has promoted the allegation that
region through Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, have included installing 5G networks and building ports and hydropower plants. Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced Monday that his country would formally join the BRI—in a vote of confidence after several Chinese projects in Latin America hit snags in recent months.
In other pledges, Beijing plans to invite 300 members from Lat -
white farmers in South Africa are being killed on a large scale as far back as 2018 during his first term.
Conservative commentators have promoted the allegation about a genocide against white farmers, and South Africanborn Trump ally Elon Musk has posted on social media that some politicians in the country are “actively promoting white genocide.”
South Africa has extremely high levels of violent crime, and white farmers have been killed in rural Afrikaner communities. It has been a problem for decades. The government condemns those killings but says they are part of the country’s problems with crime.
“There is no data at all that backs that there is persecution of white South Africans or white Afrikaners in particular who are farmers,” South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said Monday. “White farmers get affected by crime just like any other South Africans who do get affected by crime. So, this is not factual, it is without basis.”
Santana reported from Washington and Magome in Johannesburg. Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, contributed to this report.
A WOMAN works at a gold mining site in the Kedougou region of Senegal on Thursday, January 16, 2025. AP/ANNIKA HAMMERSCHLAG
China tariff relief spurs shipping rush, price hike U-turn
By Lily Meier, Jeannette Neumann & Daniela Sirtori
IT may only be a 90-day reprieve from the steepest of Trump’s China tariffs, but it’s enough time to entice companies to restart factory operations and start shipping.
Therabody, a Los Angeles-based maker of wellness products such as Theragun massagers, restarted manufacturing and is ramping up production again in China, Chief Executive Officer Monty Sharma said. He added that “in my 40 years of work,” he’s never been happier “about a 30 percent increase in our costs.” Getting up and running again won’t be straightforward. Sellers of imports from China are facing risks such as a sudden surge of shipping demand that’s expected to raise costs and create delays. On top of this, the relatively short 90-day window in which tariffs are being lowered doesn’t give companies a lot of wiggle room when it comes to trans-oceanic supply chains.
Bogg Bag, a company known for its perforated tote bags, has reversed an earlier decision to raise prices and will instead keep them the same — at least for now. The company has also resumed production that was halted earlier this year. However, Bogg is planning to cut its fall and holiday product lineup by 45 items—or almost half of its collection—so that it doesn’t have to rush production to make up for lost time.
Additionally, Bogg wants to move quickly to get products out. “Let’s get them finished, let’s get them loaded and on the water,” said Bogg’s CEO and founder Kim Vaccarella, because ports will begin to get crowded.
Tariffs had eroded demand to the point that shipping company Evergreen Marine Corp. last week told the Massachusetts Port Authority that its vessels departing from China would be stopping at the Port of Boston twice a month going forward, down from once a week, according to Richard Davey, CEO of the infrastructure operator.
But come Monday morning, the port operator was hearing from customers seeking to ramp up imports during the 90-day period, Davey said. The Port of Boston’s biggest commodities include furniture, wine and spirits, toys, apparel and plastics.
The temporary tariff relief means that US companies will try to quickly ship out products that were being held in factory warehouses in China, according to David Chitayat, CEO of Genimex, which does contract manufacturing for global brands.
Many businesses will probably try to stock up on their products in the US to have a cushion of inventory in case trade talks break down or levies spike back up after the 90day period. Some of those goods will still need to be produced, since some manufacturing was paused during the surge in tariffs.
Chitayat predicted companies will be able to absorb the tariffs at their current level—but consumers will still face higher prices.
“The tariffs are still meaningful, but should be manageable for most brands,” he said, assuming companies hike prices. A 30% increase in
in 1991 with Barclays Plc. Seven years later, at age 33, he decided to quit working life to manage his own money. It was then he founded Webb-site.com, which he used to track everything from Hong Kong’s corporate filings to the city’s statutory and advisory bodies, as well as push for change.
“I‘d made enough money to be fairly certain I wouldn’t need to work again, so I could offend whoever I liked in Hong Kong,” he said.
“I’d learned about how the business
Digital services tax–from the buyer’s perspective
TGetting up and running again won’t be straightforward. Sellers of imports from China are facing risks such as a sudden surge of shipping demand that’s expected to raise costs and create delays. On top of this, the relatively short 90-day window in which tariffs are being lowered doesn’t give companies a lot of wiggle room when it comes to trans-oceanic supply chains.
manufacturing costs translates to roughly a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in the price consumers pay for the product, he added. Companies still face hurdles to quickly ship their products to the US during the 90-day window. In the short term, shipping is “going to be a mess with everyone scrambling to get space,” Chitayat said. He expects container prices to go up but notes they are starting from a low point.
Tarptent, a California-based seller of outdoor gear, which had previously asked its Hong Kongheadquartered supplier to pause purchase orders from its factory in China, is now exploring whether its orders can be resumed.
The company is also gauging whether there’s enough time to order and ship the US-made fabric it uses for its tents to the manufacturer in time for a production run to happen within the 90-day reprieve window in which the countries are engaged in talks.
“My guess is that it is pretty unlikely,” Henry Shires, Tarptent’s president, said Monday in an email.
“At this point I would say that the 90-day widow is very narrow—and the window givers are too unreliable—to risk a big investment” in fabric, he said.
Shires said he was waiting for the sun to rise in Hong Kong to see if the manufacturer could use fabric that’s already on-site at the factory.
The lower-tariff window will help Net Health Shops LLC in the short term, CEO Chuck Gregorich said. The home-goods company is looking into shipping dozens of containers from China that it paused in March.
Gregorich expects this to boost its overall inventory and alleviate supply shortages.
Whether he decides to ship those containers will also depend on ocean freight rates, he added. He anticipates that rates could rise due to pent-up demand as other businesses look to get more items delivered in the coming weeks and months.
Longer term, Gregorich expects items from China to remain more expensive, so he’s prioritizing sourcing products from other countries like Vietnam and India.
“My mind is already in those other countries,” he said. With assistance from Jaewon Kang, Greg Ryan and Brooke Sutherland/Bloomberg
community dodges around the regulations [and] exploits the system and I thought I should put all that to good use.”
For a while he had a board seat at bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd.
“David was the smartest guy in the room and totally straightforward,” said Christine Loh, who was on the HKEX board with Webb, and is former Under Secretary for the Environment. “He also has a sense of humor—although not everyone was amused.”
When asked about the most outlandish corporate malfeasance, Webb brought up the case of a group
Atty. Jomel N. Manaig
TAX LAW FOR BUSINESS
HE law imposing value-added tax on digital services was enacted sometime in late 2024. The implementing rules then came in early 2025. Now, with RR No. 14-2025, we are given a stark reminder: VAT on digital services rendered by nonresident digital service providers will arrive on June 2, 2025.
This imposition is sweeping as it will cover a wide range of digital services that we all make use of. Whether it be binging your favorite shows, listening to the latest music, or using electronic tools in your everyday tasks—the law casted an expansive net.
On paper and in press releases, the law mainly deals with nonresident digital service providers. The general idea is that since they are generating income in the Philippines, they should pay tax here. While the headline may have a dash of truth in it, is it really the nonresident digital service providers that pay?
To answer that, we have to take a look at the elementary concept of VAT. Simply put, VAT is a tax that is “passed on” to the buyer of the goods or services. Although the seller is normally required to pay the VAT to the tax authorities, they are also allowed to pass on and charge the tax to their customers. Effectively, it is
the ultimate consumer who bears and feels the burden of the VAT imposed. This holds true for both kinds of customers: businesses (known as “B2B”) and end consumers (known as “B2C”). In effect, digital services consumed here in the Philippines would be more expensive because of the VAT passed on by the nonresident digital service providers to the customers.
For B2C customers, the increase in prices is the ultimate effect of the digital services tax. So, expect an increase in subscription fees charged by your favorite streaming services, your everyday software as a service, and your go-to digital content providers, among other things.
For B2B customers, it gets more complicated. In addition to the increase in prices of digital services, B2B customers are given a new withholding obligation. This is because the law established the “reverse charge mechanism.” In this mechanism, in-
On paper and in press releases, the law mainly deals with nonresident digital service providers. The general idea is that since they are generating income in the Philippines, they should pay tax here. While the headline may have a dash of truth in it, is it really the nonresident digital service providers that pay?
stead of the nonresident digital service provider remitting to the BIR the VAT it passed on, the B2B customers are being required to withhold the VAT component of its payment and remit it directly with the BIR. This is another compliance requirement that B2B customers of nonresident digital service providers should be aware of. Considering that the VAT on digital services would be imposed starting June 2, 2025, B2B customers must prepare for this new requirement.
Preparation would include, among others, creating their internal mechanisms and procedures to ensure withholding of VAT, securing the BIR certificate of registration from each of their nonresident digital service provider, and familiarizing themselves with the relevant tax return.
TIt is then clear that the VAT on digital services affects not only nonresident digital service providers but also their B2B and B2C customers. For the latter, it is best to prepare for what is coming.
The author is
Even though the B2B customers may claim the VAT remitted as input tax, there is still the matter of the initial outlay of cash for the remittance to the BIR. This is another financial burden put on the shoulders of B2B customers. Lastly, the obligation to withhold the VAT may expose the B2B customers to tax assessments arising from the use of third-party information, specifically those from the nonresident digital service providers. In case there is a discrepancy between the amount of income related to the tax withheld by the B2B customer and the amount of income reported by the nonresident digital service provider, it is likely that the B2B customers would be required to reconcile the discrepancy during an audit. However, can B2B customers reconcile a discrepancy if they do not have access to the data of the nonresident digital service provider? Is a showing by the B2B customer that it withheld, remitted, and reported the correct amount sufficient to convince the revenue officers?
The US is on track to lose $12 billion in travel revenue in 2025
By Nikki Ekstein
HE US is on track for a very bad tourism year. According to new data from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), shared exclusively with Bloomberg, the country is set to lose $12.5 billion in travel revenue in 2025, with visitor spending estimated to fall under $169 billion by year’s end. The numbers represent a decline of around 7 percent in visitor spending year-over-year, and a decline of 22 percent since tourism reached its peak in the US in 2019.
This puts the US in a league of its own. Out of 184 global economies analyzed by WTTC in conjunction with Oxford Economics, it’s the only one projected to lose tourism dollars this year. “Other countries are really rolling out the welcome mat, and it feels like the US is putting up a ‘we are closed’ sign at their doorway,” says WTTC President and Chief Executive Officer Julia Simpson.
The consequences, Simpson says, could be devastating. “The US travel and tourism sector is the biggest sector globally compared to any other country, worth almost $2.6 trillion,” she says, citing WTTC and Oxford Economics data. According to Simpson’s data, direct and indirect tourism represents 9 percent of the American economy. (Visitor spending is one of the “direct” parts of the travel economy, while “indirect” contributions include the knock-on effects of increased spending by hospitality professionals.) The sector employs 20 million people and creates $585 billion in US tax dollars each year—7 percent of all tax revenue the US government receives. It’s a “major mainstay of the US economy,” she says.
The issues the industry faces have been years in the making. The prob -
of 50 firms he’d named The Enigma Network. In 2017 he published a report saying the companies—which included brokers, construction firms and an umbrella maker—had common owners and business ties and their stock prices were artificially inflated as a result.
The shares of many of the network collapsed soon after his research was public, triggering the largest ever investigation by the Securities and Futures Commission, the city’s financial regulator.
“By exposing the practices in that network, I put pressure on the SFC that had been asleep at the wheel,” he said.
lems began in the Biden era as a result of Covid-era travel requirements that lingered longer than they did in most other nations. Then the soaring dollar started pricing people out. “The Japanese used to visit the US a lot, but the strong dollar made it quite an expensive place,” Simpson says. “Same with Europeans.”
But now, she says, a shift in people’s views is turning cracks in the American travel economy into chasms. According to international arrivals data from the US Department of Commerce, travelers are already shifting their behavior as a result of the current administration’s “America First” rhetoric and policy. “What we are seeing now is a sentiment shift that’s really very sad,” Simpson says. “Legislators need not confuse the tourism sector with issues around illegal immigration. A sophisticated system can balance both without turning [the country] into an island that no one wants to visit.”
In March 2025, the most recent month for which data is available, arrivals were significantly down for all of the US’s most robust visitor populations. UK arrivals were down 15 percent year-over-year; Germans were down 28 percent; South Korean trips declined by 15 percent; and
Among other topics, Webb predicted the Hong Kong dollar peg would remain until such time as China’s currency becomes fully convertible. He also called for the government to scrap stamp duty on property and stocks, describing the duty as a “frictional tax.”
Speaking to the media afterward, he said there was still an “open environment for policy debates in Hong Kong,” adding that “there are some things that one has to be more careful about.”
As the lunch talk concluded, attendees gave Webb a standing ovation. Afterward, he posed for photos with Bowring as well as Bowring’s
According to new data from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), shared exclusively with Bloomberg, the country is set to lose $12.5 billion in travel revenue in 2025, with visitor spending estimated to fall under $169 billion by year’s end. The numbers represent a decline of around 7 percent in visitor spending year-over-year, and a decline of 22 percent since tourism reached its peak in the US in 2019.
other key source markets, including Spain, Ireland and the Dominican Republic, were down between 24 percent and 33 percent.
The effects won’t be felt evenly across the US, with the $12.5 billion deficit disproportionately affecting major US gateways as well as tourism areas along the Canadian border.
Take New York City and the broader Empire State as an example.
On May 8, the city’s tourism agency reversed course on its positive outlook for 2025—the year it expected to finally rebound fully from the impact of the pandemic—to forecast that it would receive 400,000 fewer tourists and $4 billion less in tourism spending than it did in 2024.
The latest projections for New York, accounting for a total of 64 million tourists this year, include estimates that 400,000 more domestic tourists—but 800,000 fewer international visitors—will visit the five boroughs. Tourists from abroad tend to stay longer and spend more, and in 2024 they represented half of the $51 billion that the city netted via
wife Claudia Mo, a former Hong Kong lawmaker who was released last month after spending more than four years in jail for national security offenses.
As for the future, he was upbeat that free markets would prevail over what he called “peak authoritarianism” in Hong Kong, and that the situation “will get a lot better after his time.” China created prosperity by “relaxing central planning and controls up to a point which ended maybe 15 years ago,” Webb said. “That failure to move forward eventually will lead to, in my view, economic stagnation and pressure to reform.”
tourism. According to Governor Kathy Hochul, this slump extends to regions upstate. Some 66 percent of businesses in New York’s “north country,” which juts out toward Ottawa and Montreal, have already felt a “significant decrease” in Canadian bookings for 2025. In an April 29 press release, Hochul attributed that figure to President Donald Trump’s “51st state” rhetoric and the impact of tariffs. Among those north country businesses, 26 percent have already adjusted staffing in response to the declines.
The damage is profound. WTTC now forecasts that it will take until at least 2030 for US tourism to recover to pre-Covid levels. And that’s if things don’t get worse before they get better. People in the industry, she says, have taken note of proposed legislation that would raise the cost of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which is required of all travelers who plan to come to the US from countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program. It is currently $21 per traveler but could rise to $40 if the legislation is adopted.
“The thing about tourism is it’s extremely resilient,” she says. “If you push the right buttons, it will bounce back. But increasing the cost of an ESTA will only deter people further.” It’s a cost for which the US can’t easily compensate. Already, 90 percent of the US tourism economy is made up of domestic travel— Americans vacationing within the 50 states—making it a hard sector to grow. Meanwhile, Simpson adds, every other country is making it easier for people to come visit with new perks like digitized visas. Bloomberg
Hopefully, he said, this will be followed by “wise next generation leadership that pursues proper opening up.”
In this scenario, one of Webb’s favorite subjects—the efficiency of free markets—may win out.
“I believe in the long run that China and Hong Kong will be less autocratic, more democratic and we’ll move away from the authoritarian system because there’s no way to maintain economic growth by central planning,” he said. “It’s much better to let the free markets work to produce the growth.” With assistance from Jinshan Hong/Bloomberg
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
BusinessMirror
Detained but elected mayor: Can Duterte do a ‘W-F-H’?
By Joel R. San Juan and Manuel T. Cayon
FORMER
President Rodrigo Duterte is now the elected mayor of the Philippines’s largest city, raising new legal and practical questions as to how he would be managing it from his detention cell in The Netherlands, where he awaits trial for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Will he work a la-WFH? some pundits are asking it’s not the workfrom-home of the Covid-19 pandemic days. Rather, it’s work from (The) Hague.
The final canvassed tally from 1,173 clustered precincts of Davao City showed Duterte with 662,630 votes from a total votes cast of 777,237. A far second was his next rival, Karlo Alexis Nograles, son of former House Speaker Prospero Nograles, who got only 80,852 votes.
The elected Davao City Vice May-
or, Sebastian Duterte, may take over the post of his father, the former President, who won by a landslide despite being detained, election lawyers said.
In an interview, lawyer Romulo Macalintal said Sebastian will automatically assume the mayoral post due to his father’s absence.
Former Commission on Elections Commissioner Luie Tito Guia shared the same opinion, adding that under the Local Government Code’s Section 46, if an elected mayor is unable to assume the post
AMLC eyes casino staff in Que’s ransom probe
By Cai U. Ordinario
@caiordinario
THE investigation being conducted by the AntiMoney Laundering Council (AMLC) on the ransom paid in the abduction of businessman Anson Que will extend beyond the kidnappers.
In a statement, AMLC said apart from the kidnappers, casino players who initially received ransom through e-wallets, will also be included in the investigation.
AMLC said the ransom monies were originally paid in Philippine Pesos and US Dollars, but were later converted to cryptocurrency.
“The AMLC is actively collaborating with the PNP [Philippine National Police] to gather evidence on the unlawful activities, tracing the ransom funds in all their forms, and pursuing forfeiture proceedings,” AMLC said.
Apart from the PNP, AMLC said it is also working closely with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) and the casinos in the investigation.
AMLC said the PNP alleged that junket operators 9 Dynasty Group and White Horse Club facilitated a money laundering operation involving approximately P200-million ransom paid for Que’s release. The illicit scheme, the Council said, reportedly utilized e-wallets intended exclusively for casino gaming, shell accounts, and cryptocurrency to obscure the money trail.
It also received reports that 9 Dynasty Group and White Horse Club officially ended their junket operations in most, if not all, Philippine casinos on 7 May 2025—alongside 9 Dynasty’s reported announcement of its exit from the Philippine market. However, the AMLC remains steadfast in its commitment to probe their alleged money laundering activities.
As to the unlicensed operations of these junket operators of ewallets with cryptocurrency conversion capabilities, the AMLC is
also coordinating with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“The AMLC is coordinating with foreign financial intelligence units [FIUs] to gather more information on the movement of funds originating from the Philippines,” it added.
AMLC, chaired by the Governor of the BSP, affirmed its commitment to uphold financial integrity and support the immediate resolution of this case.
It also ensured that the Philippine financial system does not become a conduit for illicit activities.
In February, the Philippines officially exited the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list” after nearly four years. This, AMLC earlier said, is expected to facilitate faster and lower the cost of cross-border transactions, reduce compliance barriers, and enhance financial transparency.
These will also support business, strengthen the country’s position as an attractive destination for foreign direct investment (FDI), and benefit Filipinos, particularly overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
The FATF placed the Philippines on the greylist in 2021, requiring the country to address 18 action items to secure removal.
Greylisted countries undergo close monitoring and must implement corrective measures to avoid being placed on the blacklist, which can lead to serious economic repercussions.
temporarily, then the vice mayor will take over in acting capacity.
“In his absence, the vice mayor will act as mayor, anyway the elected vice mayor is his son Baste,” Romulo said.
Macalintal, however, clarified that Duterte’s presence is not required to be officially proclaimed as the elected mayor of Davao City.
He said Duterte’s case is almost similar to the case of former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who was elected and proclaimed as a senator in 2007 while being detained for mutiny and rebellion charges.
The election lawyer suggested that the Duterte camp ask the ICC to be allowed to take an oath of office as elected mayor before an official of the Philippine consulate to make his victory official.
“Though it could be a long shot; depends on his lawyers’ arguments,” Romulo noted.
For his part, former Comelec commissioner Guia told BusinessMirror, “Definitely, he won, he was voted upon, and because of that, he’s the one who must assume the office of mayor. There’s no issue there. The next step is for him to take his oath of office before an officer authorized to administer the oath so that he
can assume office.”
If he had taken his oath but cannot assume office because he is detained abroad, then it may be said that there is a temporary vacancy for the position of Mayor, Guia said. “The temporary vacancy is because of his temporary incapacity. In this case the elected Vice Mayor will temporarily assume the mayorship.”
How long should the temporary incapacity be? According to Guia, “it would be as long as there is still a chance that the incapacitated may become capacitated to assume office within the term for which he was elected.
“However, if it becomes certain that he will not be able to assume office before the three-year term ends, the temporary vacancy will be considered permanent. The Vice Mayor becomes the permanent Mayor.”
The 80-year-old Duterte is expected to be proclaimed as the duly elected Davao City mayor as the partial count showed that he got 539,141 votes while his Karlo Nograles’ 65,090 votes, as of Tuesday morning.
Long-time city chief exec DUTERTE was a long-serving city
DEMAND FOR CHINA’S RMB IN TRADE, GLOBAL PAYMENTS UP
CHINA’S Renminbi (RMB) is becoming a currency of note in international trade as demand for the currency increases to make cross-border trade and international payments, according to Asia United Bank (AUB).
In a statement, AUB said the United States’ protectionist policies on trade such as the imposition of additional tariffs on imports is causing uncertainties in the global economy.
This, however, is helping elevate the international profile of China’s RMB, which has been steadily climbing as an international currency.
AUB Head of Treasury Antonio V. Agcaoili Jr. said the increased demand for RMB also underscored its acceptance in the settlement of trade flows between Manila and Beijing.
“The Chinese government’s push for the opening of financial markets and Bank of China’s role in the Philippines to facilitate it enhances the ease of foreign exchange conversion from Philippine peso to RMB,” Agcaoili said.
“Bank of China also ensures a reliable payment infrastructure that benefits small businesses scattered all over the Chinese mainland through BOC’s extensive branch network,” he also said.
AUB said it is getting a boost
from this growing demand for renminbi in the Philippines. The publicly listed universal bank was recently awarded for having the “Highest RMB Trading Volume for the Year 2024” given by the Philippine RMB Trading Community set up by 14 member banks in 2018.
This was the third consecutive year that AUB received the award from the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd.—Manila Branch tasked to actively support the deepening development of RMB internationalization in the Philippines.
AUB said it also ranked first in terms of “highest incremental RMB-PHP trading volume in 2024 vs. 2023” and third in the “highest clearing volume” and “highest RMB deposits” categories.
“We recognize the growth of RMB trade as a key enabler in strengthening the economic ties between the Philippines and China, and we at AUB are proud to contribute to this important endeavor,” said AUB President Manuel A. Gomez.
AUB has a dedicated Proprietary Trading Desk headed by a professional trader with more than four decades of experience. It also relies on having a highly proactive and responsive IT team that developed most of its frontline platforms in-house, which led
By Andrea E. San Juan @andreasanjuan
THE free trade agreement (FTA) between the EU and Philippines, which is currently undergoing negotiations, will include a digital trade chapter, which could enable the setting up of digital infrastructure in the country, according to the EU Ambassador to the Philippines Massimo Santoro.
“Basically, previous FTAs do not have this digital chapter,” Santoro told reporters on the sidelines of Makati Business Club’s (MBC) Foreign Leader Series event held in Makati City on Tuesday.
The EU ambassador said other countries which the 27-member bloc already signed a free trade deal with do not have the digital trade chapter in the FTA.
Whereas for the Philippines, he said: “In a country which is an archipelagic country and where the infrastructure element is an important component, as I was mentioning before, they are where, for example, the infrastructure does not arrive yet, the digital [chapter] can play a fundamental role.”
Santoro further explained that this chapter becomes an “important enabler when it is about situations where the infrastructure is not there or when, for example, we
want to improve services, we want to improve access.”
As he deemed this Digital Trade chapter “fundamental,” he explained the importance of inserting this in the free trade deal: “The digital chapter is something that gained importance and speed most recently. So it is totally natural that it is not a chapter present in other FTAs because these FTAs were concluded before, in a moment where the digital was that not such a fundamental element.”
The EU ambassador told the forum organized by MBC that this is the unique chapter that the Philippines can enjoy in the FTA with EU compared to some of its neigh-
bor countries which have already existing free trade deal with the 27-member bloc, as this FTA with the Philippines will be “more updated.”
“Because, as we all know, the business and the economy evolves, there is one thing in the FTA that you mentioned is not there. We would like to have it here in the FTA with the Philippines which is still of course under negotiation,” added Santoro. The third round of negotiations for the free
and
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Limiting self-doubt and negativity
THE common workplace, whether in a traditional office, a remote setup, or a hybrid, often demands high productivity, constant adaptability and consistent performance. In such environments, it is easy for negativity and self-doubt to take root. These feelings can erode motivation, strain professional relationships, and impact overall mental health. Over time, self-doubt can become a lens through which we view all our work, making even our successes feel like flukes and our failures seem like proof of inadequacy. Fortunately, mindfulness offers a practical and sustainable approach for breaking this cycle and developing a more grounded mindset.
Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment intentionally and without judgment. While it is often associated with meditation, it does not require a formal practice or setting, and can be integrated into everyday moments like in meetings, emails, commutes, or even short breaks. What makes mindfulness so effective in dealing with workplace negativity and self-doubt is that it trains the mind to observe thoughts and feelings rather than immediately react to them. This ability to create a mental pause allows for better emotional regulation and clearer decision-making even under pressure.
By Eugenia Last
them. You begin to see your thoughts as temporary events in the mind rather than truths.
Consider this common workplace scenario: you present an idea in a meeting and it is met with silence or lukewarm responses. That brief moment can quickly become a flood of negative thoughts like “That was a stupid idea,” or “They must think I don’t know what I am doing.” Without mindfulness, these thoughts often go unchallenged. But by being mindful, you can recognize that you are having a negative reaction, observe the emotions that come with it and allow them to be present without feeding
One practical way to build this skill is through short mindfulness exercises during the workday. Simply sitting quietly for a minute and focusing on your breath, inhaling for a count of four and then exhaling for a count of six, can help calm the nerves and bring your attention back to the present. These micro-practices are especially useful after a stressful meeting, before delivering a presentation, or anytime you feel tense. They do not eliminate challenges, but they equip you to meet them with clarity and steadiness.
Mindful labeling is another powerful tool to deal with negativity and self-doubt. When self-criticism or anxiety arises, instead of resisting it or letting it carry you away, take a moment to label it: “This is selfdoubt,” or “This is frustration.” Labeling helps create a subtle but important distance between you and the
emotion. It shifts your mindset from “I am anxious” to “I’m experiencing anxiety.” This change in perspective gives you room to respond more skillfully and lessens its control on you.
You can also cultivate greater awareness throughout the day with a simple three-point check-in. Depending on your availability, identify three times during the day where you can pause and ask yourself three questions: What am I thinking right now? What am I feeling emotionally? What physical sensations do I notice? This practice can reveal patterns in how your mind and body respond to certain stressors. For instance, you may notice that tight deadlines trigger headaches and irritability, or that interactions with a particular team leave you feeling deflated. By recognizing these connections, you gain insight into what affects your well-being and
SEE “SELF-DOUBT,” B5
ACCLAIMED BUSINESS SPEAKER FRANCIS KONG SHARES GROWTH AND ACHIEVEMENT STRATEGIES
WELL-RESPECTED motivational speaker
Francis J. Kong, the president of training company Success Options Inc. and the director of Inspire Leadership Consultancy, shared his experiences and wisdom with the next generation of industry movers. Kong, one of the most sought-after business speakers in the country featured in various leadership conferences here and abroad, imparted practical tools and effective strategies for growth and achievement.
In his talk, Kong championed the importance of competence, people skills, and communicating with confidence. He advised the young audience to develop intellectual, fiscal, relational, emotional, and spiritual discipline.
“Read, read, read—there is not much difference between an illiterate and one who
does not read,” he stated. Kong highlighted the two types of learning—active and passive. He dwelt on the differences between knowledge, which is the accumulation of data; understanding, which is the processing of information; and wisdom, which is the right use or non-use of this information. The expert, likewise, encouraged the youth to build, develop, and increase their emotional intelligence by expanding and broadening their emotional vocabulary. His tip: Follow your heart but bring your brains along with you.
Mistakes, according to him, can either be willful negligence or can serve as a learning ground. “Do not participate in social media bashing and ranting,” he noted. “When you come across things that are certain to happen, you prepare,” he stated. “But when
you have to face the known unknown, you position. Mediocrity will be automated, excellence will be rewarded,” he reiterated.
Over 200 students attended the seminar, which was organized by the Vateliens in Progress (VIP), the home organization of the International Hospitality Management (IHM) Program of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB). The conference was produced under the guidance of Benilde IHM program chairman Juan Paolo Sumera, VIP faculty adviser Wilbert Ong, and VIP president Claire Jasmine Lim.
Present at the lecture were the institution’s chancellor Benhur Ong and School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Institution Management (SHRIM) dean Marie Paz Castro. The latter emphasized the importance of continuous learning and
personal development in the hospitality and business industries. The VIP team members who were instrumental in the event included Corin Alaan, Angela Alfonso, John Carlo Capuz, John Jason Ong, Samantha Jasmine Datan, Keane Antonio, Manvir Toor, and Jessica Chua.
Equipped with a strong entrepreneurial background in manufacturing and retail, Kong serves as an independent director for Primer Holdings Inc. and Mabuhay Vinyl Corp.
As a bestselling author, he has published over 24 books, to include The Early Bird Catches the Worm but the Second Mouse Gets the Cheese, Famealy Matters, Leadership That Matters, All That Matters, Life’s Work, and Being the Best You Can Ever Be, among many others.
TAURUS
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Let your ego lead the way in self-improvement. Up your game by keeping your image and appearance current and your body language approachable. You’ll connect with the movers and shakers who can offer insight and vision into new possibilities. Get together with an old friend or associate to gain insight into personal prospects. ★★★★★
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Look at what’s possible and make changes that encourage financial stability and help you incorporate what you enjoy doing most into a lucrative affair. A shift in your surroundings will feed your soul and imagination, giving rise to new and exciting possibilities. ★★
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Take pride in your work, and don’t be shy in showing off your talents, intelligence and kindness. Expand your plans to meet demands, but don’t go over budget. Rally others to pitch in and help, and pay attention to what’s unfolding at home and to meaningful relationships. ★★★★
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Guard against anyone interfering in your life, position and plans. Set high standards and adjust to changes as they occur. Protect against unsavory situations, arguments and injury. Change is favored, but integrity, peace and love will be necessary. ★★★
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): You know the rules, and you have the energy and the willpower to put your plans in motion. An innovative idea you can implement into your daily routine will help bring you closer to your dream. Make changes at home that add to your convenience and comfort. ★★★
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Keep tabs on your health and financial well-being. Money is available, but it will require time and effort to bring it to fruition. Home improvements that make it easier to complete your responsibilities and spend more time improving and upgrading your qualifications will benefit you. ★★★
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Keep your thoughts and plans to yourself. Someone will be happy to take over or interfere, given the opportunity. Spend more time on money management and using your imagination and resources to improve your work ethic and skills. ★★★★
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Refrain from sharing your plans until everything is in place. Your success depends on how you handle others and promote yourself. An emotional incident will catch you off guard, so stay calm and avoid being baited into a discussion that can make you look bad. Go about your business and implement your plans privately. ★★
BIRTHDAY BABY: You are sympathetic, generous and energetic. You are cooperative and witty.
PHOTO BY VITALY
The showbiz multiverse continues on Netflix Philippines’ YouTube channel with ‘Bida/B!da’
NETFLIX Philippines’ social series Bida/B!da continues on their YouTube channel, offering more casual conversations with a new set of beloved Filipino celebrities. The upcoming episodes will feature Gabbi Garcia, Maymay Entrata, Lovi Poe, Judy Ann Santos, Gladys Reyes, Marvin Agustin, Jolina Magdangal, Sam Milby, Jerald Napoles, JM De Guzman, and Ruru Madrid.
Watch as these talented stars from different genres and generations engage in unexpected and insightful discussions about their careers and personal journeys.
Catch the first episode this May 16, only on Netflix Philippines’ YouTube channel.
Three of the Philippines’ favorite leading ladies talk about navigating new paths in their careers, growing in their craft, and what it means to be a “cover girl” in the time of social media.
n Episode 5: Nagbabalik Tambalan—May
30. Starring: Marvin Agustin and Jolina Magdangal (Ex-Ex Lovers), Judy Ann Santos (Espantajo) and Gladys Reyes (And the Breadwinner Is...)
The most iconic teleserye duos are back. Judy Ann, Gladys, and MarJo look back on their career journeys from being teen stars, making a comeback, and exploring genres, even sharing their secret to success, whether it’s primetime, big screen, or streaming.
n Episode 6: Bida/Kontrabida—June 13. Starring: Sam Milby (Everything About My Wife), Jerald Napoles (Sampung Utos kay Josh), JM De Guzman (Guilty Pleasure), Ruru Madrid (Green Bones)
The best actors have the range, and sometimes range means pulling off a cunning, cool, complex role. In this episode, these sought-after actors discuss the challenges and payoffs of such roles, and playing against and according to type.
Self-doubt...
how to support yourself better.
Equally important is developing a habit of compassionate self-talk. Many professionals hold themselves to unrelentingly high standards. When mistakes happen, responding with self-compassion rather than criticism is key to long-term resilience. Ask yourself if you would speak this way to a colleague you respect. If the answer is no, revise your inner dialogue. Replace “I messed everything up” with “I had a rough moment, but I am learning from it.” Over time, this shift can change how you view your abilities and your value in the workplace.
For those in leadership roles, integrating mindfulness into your own routine can positively influence team culture. Leaders who model calm presence, emotional awareness, and thoughtful communication create environments where others feel safe to speak up, make mistakes, and grow. Small changes, like beginning a meeting with a 30-second pause or encouraging mindful breaks during highpressure days can normalize the practice and reduce collective stress.
Ultimately, letting go of negativity and self-doubt is not just about avoiding difficult emotions. It is about changing your relationship to them. Mindfulness teaches you to face challenges with openness and curiosity rather than fear and judgment. It builds the mental and emotional space needed to recognize your strengths, learn from your experiences, and move forward with clarity and confidence. Over time, mindfulness becomes not just a tool for coping but a foundation for thriving in your work and beyond. n
Show BusinessMirror
Meet David Corenswet, cinema’s new Superman
By Lindsey Bahr The Associated Press
N true Clark Kent form, the new Superman would like to correct the record.
David Corenswet gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly in 2019 where he said his “pie in the sky ambition” was to play Superman. At that point, the role was not on the market. And Corenswet, a Julliard graduate and Philadelphia native, was just making a name for himself in the industry, with plum breakout roles in two Ryan Murphy Netflix series: The Politician and Hollywood Tall, dark and, you know, handsome, people had told him that he looked like Superman for a long time. He did not, he told The Associated Press in a recent interview, think that he was going to get the chance to play him.
But a few years later he was actually cast to lead James Gunn’s Superman which will begin a new, hopefully high-flying, era for the DC universe of films when it hits theaters on July 11. And that once innocent quote took on a life of its own. Many headlines and stories misinterpreted the phrase and wrote that he said it was his dream role, as though he’d manifested it into existence.
“I said it was my pie in the sky ambition, which I meant to mean that there was no [expletive] way it was ever going to happen,” Corenswet, 31, said. “I sort of was thinking of it as, ‘Oh, who wouldn’t love to get to play an iconic role like that? Wouldn’t it be amazing and impossible if we lived in a universe where that could even be considered?’”
‘HE IS SUPERMAN’ RIGHT around the time when Gunn was starting to think about casting his new Superman movie, he decided to watch his friend Ti West’s movie Pearl. In that darkly comedic horror, Corenswet stood out to him as an interesting and charismatic presence. He played a projectionist at a local movie theater who catches Pearl’s attention (and, later, faces her wrath). West had nice things to say about him too.
“David was one of the very first auditions that I got,” Gunn said. “Instantly, it was a relief because he had a playful charm about him that was not evident in Pearl. He had a sense of humor. That made me go, ‘Ooh, this might be a really good match.’” That was just the beginning of the long casting process. Even Nicholas Hoult, who was ultimately cast as Lex Luthor, was up for the part. And though
it was “extensive,” Corenswet said it was one of the most “satisfying audition processes” he’s ever gone through—not because he booked the role, but because he felt he got the opportunity to show them what he had to offer. Gunn laughed that Corenswet actually has a lot of Superman in him.
“Superman is a square and David is a square,” Gunn said. “He listens to American Songbook. Like Dean Martin and Cole Porter. That’s what he listens to on his iPad. That’s weird. But oh, so Superman.”
When Gunn called him with the good news, the first person he told was his wife. The second was his sister, who couldn’t pick up the phone because she was on a golf course.
“She texted, ‘Is it possible that was a phone call with super good news?’” he said. “I said, ‘Yes. Super good news.’”
GROWING INTO THE SUIT
IT may be something of a Superman tradition to try on your predecessor’s costume during a screen test. Henry Cavill did it with Christopher Reeve’s, and Corenswet did it with Cavill’s, which he called a “marvel of engineering.” But the first time Corenswet put on his own Superman costume was not some magical, transportive moment. In fact, he said, it was “wonderfully mundane.” The suit was still in its beginning stages, not totally put together and even a little small, as he’d already started putting on weight for the role.
“I remember the feeling of kind of growing into the suit and the suit growing around me fitting by fitting,” Corenswet said. “We had such an amazing costume team and they built the suit around me over the course of many weeks and months and it started to feel just a little bit like home for me.”
The first time he felt the impact of it was through the eyes of other people. To him, it was old hat, but when he walked onto set the first time in the suit he noticed something different from the cast and crew.
“I saw their faces sort of light up and I went, ‘Wait a minute, these people aren’t that fond of me,’” he laughed. “That’s when it hits you.”
SUPERMAN, CLARK (AND LOIS)
THERE are almost three roles involved in playing Superman. There’s the person he is with his parents and the people he grew up with. There’s Clark Kent of the Daily Planet. And then there’s Superman.
“He’s a public facing character, he’s a symbol,” Corenswet said. “There’s a presentational element to
it, because he does want to present an image of calm and authority. While he doesn’t always feel that way, he always wants to make other people feel that way as Superman.”
To prepare for Clark Kent, Corenswet looked at the All-Star Superman comic and how Christopher Reeve changed his posture when Lois left the room, but he also drew inspiration for the voice and demeanor way outside of the canon: His brother-in-law, who is 6’8” and 270 pounds, but is the “quietest, most wonderful man.”
“That’s where I sort of took the spirit of Clark,” Corenswet said. “He’s this big presence, but he’s desperately trying to be as small as possible and as quiet as possible.”
Gunn has promised that the film is “a personal journey for Superman that’s entirely new.” He’s a character who is “pretty damn good, but flawed.” And anyone who has seen the trailer knows there will be romance with Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane—but there’s even a different spin on that.
“He’s in love with her,” Gunn said. “She’s the one that needs the convincing in the relationship. It’s not him. You really see where he needs her in his life.”
Corenswet said that in addition to the action and thrills, the movie also has a Preston Sturges quality to it with “longing romance and witty comedy.” Fitting for their reporter characters, His Girl Friday was also a big reference with “the rhythm, the patter and the feeling of two people in love who really are an equal match for the other.”
SUMMER CAMP COMES TO AN END
THE movie is the start of a new era for DC films, and will raise Corenswet’s profile immeasurably. He’s been in big movies before, including Twisters. But being Superman is different.
“The thing that it changed about my life immediately was that I had this amazing mission that I got to go on of playing the part and getting to be a piece of making this awesome film,” he said. “I have so many new friends now. James brings together such a familial cast and crew. And shooting the film is sort of like an extended summer camp.”
Adding to the summer camp vibes: On the last day they even gathered to watch a little blooper reel that Gunn had put together. But what will happen come release is not really something he can fathom at this point. “I expect some things will change when the film comes out,” he said. “But you know, one still has to wake up and eat breakfast.” n
ROBERT DE NIRO WILL RECEIVE AN HONORARY PALME D’OR IN CANNES. HERE’S HIS HISTORY WITH THE FESTIVAL
CANNES, France—Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, a culmination for the 81-year-old actor whose history with the French film festival stretches back half a century.
In 1976, De Niro starred in two films—Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900—that premiered in competition at Cannes. Taxi Driver was an immediate sensation, and went home with the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or.
Since then, De Niro has been a regular on the Croisette, returning with The King of Comedy in 1983, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America in 1984 and Roland Joffé’s The Mission in 1986. Joffé’s film also won the Palme, making De Niro the rare actor to star in two Palme d’Or winners.
Though De Niro helps run his own film festival back in New York, the Tribeca Festival, he has remained a mainstay in Cannes.
He presided over the jury in 2011 that selected Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life for the Palme. Most recently, he and Scorsese returned to premiere Killers of the Flower Moon in 2023.
“I have such close feelings for Festival de Cannes,” De Niro said when his honorary Palme d’Or was announced last month.
“Especially now when there’s so much in the world pulling us apart, Cannes brings us together— storytellers, filmmakers, fans and friends. It’s like coming home.” De Niro is to receive the award in the festival’s opening ceremony on May 13. AP
NICHOLAS HOULT (from left), David Corenswet and director James Gunn discuss a scene during the filming of the upcoming film Superman, which opens worldwide in July. AP
ROBERT DE NIRO (left) appears with French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, after receiving the French Medal of Art and Letters at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. AP
Metrobank Tops 2025 PDS Annual Awards
THE Philippine Dealing System (PDS) Annual Awards recognized anew Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank) for its exceptional performance, innovation, and leadership in the Philippine debt capital market – reinforcing the bank’s continued dominance in the industry.
This year, Metrobank secured top distinctions across six major categories, including the prestigious Cesar E.A. Virata Award for Best Securities House (Bank category), the highest honor conferred by the PDS Group to a bank for spurring the local fixed-income market.
Metrobank brought home the Cesar EA Virata award for the tenth time now, the most out of any bank – consistently demonstrating its excellence in dealing, brokering, and coverage of different sectors and market segments for fixed-income securities.
The Bank was also named the: Top Fixed Income Dealing Participant; Top Corporate Securities Market Maker; Top Dealing Participant for Corporate Securities; Top Fixed Income Cash Settlement Bank (3rd Place); and Top Fixed Income Brokering Participant (5th Place).
“I would like to take this award as an opportunity to thank our clients who have chosen Metrobank to be their partner.
This recognition further underscores our commitment to the securities market, that in good times and in bad, Metrobank will uphold the highest standards of excellence that we have been known for throughout the years,” said Fernand Antonio Tansingco, Metrobank Financial Markets Sector Head. Metrobank’s Financial Markets Sector has been proving year after year its expertise in securities trading and investment and wealth management as it continues to receive recognition from the government as well as local and international award-giving bodies. The bank itself has likewise earned awards through the years, establishing its strength, stability, and reliability. It was named the country’s strongest bank by the Asian Banker for the fourth consecutive year and earned the title the Most Recommended Retail Bank by the same publication. Most recently, it was crowned as the Best Bank for the Ultra High Net Worth for the third straight year by Euromoney.
PhilHealth, MMDA unveil mural along EDSA to celebrate public service, health protection
THIRTY years of protecting Filipinos’ health took center stage along EDSA’s southbound lane as the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), in partnership with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and Boysen Philippines unveiled a 300-meter mural titled “Payong ng Kapanatagan.”
“This artwork is more than just a painting on the wall. It is a tribute to the power of compassion and service, and a visual reminder that health is not only a personal responsibility, but a collective mission,” said MMDA Chairman Atty. Romando S. Artes.
The mural serves to illustrate PhilHealth’s commitment to provide every Filipino with peace of mind through adequate financial access to healthcare anytime and anywhere in the country, regardless of their station in life.
The “Payong” (umbrella) was chosen as the central symbol to represent PhilHealth’s role (in Universal Health Care). Like an umbrella shielding us from the sun or rain, PhilHealth provides protection to Filipinos against unexpected and often costly medical treatment.
“Ito po ang kahulugan ng PhilHealth sa buhay nating lahat – napoprotektahan
BINGOPLUS, the country’s most comprehensive digital entertainment platform, put forth their full support for Miss Universe Philippines 2025 by crowning the queens at the coronation night on May 2, 2025 which took place at Mall of Asia Arena.
As the lead presenter of the pageant, BingoPlus’ unwavering support was prominently displayed during the momentous event—from logo exposures to putting together an enjoyable booth and photo wall on the red carpet and providing an in-depth look at the ladies’ shoot with BingoPlus during every commercial break.
The competition’s judges included Jasper Vicencio, president of BingoPlus. Out of the 66 stunning candidates, 24 women were selected for the shortlist. Bulacan emerged as the winner of the BingoPlus fan-vote. Eusebio H. Tanco, chairman of DigiPlus Interactive Corp. (BingoPlus’ gaming provider), handed the award to Franchezca Mae Pacheco, who represents the progressive province.
A brief introduction of the top 24 candidates followed. Modeling Albert Andrada’s chic swimwear, they were serenaded by Filipino pop star and actor James Reid. Eventually, the delegates were reduced to 12, who graced the stage with their glamorous evening gowns. The ladies walked in elegant dresses while Marlo Mortel, a singer-songwriter, performed.
The competition continued as the top six were announced. Representatives from Sultan Kudarat, Siniloan Laguna, Muntinlupa, Taguig, Cebu City, and Quezon Province advanced and took center stage.
The Q&A segment of the pageant had the top six candidates answering timely questions. Their answers to the questions were relevant and demonstrated their beauty, confidence, quick-wittedness, and passion for their advocacies.
Chelsea Manalo, the winner of Miss Universe
tayo laban sa mabigat na gastusin tuwing tayo’y nagkakasakit, at nagkakaroon tayo ng agarang access sa serbisyong medikal sa oras ng ating pangangailangan,” said PhilHealth Acting President and CEO Dr. Edwin M. Mercado. “Gaya ng payong, ang PhilHealth ay laging kasama natin sa bawat hakbang ng ating buhay.”
THE Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has once again outperformed its non-life insurance premium target, marking its third straight year of exceeding goals and reinforcing its crucial role in protecting public assets nationwide.
For 2024, GSIS posted P10.5 billion in non-life insurance premiums, significantly surpassing its P8.9 billion target. This follows its strong performance in 2023, when it recorded P9.7 billion against a P6 billion target, and in 2022, with P6.84 billion production over a P6 billion goal.
initiative focuses on improving GSIS’s risk assessment models, refining its underwriting process, and promoting the importance of insuring public properties.
In recognition of government efforts to safeguard their assets, GSIS held the second Seal of Protection Awards in November 2024, honoring local government units and national agencies that have demonstrated exemplary commitment in securing their infrastructure through GSIS insurance.
Visible to thousands of daily commuters, the mural also stands as a reminder of our shared commitment and responsibility in ensuring that health care services remain within reach, especially of the poor, the marginalized, and vulnerable sectors of the society.
Philippines 2024 and Miss Universe Asia, took her last walk in a stunning lavender gown afterwards. Reflecting on her time as the reigning queen with gratitude, she became emotional.
Then, the host promptly declared the winner of Miss Universe Philippines this year. The crown was snatched by Ahtisa Manalo of Quezon Province. Certainly, a victory that was well-deserved.
In addition, BingoPlus held an exclusive interview right after the major win, where Manalo expressed her sincere joy and gratitude. Her life-long dream was finally realized after she won the title, but it took years of perseverance to achieve it, she said. She conveyed her gratitude to BingoPlus for the significant support they received during their journey.
“This dream took 17 years in the making. Sometimes, it’s not about the length of it, it’s not about how many times you fall, it’s about how many times you stand up. Thank you so much for the support. really felt the love and support in the arena. And I hope you continue to support me as I represent the Philippines in Thailand this coming November.” Manalo expressed.
On the other hand, Pacheco from Bulacan emphasized her happiness and excitement to be named Miss BingoPlus Universe 2025. She shared how she is looking forward to working with the brand and aligning her advocacy interests.
“To my BingoPlus family, and to my family and my friends, who helped me to get a spot in the Top 25, I’m very grateful for all of you. Because I couldn’t have reached this place without all of you. Thank you so much and let’s continue to support BingoPlus.” Pacheco said.
Thus, Manalo is set to represent the Philippines on the global stage in Thailand in November. BingoPlus, along with millions of Filipinos, will be supporting you, our Miss Universe Philippines 2025!
For more details, members may call PhilHealth’s 24/7 touch points at (02) 866225-88 or at mobile numbers (Smart) 0998857-2957, 0968-865-4670, (Globe) 09171275987 or 0917-1109812.
NUSTAR Resort Cebu is celebrating its third anniversary with a grand gala night, a monthlong array of exclusive offerings, and the launch of its much awaited NUSTAR Hotel — a tribute to three exceptional years of unparalleled hospitality, luxury, and entertainment.
Being a pioneer leisure destination in Visayas and Mindanao, NUSTAR takes pride in its significant contribution to the growth of tourism in Cebu and its everevolving retail and hospitality landscape. The highlight of the anniversary celebration is the much-anticipated opening of NUSTAR Hotel – the first ultra-luxury hotel in Cebu.
“As we mark NUSTAR Resort Cebu’s third anniversary, we proudly uphold our status as the first and only premier integrated resort in the Visayas and Mindanao, setting the gold standard for luxury and innovation,” said Sean Knights, the visionary new COO leading NUSTAR into its “NU: era of excellence. “The unveiling of the NUSTAR Hotel promises to be the pinnacle of hospitality, offering supreme ambience, service excellence and guest experience. Guests can also look forward to the opening of our Skydeck and Leisure Park within the year, exciting new attractions that will further elevate the NUSTAR experience.”
On May 23, 2025 another NUSTAR signature will be unveiled to the public. “A Prelude to Beloved Celebrations” is the prequel of Fili Hotel’s wedding fair which showcases an elevated level of standard for Ting Hun celebrations,
“These achievements reflect the growing trust of government agencies in GSIS as a reliable partner in risk management,” said GSIS President and General Manager Wick Veloso. “Our insurance programs are not just financial safeguards—they are strategic tools that enable agencies to recover faster from calamities and continue public service with minimal disruption.”
To further enhance its capabilities, GSIS is collaborating with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through a Technical Cooperation Project (TCP). The
As climate risks and other unforeseen events continue to threaten public infrastructure, GSIS vows to expand the reach of its insurance coverage, support post-disaster recovery efforts, and strengthen partnerships with national and local government agencies.
As an added layer of protection for cities, GSIS now offers Parametric Insurance in addition to traditional indemnity insurance coverage. This type of insurance allows for the quick release of funds that cities can use for disaster recovery.
“We urge more agencies to insure their properties, with GSIS. Preparedness is no longer optional—it’s essential,” Veloso added.
BingoPlus, Miss Universe Philippines crown 2025 queens
Editor: Tet Andolong
30 years of excellence in innovation and design
By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes @brownindio
INTEGRATED design and technology firm Aidea Inc recently achieved a milestone when it celebrated its 30th anniversary. To make the celebration more meaningful, the company decided to put a scholarship program for 30 deserving students. Previously, Aidea has also produced 50 scholars.
“We decided to put a thought of scholarship that would be a lifechanger to the beneficiaries,” said Aidea founder, president and chief executive officer Abelardo “Jojo” Tolentino Jr. Tolentino says the program will be expanded this year by finding scholars from schools outside Metro Manila. “Aidea will be searching for qualified applicants in state universities and colleges around the country,” s aid Tolentino.
The company has established a
sterling reputation here and abroad designing world-class and sustainable buildings. These include the M enarco Tower in Bonifacio Global City, Abaca Resort in Mactan, P hilamlfe Center in Cebu in the Philippines. Overseas projects include P rocter and Gamble head offices in Geneva, Madrid, Paris and Rome; Regus offices in over 50 countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Further, Aidea achieved a milestone as the company was named a mong the world’s most influential
architecture firms in this year’s World Architecture 100 rankings.
Integrating sustainability
THE University of Santo Tomas architecture graduate points out that s ustainability is integrated into every project as it is a fundamental a spect of good design, whether or not certification is required by the client. He adds that sustainability and wellness are interconnected priorities. “Aidea’s approach extends beyond environmental responsibility to include occupant health and w ell-being. Our designs emphasize natural light, indoor air quality, thermal comfort, and biophilic elements t o create healthier, more productive spaces,”Tolentino explained.
Aidea also gives importance to efficiency-driven design which prioritizes energy efficiency, ease of m aintenance, and lifecycle durability to reduce long-term resource c onsumption.
The company is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) as it enhances efficiency, precision, and sustainability across all phases of design and construction. In con -
PHirst completes 15,000 units and turns over 10,000 homes to Filipino first-home buyers
CENTURY Properties Group’s first-home brand, PHirst, has reported significant milestones that demonstrate its robust operational capabilities and highlight its steadfast action to make ownership more accessible to Filipinos, while continuing to build vibrant, sustainable and impactful communities that last.
Fast and reliable development of quality homes
AS of April 2025, PHirst has successfully completed the construction of around 15,000 units across its various projects nationwide. The rapid development and building pace can be attributed to a highly competent PHirst Technical Operations Division working hand in hand with a pool of vendors, suppliers, and contractors. PHirst has also consistently espoused the use of building systems and other technology, leading to a strong and collaborative partnership with Megawide Construction Corp. in support of its business unit, namely, Precast and Construction Solution. Recently, PHirst has further reinforced this direction with the formation of its in-house Pre-Cast and Cast-in-Place Divisions, branded as ‘PHirst-Build’. These steps all aim at achieving timely delivery of high-quality properties to its valued customers.
To date, PHirst-Build covers various projects in Batangas, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, and Bacolod, and will continue its expansion into more locations nationwide as the company responds to the growing demand for housing with a variety of sizes and design options.
Fully finished homes for immediate comfort
FOLLOWING its construction milestone, by mid-2025 PHirst is looking
into successfully handing over more than 10,000 homes to first-time homeowners. Each unit comes fully finished with tiled flooring, partitions, bathroom and kitchen fixtures, a gate, and a fence. Basic utilities like electricity and water are also available, allowing homeowners to settle in right away upon turnover, without the need for further renovations. Moreover, all house models come with suggested expansion options to suit various family sizes. PHirst aims to serve homeowners’ comfort and convenience—from moving in to maintenance of their homes. With this goal in mind, PHirst established its own water services management group that will be responsible for efficiently operating water facilities and infrastructures in PHirst communities. The core objective is to guarantee reliable and quality water supply services to all households. PHirst’s water services management team, branded as PH20, started operations in four PHirst subdivisions in Batulao, Batangas; PHirst Sights Bay, Laguna; PHirst Park Homes Tayabas, Quezon; and PHirst Park Homes Balanga, Bataan. Ricky M. Celis, President of PHirst, highlighted the importance of these developments to the company’s thrust to Filipino families. “Here at PHirst, we now see our commitment
to deliver quality homes to hardworking Filipino families and first-time homeowners coming to fruition. Through our in-house construction capabilities and water services management group, we not only ensure that we provide quality homes but also enable our residents to experience being part of thriving communities and elevated living standards.”
The PHirst core
CURRENTLY, PHirst operates 27 active projects across Luzon and Visayas, with developments in key locations in Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Quezon Province, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, and Bacolod City. Carrying its brand pillars— Complete Homes, Conceptive Amenities, Connected Essentials, and Convenient Buying Experience—PHirst has earned a reputation for creating well-planned neighborhoods that cater to modern Filipino lifestyles. With each development, PHirst proves its commitment to building not just homes, but meaningful places where families can Dwell, Create and Thrive.
PHirst is a subsidiary and the first-home business segment of Century Properties Group. For more information on PHirst’s developments and upcoming projects, visit www. century-phirst.com.
ceptual design, Tolentino said AI has ge nerative design tools that help explore multiple design solutions rapidly, optimizing spatial layouts and e nvironmental performance.
In virtual design and construction (VDC), AI-driven simulations analyze building performance, predict e nergy consumption, and optimize material usage.
Tolentino says AI contributes a lot in smart building solutions; it has IoT sensors, automation systems, and predictive maintenance to ensure operational efficiency.
“Aidea leverages AI to enhance human expertise, accelerating deci -
sion-making without compromising c reativity. Aidea actively explores emerging AI applications to push the boundaries of design excellence,” Tolentino points out.
In 2025, Aidea will strengthen their end-to-end services by expanding its role across the entire building l ifecycle, from conceptualization to operations, through its subsidiaries—Aidea Technologies, Epiito and A+ Design Group.
Not resting on its laurels
TOLENTINO said Aidea will push deeper the use of AI, automation and data-driven methodologies to enhance efficiency, precision, and sustainability.
As part of aligning with the global trends in urban trends and sustainable solutions, Aidea will be expanding its smart cities and sustainable solutions.“We will be pushing b oundaries in architectural expression exploring innovative materials, c onstruction methods, and spatial experiences,” Tolentino explained.
Aidea will also be pursuing holistic building lifecycle integration by s trengthening its subsidiaries to pro -
vide seamless design, construction, a nd operational solutions under one ecosystem. Further, Tolentino says the company is going to enhance its virtual construction design (VDC)driven workflows to optimize coordination across disciplines and geographies. “We will be expanding our re ach toward intelligent ecosystems to contribute to interconnected urban environments that promote efficiency, wellness, and sustainability a t a citywide scale,” said Tolentino. With projects in over 60 countries, Aidea will continue to pursue m ilestones to shape the built environment worldwide. This would be d one by expanding strategic partnerships and strengthening collaborations with global clients and i ndustry leaders.
“We will be positioning Aidea at the forefront of end-to-end building lifecycle and technology-driven s olutions. It will also be focusing on sustainable growth. While Aidea remains open to overseas expansion, the priority is on meaningful, l ong-term engagements rather than sheer market presence,” Tolentino emphasized.
Filinvest’s CDM emerges as Cebu’s Next Business and Lifestyle Landmark
AS the Filinvest Group marks its 70th year of enabling Filipino dreams, parent company, Filinvest Development Corporation, continues to expand its footprint across the country through diverse investments in key industries such as banking, real estate, power, hospitality, sugar, and infrastructure.
Its real estate business, in particular, remains committed to developing largescale, future-ready townships that drive regional growth and economic activity. From the thriving business district that is Filinvest City in Alabang, to the carefree Filinvest Mimosa Plus in Clark, and now the vibrant CDM (City di Mare) in Cebu’s South Road Properties (SRP), Filinvest’s real estate investments reflect its commitment to shaping sustainable communities where business, lifestyle, and innovation converge.
A thriving hub for business, investment, and urban growth
LOCATED in the Queen City of the South, Cebu City, CDM thrives in a highly accessible area with well-developed infrastructure and a growing roster of top-tier establishments—offering an environment where businesses can flourish, and residents can enjoy a seamless urban lifestyle.
“CDM opens new opportunities for economic growth with its commercial lot offering, attracting further investments into the new Cebu City,” said Catherine Ilagan, President and CEO of Filinvest Alabang, Inc., the Filinvest Group’s township and luxury residential arm. “By creating spaces where enterprises can build and communities can thrive, we are driving sustainable progress and laying the foundation for this new business district,” she added.
As Cebu’s economic pulse beats stronger, CDM stands at the center of it all, setting the pace for the city’s next era of growth.
With the last prime commercial spaces up for grabs, the future of business and modern living in Cebu starts here.
It is at the forefront of attracting top-tier brands, enhancing accessibility, and intro -
ducing dynamic developments that create long-term value for investors, businesses, and the community.
Anchoring this momentum are the latest additions to CDM’s growing commercial landscape. Major brands such as Jollibee, Chowking, Bo’s Coffee, and Caltex have chosen to establish their presence in the township—a testament to its strategic location and increasing economic activity.
A pedestrian bridgeway linking CDM to Il Corso Filinvest Malls is underway, ensuring seamless access to retail and dining options.
Complementing CDM’s commercial growth are its premier residential enclaves, Sanremo Oasis and Amalfi, developed by Filinvest Land, Inc. These mid-rise condominium communities offer a serene and wellconnected lifestyle within the township.
Beyond commerce, CDM is transforming into an active sports and leisure destination.
The launch of Future Golf’s driving range, TGR Football Academy, and a community skate park underscores the township’s commitment to providing world-class recreational spaces that cater to Cebu’s growing demand for wellness and sports facilities.
“Our townships are designed with purpose—integrating business, lifestyle, and green spaces to create environments where people and progress can coexist,” said Ilagan. “At CDM, we are not just developing land—we are creating a future-ready com -
munity for the next generation of Cebuanos.”
Secure your place in Cebu’s next prime business district AS Cebu’s SRP emerges as the city’s next commercial powerhouse, CDM presents a rare opportunity for investors to own a stake in one of the most strategic and future-ready locations in the region. With only eight hectares of prime commercial land remaining, CDM offers just 25 exclusive commercial lots—each positioned to maximize
PHIRST house model CALISTA
AIDEA founder, president and CEO Abelardo Tolentino, Jr
EXTERIOR perspective of the Museum Building, BSP Complex,New Clark City
EXTERIOR perspective of the Office Building
Tennis-playing Pope Leo avoiding clash with Sinner Suarez rues missed opportunity after controversial stoppage
ROME—Jannik Sinner says it’s “a good thing for us tennis players” that the new pope likes to play the sport. Even if Leo XIV jokingly said he wouldn’t want to arrange a game with the top-ranked player—ostensibly because of his name.
D uring a meeting between the new American pope and international media on Monday, journalists offered to play doubles, or to organize a charity match. Leo seemed game “but we can’t invite Sinner,” he said in an apparent reference to the English meaning of Sinner’s last name.
Sinner was asked in his post-match news conference about the pope’s comment following his 6-4, 6-2 victory over Dutch qualifier Jesper De Jong at the Italian Open, which is being played just up the Tiber River from the Vatican. Sinner took his time to respond and blushed as he said, “Why do you have to make things difficult for me?”
T hen Sinner added: “Obviously I heard that he played as a kid. I think it’s a good thing for us tennis players to have a pope who likes
PILIPINAS Golf Tournaments
Inc. (PGTI) has canceled the Negros Occidental and Bacolod legs of the 2025 International Container Terminal Services Inc. Junior Philippine Golf Tour Championship following eruption of Mt. Kanlaon. “ The 2025 ICTSI Negros Occidental and Bacolod Junior PGT Championships have been cancelled due to the recent Mt. Kanlaon eruption,” PGTI said in an official statement. We understand the
JONATHAN NG of Creamline and Choco Mucho will be honored as Executive of the Year in the first-ever Pilipinas Live PVL Press Corps Awards Night on May 28 at the Novotel Manila Araneta City in Quezon City. V ice chairman and chief executive officer of the Republic Biscuit Corporation (Rebisco) Group of Food Companies, Ng helped pioneer the PVL’s breakthrough grand slam winner last year with the Creamline Cool Smashers.
Man
this sport that we’re playing.” A nd what about a possible rallying session with Leo?
“For the future we’ll see,” Sinner said. “Who knows.”
Sinner reaches Round of 16 JANNIK SINNER is still regaining his focus on the tennis court after his threemonth doping ban.
The top-ranked player overcame a brief lapse during the first set of a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Dutch qualifier Jesper De Jong in his second match back on tour at the Italian Open on Monday.
Sinner jumped out to a 4-1 lead but then lost his serve twice as the 93rdranked De Jong evened the first set at 4-4. T here were poor drop shots, an inopportune double-fault and other errors from Sinner. But the Italian regained control in front of his home crowd with his powerful groundstrokes and big serve and extended his winning streak to 23 matches, dating back to October.
“I felt like I started the match very well and then I had a big drop,” Sinner said. “I tried to understand what was
going on. Then fortunately I broke him on 4-all again, which then gave me the confidence to continue.”
Sinner is into the last 16 of his first tournament since he won his third Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January.
In February, Sinner agreed to the three-month ban in a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency that raised some questions, since it conveniently allowed him not to miss any Grand Slams and come back at his home tournament.
The Italian Open is the last big warmup before the French Open starts on May 25.
Just like in his opening win over Mariano Navone on Saturday, the fans at the Foro Italico were fully behind Sinner—Italy’s first No. 1.
Yelling “Vai Jannik” (“Go Jannik”) and singing his name, the crowd provided encouragement whenever Sinner needed it.
“It’s good to have him back,” 12thranked Tommy Paul said of Sinner after beating Tomas Machac 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-4. “He’s such a big figure in the sport. He
kind of sets the bar right now.” The last Italian man to win the Rome title was Adriano Panatta in 1976. Sinner led De Jong 22-16 in winners and had fewer unforced errors than his opponent, 16-25—after trailing in that category against Navone. S inner also served better, producing four aces.
Sinner will next face 17th-seeded Francisco Cerundolo, who beat Austrian qualifier Sebastian Ofner 6-2, 6-4. Cerundolo is coming off a run to the Madrid Open semifinals and beat Nicolas Jarry—last year’s Rome finalist—in straight sets in the opening round.
“L ast time I played here, I lost against him here on this court,” Sinner said, referring to a three-set loss to Cerundolo in the round of 16 two years ago. “It’s going to be tough. For sure I have to raise my level if I want to play even.… I’m trying to understand where my game is so it’s going to be a good challenge, good test for me.” AP
By Josef T. Ramos
LYMPIAN
OSu arez’s left straight
disappointment this may cause for everyone who has been preparing for these events. However, the safety of all involved remains our top priority,” it added. A ccording to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), Mt. Kanlaon erupted at 2:55 a.m. on Tuesday, releasing a thick gray plume that rose approximately three kilometers above the crater. A shfall was reported in several areas of Negros Occidental, including La Carlota: Barangay Cubay, San
Ng earned 12.8 points from 9.6 media votes and 3.2 team votes, cast by head coaches and captains from the 12 participating squads. Petro Gazz owner Ricky Villavicencio, who saw the Angels’ rise to their first-ever All-Filipino Conference title in April, placed second with 5.8 total points while Akari’s Christopher Tiu, whose Chargers entered the podium with a runner-up finish in the Reinforced and bronze medal in the AFC, had 4.4 points.
masquerading as a woman
Miguel, Yubo, and Ara-al, Bago City: Barangay Ilijan and Binubuhan, La Castellana: Barangay Biak-na-Bato, Sag-ang, and Masalanao.
Rumbling from the eruption was also heard in Brgy. Pula, Canlaon City, Negros Oriental, and parts of La Castellana, Negros Occidental.
T he Negros Occidental leg, originally scheduled for May 14 to 16, was part of the JPGT VisayasMindanao series. It was to be followed by the Bacolod Golf and Country Club event in Binitin, Murcia, from May 19 to 21.
run to the Rio Olympics. Suarez also won three Southeast Asian Games gold medals and 2014 Asian Games silver medal.”
MThis stunning development sent shock waves to the sporting world, forcing the England Football Association (FA) to change its rules that had allowed transgender athletes to play on women’s soccer if they had reduced their testosterone levels—a move mimicked by the Scottish Football Federation.
T he UK order also defined a woman as someone born “biologically female.” The Equality and Human Rights Commission followed suit by saying that transgender women would be excluded from women’s toilets, hospital wards and sports teams.
B efore this, American President Donald Trump has signed an executive order prohibiting participation of transgender athletes in sports and, in AP’s (Associated Press) words, “to use a rigid definition of the sexes, rather than gender, for federal government
“Imagine fighting three rounds in an amateur fight. So, losing a round is not good at all, and you must be very disciplined everyday in your weight class,” Suarez explained. “In
it,” Suarez (18-1
Navarrete, and I
with
knockouts) said. He added that he would accept whatever the
of the WBO and California
Commission regarding the
protest filed by businessman Chavit Singson after his fight with Navarrete in San Diego, California last week. Suarez, who will return to Manila on Friday, said he is not after the purse in his first world title fight.
“I am not after to any amount, but I am only after for the win, for the crown or world championship,” said Suarez, who got his biggest purse ever of $150,000 for the fight against Navarrete.
becomes three-time MVP
HICAELA BELEN is poised to become a threetime University Athletic Association of the Philippines Most Valuable Player.
The graduating outside hitter will be awarded the Season 87 Women’s Volleyball Tournament MVP title before the second match of the best-of-three finals between National University and La Salle on Wednesday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Belen amassed 96.226 statistical points (SP), 22 more than her closest pursuer, Adamson University’s Shaina Nitura, who bags the Rookie of the Year award with 74.259 SP.
Rookie MVP in Season 84, Belen finished the elimination round this year as the most efficient attacker with a 37.76 percent success rate, with the fourthhighest total score with 246 points.
Belen was also top the service category with 30 total aces, averaging 0.57 per set. Defense remained part of her strength as she placed fifth in digging (2.79 per set) and third in reception (44.44 percent efficiency).
Nitura shattered several records, including the highest scoring season across all divisions with 371 points.
TThe 20-year-old Lady Falcon was sixth in aces with 0.24 per set, eighth in blocking with 0.46 per frame, and ninth in spiking with a 34.65 percent success rate. Belen will also earn her third Best Outside Spiker award alongside La Salle’s Angel Canino, who will collect her second. The fourth-year Lady Bulldog dominated with 381 ranking points (RP), while Canino followed with 250 RP—just five ahead of Nitura’s 245 RP. C anino, the Season 85 MVP, ranked second in scoring with 264 points while placing fourth in spiking (35.78 percent success rate), ninth in blocking (0.45 per set), and seventh in reception (41.64 efficiency).
Meanwhile, the Best Middle Blocker honors will remain with La Salle and the University of the Philippines. After three years of Thea Gagate holding the title, Amie Provido will carry the torch for the Lady Spikers with 179 RP in the closely contested race, while Fighting Maroon Niña Ytang will secure her third straight plum with 166 RP. Provido and Ytang ranked second and third in blocking, respectively, with 30 total blocks apiece and averages of 0.55 and 0.54 per set.
HE future of Philippine taekwondo takes center stage when they showcase their stuff in the annual SMART/MVPSF National New Face of the Year Championships on May 17 and 18 at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila. The Philippine Taekwondo Association is expecting another banner field in the two-day event designed for Kyorugi (free sparring) practitioners— all dreaming to be part of the national team in the near future. All affiliated chapters and branches, including those in the military service, across the country are expected to field their top bets in the event featuring competitions in senior, junior cadet, grade school and toddler classes for both male and female. Each category has novice and advanced divisions. The tournament is backed by the Philippine Olympic Committee, Milo and the Philippine Sports Commission.
purposes.” Trump’s order is being challenged in court.
Basically, a transgender is someone deciding to change his biological gender, as in from boy to girl and vice versa.
About 20 transgender women have been playing in English grassroots games this season, AP reported.
“The people I know that are talking about this are saying: ‘Well, that’s it for football for me,’” said Natalie Washington, a member of the group Football v Transphobia. “Most people clearly don’t feel that they can go and play in the men’s game for reasons of safety, for reasons of comfort.”
Fi ona McAnena of Sex Matters said the decision was long overdue.
“The FA has had ample evidence of the harms to women and girls caused by its nonsensical policy of letting men who identify as women play in women’s teams,” McAnena said. “The requirement to lower their testosterone tells you that everyone knew they were not women.”
That hit the nail right on its head.
A s a father, I wouldn’t want my daughter to play football
against a man masquerading as a woman. That’d be a tacit approval allowing my child to be manhandled by a male monster. Cold-bloodedly criminal.
THAT’S IT The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics yesterday, 121-113, for a 3-1 lead in the
BELLA BELEN adds to MVP titles won in Seasons 84 and 86.
