SM’S LARGEST MALL-INITIATED COASTAL CLEANUP SURPASSES MILESTONE WITH ALMOST 55,000 VOLUNTEERS NATIONWIDE Close to 55,000 industry and employee volunteers heeded the call for a Waste Free Future across 32 SM malls nationwide, clearing more than 224, 000 kg of waste in under three hours. For this year’s International Coastal Cleanup, SM Corporate Social Responsibility arm, SM Cares organized the country’s largest mall-initiated cleanup drive with the goal of diverting waste from oceans, rivers, lakes, and waterways. Through the spirit of Bayanihan, and guided by the SM Green Movement steady progress was made toward a greener, sustainable future.
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Monday, September 21, 2026 Vol. 21 No. 342
P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 18 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
Japan Inc. to Asean: Let’s work together vs disruption
By Andrea E. San Juan
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HE Philippines’s persistent trade-in-goods deficit and net outflows from foreign portfolio investments widened the country’s balance of payments’ (BOP) eightmonth deficit to a level that exceeded the $5.66-billion gap for the entire 2025. Latest data from the BSP showed the Philippines’s balance of payments (BOP), the country’s economic transactions with the rest of the world, registered a $5.94-billion deficit in the January to August 2026 period, exceeding for the second time this year the end-2025 figure of $5.66 billion deficit. This comes after the country registered a $596 million BOP deficit just for August 2026, a reversal of the $359-million surplus in August 2025.
By Malou Talosig-Bartolome
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“The year-to-date BOP position reflected the continued trade-ingoods deficit and net outflows from foreign portfolio investments,” the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said in a statement. However, the $596-million shortfall in August was narrower than the $1.47- billion deficit seen in July or in the previous month.
Culprits behind the shortfall
MICHAEL L. RICAFORT, chief economist at Rizal Commercial See “BOP,” A2
GOVT ‘OPEN’ TO OTHER FORMS OF WEALTH TAX, SAYS DOF EXEC By Reine Juvierre S. Alberto
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HE Department of Finance (DOF) is leaving the door ajar for other wealth tax recommendations, beyond those already proposed under its Progress Bill, to scour for more sources of revenue. Stepping out of a plenary deliberation at the House of Representatives last week, Finance Undersecretary Karlo Fermin S. Adriano told reporters that the DOF is open to hearing other wealth tax proposals as it conducts various stakeholder engagements to solicit inputs. “If they can think of any other
wealth tax that we can consider, why not?” Adriano said. As of the moment, the DOF has put forward raising the non-essential goods tax to 25 percent from 20 percent. (See: https://businessmirror.com. ph/2026/09/02/mvuc-ratehike-wider-excise-tax-scopeeyed/). Private aircraft, including planes, jets and helicopters, as well as recreational vessels such as jet skis, speedboats, sailboats and motorboats, are also being eyed for inclusion among taxable non-essential goods. See “Tax,” A2
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PHL PRODUCTS, CEBU CHARM HEADLINE CHINA-ASEAN EXPO The Philippines takes center stage as “Country of Honor” at the
23rd China-Asean Expo (Caexpo) in Nanning, China, with 313 participants from 73 enterprises showcasing Filipino products, tourism and services from September 17 to 21. Cebu is also featured as this year’s “Province of Charm,” with a dedicated pavilion highlighting Cebu-owned businesses, resorts, local products and cultural performances. Organizers and tourism officials said the expo offers opportunities to boost the visibility and recall of Cebu products and services, attract Chinese investment and tourism, and explore the province’s growing capacity to host major international events through new facilities such as Mactan Expo and SMX Arena. Established in 2004, Caexpo brings together businesses from China and Asean to promote trade, investment and economic partnerships. Inset photo: DTI Secretary Cristina Aldeguer Roque, in remarks at the opening ceremony, highlighted the event’s role in strengthening Asean-China cooperation in trade, investment and people-to-people ties. VON ZYRON ALIMORONG
APANESE companies operating across Southeast Asia are urging Asean to modernize its trade pact with Japan, digitalize customs procedures and harmonize rules on artificial intelligence and cross-border energy trading, warning that an era of “permanent disruption” is eroding business predictability in the region. In a policy paper submitted to Asean SecretaryGeneral Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, the Federation of Japanese Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Asean (FJCCIA) said intensifying US-China competition, supply-chain fragmentation, Middle East-related logistics disruptions, and protectionist trade measures are testing Asean’s competitiveness. “The global economy has entered an era of ‘Permanent Disruption,’” the FJCCIA said in its proposal, noting that “the rise of protectionism and opaque non-tariff measures [NTMs] is significantly reducing investment predictability for companies.” The recommendations, titled Deepening the Asean-Japan Co-creation Partnership for the Future, were presented during the 18th Dialogue between the Asean secretary-general and the FJCCIA in Pasay City. The business group represents 7,420 member companies across the region. The proposals were based on a survey conducted from July 2 to 24 among 1,041 Japanese companies operating in Asean. The survey found that 77 percent are engaged in cross-border production, trade or interbase collaboration, while 48 percent said the strategic importance of their Asean operations had increased compared with five years ago. More than half, or 52 percent, are expanding or considering expanding investments in the region. See “Japan,” A2
Cebu charms 23rd Caexpo in China By Von Zyron Alimorong
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ANNING, China—The Philippines is getting international spotlight as it returns as “Country of Honor” for the 23rd China-Asean Expo (Caexpo) in Nanning, where 313 participants from 73 enterprises will be showcasing local products, tourism and services from September 17 to 21. This is the second time that the country carried this title since 2013, providing a boost in visibility and interest from both potential internationalbuyers and investors toward the Philippine market. DTI Secretary Cristina Aldegeur Roque was among the valued guests of the event. Speaking at the opening ceremony, she said exchanges in the event “reaffirm our shared commitment to strengthening Asean-China
cooperation to trade, investment, and peopleto-people ties.” The province of Cebu is also receiving special attention as this year’s “Province of Charm,” landing with its own pavilion and opening the event with a festival-inspired performance from the region’s dance troupe at the Nanning International Convention and Exhibition Center in the Guangxi region of China. Caexpo’s previous iterations tended to focus more on trade and investments, but, according to Dr. Gelena Asis-Dimpas, OIC regional director for the Department of Tourism Central Visayas (DOT-7), this year’s expo features not only the tangible products, but pays a “special attention” to tourism as well. “It’s a good opportunity for a lot of our stakeholders in the region to be visible at this Caexpo that has a very good reach for the
China-Asean market. It’s an opportune time to invite them to Cebu. [Because] when there’s investment, there’s a two-way exchange between one country to another country. That’s why we have to seize the opportunity to be around, and we are very thankful for the governor to make sure that tourism is a main feature of this leg,” she said in an exclusive interview with the BusinessMirror. Preparations for the event were already underway since the first quarter of 2026, and runs under the banner of “PARTNERPhilippines.” Though a lot of businesses wanted to join, Rowena Montesillo, Cebu’s provincial tourism officer, said that government sponsorship limits the number of products and services featured to only 10. “They will feature the province of Cebu; we will be called the Province of Charm. So,
we were representing the Philippines. That is why we have the pavilion. Preparations were long because it’s another country. We need to prepare our commodities—not only tourism sites, but also our products. It took a while for us to come up with what is best to present here in China,” she said in an exclusive interview with the BusinessMirror. In selecting what to feature in the special pavilion reserved for the province, Montesillo said their main priority were the local businesses. “We have to decide because there are only 10 [businesses and services] to be selected. For services, we invite those who are really Cebuowned. There’s plantation bay, which is owned by a Cebuano. Kandaya, a resort located in the northern part of Cebu, which is owned by a See “Caexpo,” A2
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 62.7850 n JAPAN 0.4026 n UK 83.8996 n HK 8.0026 n CHINA 9.3625 n SINGAPORE 49.2354 n AUSTRALIA 44.6276 n EU 72.0897 n KOREA 0.0455 n SAUDI ARABIA 16.7190 Source: BSP (September 18, 2026)
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BusinessMirror
A2 Monday, September 21, 2026
Tax…
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The DOF likewise wants to add a new tier in the existing excise tax rates on automobiles by imposing a 75-percent tax rate on vehicles with a net importer’s/manufacturer’s price of P8 million and above. These propositions are part of the DOF’s Promoting Growth, Revenue, and Equity towards SocioEconomic Sustainability (Progress) Bill, which seeks to provide tax relief while strengthening the government’s revenue capacity. As for the stakeholders’ proposal of wealth taxes, Adriano said the DOF’s main criterion is whether the tax can actually be implemented. The finance department has considered expanding the list of non-essential goods to be taxed and previously thought of imposing taxes on luxury watches, designer bags and paintings. The DOF has yet to determine the revenue impact of its proposal to increase excise taxes on non-essential goods and automobiles. Another form of a wealth tax suggested by the DOF is a 15-percent Global Minimum Tax on large multinational enterprise groups to ensure that the Philippines collects its fair share of taxes on income earned in the country. This measure is estimated to yield an average of P24.4 billion in revenues annually, according to the DOF. In the coming weeks, the DOF will bring consultations to different parts of the country to engage with stakeholders and ensure that various opinions are incorporated into the policy-making process. The inputs gathered from the nationwide consultations will be consolidated and considered in refining the Progress Bill. “We’re open naman, that’s why we’re doing all this stakeholder engagement to get all comments, and to be able to consider all the options,” Adriano said. The proposed taxes under the Progress Bill, including higher excise taxes on e-cigarettes, sweetened beverages and alcohol, are seen to raise P129.68 billion on average. This will offset foregone revenues from the DOF’s plan of increasing the annual personal income tax exemption threshold from P250,000 to P350,000, as well as exempting micro and small enterprises from the minimum corporate income tax.
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Roque to Asean: Let’s move quickly on upgrading Atiga By Bless Aubrey Ogerio
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HE Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) must move faster in updating its trade rules as businesses navigate shifting supply chains and production patterns, the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said Saturday. Trade Secretary Ma. Cristina Roque said the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement (Atiga) has remained central to regional economic integration since taking effect 16 years ago, but the trading
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The FJCCIA said Asean has emerged as a critical hedge against geopolitical uncertainty. “Asean is overwhelmingly positioned as a ‘strategic base for diversifying geopolitical risks’ and a ‘core for supply chain resilience,’ establishing it as a ‘core safe haven’ in global supply chains,” the paper said.
‘Revise ASEAN-Japan FTA’
A KEY recommendation is the revision of the Asean-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership (AJCEP), which entered into force in 2008. According to the FJCCIA, more than 90 percent of surveyed companies want improvements in the regional business environment through an upgraded AJCEP. The top concerns were customs procedures,
environment has changed significantly since then. “The upgrade of Atiga is therefore timely. We have an opportunity to ensure that our regional trade rules remain relevant to businesses and responsive to the way trade is conducted today,” Roque said at the 40th Asean Free Trade Area (Afta) Council Ministers Meeting. The upgrade is expected to make regional trade procedures more responsive to how companies now move goods, source inputs and organize production across borders. Atiga provides mechanisms that allow certified traders to benefit from expedited customs clearance,
while also facilitating compliance with origin requirements through measures such as selfcertification and electronic certificates of origin. “For Asean, this reinforces the value of an integrated regional market that can support the movement of goods, diversify sources of supply, and provide businesses with greater opportunities within the region,” the Philippine trade chief said. The ministers are expected to consider the declaration on the provisional application of the Second Protocol to Amend Atiga, as well
as the report of the 40th Afta Council Meeting and its related joint media statement. The meetings also include consultations with Asean’s economic partners, with Roque calling on the ministers to resolve outstanding issues where possible and give officials clearer instructions on matters that still require work. “Where we have reached agreement, let us move forward with implementation. Where issues remain, let us give our officials clear guidance on the way forward,” Roque said. “Let us get things done,” she added.
tariffs and rules of origin. “Japanese industry seeks a revision of the JapanAsean Comprehensive Economic Partnership [AJCEP] and improvements in digitalization of customs procedures,” the group said. Among the reforms sought are the digitalization of customs processes, elimination or reduction of tariffs, simplification of rules-of-origin procedures, and the inclusion of new disciplines on supply-chain resilience, decarbonization and digital technologies. The group also called for the complete elimination of free-on-board price declaration requirements in certificates of origin under regional trade agreements and the immediate electronic exchange of phytosanitary, animal health and food-safety certificates through the Asean Single Window. “As Asean aims to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2045, building a ‘top-tier business environment’ through upgrading institutional connectivity is the highest priority for both Japanese companies and Asean
to prosper together,” the paper said.
cross-border data flows and adopt common, riskbased AI governance guidelines. “AI has the potential to boost Asean’s overall GDP by up to 18 percent [1 trillion dollars], but it also carries risks like cyberattacks and labor market changes,” the paper said. Survey results showed that 74 percent of respondents are pursuing or considering digital transformation initiatives, while 65 percent cited securing digital and AI talent as a challenge. Half called for legislation and guidelines on AI ethics and governance.
Expand power grid
THE FJCCIA also advanced proposals aimed at accelerating Asean’s green transition, including the expansion of the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore power integration initiative into a region-wide electricity market. “The key to solving this ‘Energy Trilemma’ [Security, Affordability, Sustainability] is the Asean Power Grid [APG],” the group said. It proposed a multilateral real-time power market that would allow companies to procure renewable energy across borders and called for common Asean guidelines on third-party access and crossborder power purchase agreements. The group also advocated raising regional energy storage capacity to 60 gigawatts by 2030. For the automotive sector, the FJCCIA backed a “multi-pathway” strategy that includes biofuels, hydrogen and synthetic fuels. “We must protect the existing supply chain and 12 million jobs while advancing decarbonization through hydrogen, biofuels and e-fuels,” it said.
Digital economy and AI
THE Japanese business community also urged Asean to conclude the Asean Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), which it described as critical to unlocking the region’s digital potential. “The digital economy in Asean is currently 300 billion dollars and projected to grow to 1 trillion dollars by 2030. The full implementation of DEFA will double this trajectory, expanding the digital economy to 2 trillion dollars,” the proposal said. The group urged Asean governments to eliminate server-localization requirements, facilitate
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uncertainty over rules governing cross-border data transfers. The findings underscore the lack of interoperable systems for digital payments, electronic documentation, digital identities and trusted datasharing arrangements across the region.
MSMEs left behind
THE digital divide is particularly pronounced among micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which are expected to be among the biggest beneficiaries of reduced trade barriers. Across Asean, 73.4 percent of large firms participate in cross-border digital trade, compared with only 49.9 percent of MSMEs. A similar gap exists in cross-border digital payments, where adoption reaches 83.2 percent among large enterprises but falls to 51.6 percent among MSMEs. In the report’s foreword, Asean Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn said the success of Defa would ultimately depend on whether it delivers tangible
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Cebuano as well. And of course, what is famous in Cebu, like [the giant mangoes]. And there’s also the other services. Because these services as well would like to come up with collaborations from the Chinese investors,” Montesillo said. Dr. Asis-Dimpas noted that beyond the visibility that the spotlight given to the Philippines provides, “the recall of [Cebu] products and services” positively impacts even the local businesses who are not included in the expo, and “that Cebu has the capacity to accommodate all of these demands coming from these people and companies who are present here at the Caexpo.” Everybody is in “full force,” says Montesillo, crediting the success of the country’s rep-
‘Asean Citizens’
BEYOND trade and investment, the FJCCIA positioned Japanese firms as long-term stakeholders in the region. The organization said it is “renewing its awareness as ‘Asean Citizens’ deeply rooted in local communities, going beyond mere external investors.” It noted that 63 percent of Japanese companies collaborate with local firms through joint development, technical assistance, joint ventures or equity partnerships, while local professionals occupy management or department-level leadership roles in most responding companies. “This proposal is our commitment of ‘Cocreation’ to build prosperity for 2045 alongside Asean, overcoming geopolitical turbulence,” the group said. In the proposal’s concluding message, FJCCIA Chairman Shigeru Shimoda said the recommendations serve as “a guidepost” for Japanese companies’ continued contribution to regional growth. “Japanese companies are prepared to walk together toward a future where Asean leads Industry 4.0 and becomes the world’s most dynamic ‘Epicentrum of Growth’,” he said.
gains for businesses and consumers. “The success of the Asean Defa will ultimately be measured by how its commitments lead to tangible benefits for businesses and people,” Kao said. He added that the agreement could help smaller enterprises scale operations, expand market access and participate more actively in regional trade.
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Banking Corporation (RCBC), explained that the continued trade deficit in the economy could be attributed to higher global crude oil prices which swelled the country’s import bill after tensions between the United States and Iran re-escalated. Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed the country’s trade deficit reached $5.97 billion in July, 34.9 percent higher than the $4.43 billion recorded a year earlier. The latest reading was also the largest deficit since May 2026, when the trade gap reached $6.10 billion. The wider trade gap came as import payments increased 19.8 percent yearon-year to $14.12 billion from $11.79 billion, while export receipts grew 10.8 percent to $8.15 billion from $7.36 billion. Another economic factor that drove the country’s balance of payments into deficit was its foreign portfolio investments, which, per the latest central bank data, swung to a $3.94-billion net outflow in the January to July 2026 period, a reversal of the $2.25-billion net gain recorded in the same period a year ago. This means overall withdrawals of foreign portfolio investments outweighed new placements in the sevenmonth period this year, suggesting that foreign investors have become “significantly” more cautious toward risk assets and emerging markets amid a more uncertain global environment. (See: https://businessmirror.com. ph/2026/08/31/bsp-hot-moneyoutflows-reach-3-94b-in-jan-july/)
Offsetting factors and outlook
THE central bank pointed out, however, that the drawdowns in the trade and foreign investment portfolio flows were “partly offset by the sustained net inflows from personal remittances of overseas Filipinos, foreign borrowings by the [National Government] NG, trade in services, and foreign direct investment.” Looking ahead, Ricafort said balance of payments (BOP) and gross international reserves (GIR) would hinge on how the movement in global crude oil prices would affect the country’s “oil import bill, trade deficit, prices/inflation and global investments/financial market performance.” Nonetheless, Ricafort is pinning his hopes on the continued growth of cash remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), BPO revenues, foreign investments and foreign tourism receipts, to contribute to the improvement of the country’s balance of payments.
Buffer against external shocks
TO translate Defa into practical benefits, the WEF urged Asean governments to focus on five priorities: • Accelerating end-to-end paperless trade and National Single Window interoperability; • Expanding cross-border payment connectivity and e-invoicing systems; • Strengthening digital identity and e-signature infrastructure; • Establishing more predictable data governance through Asean Model Contractual Clauses; and • Providing MSMEs with digital trade support services and simplified compliance requirements. The report said closing these gaps will determine whether Asean can move from strong domestic digital adoption toward a truly integrated regional digital market.
MEANWHILE, the central bank said the country’s dollar reserves, its buffer against external economic shocks, remains “sufficient” to meet the country’s import needs and service its external debt obligations. The country’s gross international reserves (GIR) rose to $104.8 billion at end-August 2026, from $103.3 billion a month earlier. According to BSP, the increase was mainly driven by “upward valuation” adjustments in the central bank’s gold holdings and the BSP’s higher net income from its investments abroad as global bond yields increased. “The end-August GIR level can cover up to 6.6 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income. It can likewise service about 3.3 times the country’s short-term external debt based on residual maturity,” the BSP said.
resentation in the Caexpo to efforts by the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem), Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the Department of Tourism (DOT), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Board of Investments (BOI), and other companies and agencies. The effect of this special feature also meant more opportunities for the province. “Earlier, while we were seated with the Chamber of Commerce groups, they were already talking of bringing it to Cebu when they will be looking for venues outside Manila. And it so happens that [in] Cebu, we just opened Mactan Expo, SMX Arena, and we’re about to open SMX Convention. So, we now have the bigger capacity to be hosting these big events that might be happening or [that] there’s a very good chance of happening, provided that there is a good market coming from Caexpo,” Asis-Dimpas said. Despite current political and military ten-
sion between China and the Philippines, the OIC regional director believes “trade will go on” between the two countries, with the Philippines’s spotlight in the Caexpo already serving as an “indication” of such. “We look forward to a very positive result for tourism,” she added. “I’m sure after here, there would be more investment opportunities, and with the movement of people, there is tourism.” Beyond the “Province of Charm” pavilion, significant space was also given to various Philippine enterprises, ranging from SMEs to corporations. Established in 2004 to strengthen economic relations and partnerships between China and Asean countries, the Caexpo invites businesses and enterprises from China and Asean countries to feature their products and services at the event, with Nanning City, in the southern part of China, serving as its permanent host city.
Priorities for Asean
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Monday, September 21, 2026
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to seek SC House bill calls for congressional DILG ruling to inspect franchising of socmed platforms homes of licensed
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THE patrol and rescue vessel donated by Taiwan to the Philippines when it was still in the service of the Coast Guard Administration.
Taiwan donates patrol ship to PCG By Jane Magturo
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AIWAN has silently donated a decommissioned 500-ton patrol vessel to the Coast Guard (PCG), despite its lack of diplomatic relations with the Philippines. Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA) confirmed the donation after local media reported that the law enforcement vessel transferred to the Philippines and temporarily named Bling No.1, was monitored performing sea trials near the Kaohsiung Port before returning and docking on Wednesday. Reports said the vessel appeared to be disarmed and repainted. In a statement, the CGA said the case was “handled according to usual practice,” adding that it maintained “close cooperation with many countries and has donated vessels to the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu over the years,” referring to three countries that, unlike the Philippines, maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on whether it was the
first time Taiwan had donated a vessel to the Philippines, which has not had diplomatic relations with Taiwan since 1975. A research fellow at Taiwan’s government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, Su Tzu-yu, said the donation was part of an international trend to counter China’s “expansionist behavior” at sea, including gray zone activities along the first island chain, which extends from Japan to Borneo, and aggressive behavior toward PCG vessels in disputed areas of the South China Sea. Su noted that Japan is poised to transfer decommissioned Abukuma-class destroyer escorts to the Philippines, while the United States has transferred many patrol boats to the country. “China’s gray zone threats have prompted collaboration between the ‘white fleets,’” Su said. “This shows that Beijing’s actions have backfired.” Meanwhile the CGA was reported to have plans to embark on its first-ever “goodwill mission” to the Philippines in 2027. See “Taiwan,” A4
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HE Commission on Elections (Comelec) is already 90 percent ready for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) despite a proposed term-fixing measure that could move the next polls to 2028. Comelec Chairman George Erwin M. Garcia said the poll body is continuing preparations because November 2 remains the election date under existing law. “We are already at nine out of 10 in our preparations,” Garcia said. He said Comelec may have to stop preparations if Congress passes the measure and it takes effect before election activities are completed. The measure could also affect the filing
Sara impeach trial enters new phase By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz
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See “BSKE,” A4
See “Impeach,” A4
See “WPS,” A4
Comelec 90 percent ready for BSKE By Mary Jade Jadormio
Deput y Speaker Dav id Suarez has filed House Bil l 4786, or the proposed Socia l Media Platfor m Franchise Act, which aims to recognize large socia l media platfor ms as public ser v ices that car r y significant responsibilities because of their inf luence on public safet y, communication, and nationa l secur it y. The proposal comes after a series of school shootings that shocked communities across the country and raised concerns about the role of digital platforms in spreading harmful content and enabling real-time broadcasting of violent acts. Suarez’s initiative is also linked with House Bill 9825, or the Digital Safety of Minors Act, which focuses on strengthening online protections for children through age-verification systems,
of certificates of candidacy (COCs), scheduled from September 28 to October 5. If it becomes law after Sept. 28, Comelec would have to stop the COC filing process. “The filing of candidacies is until Oct. 5. If it becomes law and is published after the 28th, we will stop what we are doing,” the poll body chief said. Ballot deployment could face a similar problem. Garcia said Comelec needs to start sending election materials to far-flung areas by the first week of October. Some materials have to be transported by sea, requiring the poll body to begin deployment well ahead of election day.
The EU Delegation in Manila echoed similar sentiments conveying deep concern over the incident. “Dangerous maneuvers at sea endangers lives. Respect for international law of the sea, as reflected in Unclos [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea], and the 2016 Arbitral Award, is key to maritime security and safety,” EU Ambassador to the Philippines Massimo Santoro said. In a separate statement, the National Maritime Council (NMC) said the “illegal, coercive, aggressive, and dangerous actions of the CCG vessel placed the civilian crew of the Bfar vessel at unnecessary risk while carrying out a legitimate livelihoodsupport mission.” “The NMC underscores that safety of life at sea must always come first. All vessels operating in the area are expected to exercise maximum restraint, professional seamanship, and due regard for applicable international maritime safety rules,” it said. It said the government will continue supporting Filipino fishermen while upholding
@joveemarie
HOUSE of Representatives leader has filed a bill seeking to require major social media platforms operating in the Philippines to obtain congressional franchises before continuing their operations.
H E i m p e a c h m e nt t r i a l of Vice President Sara Z. Duterte will enter a new phase as House of Representatives prosecutors move from examining her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs) to corporate, procurement, and financial records related to allegations of unexplained wealth under Article II of the Articles of Impeachment. The prosecution is set to present officials from the Civil Service Commission (CSC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) as witnesses when the Senate Impeachment Court resumes proceedings. The House lead prosecutor, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro identified the witnesses as CSC Assistant Commissioner Ariel Ronquillo, SEC Company Registration and Monitoring Department Director Gerardo del Rosario, and PhilGEPS Division Chief Rendell Sopeña. “We will present first Atty. Ariel G. Ronquillo of the Civil Service Commission, followed by Atty. Gerardo F. del Rosario of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and finally, Mr. Rendell P. Sopeña of the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System Office of the DBM,” Luistro said. Ronquillo is expected to testify on the rules governing the preparation and filing of SALNs, including guidelines he helped draft. Del Rosario, meanwhile, will authenticate SEC records involving companies where Duterte declared business interests. His testimony was postponed earlier owing to the volume of corporate documents involved. The SEC records will supplement the testimony of lawyer Karen Batu of the Office of the Ombudsman’s Central Records Division, who previously authenticated Duterte’s SALNs and discussed the business interests and financial connections declared in those documents.
US, Canada, EU express concern over ramming incident at WPS HE United States, Canada and the European Union (EU) expressed concern over the latest actions by the China Coast Guard (CCG) that led to damage of a Filipino civilian vessel while it was conducting a humanitarian mission off Palawan on September 18. “Canada is concerned by the Chinese Coast Guard deliberately ramming into a Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources [Bfar] fisheries enforcement vessel off the coast of the Philippines. These dangerous maneuvers jeopardize regional peace and stability,” the Canadian Embassy in Manila said in a statement on Saturday. In a post on X, US Ambassador Lee Lipton said Washington DC “strongly condemns” the act and commends the Bfar personnel manning the Filipino vessel for their “sustained professionalism.” “We strongly condemn the China Coast Guard’s deliberate ramming of the Philippine Bfar vessel near Bombay Shoal, just 54 miles off the coast of Palawan. We commend the sustained professionalism of our Philippine Allies in the face of this dangerous, destabilizing act,” he said.
By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz
parental consent requirements, and safety measures designed for young users. T he urgency of the proposals increased following several deadly incidents involving students. On September 18, a 16-year-old student attacked Banga National High School in South Cotabato, killing two classmates and injuring eight others before committing suicide. In August, a Grade 9 student livestreamed an attack through Facebook Live at Ateneo de Zamboanga University, resulting in the death of a schoolmate before the student also died by suicide. In June, two teenagers attacked San Jose National High School in Tacloban, killing three students and injuring around 20 others. According to Suarez, these incidents highlight the growing importance of
social media platforms in Philippine society. With more than 90 million Filipinos using social media platforms and spending an average of more than three hours daily on services such as Facebook, TikTok, and similar applications, these platforms have become essential parts of everyday life, he said. The lawmaker added that the rapid spread of v iolent content, livestreamed incidents, misinformation, and harmful activities has created challenges for authorities seeking to protect users and maintain public safety. Suarez explained that his two proposed measures are designed to address different aspects of online responsibility. The Digital Safety of Minors Act would require platforms to create safer online environments for children, while the Social Media Platform Franchise Act would provide the government with stronger authority to regulate and hold large platforms accountable. “Social media is no longer just a form of entertainment. It influences our democracy, our economy, and the safety of our children,” Suarez said. “This bill addresses gaps in oversight, ensures that platforms are accountable, protects Filipino users from harm, and promotes a fair and competitive digital environment.”
firearms owners By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga
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HE Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is set to petition the Supreme Court (SC) to overturn its earlier decision and allow the police to inspect the homes of licensed gun owners to determine how the weapons are kept. Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla said the DILG is working with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on a petition seeking authority for the National Police (PNP) to inspect the homes of firearm owners as part of firearm licensing and registration. “The Supreme Court ruled that we cannot conduct inspections inside homes. I will file a petition with the Supreme Court to make it legal for the PNP to inspect the homes of legal firearms owners to ensure that they are kept properly,” he said. According to Remulla, the three recent school-based shooting incidents shared similarities involving irresponsible gun ownership and safekeeping, which allowed the perpetrators to gain access to firearms. “There has to be a right for the State to inspect the gun owners’ premises kung tama ang storage nila ng baril ,” he added. Remulla said existing policies already require firearm owners to use safety containers and comply with other safekeeping See “Firearms,” A4
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Monday, September 21, 2026
NGCP willing to speed up Mindoro-Panay connection By Lenie Lectura
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HE National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) expressed willingness to fast-track the MindoroPanay interconnection project to partly address the power woes in the Visayas. NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza said the Mindoro Panay interconnection was “originally planned for the long-term horizon, deferred up to 2040, assuming Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao would remain power self-sufficient.” However, because the Visayas grid has instead become a net importer of power, the NGCP is open to accelerating the project to provide medium-term grid stability. “And if the Mindoro-Panay can provide a medium term—medium because of course that won’t happen within the next five years—but if it will provide some stability in the medium term, then certainly I think NGCP is definitely 100 percent more than willing to pursue that project in advance. And I cannot imagine a situation where the government will also not be supportive. But of course, unless they change their policy, in which case, NGCP will comply with whatever prevailing policy there will be,” said Alabanza. She pointed out that accelerating the project will not create a new supply of electricity because the power would still be drawn from Luzon, which also has its power requirements. If and when there will be a policy shift to formalize Luzon as a daily exporter to Visayas, it will completely overhaul the generation and planning strategy for Luzon, which must then account for its own growing needs alongside Visayas’ deficits. NGCP stressed that it is fully willing to advance the project to address the “dire situation” in Visayas, but it requires a unified policy direction from the government. Alabanza said the solution demands a “whole-of-industry” collaborative approach involving the Department of Energy (DOE), regulators, and the private sector to adjust prevailing energy frameworks. “We can see that the Department of Energy is truly going all out to find a solution. That is why a “whole-of-industry” approach is being adopted, with every sector of the industry collaborating to find a solution,” added Alabanza. The Mindoro-Panay interconnection project involves a 230-kilovolt inter-island transmission link connecting the Luzon grid through Mindoro to the Visayas grid via Panay. Once completed, the project will connect the Visayas grid to the transmission link between Batangas and Mindoro, creating a critical loop connection between Luzon and the Visayas that will enable the transfer of additional power across the two grids. The interconnection would provide the power system with greater flexibility during supply constraints and plant outages, while strengthening the ability of the grids to share available electricity and respond to the growing requirements of Western Visayas and the broader Visayas region. “Securing Panay’s energy future requires us to address today’s supply constraints while building the generation and transmission infrastructure that Western Visayas will need in the years ahead,” Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said. During the recent Regional Development Council Region VI meeting at the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development Regional Office VI in Iloilo City, Garin presented the DOE’s near-, medium-, and long-term measures to strengthen the reliability and resilience of the region’s power supply. At the center of the long-term strategy is a pipeline of energy investments that could bring 135 megawatts (MW) of baseload capacity to Panay by 2028, 270 MW in 2029 and another 150 MW in 2030. The region could also gain 220 MW of gas-fired mid-merit capacity by 2028 to respond more flexibly to changes in electricity demand and supply. These projects are intended to provide the dependable and flexible capacity needed to support households, businesses, industries, and future investments as Western Visayas’ economy and electricity requirements continue to expand. While these long-term projects are being prepared, the DOE is carrying out immediate measures to ease current supply constraints. These include facilitating the return to service of generating units on forced outage, such as large plants operated by Therma Visayas, Inc. and Panay Energy Development Corporation in the Visayas, as well as Therma South Inc. and GNPower Kauswagan Ltd. Co. in Mindanao. The scheduled return of these units in September and October 2026 is intended to restore available capacity, rebuild power reserves, and reduce the risk of recurring yellow and red alerts in the Visayas.
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BOI: Evis to focus on 4-wheelers first
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By Bless Aubrey Ogerio
OUR-WHEELERS will initially take the lead under the government’s Electric Vehicle Incentive Strategy (Evis) program, while officials leave open the possibility of extending support to two- and threewheelers after six months. Trade and Industry Undersecretary and Board of Investments (BOI) Managing Head Ceferino S. Rodolfo said investments are already coming into the two- and three-wheeler segments, although he did not provide specific details. “We can reevaluate. Maybe after six months upon implementation of the Evis,” Rodolfo told reporters after a press briefing on the Ninth Association of Southeast Asian Nations Inclusive Business Forum in Pasay City on Saturday. “But currently, the focus is on those
segments which we feel would really benefit from having incentives for us to be able to bring in both local and foreign investments. And those are in the four-wheeler segments,” he added. The government, Rodolfo said, is reviewing which market segments would need additional support to attract investments. “We also don’t want redundancy in incentives. Meaning to say, we look carefully at which particular sectors or segments of the market need the incentives to be able to drive in the investments,” he said.
Last week, the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (Evap) questioned the decision to limit the current Evis framework to four-wheelers, arguing that motorcycles account for a larger number of vehicles on Philippine roads. “ T here a re more motorc yc les than cars, so why not? ” Evap President Willy Q. Tee Ten told reporters. “A nd the President [Marcos] will not hit [its target of 50 percent EV by 2040] if the motorcycles will not convert.” Under the Evis executive order, the government has allocated up to P60 billion in fiscal support for fourwheeled electric-vehicle manufacturing projects. Participating companies may register up to two EV models, with support capped at P15 billion per model. The government is expected to begin accepting Evis applications as early as October after the program’s implementing rules have been signed. For the DTI, they want participating manufacturers to begin building facilities and importing equipment before year-end, with trial production targeted for 2027.
AI gets new copyright rules from IPOPHL
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SING artificial intelligence (AI) will not automatically disqualify a work from copyright registration under proposed guidelines from the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), which instead focus on the human creativity behind the final work. The proposed Guidelines on the Registrability of AI Systems and AI-Related Works seek to clarify how AI-related works may be treated for copyright registration. The Bureau of Copyright and Related Rights (BCRR) presented the draft during an initial public consultation last week. Under the proposal, copyright protection may extend to an AI-related work to the extent that it contains original expression attributable to human creative contribution that meets the originality requirement under existing jurisprudence. The draft defines human creative contribution as an original expressive contribution by a natural person that meets the minimum degree of creativity required for copyright protection. It groups AI-related works into four categories. An AI-assisted work uses AI as a tool during the creative process, but the human author contributes original expression to the final work. A writer, for example, may use
AI for wording suggestions before selecting, rewriting and arranging the material. An AI-enhanced work starts with a humancreated work that is later modified using AI. For a photograph, this could include using AI to remove unwanted objects, restore damaged portions or make other enhancements. Protection may cover the original photograph and human-created additions containing original expression. A hybrid work combines human-authored and AI-generated elements. A songwriter could write the lyrics while using AI to generate a melody. If the human contribution meets copyright requirements, the resulting work may be registered, but protection would not extend to AI-generated elements that do not qualify. An AI- generated output without sufficient human creative contribution, meanwhile, would not qualify for copyright registration to the extent that it lacks original human expression. Simply giving AI a general prompt and registering the resulting image would not, by itself, give the user copyright protection over that output. In reviewing applications, IPOPHL may consider the nature and extent of human creative contribution, the role of the AI system, how AI-generated elements were selected, modified, arranged or incorpo-
rated, and information submitted by the applicant. The draft does not establish one fixed test for registrability. Instead, these factors would be considered together based on the circumstances of each application, with IPOPHL able to request additional information when necessary. The proposal also distinguishes copyright in AI systems from their training materials. Registration of an AI system would cover only copyrightable expression in the computer program submitted to IPOPHL, and not its training data, materials used as training data, AI outputs or other material outside the copyrightable program. Such registration would also not determine whether the training data or practices used to develop an AI system constitute fair use or are otherwise lawful. IPOPHL Director General Teodoro C. Pascua said the proposed guidelines are not intended to regulate AI generally or make a definitive determination on the copyrightability of AIrelated works, but to provide greater clarity on their treatment for registration. The proposed guidelines remain subject to further consultation with government, legal and academic communities, as well as creative and technology industries and the general public. Bless Aubrey Ogerio
LTFRB to Comelec: Exempt govt spending for transport programs from election ban
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HE Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has asked the Santos Avenue Busway Libreng Sakay, and other public transportation programs from the election period ban on fund disbursements, warning that any interruption could disrupt essential transport services for commuters, drivers, and operators. In a letter to the Comelec, Acting LTFRB Chairman Greg G. Pua Jr. said the programs are not election-related expenses, as they are meant to assist the public transportation sector and commuters amid the effects of the Middle East conflict. “The subject programs are continuing government programs and are not
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About P8 billion has already been spent on election preparations, Garcia said. He added that the amount would not
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measures. However, the PNP currently lacks the legal authority to inspect gun owners’ residences to verify compliance with these requirements.
election-related or partisan activities. They are implemented pursuant to existing laws, appropriations, policies, and program guidelines,” Pua said in the letter addressed to Comelec Chairman George Erwin M. Garcia. The agency is seeking exemption for the Service Contracting Program (SCP), which includes the Edsa Busway Extension and Love Bus Libreng Sakay Program; the Fuel Subsidy Program (FSP), covering the one-time fuel subsidy and the P12-per-liter fuel discount; and the Public Transport Modernization Program (PTMP) and its continuing activities. “These programs are intended to ensure continuity, affordability, safety, and reliability
of public transportation,” the letter read. The LTFRB is currently facilitating the release of up to three-month assistance packages to operators of modern public transportation to cover their monthly loan amortization and operational expenses amid the continuous rise in petroleum prices. Pua said the SCP provides support based on actual and validated transport services rendered, while the FSP extends targeted assistance to qualified transport operators and drivers to mitigate higher fuel costs and sustain operations. The PTMP, meanwhile, is a continuing national program for the modernization and improvement of public transportation.
necessarily be wasted if the polls are reset because election materials could still be used for the rescheduled elections. Under the bill, the next elections would be held in the second week of November 2028 if the Nov. 2 polls do not push through.
Another election would follow in 2033 under the proposed five-year term. Garcia said the decision to continue or reset the elections rests with Congress, not the Comelec. “Whether it will proceed or not is not in our hands. It is in Congress,” he said.
He emphasized that the proposed inspection must have a clear legal basis, noting that firearm ownership in the Philippines is a privilege that carries corresponding responsibility and accountability. “Remember, owning a firearm in the Philippines is not enshrined in the
Constitution. It is not a right but a privilege. And that privilege has to come with responsibility, and that responsibility has to come with accountability, especially with the PNP,” Remulla added. “We should have the power to inspect without a warrant all gun owners and how they store their guns,” he continued.
Lorenz S. Marasigan
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The Ocean Affairs Council’s 2027 budget request, include and item for the visit that is scheduled in October 2027 and involve a crew of 100. OAC said the purpose of the visit is to allow cadets at the Central Police University to engage in cultural and maritime exchanges with a “friendly country” during a port call and familiarize them with coast guard work, as well as to test the stability, navigation systems and mission-system integration of patrol vessels. OAC did not include the number of ships that the CGA, is expected to send. If the mission proceeds as planned, it will mark the first goodwill visit by the CGA to the Philippines. The ship that will be transferred to the Philippines belongs to the Kinmen class patrol and rescue vessels. The ship was launched in 2007 and commissioned in 2008.
One China policy remains unchanged but...
THE Philippines’ One China Policy remains unchanged, but it does not prevent the country from pursuing relations with Taiwan, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Sunday. The clarification comes amid China’s objection to Taiwan’s plan to open a representative office in Cebu province. Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. also asserted that Manila, not Beijing, determines how it implements its One China Policy.
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Prosecutors said they will use corporate records to examine Duterte’s declared business interests after previous testimony indicated that some SALNs listed financial connections without corresponding details on shares of stock or acquisition costs. PhilGEPS official Rendell Sopeña is expected to present procurement records involving Gencorp Industries Inc. and government agencies from 2020 to the present. Gencorp is among the companies where Duterte reportedly declared a financial interest. Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte is also expected to testify and submit records involving transactions between the Davao City government and Gencorp, as well as entities operating or owning Jollibee establishments during the same period. House trial spokesperson Zia Alonto Adiong said Baste Duterte was being called because of his possible knowledge of matters related to the prosecution’s Article II presentation. “He is not being called because he is the brother of VP Sara. He is being called because he may have relevant personal and official knowledge concerning matters that form part of the prosecution’s Article II presentation,” Adiong said. Prosecutors said they intend to compare Duterte’s SALNs with bank records and other financial documents to determine whether her declared wealth is consistent with her reported income, government salary, tax filings, and business earnings.
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the Philippines’ rights in the West Philippine Sea. “Our seas are part of our national identity and patrimony. We will continue to support our fisherfolk and government personnel who serve the country at sea, and we will remain steadfast in upholding our lawful rights and national interests in our maritime domain with courage, unity and respect for the rule of law,” the NMC added. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Friday night condemned the actions of a CCG vessel that result in damage to the Bfar vessel BRP Datu Magat Salamat. “There is no justification for the CCG vessel to undertake aggressive actions against a Philippine civilian law enforcement vessel, and cause damage to the ship and endanger the safety of the civilian
“ The O ne China Polic y does not preclude the Philippines from pursuing economic, cultural and functional cooperation with Taiwan,” the DFA said in a statement. The DFA said the polic y remains “consistent, clear and unchanged” in accordance with the 1975 Joint Communiqué between the Philippines and China, under which Manila recognized the government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government. The DFA cited President Marcos’ recent statement that the Philippines and Taiwan are close neighbors with a long history of doing business together. Taiwan has announced plans to establish a representative office in Cebu, which would be its second in the Philippines after its Manila Economic and Cultural Office, based in Makati City. The planned office is intended to serve Taiwanese travelers and businesses in central Philippines. Taipei has also proposed a TaiwanPhilippines Economic Corridor that would link with the Luzon Economic Corridor to strengthen supply chains. China earlier urged the Philippines to adhere to the One China principle through concrete actions and refrain from steps it said could harm bilateral relations. The DFA stressed that it remains the government’s authoritative voice in conducting Philippine foreign policy. It added that it would continue to pursue diplomacy, open communication and peaceful dispute resolution in accordance with international law, while working with relevant agencies to protect the welfare of Filipinos on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. With PNA “We need to compare the total wealth declared in the SALN,” prosecution spokesman Atty. Jay Tolosa said. Tolosa said prosecutors want to determine whether Duterte’s reported net worth would match her declared sources of income. “We need to see if this P98 million will match her income declared in tax filings, her salaries as a government employee, and whether she earned from other financial interests in businesses,” Tolosa said. He added that prosecutors would examine other financial records, including bank accounts and transactions. “Will it match when we look at her other financial records, such as bank accounts, financial transactions, and other official government records?” Tolosa said. The schedule of witnesses may change as the Impeachment Court is also set to hear arguments on the required number of votes needed for conviction. The issue arose after Sen. Erwin Tulfo questioned Senate President and Presiding Officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero’s earlier ruling that conviction requires 16 votes, or two-thirds of the Senate’s 24 members. The court previously sought opinions from retired members of the judiciary regarding the interpretation of the constitutional requirement. Former Chief Justices Artemio Panganiban, Reynato Puno, and Hilario Davide Jr., along with retired Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, provided views on whether the two-thirds requirement should always mean 16 votes or whether unavailable members may affect the calculation. crew,” it said in a statement. The DFA argued that the Filipino vessel was merely conducting a routine and lawful humanitarian activities to support Filipino fisherfolk in the West Philippine Sea. “The CCG vessel’s illegal, coercive, aggressive and dangerous acts are inconsistent with China’s obligations under international law,” it said, citing the Unclos and the 2016 Arbitral Award, the 1972 International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (Colregs), and the 1974 Safety of Life at Sea Convention (Solas). “The Philippines calls on China to respect Philippine sovereign rights within its exclusive economic zone in accordance with Unclos as affirmed by the 2016 Arbitral Award, exercise restraint and avoid actions that could further escalate tensions in the region,” it said. The ramming caused visible damage to the vessel and occurred approximately 54 nautical miles from Palawan, well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. PNA
Monday, September 21, 2026
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PHL confirms bird flu outbreaks in Pangasinan By Ada Pelonia
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@adapelonia
HE Philippines officially reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) multiple avian influenza (AI) cases across five species of wild birds in Pangasinan that occurred earlier this year. The country filed two separate reports with WOAH on September 15, confirming wild birds were infected with
the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus in Bolinao, Pangasinan. The infections have already been
resolved according to the Philippine report. Based on the government’s report, the H5N1 bird flu outbreak began as early as May 5, but was only confirmed through laboratory tests on May 22. It was recorded in Brgy. Zaragosa, Bolinao, Pangasinan. Nine wild birds across three species—zebra dove, pied triller, and Eurasian tree sparrow— were confirmed positive for the H5N1 strain. The country filed a separate report of two additional positive AI cases confirmed last June 17 in the yellow-vented bulbul and the lowland white-eye, which belonged to the H5 group with the subtype undetermined.
The source or origin of the infection was tagged “unknown or inconclusive” by the Philippine government. The report to the WOAH indicated that no deaths were recorded among all affected wild birds, but these had been declared resolved as of August 31. Latest report from the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) showed that five barangays in San Quintin and Bolinao, Pangasinan have ongoing H5N1 cases affecting chickens and ducks as of September 11.
Vaccine
IN August, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
an attached agency of the Department of Health (DOH), has approved the commercial use of the country’s first vaccine against bird flu, according to the Department of Agriculture (DA). Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the FDA granted a Certificate of Product Registration (CPR) to global pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim for its vaccine against avian influenza (AI) dubbed Volvac B.E.S.T. AI plus ND. “This is ready for commercial use, and that’s good news for the (poultry) industry,” the DA chief previously told reporters. He noted that with this approval, the poultry
sector now has “a strong line of defense” against a transboundary animal disease that threatens both food security and human health. While the vaccine provides immunity against the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) “most aggressive” subtype H5N1, it also stimulates the bird’s immune system to defend against velogenic Newcastle disease (VND). Furthermore, the agency said the vaccine is administered by injection, either into the bird’s chest muscle or into subcutaneous fat, and is given when the bird is at least 10 days old. It will take 10 to 14 days to develop full immunity.
Govt urges OFWs to place bet on agribusiness
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IMPORTED meat products from the United States. BUSINESSMIRROR FILE PHOTO
DA to vendors: Store imported meat products in freezers
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HE Department of Agriculture (DA) is tightening its monitoring of imported meat sold in wet markets to ensure food safety standards. Agriculture Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS), an attached agency of the DA, has been inspecting wet markets to check if they comply with the proper refrigeration system for imported frozen meats. “The NMIS has actually been going around for nearly a month to call the attention of those selling imported meats in wet markets, reminding them that they need to have freezers,” he recently told reporters. The DA chief said retailers would get their frozen meats confiscated if they were caught handling these without a proper refrigeration system. “Like last night, we received reports that many were confiscated since these did not meet the standards or rules of the NMIS.” He noted that confiscated mishandled frozen meat are documented and properly disposed in recognized rendering facilities. Under Administrative Order (AO) 6 Series of 2012, chilled meat products sold to market should not be frozen and should not exceed 10 degrees Celsius.
Furthermore, frozen meat should be stored, held, and sold at a temperature not higher than zero degrees Celsius and a minimum of -18 degrees Celsius or lower.
Tariffs
MEANWHILE, the DA chief said the agency is in talks with the government’s economic managers to reinstate the tariffs levied on pork shipments in its bid to arrest the slide in the farmgate prices of hogs. The DA said it does not have a legal basis to impose the P210 per kilo floor price on liveweight hogs being proposed by the industry. “We support (the floor price) because the farmgate price of hogs is really low right now— around P120 to P160 per kilo, depending on the area, so that’s really not good,” the DA chief said. At present, however, the DA noted that the proposed floor price remains a target rather than an enforceable price. He said no existing law authorizes the DA to impose a mandatory farmgate floor, while a presidential price cap would require its own legal and procedural steps. “The DA is pushing for higher tariffs again, and I’m currently meeting with our economic managers na mukhang positive naman.” Ada Pelonia
HE Department of Agriculture (DA) has called on returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from South Korea to invest in agribusiness as a livelihood option and help the country achieve food security. The DA, through its Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service (AMAS), held an Usapang Agribiz forum during the Alagang OWWA Serbisyo Caravan at Marronnier Park in Seoul last September 13. The activities positioned agriculture as a possible second career and investment avenue for OFWs. Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said this forms part of government efforts for returning OFWs to view agriculture as a business opportunity that can contribute to
the country’s food supply. “We want our OFWs who are preparing to come home to see agriculture not just as a business they can build, but as an opportunity to contribute to food security and nation building.” The forum also introduced participants to government financing, training, marketlinkage, and other support programs. While agriculture is crucial to the country’s food and nutrition security, DA Assistant Secretary Genevieve Velicaria-Guevarra said this provides returning OFWs opportunities for entrepreneurship, investment, and sustainable income. “We want them to see that agriculture today is no longer limited to traditional farming, but is a dynamic technology-
driven business sector,” Guevarra added. The DA said it also sealed a partnership with Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) through a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to bolster the respective agencies’ delivery of agricultural programs and services to OFWs. The agency is aiming to expand the pool of agripreneurs and bring more capital, skills, and business experience into the farm sector. Meanwhile, the forum was followed by a farm technology visit in Wanju County last September 14, where the Philippine delegation visited the county agricultural technology center and a strawberry smart farm employing eight Filipino seasonal workers from Mina, Iloilo.
The DA said the farm uses environmental controls, fertigation, fogging, automated pest control and air-circulation systems, providing Philippine officials and workers a firsthand look at technologies that could potentially be adapted locally. The agency said it is also exploring the possibility of qualified young farmers participating in technologyexposure programs in South Korea through the Young Farmers Challenge Program, in coordination with the Department of Migrant Workers and local government units. “The effort seeks to turn overseas work experience into capital, skills and technology that can support agribusiness ventures after OFWs return home.” Ada Pelonia
ADB wants PHL to get grant for agrifood projects By Justine Xyrah Garcia
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HE Asian Development Bank (ADB) is proposing an $800,000 technical assistance project to help seven Asian economies, including the Philippines, make agriculture and food-system investments more responsive to nutrition needs and climate risks. The Philippines is set to receive the largest individual country allocation at $150,000 under the proposed project, according to a new project document recently released by the lender. Dubbed “Advancing Nutrition and Community Resilience through Climate-Resilient
Food Systems in Asia,” the project will provide technical support to help governments incorporate nutrition into policies, investment plans, and the design of agriculture and food-system projects. For the Philippines, the $150,000 allocation will come from ADB’s Technical Assistance Special Fund. The assistance will help identify opportunities to integrate nutrition into the country’s policies and future ADB investments, while strengthening the institutional capacity and tools needed to put these measures into practice. ADB said the assistance
will initially support selected ongoing and pipeline projects, contributing to the bank ’s broader goal of supporting $40 billion in agrifood system transformation by 2030. The regional project covers the Philippines, Nepal, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam. ADB will also facilitate knowledge-sharing among the participating countries so they can exchange experience in designing and implementing nutrition-sensitive food-system investments, it said. The initiative comes as Asia continues to face significant nutrition challenges, with
the ADB estimating that 323 million people in the region remained undernourished in 2024. “Climate change and biodiversity loss are making it increasingly difficult for food systems to deliver healthy diets. Transforming food systems provides a practical opportunity to improve nutrition outcomes. Operationalizing nutrition within food system investments requires stronger institutional capacity and practical tools.” ADB’s project data show that the concept was cleared on July 5. The assistance remains in the proposal stage, with no approval date yet set.
Screwworm reappears in New Mexico ahead of port reopening
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HE New World screwworm resurfaced in New Mexico just as a major gateway for Mexican cattle imports is poised to open in the state. The parasite, which infests the wounds of livestock, was confirmed Thursday in a horse in New Mexico’s Grant County, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Earlier that same day, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins had announced plans to reopen the country’s largest port for Mexican cattle—situated roughly 150 miles from the new case.
The decision to open the port in Santa Teresa is part of the US’s effort to amp up a trade that had been paused to prevent the spread of the screwworm, and comes as cases of the deadly parasite have been largely contained since the outbreak began in early June. There have been 50 cases of the screwworm in the US, almost all in Texas, with only three currently active. Nearly 2,000 cases remain active in Mexico. Rollins acknowledged that screwworm has not yet been eradicated, but was confident in the protocols that the USDA
has put in place. She said Thursday at a press conference announcing the port reopening that the agency will delay the move if “we’re not 100% sure in the safety and the protocols.” The USDA said in a post on X that the port is still scheduled to reopen on Sept. 24 as planned. The agency has established a quarantine zone, is deploying sterile flies to curb potential spread and is expanding wildlife surveillance, according to the post. The source of the infestation is still under investigation, as the horse hadn’t moved from
the region recently, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported, citing state veterinarian Samantha Holeck. A spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture said it has no additional information beyond confirming the case. Tom Paterson, president of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, said there is “no relationship between port normalcy and screwworm in a horse.” Still, it is a reminder that ranchers have “got to be diligent” in inspecting their animals. The Santa Teresa port is scheduled to open on September
24. It is the second port-of-entry in the US to accept Mexican live cattle. Nearly 500,000 cattle were shipped through Santa Teresa in 2024, amounting to about 40 percent of the US’s total imports from Mexico, according to the USDA. Live cattle from Mexico is expected to provide a reprieve to the US’s severe cattle shortage, which has tightened availability for meatpackers and sent consumer beef prices surging. The number of animals placed in feedlots to gain weight before being sent to slaughter in August was down 9 percent from the prior year, the lowest
for that time of year in data going back 30 years, according to the USDA. Rollins also said the agency is also looking at reopening a port in Columbus, New Mexico, assuming “that we can continue to show that we have contained” the pest. The case is the second in New Mexico, the only state outside of Texas where the screwworm has been found. A dog in Lea County was among the first confirmed cases in June. The pet recovered, but questions remained at the time as to whether it had contracted the parasite locally or in Mexico. Bloomberg News
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Editor: Lyn Resurreccion • www.businessmirror.com.ph
Lawsuit: Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown
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By Kaitlyn Huamani AP Technology Writer
NEW lawsuit claims Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slow the pace of their respective AI development.
The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the leading AI companies violated antitrust laws when they agreed to coordinate slowdown efforts, and that doing so would reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions. The coordination largely took place on September 12, the lawsuit argues, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favor of enhanced
safety measures. That same day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceX AI CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind’s co-founder and chair Demis Hassabis each publicly responded to Amodei’s proposals in agreement. But the lawsuit also alleges that the coordination began to take shape months earlier. It points to a statement from July 2026 that high-ranking employees from several of the leading AI labs signed that acknowledged the “intense competitive pressure not to uni-
laterally slow” development. That statement called on the government to support a global effort to slow automated AI development. It is clear that an agreement among the chief rivals in AI that their progress “should be slower than competition would otherwise produce has an anticompetitive effect on consumers,” the plaintiffs argue. Lawyers representing four named plaintiffs, who pay for subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Gemini, are bringing the lawsuit on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other paid subscribers to those services. The plaintiffs don’t object to the companies individually deciding to slow their own progress in favor of safety. They instead argue in the complaint that antitrust laws forbid them from taking the “shortcut” of agreeing to “substitute collective restraint for individual accountability.” A competitive market allows for responsibility and genuine progress, the lawsuit argues. “AI will quickly spin out of human control and could kill us all if we allow
AI safety and protocol ... to be controlled by private self-serving agreements between the world’s most powerful ‘for profit’ technology companies,” said Nick Rowley, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. Representatives for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and SpaceXAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. In his initial essay proposing the slowdown, Amodei acknowledged potential antitrust challenges, writing that it would be helpful for the US government to mediate “or at least enable” these cross-lab discussions. The government wouldn’t need to participate, he wrote, but it would need to “issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations.” In response, Altman said on social media that OpenAI welcomes the idea of a “federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements,” but said “we do not believe we need to wait for an antitrust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence.”
Saudi confirms Houthis tried to hit Riyadh with ballistic missile
SEOUL, South Korea—North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the sea on Sunday, South Korea’s government said, the latest in a recent series of weapons displays by the North. South Korea’s presidential office said the North fired the weapon from its eastern coastal Wonsan area. Seoul held an emergency meeting of the national security council to discuss the launch. The launch comes as North Korea is engaging in a run of weapons tests even after US President Donald Trump recently scaled back a military exercise with South Korea in an apparent effort to revive diplomacy with leader Kim Jong Un. AP
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HK state funeral honors Tung Chee-hwa, the city’s first post-colonial leader
HONG KONG—Hong Kong held a state funeral on Sunday for its first post-colonial leader, Tung Chee-hwa, who led the city through the initial years of its transition from British rule after it was returned to China in 1997. Chinese officials from Beijing joined Hong Kong political leaders for the service in what was the third state funeral in the former British colony since the 1997 handover. Tung, a shipping magnate who was the city’s chief executive from 1997 to 2005, died on September 8 at the age of 89. He grappled with the Asian financial crisis, the SARS epidemic and public protests during his nearly eight years in office. Visiting official Shi Taifeng, a member of the Politburo of the ruling Communist Party, referred to Tung in a eulogy as a close friend of the party and a renowned patriot, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. AP
SUPPORTERS of Yemen’s Houthi rebels raise their rifles during a rally in support of the group and to protest Saudi Arabia’s accusation that the Houthis targeted Islam’s holiest site of Mecca, in Sanaa, Yemen, on September 18. AP/OSAMAH ABDULRAHMAN
in neighboring Yemen, without giving details. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the claims. Recent days have seen one escalation after another. On Thursday, the first civilian casualty was reported as the Saudi civil defense said debris from an intercepted Houthi drone killed a Yemeni resident of Saudi Arabia. And on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia said the Houthis had tried to attack Mecca,
Islam’s holiest city, with a drone that it said was intercepted, calling the security of the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad a “red line.” The Houthis fiercely denied the accusation. The United States, a close Saudi ally, has signaled it has no current fight with the Houthis. Regional officials have told The Associated Press that Saudi Arabia is running low on missile interceptors and instead has asked France,
Britain, Pakistan and Egypt for air defense support. Meanwhile, fighting has surged inside Yemen between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government. The rebels raced down the country’s Red Sea coast over a week ago, seizing the key port city of Mokha and islands on the Bab elMandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.
Ukraine hits Moscow refinery, the largest 2026 drone attack By Tony Halpin Bloomberg
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HE Moscow Oil Refinery was hit during drone attacks that were part of the largest overnight Ukrainian barrage this year, as Russia entered the final day of voting in its parliamentary elections. A facility was damaged when several UAVs struck the territory of the Moscow refinery, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Sunday, without elaborating. Nobody was hurt and emergency services were working at the scene, he said in a post on Telegram. Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 1,110 Ukrainian drones across 19 regions of Russia as well as in Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed in
Briefs . . . N. Korea fires a short-range ballistic missile, its latest weapons display
By Toqa Ezzidin & Cara Anna AIRO—Saudi Arabia on Saturday confirmed that Yemen’s Houthi rebels tried to attack its capital with a ballistic missile, the first targeting of Riyadh since the escalation in fighting with the Tehran-backed rebels that has opened a new front in the Iran war. The statement by the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis came long after the dawn attempt, which the coalition said was intercepted. Some residents in Riyadh heard an explosion. Later, some saw a plume of smoke near the airport. There were no reports of casualties or damage. The statement also said the Houthis tried to attack civilian infrastructure in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu—where a key Saudi pipeline ends—and in Taif, Baysh and Farasan but they were thwarted, giving no further details. The Houthis earlier claimed, without providing evidence, that they had targeted “sensitive sites” in Riyadh and facilities of Saudi oil giant Aramco in Yanbu, causing “massive fires.” Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, did not respond to a request for comment. The growing conflict near another important global shipping corridor has brought new pressures for markets. Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed they attacked with cruise and ballistic missiles as well as drones. He said Saudi Arabia had attempted to target the rebel-held city of Sanaa
While the recent conversations about pacing development were spurred by increasing concerns about AI evading human control, several leaders in the AI space have long talked about developing a shared set of standards or otherwise coordinating to ensure safety efforts remain paramount. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit contend they are not against the AI companies asking Congress, the White House or any other agency to develop AI regulation, nor are they against the companies asking for an antitrust exemption. But achieving that kind of collaboration with the federal government could be an uphill battle. President Donald Trump rejected the calls for regulation on social media. He has claimed that any efforts to limit the technology are part of a “conspiracy.” He called into question why the industry leaders would be calling for regulation that, he says, “if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy.” Trump said Saturday on social media that he is forming an AI task force and will appoint an “AI czar,” but he provided scant detail. The Trump administration has been vocal about wanting American AI labs to outpace and excel against Chinese competition. While several Democratic leaders and candidates have called for sweeping action on AI regulation, Republicans have largely mirrored Trump’s position.
2014. That’s the largest overnight total reported so far this year, eclipsing the previous high of 822 in August. Oil producer Gazprom Neft PJSC owns the Moscow refinery, located about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the Kremlin. It has a processing capacity of about 245,000 barrels a day and is one of the key fuel suppliers for the capital region. Gazprom Neft’s press service didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. “Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night. One of Russia’s key oil industry facilities and the aggressor’s logistics facility were hit. These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine. The systems used included
FP-1, RZ-100,” said Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy via Twitter now X on September 20. The attacks took place as Russia holds the third and final day of voting in the first parliamentary elections since President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Sobyanin said drones targeted Moscow overnight in what he called an “unprecedented” assault involving more than 1,600 unmanned aerial vehicles over the past day aimed at the capital. Most were downed by air defenses, he said. The attack “was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections,” Sobyanin said. Turnout after the first two days of
voting reached 45.1 percent, state-run Tass news service reported, citing Russia’s central election commission. The Moscow refinery was previously damaged in June during a record drone attack on the capital, sending plumes of black smoke across the region and contributing to fuel shortages in Russia. While Moscow is protected by some of Russia’s most advanced air-defense systems, recent large-scale drone attacks have exposed the limits of even layered defenses. While most are intercepted, some still manage to strike targets. Ukraine’s Air Forces said Russia carried out attacks overnight with 138 drones, half of them jet-powered. Air defenses destroyed 101 drones, it said Sunday in a Telegram post.
US military killed 4 in strike on alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean
WASHINGTON—The US military attacked a boat suspected of being used to smuggle drugs in the Caribbean Sea on Saturday, killing four people, as the Trump administration continues its monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America. The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the US military to at least 231 in 69 strikes since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” almost a year ago. As with most of the military’s statements on strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, US Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. A video posted on X showed an image of what appeared to be a moving boat followed by a flash. AP
Heavy rain disrupts trains in Japan as tropical storm approaches
THE approaching tropical cyclone Dujuan could cause suspensions and delays on train lines in the greater Tokyo area, with possible disruptions from as early as Sunday evening through Tuesday morning, major operator East Japan Railway Co. warned. The company had already suspended operations on some sections of its network because of heavy rain on Sunday morning, without specifying whether the rainfall was related to the storm. Dujuan was located south of Japan and moving northwest at 10 kilometers per hour (6 miles per hour) as of 9 a.m. local time on Sunday, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The agency said the storm had maximum sustained winds of 35 meters per second near its center. Bloomberg
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PHL FIRMS DIGITAL ADOPTERS, BUT ASEAN PROGRESS MIXED By Malou Talosig-Bartolome
grated regional digital economy.
HILIPPINE businesses are among Southeast Asia’s most digitally prepared firms, posting stronger adoption rates for digital payments, e-signatures and electronic authentication than their regional peers. However, the World Economic Forum (WEF) warned that ASEAN remains far from achieving seamless cross-border digital trade despite the conclusion of negotiations on the Asean Digital Economy Framework Agreement (Defa). The Asean Digital Economy Outlook 2026 showed that 100 percent of surveyed Philippine enterprises use digital payment systems, while 93.6 percent are familiar with digital payments and digital trade tools. The Philippines also surpassed regional benchmarks in the use of digital trust technologies, with 87.7 percent of firms adopting electronic signatures and 85.8 percent using electronic authentication. The WEF conducted a two-year survey from 2024 to 2026 involving 1,500 businesses across Asean member states. Despite the country’s strong domestic digital adoption, less than half, or 46.2 percent, of Philippine businesses surveyed were aware of Defa, the region’s planned digital trade framework. Still, this was significantly higher than the ASEAN average of 27.8 percent. The Department of Trade and Industry said negotiations on Defa concluded in May, with Asean leaders expected to sign the agreement at the Manila Summit in November. Defa seeks to harmonize rules governing digital trade, including cross-border e-commerce, digital payments, electronic transactions, data flows and digital identities, to create a more inte-
Domestic readiness, regional disconnect
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THE WEF report pointed to a gap between strong domestic digital adoption and actual cross-border digital commerce across Asean. Despite Asean’s digital economy being on track to exceed $300 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) by 2025 and digital exports reaching $387 billion, only 53 percent of businesses participate in cross-border digital trade. The findings suggest that while firms are increasingly digitalized within their home markets, many still face difficulties conducting transactions across Asean economies because of regulatory and operational barriers. “The next challenge for Asean is to ensure that firms can use digital systems to trade, pay, authenticate, sign, transfer data and comply with rules across borders,” the report said.
Defa implementation gaps
THE report identified several obstacles that Asean must address if Defa is to deliver its intended benefits. Among companies already using cross-border digital payments, 66.8 percent reported transaction delays, while 62.5 percent cited high transaction costs. Paperless trade also remains incomplete. Although firms increasingly submit trade documents electronically, 58.4 percent said border authorities still require hard-copy documents, forcing businesses to maintain parallel paperbased processes. Data governance remains another major concern, with 65.9 percent of surveyed firms citing See “Asean,” A2
Monday, September 21, 2026 A7
‘Shore up purchasing power of middle-income aspirants’
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By Justine Xyrah Garcia
HE Marcos administration may need to extend its subsidy programs to households in the “aspiring middle-income” bracket as weakening purchasing power threatens to put further brakes on economic growth this year, according to the Tokyo-based Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI). ADBI Dean and CEO Bambang Brodjonegoro said targeted support for the group could help sustain household consumption and prevent growth from slowing further, as the government seeks to meet its 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent growth target for 2026. “This time, if you have a good kind of single identification number of the population, maybe you can give more targeted [support] to the aspiring middle income,” Brodjonegoro told reporters in a
chance interview last week. “Because they are the ones that are so-called rich enough to get the subsidy, but they are not really rich to spend like the middle class. I think this is the group that government needs to target through different types of support,” he further explained. The Philippine economy grew by just 2.3 percent in the second quarter, bringing first-half growth to 2.6 percent, well below the 5.4-percent expansion record-
ed in the same period last year. The slowdown has persisted since the third quarter of 2025, when growth eased to 3.9 percent, before slowing further to 3 percent in the fourth quarter. Brodjonegoro said the government should prevent the middle class from shrinking further, noting that weaker purchasing power among the group can weigh on household consumption and, in turn, economic growth. Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that household spending slowed to 2.8 percent in the second quarter of 2026, down from the 3 percent recorded in the first quarter and the 5.2 percent recorded in the same period last year. Despite the slowdown, household consumption remained the economy’s biggest growth driver, contributing 1.9 percentage points to the second-quarter expansion. “Maintaining the household consumption is important....You have to make sure that inflation for food price has to be well maintained. Otherwise, it will really reduce the purchasing power of the lower middle-income class in
the Philippines,” Brodjonegoro said. The pressure on household purchasing power comes as inflation, while easing, remains above the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ 2 percent to 4 percent target band. PSA data showed headline inflation eased to 6.1 percent in August, marking its fourth consecutive month of slower price increases after inflation peaked at 7.2 percent in April. Average inflation for the January-to-August period stood at 5.2 percent. Still, the ADBI chief said government support for consumption should be viewed as a shortterm measure. For the Philippines to return to a higher growth path, he said the government needs to focus on boosting investment and improving the system for processing investments to attract both domestic and foreign investors. Beyond investment, Brodjonegoro said the Philippines should seek to move up global and regional manufacturing value chains while positioning itself in industries tied to digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI).
₧45-M funding gap imperils Terra Madre By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo Special to the BusinessMirror
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ASEAN-JAPAN: STRONGER LINKS AHEAD Asean Secretary-General Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, center, speaks with Federation of Japanese Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Asean Chairman Shigeru Shimoda, left, and Japan External Trade Organization President Susumu Kataoka, joined by delegates from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Economic Research Institute for Asean and East Asia, during the 18th FJCCIA Dialogue in Manila on Friday, September 18, 2026. Business and government leaders discussed proposals to strengthen supply-chain resilience, promote green energy and advance digital governance across the region. Story in A1, “Japan Inc to Asean: Let’s work together vs disruption.”. ROY DOMINGO
PHL-Canada FTA talks nearing end By Bless Aubrey Ogerio
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HE Philippines and Canada are nearing the end of their free-trade agreement negotiations, with “very few” issues remaining and no more full rounds scheduled as negotiators work through the final details ahead of a possible November conclusion. Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary Allan B. Gepty said the remaining issues could be settled through virtual discussions, smaller meetings and exchanges among negotiators. “So we’re just left with very few remaining issues which we’ll have to address, perhaps virtually, and maybe small meetings, so that hopefully, at least by November, we can already conclude the negotiation,” Gepty told reporters after the briefing on the 58th Asean Economic Ministers’ Meeting and Related Meetings in Pasay on Friday. The latest development follows the comple-
tion of another round of negotiations earlier this month. The Philippines-Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA), once concluded, would become the country’s first free-trade agreement with a North American country. Among the issues that typically require the most careful negotiations are market access and rules governing the commitments of both countries, according to Gepty. Moreover, he said that agricultural products, in particular, can be sensitive because countries may seek to protect certain domestic industries even as they negotiate broader tariff concessions. “When it comes to market access, especially when you talk about sensitive products like agricultural products, that is quite understandable,” the country’s chief trade negotiator said. The negotiations also involve determining how strongly each side will commit to implementing the rules and measures covered by the
agreement. For Philippine exporters, Gepty said the goal in market-access negotiations is to secure the widest possible duty-free coverage for products of interest. “Basically, you want that when you export your products of interest to that particular economy or country, it’s of course zero duties,” he said. “As much as possible, if we can target 100 percent, why not?” He said reaching that level would require difficult negotiations, with both sides seeking to maximize the share of trade value covered by preferential or zero-duty treatment. On the other hand, Gepty said that bilateral talks should not be directly compared with the separate Asean-Canada FTA negotiations because the two agreements differ in scope and do not cover identical issues. Still, he said the Philippines is working to conclude both agreements within the year. For the bilateral FTA, however, reaching a ne-
gotiating conclusion in November would not immediately mean the agreement is ready to take effect. The completed text would first undergo legal scrubbing, which could take several weeks or months, before the parties secure the necessary signing authorities and formally sign the agreement. The agreement would then go through the ratification process. If the Department of Foreign Affairs recommends that it be treated as a treaty, it would be submitted to the Senate for concurrence. The timing of the remaining meetings will depend on the availability of negotiators, Gepty explained, noting that the same officials are handling several trade negotiations. Bilateral merchandise trade hit a total $3.1 billion in 2024, down from $3.4 billion a year earlier, as Canadian exports to the Philippines reached $1.4 billion and imports from the Philippines stood at $1.7 billion.
HE Philippines has no funds to host Terra Madre Asia Pacific (TMAP) 2027. At the recent House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations hearing on the proposed P5.5-billion Department of Tourism (DOT) budget under the National Expenditure Program for 2027, DOT Director Paulo Tugbang informed lawmakers that, “We actually requested for the project funds for Terra Madre Asia Pacific 2027 to DBM for tier-two requests but unfortunately, it was not approved, to the tune of P45 million.” Negros Occidental 3rd District Rep. Javi Benitez raised the funding issue as the DOT had helped mount the initial event in Bacolod City in November. TMAP is supposed to be held bi-annually in Bacolod City, the hub of the slow food movement in Asia and the Pacific region. Tugbang added that the return on investment from next year’s event will be “132 percent, based on our projections that we requested that will cover for more countries to come to the Philippines for this slow food activity.” Slow food is a global movement that promotes locally sourced, traditional, and sustainable food. Last year, more than 2,000 delegates from 25 participating countries, even as far as Italy and France, attended the initial TMAP. Organizers had told the BusinessMirror that the project cost P60 million, with assistance coming from the government, private sector, and overseas donors. (See, “Terra Madre in Aspac makes PHL debut,” in the BusinessMirror, Nov. 21, 2025.)
P298-M return in 2026
“I HOPE we can fight to appeal this [to DBM] because it’s a loss, especially since we are an internationally recognized [hub for the slow food movement]. Not only is it for our international tourists that are coming, but it is already there and it’s already working,” said Benitez, one of the key supporters of Slow Food Negros and TMAP. He said the event last year generated sales of some P47 million, “with a combined return of almost P298 million, and organizers said they earned P1.4 million, so hopefully we can support this.” To which, Acting Tourism Secretary Ma. Bernardita Angara-Mathay said the agency will do its best to look for
the budget to fund TMAP 2027. “I’m a fan of slow food, and I’ve always made it a part of all my public speeches. No less than the chairman of the Japan Travel Bureau asked about it. So if it requires us, then definitely, we will knock on the door of [DBM] Secretary Kim [Robert C. De Leon] to ask that he at least approve this part of the second-tier [fund] requests,” she asserted. The DOT had received P15 million in funds for TMAP 2026 under the “continuing appropriations,” which are monies previously authorized by Congress that remain valid and available for allocation even after a specific budget year. Tourism Undersecretary for Finance and Administration Ma. Dionesa Rivera-Guillermo also gave this assurance: “We can find ways to fund [the event] as mentioned by the Secretary, and we can work closely with the Tourism Promotions Board on this matter.”
PHL at Turin event
AS this developed, over 80 delegates from the Philippines representing some 45 slow food communities in the country will attend the main event for the global slow food movement, the Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, from September 24 to 27 in Turin, Italy. The DOT will lead the Philippine delegation. Piazza Castello will host the International Market of Terra Madre where producers from several European Countries, the Philippines, Azerbaijan, Japan, Türkiye, Colombia, Mexico, India, South Korea and Taiwan will offer a rich program of debates, tastings and workshops. More than 1,500 farmers, fishers, Indigenous leaders, cooks, researchers, activists and young changemakers from more than 120 countries will gather over four days to examine how access to land, water, seeds and biodiversity is reshaping power in food systems. “No transition can be called just if it further concentrates control over land, water, seeds and knowledge in the hands of a few powerful players,” said Edward Mukiibi, President of Slow Food, in a news statement. “Who decides which seeds survive? Who controls access to water? Who determines the future of agriculture? These are not simply technical questions. They are questions about democracy, equity and the kind of food systems we want to build,” he added.
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Monday, September 21, 2026 • Editor: Angel R. Calso
Opinion BusinessMirror
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editorial
The vote endured: BARMM’s fragile democratic debut
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HE recent BARMM elections carry an unsettling arithmetic: three dead, 15 wounded, seven violent incidents across Bangsamoro—yet officials called the polls “generally peaceful.” This paradox defined BARMM’s first parliamentary elections, where a historic exercise in self-governance unfolded under the shadow of violence, where the determination to vote collided with the persistent reality of bloodshed. (Read the BusinessMirror story: “Violent incidents fail to stop BARMM polls,” September 14, 2026).
Monday’s elections were never going to be ordinary. They represented the culmination of decades of struggle and negotiation, the first opportunity for the Bangsamoro people to elect representatives to their own regional parliament under the framework of the 2019 plebiscite that established the autonomous region. Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia’s declaration that “there is no room for violence in a democratic process” carries the hollow ring of aspiration rather than reality when teachers are delayed by armed confrontations and election materials must be transported through checkpoints manned by MILF fighters. The disconnect between official narrative and ground reality is perhaps the most troubling aspect of Monday’s events. PNP spokesperson Col. Allen Rae Co’s characterization of the elections as “generally peaceful” because the “majority of areas” saw no violence is statistically accurate but insufficient. When three lives are lost to a shooting outside an elementary school in Cotabato, when explosions rattle polling centers, when homemade bombs are recovered by security forces, the qualifier “generally” does little to comfort the bereaved or reassure a public already skeptical of electoral integrity. Yet there is another story here, one that complicates easy condemnation. Despite the disruptions, voters continued to line up. Despite the confrontations, teachers eventually entered the polling places. Despite the explosions, ballot boxes were sealed and transported. Comelec reported a 97.38 percent voting status across tracked areas—a figure that suggests not apathy but tenacity. Garcia’s observation that Bangsamoro voters would “make their voices heard and show it to the whole nation” captures something essential about these elections: they were assertions of political identity and agency. This resilience, however, should not excuse the security lapses that allowed violence to erupt. The PNP’s admission that they are still investigating the circumstances behind the incidents—shootings, explosions, suspected election-related violence—raises questions about preparedness. If authorities could achieve 100 percent voting start status in Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Sur, Tawi-Tawi, and the Special Geographic Area, why could they not prevent bloodshed in Cotabato and Basilan? The presence of MILF fighters in AlBarka, ostensibly former combatants now integrated into the political process, suggests that the transition from armed struggle to electoral politics remains incomplete, with commanders still capable of disrupting the democratic machinery when it suits their interests. As canvassing proceeds and winners are proclaimed, the Bangsamoro region faces a critical juncture. These elections were meant to consolidate the gains of the peace process, to demonstrate that self-governance could succeed where centralized control had failed. Instead, they have revealed the fragility of democratic institutions in environments where political competition retains its martial character. The parliament that emerges from these polls will govern not just a territory but a tension—between the aspiration for normalcy and the legacy of conflict. There is no failure of election, technically speaking. But there is a failure of imagination if we accept that democracy in BARMM must always be accompanied by body counts. The voters have spoken. The question now is whether the region’s political actors—former rebels, traditional politicians, and security forces alike—are ready to listen without the accompaniment of gunfire.
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Copyright’s role in building the Philippines’ creative economy Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II
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ICTURE a scenario familiar to many working artists right now: a freelance illustrator who’s spent a decade drawing textbook covers and poster visuals feeds a rough concept into an AI image generator, then spends hours hand-correcting proportions, fixing faces the software still can’t render convincingly, and layering in details that make the final piece unmistakably hers. If she tried to register that work, whose creation would the law say it is? That scenario is exactly the question the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines’ Bureau of Copyright and Related Rights is trying to answer with its latest activity—public consultations on draft guidelines for registering AI-related creative works. The proposal sorts output into four buckets: AI-assisted, AIenhanced, hybrid, and AI-generated output. A firm line runs through all of them: copyright protection covers only the parts a human actually made. A writer who prompts a chatbot for a paragraph and pastes it in gets nothing. A writer who uses that same chatbot to test alternate phras-
ing, then rewrites and restructures the material into something distinctly theirs, can register the final product. Using AI doesn’t disqualify you; using it as a substitute for your own judgment does. It’s a reasonable compromise, and one that’s been a long time coming. Filipino creatives have spent the past few years working without a clear answer, never quite sure whether the tools now standard in nearly every design studio and writers’ room would leave their finished work legally worthless, no matter how good it looked on screen. Under the draft’s own logic, our hypothetical illustra-
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unlicensable, or contestable. It’s good that IPOPHL’s approach avoids banning AI use outright, or treating any AI-touched work as automatically and fully protected. Both extremes would have been simpler to write but far more damaging in practice. Instead, the guidelines ask creators to do something we should have been asking of them anyway: show your work,know whatyou actually contributed, and be honest about where the tool’s role ends, and yours begins. That framework, though, leans hard on something the technology itself can’t yet guarantee: that “show your work” is verifiable rather than simply asserted. A 2026 systematic review of 30 studies on human detection of generative AI content found accuracy hovering near chance across text, image, and voice, suggesting that people are, on the whole, poor judges of what came from a machine. The technical backstops fare only somewhat better. Even Google’s SynthID, among the most robust watermarking systems available, needs roughly 200 tokens of text before its statistical signal becomes reliable, and researchers have found that a determined paraphrase can push its accuracy from very high down to essentially random. C2PA metaSee “Rojas,” A9
What the landscape does: Valuing nature’s services in the Rizal wind project debate
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tor would likely qualify because her selection, correction, and arrangement are exactly the kind of “original expressive contribution” the guidelines are built to protect. And at about the same time, the Department of Trade and Industry opened the first ASEAN Creative Industries Expo under its Malikhaing Pinoy banner at SMX Convention Center Aura in Taguig, gathering creative enterprises from across the region. Trade Secretary Cristina Roque used the occasion to announce that the Philippine creative economy has reached P2.12 trillion, now contributing 7.6 percent of GDP, with P320 billion in exports of creative goods and P427 billion in exports of creative services. As this year’s ASEAN chair, the country is pushing to host the proposed ASEAN Center of Excellence for Creative Industries, a bid Manila hopes to formalize when regional leaders convene here in November. Put those two developments side by side, and you realize something crucial: the country cannot credibly market itself as a regional creative hub while leaving its creators unsure whether their AI-assisted work even belongs to them. Export ambitions mean nothing if the underlying intellectual property is unregistrable,
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NTIPOLO Mayor Jun Ynares III has asked the government and the developer of a proposed wind-energy project in Rizal to take another look at where the turbines will stand. Perhaps the government should first take another look at what is already there. Not merely the limestone formations. Not merely the trees. Not merely the wildlife inhabiting them.
Instead, put a value on the work the landscape performs. How much rainwater does the watershed temporarily retain? How much runoff does its forest cover moderate. What does the karst system contribute to groundwater movement and storage? What erosion does the landscape help prevent? What would happen to those services if roads, turbine foundations, transmission facilities and construction areas disturbed portions of the landscape? And then ask a question rarely attached to a mountain: What is all that worth? This is not an argument against renewable energy. It is an argument for accounting.
A wind project arrives with numbers attached to it: megawatts of generating capacity, hectares required, investment cost, projected electricity output and years of operation. Nature usually arrives at the negotiating table without a balance sheet. The forest does not submit an invoice for slowing runoff. The watershed sends no monthly bill for regulating water. A karst landscape does not calculate what government might otherwise have to spend replacing ecological functions diminished by its disturbance. And because those services appear to cost nothing, they can easily acquire a value of zero in the development equation.
Except they are not worth zero. The Philippines has already recognized this. Republic Act 11995, the Philippine Ecosystem and Natural Capital Accounting System Act, requires the government to account for natural capital and ecosystem services in policy and decisionmaking. More pointedly, it directs DENR, within the Environmental Impact Assessment system, to frame the natural environment, ecosystem services and natural capital as assets that may be put at risk. That language should now be brought to Rizal. Before the government decides whether turbines, roads and associated infrastructure can coexist safely with this landscape, why not prepare a site-specific natural-capital account for the affected watershed? Measure what nature is doing before permitting something that might alter how nature does it. Then comes the second piece of the accounting. Show us the map. Vena Energy says its turbines will not be built in karst areas. Conservation groups say coordinates contained in the project’s own Environmental Compliance Certificate show an overlap with the protected karst landscape. Those propositions should not have to compete indefinitely in press
releases. Publish the current coordinates of every turbine, access road, construction area and associated facility. Overlay them against the karst geology, protected-area zoning, Masungi Karst Conservation Area, Proclamation 1636 and the watershed boundaries. Then place beside that map the natural-capital account. Now the public can see two things government should know before making its decision: Where will development occur? And: What ecological value might be placed at risk there? The distinction matters especially in a country repeatedly spending billions trying to manage water after it has already arrived downstream. Metro Manila knows that problem. Central Luzon knows it. Pampanga knows it painfully. Their watersheds and flooding dynamics are different, and one should not pretend that conserving a mountain in Rizal will prevent flooding in Pampanga. But the policy lesson travels farther than the water does. We have become extraordinarily good at putting a price on structures built to control water downstream. Perhaps we should become equally good at valuing landscapes that help manage water upstream. A floodSee “Gagni,” A11
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ESFARBA: Beyond one LOA—Is this the future of BIR audit?
I may, but I will not! Siegfred Bueno Mison, Esq.
THE PATRIOT
I DEBIT CREDIT Joel L. Tan-Torres
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HE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) entered 2026 with one of the most significant changes in tax-audit administration in years. After a series of Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearings on Letters of Authority (LOAs) in 2025 and the suspension of audit and field operations under RMC 107-2025, audits resumed on January 27, 2026. Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) 8-2026 and Revenue Memorandum Order 1-2026 introduced revised controls and procedures intended to make audits more predictable, accountable, and transparent.
One reform deserves particular attention: the Single-Instance Audit Framework. As a general rule, a taxpayer is now subject to only one electronic Letter of Authority for a taxable year, covering all applicable internal revenue taxes, including VAT. Multiple or overlapping eLAs for the same taxpayer and year are prohibited, subject to defined exceptions such as fraud and certain transactional, event-based, or terminal cases. RMO 1-2026 also introduced risk-based, data-driven, and systemassisted taxpayer selection, including anonymized candidate lists. The BIR has further emphasized standardized documentation, clear factual and legal bases for unresolved issues, and the Revalida or “auditthe-auditor” mechanism to check the quality, timeliness, and propriety of audit work. The BIR also mandated that the meeting with taxpayers be minuted and part of the audit docket. These reforms raise a larger question: once the right taxpayer has been selected, how should the BIR audit be conducted? For discussion, I use the acronym ESFARBA—Environmental Scanning, Financial Statement Analysis, and Risk-Based Audit. The first step, Environmental Scanning, asks what is happening around the taxpayer. What is changing in the industry, technology, regulation, interest rates, commodity prices, supply chains, consumer behavior, and business models? These developments may explain unusual financial results—or point to emerging tax risks. Financial Statement Analysis then asks what the numbers are saying. Horizontal and vertical analysis, margins, turnover ratios, cash-flow patterns, related-party balances and reconciliation of audited financial statements with tax returns can identify areas requiring explanation. But a ratio, variance, or unusual trend is only a signal. It is not yet a tax deficiency. Risk-Based Audit converts those signals into focused audit questions. What is the possible tax issue? How material is it? What evidence is required? What third-party information can validate it? What audit procedure is proportionate? And importantly, what evidence could disprove the original hypothesis? This differs from a broad transactional approach in which examination may begin with extensive document requests and large-scale vouching before the most important risks are identified. Under ESFARBA, the sequence is reversed: Understand the environment
Rojas. . .
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data, the other leading provenance standard, is often lost the moment a platform re-encodes an image. None of this is a flaw specific to the Philippines; it’s the global state of the art. In effect, IPOPHL’s guidelines, however well-designed, will run on something closer to an honor system than a verification regime, enforced mainly through spot audits, disputes
Tax administration internationally is also moving in this direction. OECD Tax Administration 2025 reports that around 85 percent of surveyed administrations have a formal compliance-risk-management strategy, with almost all of those using structured approaches to identify, assess, and prioritize compliance risks. Tax administrations increasingly use data matching, analytics, algorithms, and third-party information to decide where compliance action is most needed. →understand the financial statements → identify and rank the risks→ prepare the audit plan→ focus on issues→test the issues. The idea is not new to the audit profession. In external audit, International Standards on Auditing 315 require auditors to identify and assess risks of material misstatement so that audit responses can be focused on assessed risks. The Institute of Internal Auditors likewise describes internal auditing as risk-based and objective, with standards emphasizing engagement planning, risk assessment, and communication. Forensic work similarly uses data analytics and red-flag testing, while financial and tax due diligence routinely analyzes financial information and key risks before deciding where deeper work is required. Tax administration internationally is also moving in this direction. OECD Tax Administration 2025 reports that around 85 percent of surveyed administrations have a formal compliance-risk-management strategy, with almost all of those using structured approaches to identify, assess, and prioritize compliance risks. Tax administrations increasingly use data matching, analytics, algorithms, and third-party information to decide where compliance action is most needed. To be continued Joel L. Tan-Torres was the former Dean of the University of the Philippines Virata School of Business. Previously, he was the Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Chairman of the Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy, and a partner of Reyes Tacandong & Co. and the SyCip Gorres and Velayo & Co. He is a Certified Public Accountant who garnered No. 1 in the CPA Board Examination of May 1979. He is now back to his tax practice with his firm, JL2T Consulting. He can be contacted at joeltantorress@yahoo.com.
between rival claimants, or a creator’s own conscience, since no existing tool can definitively separate the human hand from the machine’s. Going back to our hypothetical illustrator, under this draft, she wouldn’t need to claim credit for what the machine drew, but only for what she fixed, chose, and built on top of it. If IPOPHL’s rules hold that distinction as they move from consultation to final policy, the Philippines’ creative-hub ambitions might actually rest on solid legal ground.
ENCOUNTERED the technical term “grave abuse of discretion” in countless petitions filed before, and decisions promulgated by, the Supreme Court. At its core, grave abuse of discretion refers to the arbitrary or whimsical exercise of judgment. But there is another kind of abuse of discretion that may not always be legally actionable: choosing what one may do instead of what one ought to do. The Supreme Court recently confronted the first kind when it ruled that Congress’ 39-year failure to enact a law prohibiting political dynasties constitutes grave abuse of discretion. Congress, of course, retains discretion to determine how political dynasties should be prohibited. The House of Representatives has already approved its version of an anti-political dynasty measure. Whether that legislation genuinely prohibits political dynasties or merely regulates them remains debatable. Congress may pass a law that technically satisfies the Constitution but effectively preserves the concentration of political power to certain families. Legislators may do so, but they should not. The same principle can be seen in courtrooms. During cross-examination, lawyers may challenge a witness for credibility and expose inconsistencies to make a witness uncomfortable. But the latitude to ask these questions does not necessarily make every question wise or con-
structive. A seasoned litigator may challenge without harassing, question without insulting, and press without badgering. Hence, I found some of the questioning by defense counsel Atty. Vinluan of a retired Sandiganbayan justice in the ongoing impeachment trial disturbing. It may be permissible as litigation strategy, but the fact that something may be done does not necessarily mean it should be done. A lawyer may do so, but he should not. I have encountered the same dilemma in the corporate world. In family-owned corporations, controlling shareholders naturally possess substantial authority. Directors and officers may therefore find themselves confronted with decisions that favor family interests over sound corporate governance. From my own experience, I could have simply yielded to the wishes of those who controlled the corporation. It is easier to obey the owners than to challenge them. But corporate governance is about protecting the corporation from
Monday, September 21, 2026
abuse of discretion. So when I saw actions that, in my judgment, violated sound principles of governance, I published a compliance report exposing the deficiencies. The report obviously displeased the owners. A few weeks later, I left the company. There are indeed moments when one must choose between position and principles. I may, but I will not. The same dilemma confronted me in the academe. I have had the inglorious opportunity of failing law students in my 20 years of teaching. Most deserved to fail because of their evident lack of commitment during our weekly recitation drills. Still, there were occasions when I wondered whether mercy should prevail and pass a few of them. I may give a passing grade and allow the student to struggle through the next subjects or eventually face the Bar examination unprepared. But I often return to what I learned about the Improvement Test: Will this decision make me or the person affected by it, better? Failing a student can be painful. Yet adversities can create the necessary hunger to be a better lawyer. My pastor once taught me a simple doctrinal lesson. In the Bible, Paul wrote: “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. (1 Corinthians 10:23) That verse provides a useful test for discretion. There are things that are not necessarily illegal but are nevertheless unwise. There are things that are permissible but not beneficial. There are decisions that satisfy the letter of the law but violate the spirit of responsibility.
A9
Leadership often requires choosing not between good and evil, but between good and better. In public service, an official may receive a gift, something presented as a harmless courtesy. But even when receiving gifts is not automatically prohibited, its propriety may depend on whether it creates an expectation of reciprocal favor. A gift can result to an inconvenient obligation which can ripen to an unholy relationship. And such a relationship can lead to abuse. Grave abuses of discretion do not occur only in courtrooms, Congress, or corporate boardrooms. They occur in ordinary life. We often comfort ourselves by saying, “I am not doing anything illegal.” But legality is not always the highest standard. We are given the freedom to act. But freedom is not merely the power to do what we may. It is also the responsibility to refuse what we should not do, even when nobody can legally stop us. Sometimes we may please the powerful, protect ourselves, or settle for what is merely acceptable. Perhaps, the most important exercise of discretion is not deciding what we can do. It is having the courage to say: “I may, but I will not.” Siegfred has a diversified set of education and experiences which has made him a game changer and a servant leader in organizations. His professional degrees came from the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York, Ateneo Law School, and University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. His corporate experiences include stints as general counsel for the country’s flag carrier, a food exporter with manufacturing plants in Davao and in Laguna, and a sports distributor company. Siegfred is a former soldier and a lawyer by profession, a teacher and inspirational speaker by passion, and a book author and a writer with a mission.
Even as trading and markets moved faster, Warren Buffett made patience profitable and cool By Josh Funk And Stan Choe | AP Business Writers
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MAHA, Neb.—Even in the age of algorithms, short attention spans and TikTok teases, Warren Buffett continued to profit with his patient bargain-hunting approach while offering folksy advice on investing and life.
As chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett became famous for his unwavering and methodical investing style: Buy good businesses when their prices are low, stay on the sidelines when prices are too high and be patient with well-chosen picks. He rode that to decades of beating the rest of the US stock market before he retired as Berkshire’s chairman on Friday, less than a year after giving up his role as CEO. The formula of buying good things at low prices sounds simple, and it’s the foundation of a style of investing called “value” hunting. But it periodically comes under criticism when the hot new thing is enthralling Wall Street, whether it’s dot-com stocks in the late 1990s or gold when its price was setting records early this year. (Buffett is famously skeptical of gold as an investment, saying it “has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative.”) The investing world has had other celebrities. J.P. Morgan built his reputation by investing in railroads during the 19th century. Andrew Carnegie helped build the US steel industry and became famous for his philanthropy. Jim Cramer and Kevin O’Leary are on TV shows. But few ever cracked into the national consciousness like Buffett, and none did so from near the geographic center of the country in Omaha, Nebraska.
Gagni. . .
Continued from A10
control channel has a project cost. A pumping station has a project cost. A dam has a project cost. So does a destroyed watershed. We simply tend to discover the price of a destroyed watershed later when rainwater floods houses up to
Buffett offers enduring lessons on life and investing MANY professional investors also adhere to Buffett’s style of bargainhunting. But none have had the kind of folksy humor and candor that can draw hordes of investors each year, like those attending Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting. More than 40,000 people would pack an Omaha arena on the first Saturday in May to hear from Buffett and his longtime investing partner, Charlie Munger, who died in 2023 and espoused a similar take-it-slow and make-it-right approach to investing. Besides talking about how they hunted for well-run businesses and the news of the day, they would also regularly confess to their own mistakes and crack wise. “Not a day goes by where what I’ve learned about Warren doesn’t affect me positively, both personally and financially,” said Todd Finkle, a retired professor. He grew up in Omaha, knows Buffett’s children and wrote the book, “Warren Buffett: Investor and Entrepreneur.” When Finkle would bring students to visit the “Oracle of Omaha” for extended Q-and-A meetings, Finkle said the first topic Buffett would discuss was never financial. “He didn’t say anything about money. The first topic that he would always bring up is that the most important thing you’ll do in your life is to pick who to marry.” the rooftop, with residents trapped in rampaging waters and shivering in cold not knowing that the loss of the watershed contributed to the catastrophe. That is why Mayor Ynares’ intervention deserves serious consideration beyond the immediate controversy over several wind turbines. It raises a larger question about how the Philippines decides what consti-
He built a reputation for honesty and trust
FOLLOWING a scandal at Salomon Brothers, in which Berkshire Hathaway had an ownership stake, Buffett became chairman and testified in Congress. He said all employees were told, “After they first obey all rules, I then want employees to ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next day on the front page of their local paper to be read by their spouses, children and friends with the reporting done by an informed and critical reporter.” That reputation for honesty, along with his famed patience for investments, helped Buffett stay famous even in this “post-truth” era where people scroll through feeds at fingerflicking speed. He’s such an icon that scammers would use him in AI-generated videos that appeared to show him endorsing questionable investments or political candidates. On Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, traders share picks for potential get-rich-quick opportunities in day-trading stocks and options. The discussion jumps from idea to idea, but even the denizens there know Buffett and his famous advice to “be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.” His reputation is so strong and his advice so well-known that some memes on the forum ironically joke about doing the opposite, with a picture of Buffett suggesting that everyone freak out and sell in a panic.
tially get attracted to Buffett because he is rich and has made many Berkshire shareholders wealthy. But their interest deepens after reading Buffett’s annual letters, which became required reading for many investors, and hearing him speak in interviews. Through reading and listening, people would glean nuggets from Buffett like his core rules for investing: “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1.” Or that “you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out,” referencing how tough times will quickly show who has been taking too much risk. He also suggested that “who you associate with is just enormously important. Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that. But you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.” “People associate him with successful investing, but I look at him more and more as kind of a guide toward how to live a successful life, whatever your talents happen to be,” Miles said.
Few investors have broad appeal like Buffett
BOB MILES, who has taught a college course about Buffett for 16 years, said that people might ini-
AT the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of business, trips for students to Berkshire’s annual meetings were always a hot ticket. “I don’t know of any time that it wasn’t popular,” said David Musto, a finance professor at the school and faculty director of the Jacobs Master of Science in Quantitative Finance. With Buffett’s departure from the stage, the obvious question is whether anyone else could replace him as the world’s most famous value investor.
tutes infrastructure. A watershed is not empty land awaiting economic use. A watershed is already working. If it moderates water, protects soil, supports biodiversity, stores carbon or helps recharge groundwater, those are services being performed before the first peso of a new project is invested. Renewable energy is infrastructure. But so is the natural system
upon which communities downstream depend. The issue, therefore, should not begin with choosing between them. It should begin with knowing what we already have. Count the megawatts. Count the investment. Count the jobs. But before disturbing the mountain, count something else. Count what the mountain is already doing.
Buffett’s lessons go well beyond business
Sports
A10 Monday, September 21, 2026 | mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph
BusinessMirror
Editor: Jun Lomibao
PHL STRIKES EARLY AS ASIAD FIRES OFF By Jun Lomibao
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AGOYA, Japan— Soft tennis gave the Philippines its first medal—bronze—with two more of the same color assured in mixed martial arts in Day 1 of the Aichi-Nagoya 20th Asian Games that kicked off with a spectacular opening ceremony on Saturday night. Princess Catindig, Noelle Mañalac and Christy Sanosa were responsible for that bronze medal after a 0-2 semifinals loss to powerhouse Japan as the hosts got a major reprieve from criticisms on accommodation facilities with no less than International Olympic Committee president Cirsty Coventry touring the wooden cabins lodging athletes and saying she was “really impressed.” Teqball also had an opportunity for a bronze medal but age and experience took over when 36-yearold Friday Saw My of Myanmar dealt 14-year-old Prince Agustin a 7-12, 7-12 men’s singles semifinals setback. That loss, however, reverberated
with a strong message about the future of Philippine teqball, a relatively new sport mixing football and table tennis over a curved table—Agustin’s teammates and townmates from Cagayan Province and training in Laoag City are also 14: Dailan Christoffe Montenegro and Anel Pacis. “We’re very happy that I showed my best in the Asian Games,” said Agustin, a ninth-grader who was adopted by Laoag City’s sports program along with his teammates. With their men’s counterparts already shedding their disappointing finish for days already, the Gilas Pilipinas Women inched closer to a quarterfinal spot by clobbering Hong Kong, 90-73, at the Aichi International Arena. Stefanie Berberabe led the way with 21 points, with four threepointers, while Afril Bernardino added 17 points and 11 rebounds for the Gilas Women who’re now 0-2 won-lost and up next against Japan. “The key point here from now to the tip off is the players resting,” said Gilas coach BT Toews, stressing the team needs fresh legs will be crucial
against a Japanese side that has been playing together for years. At the Hekinan Ryokuchi Beach Court in Hekinan City, Bernadette Pons and Sisi Rondina handily disposed of their Bangladesh rivals, 21-6, 21-6, to stay on course in beach volleyball. Agatha Wong (women’s taijiquan), Sandrex Gainsan and Mark Anthony Polo, however, didn’t live up strong enough and fell by the wayside in wushu, and so did triathlon bets Fernando Jose Casares and Inaki Lorbes who wound up 10th and 18th in the men’s individual event won by Japanese Takumi Hojo. Raven Faith Alcoseba could only finish ninth in the women’s division that China’s Xinyu Lim dominated. Team captain Bien ZoletaManalac gathered Princess Catindig, Christy Sanosa, Shyryn Salazar and Hilary Paas at center court of the Higashiyama Park Center to celebrate the bronze medal for
Team Philippines supported by the Philippine Olympic Committee and Philippine Sports Commission. “We showed how we are as Filipinos,” said Princess Catindig of the soft tennis team that held fort against a powerhouse opponent. “This is for the country’s next generation of athletes.” Bad news, however, emanated from Tokyo after sundown when Kayla Sanchez, Heather White, Xiandi Chua and Teia Salvino were disqualified in the women’s 4x100 meters freestyle relay. “Too early take off,” Philippine Aquatics Inc. secretary-general Eric Buhain told BusinessMirror. “There was a gap between the touch of Xiandi and Teia’s take off.” China already has 11 gold, six silver and three bronze medals, Japan has a 6-6-7 gold-silverbronze haul, while South Korea is at 3-3-7. The Philippines is running 21st at 0-0-1. NINTH grader Prince Agustin places falls at the semifinal stage. AP
Teenage trio offers glimpse of PHL teqball’s bright future
Marcial wins non-title pro bout, will not see action in Asian Games By Josef Ramos
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UMIR MARCIAL will not see action in the Nagoya Asian Games despite needing only three rounds to stop Omar Ulises Huerta of the US on Saturday in San Diego, California. Both his professional boxing handlers and officials in the national team agreed Marcial needs to take a break and focus on recovery before stepping back into the ring. Marcial connected on a right hook with 1:54 to go in the third round of the scheduled eight-round non-title middleweight bout at the Pechanga Arena. The Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist now has a professional record eight wins in as many bouts, with five knockouts. “So happy that he won his pro fight in that beautiful way,” Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) President Marcus Jarwin Manalo told BusinessMirror. “But I spoke to Eumir right after winning his professional fight earlier. After carefully considering the situation, Eumir and I agreed that it would be better to skip the Asian Games.” There were a lot of factors considered, including the flight to Japan, which would take 14 hours. “It would be extremely hard for him … the 16-hour time difference…the short recovery period,” Manalo said. “We hope for understanding that this decision is for Eumir’s best interests in mind. His commitment to Philippine boxing and to representing the country has never been in question. Eumir is now looking ahead to representing the country in the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in December.” International matchmaker Sean Gibbons said Marcial might still travel
to Japan to support teammates Carlo Paalam, Aira Villegas, Nesthy Petecio, Junmilardo Ogayre, Risa Pasuit and Norlan Petecio. “He is planning to go there and support his fellow national boxers. He will not fight, that is what I know,” Gibbons said. Marcial earned the silver medal in the Hangzhou Asian Games three years ago. “That was a million-dollar knockout win seen by millions of fans around the world,” Gibbons said. Huerta has a 15-2-1 win-lossdraw record.
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THE Philippine ladies soft tennis team delivers the country’s first-ever Asian Games medal in the sport. POC MEDIA TEAM
EUMIR MARCIAL makes short work of Omar Ulises Huerta. JHAY OTAMIAS
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Go cheers on Team Philippines in Nagoya
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AGOYA, Japan—Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go’s in town to rally Team Philippines in the Aichi-Nagoya 20th Asian Games. And the chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports unwittingly made his presence felt when the official television coverage showed him standing and waving the flag from the stands during Team Philippines’ turn in the parade of athletes of the opening ceremony on Saturday night at the
Gymnasts upbeat despite logistical troubles in Japan
Paloma Mizuho Stadium. “I only realized that the camera was on me when I looked at the giant monitor inside the stadium,” Go told sports scribes on Sunday night. “I was surprised.” But it’s no surprise for Go to be seen in both local and major international sporting events—he’s always on hand to cheer Filipino athletes, making him perhaps the most active and supportive Senate Sports Committee chairman ever. “I’m always behind Filipino athletes,
I always support our athletes in every which way I can,” said the senator whose passion for sports run from his deep love for basketball—he’s a dead shot from the outside as a matter of fact. “It’s in my veins.” Go’s due to fly home on Monday because of pressing tasks at the Senate and laments he couldn’t be with the athletes here. “I wish I can stay longer,” he said. “But I have a job to do back home.” Jun Lomibao
ESPITE a string of logistical hiccups that threw their preparations into disarray, members of the Philippine gymnastics team are optimistic as they kick off their Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games campaign on Monday with two-time Olympic champion Carlos Yulo leading the way. “Information on detailed training and competition schedules was spread across delegations with logistical delays. Further, accommodation reassignments and late availability resulted in late check-ins for multiple teams,” said team official Sofia Almonte. “The podium training sessions were delayed due to late arrival of the medical team, affecting the overall preparation focus.” But the troubles didn’t dampen the mood of Filipinos heading to the competition. “I think the team handled everything so well and of course they are still in good spirits,” Almonte said. Yulo is looking to add Asian Games gold to his collection after winning in the Olympics, World Championships, World Cup, Asian Championships and Southeast Asian Games. Yulo’s first opportunity comes Monday in the men’s all-around at Rainbow Hall of the Nagoya City General Gymnasium against a worldclass field that includes Olympic gold medalists Oka Shinnosuke and Daiki Hashimoto of Japan and China’s Zhang Boheng. Oka won the Olympic all-around gold medal in the 2024 Paris Games,
AGOYA, Japan—Three boys practically in their teens showed the future of Philippine teqball from the bravery and confidence they displayed against much older opponents in the Aichi-Nagoya 20th Asian Games. Prince Agustin, Dailan Christoffe Montenegro and Anel Pacis are all 14 years old from Cagayan Province and ninth graders in Laoag City where they’ve been adopted as young athletes. Their female teammate, Jhoana Abulencia, is their ate at 24, but only one of very few who embraced the still strange sport that mixes football and table tennis on a specially-designed curved table. All, too, are converts from sepak takraw, having played for Cagayan Valley in the Palarong Pambansa with Abulencia a former national team member. On Monday, Agustin went up against Friday Saw and lost, 7-12, 7-12, dashing his hopes for a bronze medal at the Nagoya City Higashi Sports Center But definitely no regrets losing to the Myanmarese who’s
old enough to be his father at 36 years old and a long-time takraw player who’s dad to two boys. “It was a tough experience,” Agustin told BusinessMirror with the shyness of a young boy from the province. “But we prepared hard for the Asian Games, it’s my first time and I was excited.” Saw had all the advantages—physique, skills and experience—in manhandling Agustin, but the Filipino didn’t wilt that easy as the last “man” standing for Team Philippines in the sport. He had the crowd behind him and after the match, he got a warm and appreciative applause even from the competition’s technical officials. Asked what he wanted out of a potential bright career in the sport, the son of a Wi-Fi technician and a housewife in Abulug town in Cagayan said: “I want to get rich.” It’s understandable that Agustin and Abulencia couldn’t get past the mixed doubles quarterfinals and Montenegro and Pacis through the group stage, but bravely going up against men so raw and inexperienced were all that mattered at the moment. Jun Lomibao
WUSHU artist Agatha Wong, bronze medalist eight years ago, places 10th in her final Asian Games stint. AP while Hashimoto was the 2021 Tokyo Games winner. Zhang won the allaround in the Hangzhou Asiad three years ago and earned gold in the Asian Championships last June. Yulo is also entered in the floor exercise and vault, events he ruled in the Paris Olympics. His campaign in the floor exercise could face another showdown with Japan’s Shoma Tsukiyama. Yulo and Tsukiyama placed first and second at the recent Asian Championships, with Yulo’s younger brother Eldrew taking bronze. South Korea’s Kim Jaeho and Iran’s Mahdi Olfati, who bagged silver and bronze, respectively, at the Asian Championships in the vault,
are expected to give Yulo a run for his money. Yulo is out to settle unfinished business in the Asiad. At 18 years old, Yulo arrived in Jakarta-Palembang in 2018 as one of the Philippines’ brightest medal prospects after winning World Cup silver medals in vault and floor exercise. But he finished fourth on vault and seventh in the floor exercise. “I want to make up for this,” Yulo said. Yulo was unable to compete at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou as it coincided with the World Championships which were qualifiers for the Paris Olympics.
Companies BusinessMirror
Editor: Jennifer A. Ng
Monday, September 21, 2026
First Gen capital spending in 5 years may hit ₧160B
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By Lenie Lectura
@llectura
LEAN energy producer First Gen Corp. said its capital expenditures through 2031 could reach P160 billion. First Gen President Francis Giles Puno said the numbers have yet to be finalized but noted that “it’s big.” He cited over P60 billion that may be allocated for hydro projects and P70 billion for geothermal exploration and expansion projects. “Just between the two ventures, P130 billion plus other hydro opportunities, plus solar—it’s not that difficult to say P150 to 160 billion of capital over the next five years,” he said. “It’s not that difficult to do that because of all of the investors.” First Gen currently has a total installed capacity of over 3,700
megawatts (MW) across natural gas, geothermal, hydropower, wind, and solar technologies It holds a 33-percent stake in Prime Hydropower Energy Inc., the developer of the Wawa and Pakil pumped-storage hydro projects. “Together with our existing 132MW Pantabangan-Masiway and 165-MW Casecan hydroelectric power plants, the Wawa and Pakil plants will complement our portfolio, as pumped storage hydropower facilities provide grid stability and reliability, allowing for the seamless integration of renewable ener-
gy projects into the power system,” said Puno. The partnership between Prime Infra and First Gen follows the recent acquisition by Prime Infra of a controlling stake into First Gas. Indonesia’s PT Barito Renewables Energy Tbk had offered to acquire First Gen’s geothermal arm, Energy Development Corp. (EDC). However, Puno cited the nationality requirement, noting that even if someone wanted ot buy 100 percent, it would not be allowed. “And when you think about it, all of the innovation that we’re thinking about, that innovation is being thought about by the company itself, which are mostly 99 percent Filipino. So, when you think about it, a lot of that is Filipino knowledge that we’ve gained through the years. And we want to be able to harness that knowledge to be able to expand. And so, if the Philippines wants to grow, I suspect you need companies, like First Gen or EDC, to continue to find ways to create value for the
expansion of geothermal and other renewable energy sources.” The Department of Energy (DOE) said it is monitoring this to ensure the country’s energy supply remains stable and “aligned with renewable targets.” “We are assessing the potential impact. I just need to verify the details of their deal; they haven’t formally presented it to us yet. We will wait for that. But if they can bring in more investment in geothermal, that would be a welcome development— provided, of course, that all legal requirements are met, as questions regarding that could arise. Still, if this encourages more investment, why not? Especially in geothermal, where we really need to increase capacity,” said DOE secretary Sharon Garin. EDC had said that there have been no discussions between the parties, no agreements have been signed, and it has not appointed any advisors for the transaction.
Ipophl aims to set new IP filings record By Bless Aubrey Ogerio @blessogerio
I
NTELLECTUAL property (IP) filings in the country are rising and could touch a new record by yearend, while seizures by enforcement agencies below levels seen years ago, according to the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (Ipohl). Ipophl Director General Teodoro C. Pascua said applications across intellectual-property categories have been increasing, although filings have yet to surpass last year’s level. “We hope it would be broken,” Pascua told reporters on Friday in Taguig when asked whether last year’s filing record could be exceeded. Latest Ipophl data showed that filings for patents, trademarks, utility models and industrial designs rose 2 percent to a record 53,231 in 2025 from 52,257 in 2024. Pascua said the agency is more focused on improving the speed of processing applications than simply driving up the number of filings, which is ultimately determined by applicants. “The concentration of the administration now is to speed up the process of applications,” he said. “That is, I think, more important rather than the number of filings.” While Ipophl can encourage businesses and creators to register their
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intellectual property, Pascua said the agency has greater control over how quickly applications are processed and registered. “If we speed up that, then I think that would be much better than just asking others to keep on filing and then leaving the extent of approval without much improvement.” Trademarks continue to account for the largest share of applications, with Pascua explaining that they generally involve a simpler process than patents, including utility models and industrial designs. In 2025, trademark filings reached 44,308, accounting for the bulk of total IP filings despite a slight 0.5-percent decline from the previous year. “It’s easy to make a trademark,” he said, noting that patent applications require more processes and therefore take longer to prepare and file. However, for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the cost of filing remains a barrier to registration, Pascua said. He added that Ipophl wants to examine trademark filings in relation to MSMEs as some may not register their marks despite having filed business names. “Filing is expensive,” Pascua said, although he argued that businesses should view registration as an investment rather than simply an expense.
He pointed to the risk of a business developing and using a name without registering it, only to discover that someone else had registered the trademark first.
Fewer seizures
PASCUA also said counterfeit-goods seizures have fallen from levels recorded in 2021 and 2022. “Our seizures are not as many as they were four or five years ago.” In 2021, the National Committee on Intellectual Property Rights seized a record P24.9 billion worth of counterfeit goods, up 110 percent from 2020, as enforcement resumed after pandemic restrictions and authorities focused on large-scale targets. Ipoplh also reported a 40-percent drop in counterfeiting and piracy complaints in January to November 2022, which it partly attributed to stronger online takedown efforts. The lower seizure count, however, does not by itself establish that counterfeit goods have become less prevalent in the market. According to Pascua, seizure activity depends partly on the operations and targets of other enforcement agencies, including the Bureau of Customs and the Philippine National Police, which have their own targets that Ipophl cannot fully control.
Venezuela and TotalEnergies SE signed a memorandum of understanding on Saturday, setting up the French company for a return to operations in the South American country. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez led the ceremony in Caracas, where Petroleos de Venezuela SA President Héctor Obregón and Francisco Javier Rielo, TotalEnergies senior vice president for the Americas, signed the energy cooperation agreement, according to a government statement. The French oil giant’s unit TotalEnergies E&P New Ventures will take part in energy projects, according to the statement. Rodríguez said Venezuela established reliable legal conditions for new investments thanks to the hydrocarbons law approved earlier this year after the US capture and ouster of former president Nicolás Maduro. Photo shows a logo at the TotalEnergies SE electric vehicle fuelling station in Paris, France. PHOTOGRAPHER: NATHAN LAINE/BLOOMBERG
B1
STOCK-MARKET OUTLOOK LAST WEEK Share prices fell sending the main index to the 5,800-point territory after the United States Federal Reserve raised its interest rates by 25 basis points. The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index declined 205.90 points to close at 5,855.91 points. Broker 2TradeAsia said the FTSE also held its rebalancing on Philippine shares at the end the week which brought select large-caps into negative territory. The main index was down three of the five trading days, with the biggest losses posted on Friday. Average daily trading reached P10.72 billion. Foreign investors, who cornered 43 percent of the trades, were net sellers at P3.66 billion. All of the sub-indices went down, with the exception of the Mining and Oil index that rose 366.70 points to close at 21,860.19 points. The broader All Shares index fell 80.60 to 3,277.80, the Financials index declined 42.13 to 1,820.63, the Industrial index shed 96.77 to 7,802.93, the Holding Firms index was down 59.73 to 4,137.14, the Property index retreated 44.23 to 1,798 and the Services index plunged 224.28 to 3,163.97. For the week, losers edged gainers 130 to 78 and 40 shares were unchanged. Top gainers were Supercity Realty Development Corp., LMG Corp., Roxas and Co. Inc., ENEX Energy Corp., Philex Mining Corp., PAL Holdings Inc. and Filinvest Development Corp. Top losers, meanwhile, were Metro Alliance Holdings and Equities Corp., Cebu Air Inc., Bloomberry Resorts Corp., Boulevard Holdings Inc., ABS-CBN Corp., ABS-CBN Corp., First Gen Corp. and National Reinsurance Corp. of the Philippines.
THIS WEEK SHARE prices may continue to go down this week, though there may be some bargain hunting on the sidelines, while volatility in global crude pricing has returned, amplifying the need to contain further increases in consumer prices. 2TradeAsia said the volatile peso plus high import bill are also on the radar screen of investors. It said, however, said funding allocation may continue, as some investors prepare for the initial public offering (IPO) of Vitro Reit Inc. and Mynt Inc. The broker said investors are now pricing at least one more hike of the US Federal Reserve before yearend, pushing the median forecast to roughly 4.15 percent through the end of 2027. “(Rate) cuts are effectively off the table for now, which marks a real shift from the easing narrative the market had been leaning on since late 2025/pre-Iran. This largely keeps our external headwind thesis from last week largely intact heading into fourth quarter unfortunately.” It said the overall playbook for the third quarter is more of the same—trim oil-correlated sectors, add banks and higher-for-longer plays—especially with a more hawkish Fed confirmed instead of merely speculated.
Continued on B2
B2
Companies BusinessMirror
Monday, September 21, 2026
Toyota wants EVs to capture a bigger share of auto sales
T
By Bless Aubrey Ogerio
@blessogerio
OYOTA Motor Philippines Corp. (TMP) is targeting a “30 for 30” run for electrified vehicles (EVs), projecting these vehicles to account for about 30 percent of local auto sales by 2030. The target assumes consumer acceptance, charging infrastructure and electricity capacity will expand alongside demand, with Toyota seeing fuel prices as one factor that could accelerate the switch to electrified powertrains. “Especially when the fuel crisis happens, that is a big factor because of the oil crisis,” TMP First Vice President for Corporate Affairs Josephine Villanueva said during a media roundtable in Makati last week. Toyota, however, does not expect that growth to come from a single type of electrified vehicle. For the local market, the company continues to see hybrids as the most practical option for now, while keeping battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and conventional internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in its lineup. “Our models now are hybrids because we feel—not that we intend it this way—but we firmly believe that right now, the best is hybrid. I mean, it’s the most practical choice,” TMP Senior Vice President for Marketing Sherwin T. Chua Lim said. Current sales data support the strong position of hybrids in the market, as latest figures from the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of
the Philippines Inc. (Campi) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) showed that hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) remained the largest electrified-vehicle segment in January to July. HEV sales reached 20,716 units, up 55.9 percent from 13,290 units a year earlier. The segment accounted for about 54 percent of the 38,286 electrified vehicles sold during the period, with overall EV sales surging 136.4 percent from 16,195 units in the same period last year. For TMP, the pace of electrification will vary across the country, depending on how quickly consumers accept the technology and how fast supporting infrastructure develops. “If you want to introduce (electric vehicles), and the market cannot accept it, or the infrastructure is not ready by that time, then that will dictate the pace of the growth of electrified cars,” Chua Lim said. Charging infrastructure remains one of the uncertainties surrounding the 2030 outlook. TMP said it has limited visibility on how the charging network will develop over the next three to four years, which could affect the expansion of electrified vehicles beyond major urban markets.
STOCK-MARKET OUTLOOK Continued on B2 “We caution trading small caps until the IPO pipeline drains out as liquidity will be harder to chase in the lead up to the mega listings; that being said, large-cap, index-heavy names should hold up better through the drain and remain preferable while the PSEi reattempts 6,000 before September/third quarter ends on window-dressing.”
STOCK PICKS PHILSTOCKS Financial Inc. advised investors to cut losses on the stock of Apex Mining Co. Inc. as it maintains a bullish technical setup, with its share price trading above its key moving averages, which serve as a support level. The stock has climbed 58 percent from its July 1 bottom, offsetting the impact of geopolitical headwinds. Meanwhile, the Mining Index has advanced 57 percent over the same period. Both have recovered above their pre-war levels, reflecting the strong rebound in the mining sector despite ongoing geopolitical uncertainties. It advised investors to consider trading if prices retraced towards the P17.60 support level, or if the stock continues to hold above P18.32. Apex Mining shares were last traded on Friday to close at P19 apiece. Meanwhile, the broker also advised to trade the shares of Philex Mining Corp. as, from a technical perspective, the stock has gained 87 percent from its July 1 low. The Silangan copper-gold project in Surigao del Norte is expected to become a key growth driver once commercial operations begin in the third quarter of 2026. The project is expected to benefit from its higher ore grade, with management noting that its grade is around six times higher than Padcal’s, potentially supporting stronger metal production once operations ramp up. “Prices have also moved above pre-war levels, although the MACD is beginning to show signs of weakness. Given the stock’s strong run, investors may consider entering if it pulls back towards P11.92 or if it holds position at P12.36,” the broker said. It advised investors to set cut loss to protect your capital if prices move to the opposite direction. Philex shares were last traded at P13.10 apiece. VG Cabuag
BUSINESSMIRROR FILE PHOTO
Electricity supply will also have to keep pace with the growing number of electrified vehicles. “Once you increase your electric vehicles, I think you need to also check your capacity, our electricity,” Villanueva said. The company’s 30-percent projection therefore covers a market in which different powertrains are
likely to coexist rather than one where conventional vehicles are quickly displaced. TMP’s “multi-battery” approach, it said, calls for continued availability of hybrids, BEVs and PHEVs alongside gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles, to cater to differences in consumer needs, infrastructure and market readiness.
www.businessmirror.com.ph
PSE STOCK QUOTATIONS
September 18, 2026
Net Foreign Stocks Bid Ask Open High Low Close Volume Value Trade (Peso) Buy (Sell) FINANCIALS
ASIA UNITED BDO UNIBANK BANK COMMERCE BANK PH ISLANDS CHINABANK EAST WEST BANK METROBANK PB BANK PHIL NATL BANK PSBANK RCBC SECURITY BANK UNION BANK COL FINANCIAL FERRONOUX HLDG MEDCO HLDG MANULIFE NTL REINSURANCE PHIL STOCK EXCH SUN LIFE VANTAGE
48.6 113 10.24 100 53.3 10.1 60.55 6.92 75.95 50 21.5 61.8 21.7 1.39 3.99 0.097 2,600 1.31 208 4,800 1.28
48.95 114 10.46 100.1 54 10.14 61.1 7 76 51.8 23 62.95 21.75 1.4 4 0.105 2,650 1.33 209 4,900 1.29
48.95 115 10.56 100 51.5 10.16 62.3 6.92 77.45 51.55 22.85 63.8 21.75 1.42 4.06 0.104 2,600 1.33 209.6 4,800 1.3
49 116.2 10.56 100.7 54 10.16 62.35 6.92 77.45 52.5 23 63.8 21.75 1.42 4.06 0.104 2,600 1.33 209.8 4,800 1.35
48.55 113 10.48 99.05 50.8 10.06 60.55 6.92 74 50 21.5 61.8 21.6 1.39 4 0.104 2,600 1.31 208 4,800 1.28
48.6 113 10.48 100.1 54 10.14 60.55 6.92 76 52 23 61.8 21.75 1.39 4 0.104 2,600 1.31 208 4,800 1.28
13,700 5,824,890 1,600 3,146,850 726,230 242,400 9,360,530 2,100 480,830 4,600 50,000 244,240 70,100 414,000 6,000 70,000 160 1,748,000 2,190 165 1,842,000
667,330 662,666,232 16,880 314,603,278 37,999,588 2,458,438 572,517,764 14,532 36,497,662 233,534 1,099,875 15,252,724 1,522,825 581,130 24,060 7,280 416,000 2,297,450 456,106 792,000 2,397,630
-442,560 -96,966,722 -40,725,230 7,447,024 177,068 -276,221,727 14,532 4,895,809 15,833 -1,097,575 -9,291,452 477,660 -122,350 403,000 1,550,470 384,918 744,000 -13,280
INDUSTRIAL ACEN CORP 2.84 2.87 2.68 2.87 2.67 2.87 36,419,000 101,990,480 43,160,130 1.33 1.34 1.29 1.38 1.29 1.33 3,428,000 4,546,420 -1,247,840 ALSONS CONS ALTERNERGY HLDG 0.71 0.71 0.7 0.71 0.7 0.7 284,000 199,830 -126,000 45.5 45.05 44.9 46 1,990,000 90,908,635 65,518,115 ABOITIZ POWER 46 46 RASLAG 1.09 1.06 1.07 1.09 1.06 1.07 70,000 74,740 -19,080 0.107 0.108 0.109 0.109 0.109 0.109 60,000 6,540 BASIC ENERGY CITICORE RE 4.94 4.95 5 5 4.87 4.95 103,000 513,140 -304,870 20.5 21 21.5 22.35 20.05 21 2,829,600 59,283,415 13,619,535 FIRST GEN FIRST PHIL HLDG 92.05 94 97.35 97.35 93 93 84,480 7,907,962 -5,800 479.8 480 484.6 461.8 480 947,590 450,245,550 105,238,252 MERALCO 484.6 MANILA WATER 34.2 35.5 33.95 35.5 33.95 35.5 2,134,300 74,922,075 30,468,805 16.7 16.9 17.4 17.4 16.7 16.7 12,194,400 -56,865,540 MAYNILAD 204,301,584 PETRON 2.28 2.28 2.25 2.28 2.25 2.28 1,126,000 2,555,210 -18,280 4.56 5.01 5.01 4.51 4.99 763,500 3,645,852 -60,570 PETROENERGY 4.99 15.42 15.82 15.42 15.86 15.4 15.8 7,600 117,690 72,380 PRYCE CORP REPOWER ENERGY 9.65 9.61 9.58 9.65 9.5 9.65 2,700 25,805 17.96 17.98 20.8 20.85 17.5 17.96 9,870,200 184,742,353 5,070,168 SEMIRARA MINING SYNERGY GRID 21.9 22.1 23.2 23.5 21.9 21.9 1,923,200 43,415,670 -15,918,985 8.02 8.15 7.97 8.17 7.9 8.15 3,722,800 29,557,085 -340,243 SHELL PILIPINAS SPC POWER 9.5 9.5 9.4 9.5 9.4 9.4 22,600 214,610 1.19 1.2 1.19 1.2 1.17 1.2 8,962,000 10,659,780 1,246,770 SP NEW ENERGY TOP LINE 1.67 1.67 1.66 1.66 1.66 1.67 209,000 347,290 2.76 2.8 2.8 2.76 2.76 105,000 292,160 2.83 AXELUM BALAI FRUITAS 0.305 0.305 0.295 0.305 0.3 0.305 250,000 75,350 42,100 9.26 9.79 9.28 9.28 9.27 9.27 2,300 21,322 928 CNTRL AZUCARERA CENTURY FOOD 32.9 32.95 32.5 32.9 31.7 32.9 1,483,500 48,394,710 23,625,780 3.5 3.67 3.6 3.6 3.6 3.6 1,000 3,600 DEL MONTE DNL INDUS 3.38 3.46 3.4 3.46 3.38 3.46 1,271,000 4,320,140 2,169,540 EMPERADOR 2,000,916,362 15.44 15.72 15.78 15.78 15.32 15.72 127,287,500 1,017,708,970 42.05 44 44.45 44.45 42.05 42.05 121,000 5,276,005 -4,761,460 SMC FOODANDBEV FIGARO GROUP 0.61 0.63 0.64 0.65 0.6 0.63 3,112,000 1,927,090 0.37 0.39 0.39 0.435 0.375 0.39 1,320,000 516,950 7,650 ALLIANCE SELECT FRUITAS HLDG 0.66 0.66 0.65 0.66 0.65 0.65 41,000 26,680 208 214 217 217 200.4 208 154,350 32,064,110 -3,781,244 GINEBRA JOLLIBEE 146 146 143.5 141 140 146 935,010 134,869,206 64,111,558 1.84 1.87 1.81 1.88 1.81 1.87 2,485,000 4,592,980 1,942,620 KEEPERS HLDG LIBERTY FLOUR 21 21.4 21.7 21.7 21.5 21.5 200 4,320 5.53 5.88 5.52 5.52 5.52 5.52 100 552 552 MACAY HLDG MAXS GROUP 2.07 2.1 2.12 2.12 2.07 2.1 7,000 14,670 -2,090 6.35 6.41 6.71 6.74 6.21 6.41 17,040,900 108,720,225 -32,289,970 MONDE NISSIN SHAKEYS PIZZA 5.13 5.4 5.48 5.48 5.4 5.4 1,700 9,268 3.23 3.3 3.5 3.5 3.2 3.3 1,000,000 3,376,560 -332,490 ROXAS AND CO 5.21 5.22 5.23 5.24 5.19 5.22 341,300 1,776,752 -627,724 RFM CORP SWIFT FOODS 0.051 0.052 0.056 0.056 0.052 0.052 870,000 45,320 56.8 57.85 58 58.8 56.8 56.8 2,260,790 130,180,017 245,787 UNIV ROBINA VITARICH 0.495 0.5 0.51 0.51 0.495 0.495 190,000 94,285 0.395 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.395 0.395 610,000 243,950 ATN HLDG A ATN HLDG B 0.395 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 300,000 120,000 52.35 59.6 59.6 59.6 10 596 59.6 59.6 CONCRETE CONCREAT HLDG 1.24 1.25 1.28 1.3 1.24 1.24 1,411,000 1,764,740 -171,690 1.97 2.04 2.1 2.1 1.97 2.04 200,000 403,150 EEI CORP MEGAWIDE 5.32 5.27 5.43 5.43 5.3 5.32 303,300 1,618,472 -472,320 30.3 32.15 28.8 42.75 28.5 32.15 17,100 564,110 SUPERCITY CROWN ASIA 1.86 1.9 1.86 1.91 1.86 1.91 83,000 154,460 1.2 1.27 1.28 1.28 1.28 17,000 21,760 -5,120 1.28 EUROMED CONCEPCION 10.66 10.66 10.54 10.54 10.54 10.54 10,800 113,844 0.154 0.15 0.155 0.155 0.155 0.155 190,000 29,450 -12,400 GREENERGY 7.6 7.65 7.65 7.73 7.31 7.65 3,813,100 28,979,623 13,308,225 INTEGRATED MICR IONICS 3.22 3.18 3.21 3.18 3.14 3.21 1,409,000 4,480,160 595,240 7.26 7.26 7.26 7.26 7.26 5,000 36,300 PANASONIC 7.28 CIRTEK HLDG 1.41 1.42 1.42 1.44 1.33 1.41 3,852,000 5,328,680 450,170
HOLDING & FRIMS
MUTUAL FUNDS
September 18, 2026
NAV ONE YEARTHREE YEAR FIVE YEAR Y-T-D PER SHARE RETURN* RETURN STOCK FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (SHARES) ALFM GROWTH FUND, INC. -A208.32 -4.93% 1.59% -1.4% -2.49% -2.7% ATRAM ALPHA OPPORTUNITY FUND, INC. -A 2.3689 12.11% 17.66% 8.94% 5.44% 9.6% ATRAM PHILIPPINE EQUITY OPPORTUNITY FUND, INC. -A 2.8063 -4.16% 0.62% -1.74% -4.16%-1.57% CLIMBS SHARE CAPITAL EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND CORP. -A 0.751 -0.42% 3.8% 0.36% N.A2.29% FIRST METRO CONSUMER FUND, INC. -A 0.4961 -14.61% -8.01% -8.63% N.A -10.79% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN EQUITY FUND, INC. -A 4.2604 -6.73% -1.29% -3.29% -2.34% -2.57% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN PHILIPPINE INDEX FUND, INC. -A 0.6347 -4.3% -1.19% -3.26% N.A-1.23% MBG EQUITY INVESTMENT FUND, INC. -A 68.5 -20.52% -7.78% -6.89% N.A -23.43% PAMI EQUITY INDEX FUND, INC. -A 41.515 -2.19% 0.65% -1.97% -2.05% 0.37% PHILAM STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 436.75 -5.12% 1.19% -1.9% -2.24% -2.84% PHILEQUITY DIVIDEND YIELD FUND, INC. -A 1.5856 3.36% 11.78% 5.25% 2.08% 1.56% PHILEQUITY FUND, INC. -A35.2439 0.56% 3.37% 0.13% -0.51% 2.36% PHILEQUITY MSCI PHILIPPINE INDEX FUND, INC. -A 0.9415 4.73% 5.38% 1.01% N.A 6.06% PHILEQUITY PSE INDEX FUND, INC. -A 4.4979 -1.36% 1.68% -0.92% -1.28% 0.63% PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND CORP. -A 740.08 -1.66% 1.3% -1.24% -1.45% 0.7% SOLDIVO STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 0.7098 0.35% 3.26% -0.01% -2.41% 1.1% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PHILIPPINE EQUITY FUND, INC. -A 3.075 -9.02% -1.11% -3.34% -3.02% -4.19% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND, INC. -A 0.829 -1.87% 0.86% -1.61% -1.72%0.61% UNITED FUND, INC. -A3.56516.84% 6.43% 1.58% 0.41% 8.44% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (UNITS) COL EQUITY INDEX UNITIZED MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A 1.0393 -1.54% 1.32% N.A N.A 0.62% COL STRATEGIC GROWTH EQUITY UNITIZED MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A 1.0248 -3.91% N.A N.A N.A -1.79% PHILEQUITY ALPHA ONE FUND, INC. -A 0.8939 -7.03% -2.65% -4.09% N.A -5.34% PHILIPPINE STOCK INDEX FUND CORP. -A 893.11 -1.64% 1.09% N.A N.A 0.75% EXCHANGE TRADED FUND (SHARES) ATR FAMI PHIL. EQUITY EXCHANGE TRADED FUND, INC. -A,C 100.9907 -1.38% 1.51% -0.93% -1.05%0.98% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (SHARES) ATRAM ASIAPLUS EQUITY FUND, INC. -B $1.228 22.54% 14.09% 0.66% 3.21% 19.86% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY WORLD VOYAGER FUND, INC. -A $2.4294 13.45% 15.52% 5.79% 8.98% 9.22% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (UNITS) N.A N.A N.A N.A N.A PHILEQUITY GLOBAL FUND, INC. -A,2 1.0714 BALANCED FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (SHARES) ATRAM PHILIPPINE BALANCED FUND, INC. -A 2.171 0.25% 1.04% -0.46% -0.86% 1.43% ATRAM UNICAPITAL DIVERSIFIED GROWTH FUND, INC. -A 1.7074 5.81% 5.67% 0.3% -0.58%4.35% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN BALANCED FUND, INC. -A 2.4865 -0.94% 0.85% -1.25% -0.55% 1% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN F.O.C.C.U.S. DYNAMIC FUND, INC. -A 0.2285 -2.27% 6.72% 3.11% N.A-1.47% NCM MUTUAL FUND OF THE PHILS., INC. -A,1 1.9694 0.58% 1.03% -0.01% 0.3% -1.65% PAMI HORIZON FUND, INC. -A3.6928 -1.78% 2.82% -0.04% -0.32% -2.56% PHILAM FUND, INC. -A15.6093-3.72% 1.52% -1.18% -0.88% -2.5% SOLIDARITAS FUND, INC. -A2.0861 -1.13% 2.22% 0.18% -0.15% -0.68% SUN LIFE OF CANADA PROSPERITY BALANCED FUND, INC. -A 3.3554 -4.52% 0.92% -1.36% -1.28%-1.99% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DYNAMIC FUND, INC. -A 0.8792 -5.8% 0.65% -0.64% -1.08% -3.46% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (UNITS) BPI WEALTH BUILDER MULTI-ASSET MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A,3 10.76 N.A N.A N.A N.A N.A SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2028, INC. -A 0.9762 0.1% 2.09% -0.29% N.A -0.27% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2038, INC. -A 0.8252 -3.72% 0.75% -1.98% N.A -1.97% -4.26% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY ACHIEVER FUND 2048, INC. -A 0.7928 0.26% -2.5% N.A -2.27% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (SHARES) COCOLIFE DOLLAR FUND BUILDER, INC. -A $0.03263 -3.46% 0.54% -3.25% -0.97% -4.87% PAMI ASIA BALANCED FUND, INC. -B $1.1466 -6.03% 9.22% 0.93% 2.21% -5.24% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR ADVANTAGE FUND, INC. -A $5.6174 7.78% 11.31% 3.19% 5.91%5.23% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR WELLSPRING FUND, INC. -A $1.2049 2.71% 6.77% 0.22% 2.43%1.82% BOND FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (SHARES) ALFM PESO BOND FUND, INC. -A 424.55 2.21% 3.21% 2.61% 2.51% 1.09% ATRAM CORPORATE BOND FUND, INC. -A 1.9893 2.29% 1.17% 0.61% 0.4% 1.57% COCOLIFE FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. -A 3.6042 1.28% 2.94% 2.15% 3.17% 0.13% EKKLESIA MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A 2.4367 0.14% 2.89% 1.48% 1.37% -0.65% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN FIXED INCOME FUND, INC. -A 2.4967 -2.36% 1.06% 0.45% 1.08%-2.81% PHILAM BOND FUND, INC. -A4.4912 -1.78% 2.29% 0.06% 0.62% -2.58% PHILAM MANAGED INCOME FUND, INC. -A 1.5438 2.7% 4.47% 3.2% 2.94% 1.57% PHILEQUITY PESO BOND FUND, INC. -A 4.326 1.15% 2.9% 1.68% 1.88% 0.3% SOLDIVO BOND FUND, INC. -A1.1297 1.68% 2.74% 1.69% 1.68% 0.82% 3.4416 SUN LIFE OF CANADA PROSPERITY BOND FUND, INC. -A -2.62% 2.09% 1.34% 1.94% -2.8% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY GS FUND, INC. -A 1.8304 -2.28% 1.82% 0.89% 1.37% -2.87% CORPORATE DEBT VEHICLE (UNITS) ATRAM UNITIZED CORPORATE DEBT FUND 2 -A,5 1.0149 N.A N.A N.A N.A N.A PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (SHARES) ALFM DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A $532.58 1.58% 2.81% 1.74% 1.95% 0.66% ALFM EURO BOND FUND, INC. -A Є222.21 -0.31% 1.67% 0.14% 0.48% -0.7% ATRAM TOTAL RETURN DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -B $1.0474 -2.99% 0.31% -2.83% -0.72% -2.57% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A $0.0255 -3.77% 1.76% -0.54% 0.2%-3.77% PAMI GLOBAL BOND FUND, INC. -B $1.047 -1.83% 7.78% -0.1% -0.52% -1.23% PHILAM DOLLAR BOND FUND, INC. -A $2.4011 -2.81% 2.89% -1.07% 0.57% -3.18% PHILEQUITY DOLLAR INCOME FUND, INC. -A $0.0630129 -1.92% 1.31% -0.01% 1.05% -2.23% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR ABUNDANCE FUND, INC. -A $2.8637 -2.76% 2.36% -2.24% -0.62%-2.35% MONEY MARKET FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (SHARES) AIB MONEY MARKET MUTUAL FUND, INC. -A 1.1884 2.72% N.A N.A N.A 1.89% ALFM MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A 152.97 4.1% 4.1% 3.19% 2.87% 2.75% FIRST METRO SAVE AND LEARN MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A 1.2261 3.42% 3.78% 3.05% N.A2.37% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY PESO STARTER FUND, INC. -A 1.5169 3.49% 3.59% 2.98% 2.77% 2.39% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (UNITS) ALFM MONEY MARKET FUND, INC. -A 117.19 4.06% 4.3% N.A N.A 2.84% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (SHARES) SUN LIFE PROSPERITY DOLLAR STARTER FUND, INC. -A $1.1964 2.49% 3.31% 2.48% N.A 1.71% FEEDER FUNDS PRIMARILY INVESTED IN PESO SECURITIES (UNITS) ALFM GLOBAL MULTI-ASSET INCOME FUND, INC. -A 47.9072 6.5% 3.75% N.A N.A 3.9% MBG ASIA FRONTIER FEEDER UMF, INC. -B,4 1.8378 N.A N.A N.A N.A N.A SUN LIFE PROSPERITY WORLD EQUITY INDEX FEEDER FUND, INC. -A 2.5611 27.74% 21.74% 14.01% N.A18.02% SUN LIFE PROSPERITY WORLD INCOME FUND, INC. -A 1.1897 10.87% 6.29% N.A N.A 6.63% PRIMARILY INVESTED IN FOREIGN CURRENCY SECURITIES (UNITS)
ABACORE CAPITAL 0.33 0.34 0.345 0.345 0.33 0.34 3,790,000 1,275,200 -309,400 62.1 62.5 61 63 61 62.1 633,540 39,518,848 13,282,652 ASIABEST GROUP AYALA CORP 505 507 513 520 502.5 507 1,970,770 1,003,554,310 -416,615,130 36.6 36.95 37.05 37.05 36.7 36.95 529,200 19,489,070 10,421,765 ABOITIZ EQUITY ALLIANCE GLOBAL 8.87 8.88 9 9 8.88 8.88 3,093,100 27,533,848 -23,604,078 16.64 16.58 17 16.54 17 11,800 199,464 ANSCOR 17.28 ANGLO PHIL HLDG 1.5 1.52 1.5 1.6 1.49 1.5 5,194,000 8,022,730 494,760 7.62 7.8 7.91 7.91 7.62 7.62 20,678,400 163,214,854 -889,518 COSCO CAPITAL DMCI HLDG 8.1 8.15 8.4 8.56 7.89 8.1 8,675,600 70,493,162 4,354,934 3.82 4.14 3.89 4.18 3.72 4.14 151,000 581,480 345,160 FILINVEST DEV FJ PRINCE A 2.52 2.65 2.55 2.55 2.55 2.55 1,000 2,550 412.8 419.8 404 422 252,690 104,937,538 25,604,580 422 422 GT CAPITAL HOUSE OF INV 4.98 5 5 5 5 5 200 1,000 19.04 19.42 19.3 19.54 19 19.42 4,102,500 78,732,690 -3,272,154 JG SUMMIT 0.445 0.46 0.48 0.44 0.46 1,150,000 535,500 LODESTAR 0.485 LOPEZ HLDG 5.7 5.72 5.75 5.75 5.7 5.7 326,400 1,876,104 36,061 15.12 15.16 15.28 15.3 15.02 15.12 3,202,000 48,421,164 -143,970 LT GROUP MABUHAY HLDG 0.142 0.15 0.142 0.142 0.142 0.142 40,000 5,680 0.93 0.98 0.94 0.94 0.94 0.94 11,000 10,340 PACIFICA HLDG PRIME MEDIA 1.02 1.12 1.1 1.13 1.09 1.12 39,000 43,820 1.14 1.15 1.15 1.15 136,000 156,400 40,250 1.15 1.15 SOLID GROUP SM INVESTMENTS 502.5 503 538 540 503 503 2,309,170 1,170,671,860 -870,397,130 62.15 62.5 62.6 63.2 62 62.5 31,250 1,947,718 -865,521 SAN MIGUEL CORP TOP FRONTIER 53 53 51.4 53 53 53 100 5,300 -4,240 0.071 0.077 0.071 0.071 0.071 0.071 20,000 1,420 ZEUS HLDG PROPERTY ARTHALAND CORP 0.44 0.45 0.45 0.45 0.45 0.45 20,000 9,000 14.8 15 15.06 15.16 14.7 15 24,751,400 371,053,354 -192,751,504 AYALA LAND AYALA LAND LOG 1.16 1.18 1.18 1.19 1.17 1.18 45,000 53,170 11,810 11.06 11.7 11.02 11.02 11 11 1,000 11,002 8,800 ALTUS PROP AREIT RT 38.3 38.3 37.3 37.4 36.95 38.3 9,572,500 366,115,595 90,608,485 0.83 0.85 0.86 0.9 0.85 0.85 162,000 139,800 -17,000 A BROWN CITYLAND DEVT 0.61 0.61 0.57 0.59 0.59 0.61 20,000 12,060 0.089 0.092 0.092 0.092 40,000 3,680 0.092 0.092 CROWN EQUITIES CEB LANDMASTERS 2.02 2.02 2 2.02 1.99 2 71,000 141,930 10,000 0.6 0.62 0.61 0.62 10,919,000 6,764,200 -1,240 CENTURY PROP 0.62 0.62 CITICORE RT 2.83 2.85 2.93 2.97 2.8 2.83 12,369,000 35,177,560 -21,629,400 11.78 11.88 11.78 12 323,600 3,846,256 128,644 DOUBLEDRAGON 12 12 DDMP RT 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.04 1.01 1.03 7,396,000 7,563,220 -1,146,040 4.78 4.8 4.8 4.8 4.8 4.8 4,000 19,200 DM WENCESLAO 0.025 0.027 0.025 0.027 0.025 0.027 1,100,000 27,700 EVERWOODS EMPIRE EAST 0.099 0.1 0.1 0.101 0.098 0.101 570,000 57,000 2.87 2.87 2.87 2.88 176,000 505,920 2.88 2.88 FILINVEST RT FILINVEST LAND 0.67 0.68 0.69 0.69 0.68 0.68 647,000 440,230 2,720 0.59 0.63 0.59 0.59 0.59 0.59 34,000 20,060 GLOBAL ESTATE JACKSTONES 1.82 1.82 1.67 1.82 1.82 1.82 1,000 1,820 2.07 2.11 2.19 2.2 2.07 2.07 79,251,000 -63,889,730 164,533,000 MEGAWORLD MRC ALLIED 0.65 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.66 0.67 21,648,000 14,494,210 -278,520 13.3 13.7 13.78 13.8 13.3 13.3 12,673,900 168,677,462 -64,286,372 MREIT RT OMICO CORP 0.102 0.104 0.102 0.102 0.102 0.102 1,000,000 102,000 0.171 0.176 0.177 0.18 0.176 0.176 260,000 46,060 PRMIERE HORIZON PREMIERE RT 1.01 1.02 1.04 1.04 1.01 1.01 49,000 49,860 -2,080 0.95 1.03 1 1 1 1 2,000 2,000 -2,000 PRIMEX CORP RL COMM RT 6.8 6.92 6.8 6.92 6.78 6.92 36,675,600 253,397,089 95,329,179 ROBINSONS LAND 16.6 17.4 17.02 17.4 16.54 17.4 2,539,800 43,771,858 -8,124,562 2.85 2.82 2.85 2.79 2.85 248,000 696,770 ROCKWELL 2.86 SHANG PROP 3.05 3.14 3.09 3.13 3.03 3.13 121,000 371,160 -12,140 1.82 1.88 1.87 1.88 1.85 1.88 11,000 20,500 STA LUCIA LAND SM PRIME HLDG 16.5 16.6 17.2 17.3 16.5 16.5 27,837,500 464,888,374 -267,007,298 SERVICES ABS CBN 3 3.19 3.35 3.36 3 3 511,000 1,577,710 3.78 3.79 3.84 3.84 3.79 3.79 238,000 904,270 GMA NETWORK DITO CME HLDG 0.61 0.62 0.62 0.62 0.6 0.61 9,581,000 5,862,870 988,490 1,598 1,599 1,604 1,605 1,588 1,599 99,510 159,044,330 62,070,535 GLOBE TELECOM PLDT 1,145 1,145 1,136 1,137 1,123 1,145 163,030 186,180,245 58,565,375 0.0059 0.006 0.0059 0.0061 0.0058 0.006 412,000,000 2,402,100 APOLLO GLOBAL CONVERGE 291,297,550 8.9 9 9.12 9.12 8.9 8.9 32,632,800 -122,092,132 0.13 0.134 0.125 0.138 0.125 0.134 8,340,000 1,131,390 ISLAND INFO NOW CORP 0.4 0.415 0.42 0.42 0.42 0.42 40,000 16,800 0.121 0.127 0.126 0.128 0.126 0.128 900,000 114,300 TRANSPACIFIC BR CHELSEA 0.86 0.86 0.9 0.86 0.86 0.86 55,000 47,300 21.85 23 23.95 23.95 21.85 21.85 3,777,800 83,782,790 -18,788,585 CEBU AIR INTL CONTAINER 905 914 930 935 905 905 2,621,680 2,381,328,150 -291,683,770 3.54 3.55 3.55 3.5 3.54 261,000 920,110 -162,540 MACROASIA 3.55 0.7 0.72 1.02 4 0.72 0.72 610,000 555,280 METRO ALLIANCE PAL HLDG 3.53 3.55 3.44 3.55 3.4 3.53 4,840,000 16,849,400 -1,542,070 1.91 1.86 1.85 1.92 1,248,000 2,363,300 -52,740 HARBOR STAR 1.92 1.92 ACESITE HOTEL 1.39 1.46 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 2,000 2,800 0.029 0.03 0.029 0.031 0.029 0.029 33,300,000 982,600 2,900 BOULEVARD HLDG DISCOVERY WORLD 0.94 0.98 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.96 1,000 960 960 5.01 5.03 5.03 5.03 1,000 5,030 GRAND PLAZA 5.03 5.03 PH RESORTS GRP 0.171 0.177 0.181 0.186 0.173 0.177 1,770,000 315,100 46,130 0.4 0.41 0.41 0.41 0.41 100,000 41,000 41,000 WATERFRONT 0.44 FAR EASTERN U 785 820 822.5 822.5 800 800 2,020 1,616,450 6.93 7 6.92 6.92 6.93 200 1,385 6.93 IPEOPLE STI HLDG 1.28 1.29 1.31 1.31 1.3 1.3 3,330,000 4,329,260 4,229,000 1.1 1.11 1.1 1.1 636,000 705,480 355,200 BELLE CORP 1.11 1.11 BLOOMBERRY 234,608,110 1.94 2.02 2.02 2.06 1.94 1.94 120,062,000 -98,408,770 PACIFIC ONLINE 1.5 1.5 1.48 1.5 1.5 1.5 6,000 9,000 8.73 8.74 9.07 9.07 8.74 8.74 3,859,100 2,279,271 34,001,929 DIGIPLUS PHILWEB 14.28 14.48 14.56 14.8 14.2 14.5 1,531,800 22,174,642 -612,744 1.06 1.06 1.06 1.08 10,000 10,620 METRO RETAIL 1.08 1.08 PUREGOLD 41 40.9 40.2 41 40 41 1,356,300 55,103,330 8,459,640 30.65 31.6 31.1 31.1 30.65 30.65 1,700 52,555 PHIL SEVEN CORP SSI GROUP 2.05 2.07 2.03 2.05 2.02 2.05 31,000 62,740 0.81 0.82 0.81 0.82 0.81 0.82 147,000 120,390 22,970 UPSON INTL CORP WILCON DEPOT 5.7 5.7 5.61 5.6 5.58 5.7 1,130,400 6,340,540 2,142,827 0.104 0.108 0.108 0.111 0.108 0.109 500,000 54,430 -8,660 APC GROUP MEDILINES 0.233 0.224 0.211 0.224 0.2 0.223 1,470,000 305,360 -190 3.2 3.37 3.22 3.2 3.2 200,000 643,330 PAXYS 3.22 MINING & OIL APEX MINING 18.5 18.52 17.94 19 36,168,800 682,810,984 218,189,906 19 19 ATLAS MINING 21.4 21.6 21.2 21.7 19.62 21.6 12,492,300 261,779,292 99,238,154 7.45 7.45 7.45 7.5 103,900 774,115 37,250 BENGUET 7.5 7.5 EC VULCAN 0.355 0.38 0.36 0.375 0.36 0.375 220,000 79,350 2.15 2.23 2.16 2.11 2.23 3,240,000 7,079,160 1,318,010 2.25 FERRONICKEL GEOGRACE 0.096 0.09 0.095 0.095 0.09 0.095 6,340,000 575,760 0.25 0.249 0.249 0.25 28,630,000 7,145,480 0.255 0.255 LEPANTO A LEPANTO B 0.245 0.248 0.248 0.249 0.245 0.249 4,770,000 1,181,730 -74,400 0.009 0.0092 0.0092 0.0092 0.0092 0.0092 18,000,000 165,600 MANILA MINING A MARCVENTURES 0.81 0.79 0.8 0.8 0.79 0.8 634,000 502,350 -31,200 0.55 0.58 0.58 0.58 42,000 24,360 NIHAO 0.58 0.58 NICKEL ASIA 4.28 4.28 4.16 4.21 4.07 4.28 7,380,000 31,021,700 3,476,660 36.8 37.05 37.7 36.4 36.85 529,600 19,523,370 -2,787,695 OCEANAGOLD 36.85 0.6 0.61 0.57 0.62 0.57 0.61 81,000 49,220 9,150 ORNTL PENINSULA PX MINING 13.08 13.1 13.32 13.56 12.86 13.1 36,905,200 483,952,820 6,814,888 0.0088 0.0088 0.0088 0.009 49,000,000 432,500 UNITED PARAGON 0.009 0.009 ENEX ENERGY 3.5 3.5 3.11 3.02 3.01 3.5 42,000 135,790 -190 0.014 0.015 0.015 0.015 0.014 0.014 4,400,000 61,800 ORNTL PETROL A PHILODRILL 0.0099 0.0099 0.0098 0.0095 0.0095 0.0098 146,000,000 1,423,600 88,300 3.03 3.07 3 3.08 3 3.07 658,000 2,009,250 533,590 PXP ENERGY PREFFERED ACEN PREF A 973 976 976 976 976 976 4,490 4,382,240 1,029 1,039 1,039 1,039 1,039 1,039 5 5,195 ACEN PREF B AC PREF B4R 1,871 1,919 1,885 1,900 1,885 1,900 2,515 4,741,000 466 490 493 493 493 493 20 9,860 ALCO PREF F BRN PREF A 98.5 99 99 99 98.5 98.5 2,010 197,990 980 989 990 990 990 990 190 188,100 CLI PREF A1 CLI PREF A2 985 990 990 990 985 990 700 692,650 94.5 94.7 94 94.5 10,150 958,895 95 95 DD PREF EEI PREF B 93.8 96.25 94.5 94.5 94.5 94.5 8,600 812,700 1,911 1,962 1,963 1,963 1,963 1,963 5 9,815 GLO PREF ANV GTCAP PREF B 999 1,002 999 1,000 999 1,000 2,420 2,418,840 991 999 995 995 990.5 990.5 190 188,375 JFC PREF B MWIDE PREF 6A 99 100.9 100.8 100.8 100.8 100.8 10 1,008 103.1 106 103.2 103.2 103.1 103.1 3,840 395,954 MWIDE PREF 6C 99.65 100 100 100 100 100 470 47,000 MWIDE PREF 7B PCOR PREF 4A 975 996.5 975 975 975 975 20 19,500 960 965 965 965 965 965 220 212,300 PCOR PREF 4D PCOR PREF 4E 985 987 987 987 987 987 500 493,500 77.05 81.8 81.5 81.8 81.5 81.8 20,010 1,636,815 SMC PREF 2L SMC PREF 2N 77.5 78 78 78 78 78 87,000 6,786,000 78.5 78.9 79 79 78.95 78.95 290 22,910 SMC PREF 2O SMC PREF 2S 70.25 74.5 74.5 74.5 74.5 74.5 1,000 74,500 -74,500 73.5 76 76 76 76 76 220 16,720 SMC PREF 2U SMC PREF 2V 78.1 78.3 78.3 78.3 78.3 78.3 240 18,792 78.5 78.95 79 79 78.5 78.5 320 25,130 SMC PREF 2W SMC PREF 2X 79 79.1 79.5 79.5 79 79 3,770 298,715 6.14 7.38 6.13 6.13 6.13 6.13 400 2,452 TECH PREF B2D TOP PREF A1 100 100.3 101.4 101.4 100 100.3 750 75,235 100.5 103 103 103 100 100.5 7,730 792,861 TOP PREF A2
PHIL. DEPOSITARY RECEIPTS ABS HLDG PDR
2.65
3.36 2.64 2.64 2.64 2.64 1,000 2,640 3.9 3.95 3.95 3.8 3.8 13,000 49,950
ALFM GLOBAL MULTI-ASSET INCOME FUND, INC. -A $0.7958 -3.06% 0.72% -4.27% N.A 3.35 GMA HLDG PDR -1.75% A - NAVPS AS OF THE PREVIOUS BANKING DAY. B - NAVPS AS OF TWO BANKING DAYS AGO. C - LISTED IN THE PSE. WARRANTS AGI WARRANT 1.07 1 - EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 1, 2025, ITS FUND MANAGEMENT IS WITH BPI WEALTH. 2 - LAUNCH DATE IS FEBRUARY 2, 2026. SM A L L, M ED I U M & EM E R G IN G 3 - LAUNCH DATE IS DECEMBER 18, 2024. MEMBERSHIP WITH PIFA WAS OFFICIALLY APPROVED ON SEPTEMBER 12, 2025. CTS GLOBAL 0.33 4 - MEMBERSHIP WITH PIFA WAS OFFICIALLY APPROVED ON MARCH 26, 2026. 1.31 HAUS TALK ITALPINAS 0.64 5 - LAUNCH DATE IS APRIL 17, 2026, AND IT REPRESENTS THE SECOND TRANCHE OF THE ATRAM UNITIZED CORPORATE 1.38 KEPWEALTH DEBT VEHICLE, INC. MAKATI FINANCE 1.85 0.212 XURPAS “While we endeavor to keep the information accurate, the Philippine Investment Funds Association (PIFA) and its members make no
warranties as to the correctness of the newspaper’s publication and assume no liability or responsibility for any error or omissions. You may visit http://www.
pifa.com.ph to see the latest NAVPS/NAVPU.”
1.14
1.07
1.07
1.07
1.07
1,000
1,070
-
0.34 1.34 0.65 1.42 1.96 0.218
0.335 1.3 0.66 1.42 1.98 0.212
0.34 1.34 0.67 1.42 1.99 0.212
0.33 1.3 0.64 1.42 1.85 0.212
0.34 1.34 0.65 1.42 1.85 0.212
590,000 1,175,000 34,000 1,000 4,000 10,000
196,700 1,541,100 21,830 1,420 7,800 2,120
40,300 98,250 -20 2,120
EXHANGE TRADE FUNDS ATR FAMI ETF
99.9
-
100
101 101 100 100 3,610 362,187 12,030
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Editor: Dennis D. Estopace • Monday, September 21, 2026
B3
ADB to raise $6B for Asean Blue Economy tack
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By Justine Xyrah Garcia
HE Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it will mobilize up to $6 billion in financing through 2030 for projects aimed at protecting Southeast Asia’s seas and supporting industries that depend on them.
ADB President Masato Kanda announced the “Asean Blue Economy” (ABE) initiative over the weekend, saying the program will be part of the $30 billion that the multilateral lender has pledged to raise for the regional bloc’s priorities through 2030. According to the ADB, the initiative will support fisheries, aquaculture, coastal infrastructure, port-related industries, and efforts to reduce marine pollution, among other blue economy activities. “The ocean is not just an envi-
Rethinking healthcare workforce productivity
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ODAY, the availability and productivity of healthcare professionals has become the primary constraint on health system performance. Whether the objective is reducing waiting lists, improving patient outcomes, increasing access or achieving financial sustainability, every improvement ultimately depends on having sufficient workforce capacity. Yet the reality is that—in most regions and systems—an imbalance between demand and workforce supply is widening, creating a structural challenge that incremental improvements will not solve.
Demand for health services rising
IN part, that comes down to demographics. As demographic trends continue to evolve, healthcare organizations are likely to encounter greater demand for services that address complex and long-term health needs, requiring innovative and sustainable care approaches. At the same time, patient needs are also becoming more complex. Advances in medicine mean more people survive conditions that were previously fatal but often require lifelong care management across multiple specialties. Mental health needs are also rising, placing additional pressure on already stretched services. Patient expectations have also changed. Healthcare users increasingly expect their care to be timely, convenient and digitally enabled, reflecting experiences in other sectors. Health systems are therefore expected to deliver more care, to more people, with greater responsiveness than ever before.
Workforce supply moving in opposite direction
THE problem is that healthcare labor supply is becoming increasingly constrained. As healthcare needs become more complex, providers are navigating workforce pressures that affect both clinical and operational functions. These challenges are driving renewed focus on workforce planning, productivity, and innovative approaches to care delivery. While shortages are most acute in lowand middle-income countries, almost every developed nation is experiencing significant workforce gaps.
Productivity unplugged
THE good news is that the tools, models and technologies now exist to radically transform healthcare workforce productivity. And examples of leading practices are emerging from those health systems around the world taking bold steps to fundamentally address their workforce constraints. 1. The data route. Healthcare is fundamentally an informationdriven industry. Every clinical decision depends on patient data: history, medications, allergies, diagnostics and prior encounters.
In fragmented or paper-based systems, this information is scattered across locations and formats with clinicians spending significant time searching, reconciling and re-entering data (often after hours in what many now call their “pajama-time”). This creates two major inefficiencies. First, administrative duplication consumes clinical time and contributes to burnout. Second, coordination breaks down when data does not move smoothly across care settings. By integrating data and enhancing EHRs, healthcare leaders can create a structured, shared record of truth. They can also increase efficiency and eliminate key bottlenecks while helping reduce the need to hire additional coders and informaticians as demand rises. 2. The scheduling route. When facing scarcity and constraint, there is a lot to be said for making better use of what you already have. Modern workforce management platforms enable organizations to match workforce demand with available skills in near real time. Staff can nominate availability, manage shift preferences, swap shifts digitally and be automatically matched to vacancies based on credentialing, competencies and regulatory requirements. That not only helps ensure that spare capacity and rostering teams are being utilized appropriately, it also removes a common ‘pebble in the shoe’ that comes from battling against outdated rostering systems in order to balance employees’ work and life. 3. The AI enablement route, Significant productivity benefits are rapidly being realized. Healthcare organizations are deploying generative and agentic AI to support administrative tasks such as clinical documentation, referral management, patient communications, claims processing and information retrieval, thereby helping to reduce the burden of repetitive work that contributes to healthcare workforce attrition and clinician burnout. Leading health systems are now developing agentic-led patient prep tools that could help ensure patients are properly prepared for their surgery visit, following up and checking in appropriately, and showing up to outpatient appointments. With agents becoming part of the productivity solution, organizations will need to think differently about workforce planning. AI agents will need to be managed much like employees, with defined roles, ongoing training, performance monitoring and, when appropriate and as needs change, retirement. That speaks to the need for strong governance, shared architecture and clear ownership of AI capabilities and tools. What is clear is that healthcare organizations cannot solve tomorrow’s workforce challenges using yesterday’s operating models. Improving workforce productivity requires more than incremental
efficiencies or isolated technology investments—it demands a fundamental redesign of how work is organized, how care teams collaborate and how digital technologies are embedded across the enterprise.
Philippine context
FOR the Philippines, healthcare workforce capacity is becoming an increasingly important constraint on access, quality and continuity of care. The Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) reported in 2026 that the country has only 21.2 healthcare workers per 10,000 people, less than half the World Health Organization’s benchmark of 44.5, and could face a shortage of around 290,000 healthcare professionals. The challenge is further compounded by the uneven distribution of healthcare workers across the country, with shortages particularly affecting areas outside major urban centers. These workforce constraints come as demand for healthcare continues to grow and the country works to expand access under universal healthcare. At the same time, the Philippines continues to face the challenge of retaining healthcare professionals, with 20 percent of Filipino health professionals working overseas. This puts additional pressure on healthcare organizations to make better use of the workforce available to them. According to Warren R. Angeles, Audit and Assurance Partner and Healthcare Sector Head of R.G. Manabat & Co., “addressing healthcare workforce constraints will require more than increasing headcount.” “Organizations should also consider investing on technology such as AI-driven process optimization and capacity building to enhance efficiency and competency of healthcare professionals. This can help maximize available capacity and would allow healthcare professionals to focus more on the quality of patient care,” Angeles added. As the healthcare system continues to evolve, healthcare facilities need to adapt fast. They should leverage on digital healthcare solutions to its full potential and work on healthcare workforce optimization. This article draws on insights from the KPMG Thought Leadership publication “Closing the healthcare workforce gap.” © 2026 R.G. Manabat & Co., a Philippine partnership and a member firm of the KPMG global organization of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International Ltd., a private English company limited by guarantee. All rights reserved. This article is for general information purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice to a specific issue or entity. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent KPMG International, R.G. Manabat & Co. or the BusinessMirror. For more information, you may reach out through ph-kpmgmla@kpmg.com, social media or visit www.home.kpmg/ph.
ronmental priority; it is the economic foundation of Southeast Asia,” Kanda said during the launch of the initiative at the 58th Asean Economic Ministers’ Meeting held in Pasay. “When marine ecosystems degrade, the damage reaches the fishing net, the family table, and the flooded doorstep. We will put up to $6 billion behind the work of restoring fisheries, building resilient coastal infrastructure, and stopping waste before it reaches the water,” he added.
According to the Manila-based lender, the initiative will support the ABE framework and its implementation plan for 2026 to 2030. The program is also expected to strengthen policies, institutions, and data needed to attract investment into the blue economy. The multilateral lender added that it will use financing mechanisms to help bring in private capital, while also supporting water and solidwaste management systems to reduce pollution entering the region’s seas from inland areas.
ADB said the initiative comes as Southeast Asia faces rising risks to the marine resources and coastal infrastructure that support its economies. The bank estimates that coastal flooding could result in about $11.5 billion in annual damage across the region. Southeast Asia accounts for about one-fifth of global fisheries and aquaculture output, according to ADB, while its ports, coastal logistics, and tourism industries support trade, jobs, and local incomes.
BSP hopes NG boosts economic recovery By Andrea Louise San Juan
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S the central bank keeps its eye on safeguarding price and financial stability amid persistent external and domestic headwinds, monetary authorities hope the government would beef up efforts to support economic recovery. This came after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), in its “Report on Economic and Financial Developments” for the second quarter of 2026, recognized that the Philippine economy faced continued headwinds in the April-to-June 2026 period— stemming from geopolitical tension, volatile global financial markets and subdued domestic demand. In the second quarter, the central bank said inflationary pressures remained elevated. In response, the BSP implemented “timely and measured” monetary
policy actions consistent with its price stability mandate. Policy settings, for instance, were calibrated to keep inflation expectations anchored and prevent second-round effects from becoming entrenched. “Monetary operations and financial sector policies complemented these actions by strengthening monetary policy transmission, supporting orderly market conditions, and preserving the resilience of the financial system,” the BSP report also noted. Despite these challenges, the central bank said “sound macroeconomic fundamentals and resilient financial and external sector buffers continue to support domestic stability. “ “Sustained remittances and receipts from BPO and travel helped cushion the impact of less favorable external conditions,” the BSP’s second quarter report said.
Nonetheless, the central bank pointed out that “efforts to enhance revenue mobilization, accelerate the implementation of high-impact infrastructure projects, and address longstanding investment bottlenecks” will be crucial in supporting economic recovery. On balance, the BSP said the Philippine economy remains “equipped” to navigate near-term risks. “Monetary policy will continue to be guided by the inflation outlook and incoming data,” the central bank said. The BSP noted that “ample” international reserves and a “wellcapitalized” banking system provide important safeguards against external shocks. Looking ahead, the BSP said it “will remain focused on safeguarding price and financial stability amid persistent external and domestic risks.”
CTA rules vs BIR in tax case vs insurer By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573
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HE Bureau of Internal Revenue has lost its bid to collect the amount of P1.3 billion of supposed unpaid taxes against preneed firm Prudential Life Plans Inc. (PLI) for the period 2008 to 2009. In a 30-page decision penned by Associate Justice Henry S. Angeles, the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) en banc held that the BIR’s formal tax assessments made by its agents were invalid for lack of authority. Likewise, the tax court held that the BIR’s right to assess PLI for its deficiency taxes for 2009 is already barred by the three-year prescriptive period under Section 203 of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997. The en banc decision denied BIR’s petition for review filed in March 2025 seeking the reversal of the ruling dated August 22, 2024 and resolution dated February 6, 2025, issued by the CTA’s Second Division The Second Division enjoined the BIR from enforcing its final assessment issued against PLI for deficiency income tax, value-added tax, expanded
withholding tax, withholding tax on compensation, fringe benefit tax and documentary stamp tax amounting to P1.3 billion. “The Court in Division correctly declared the assessments void for want of a valid LOA [letter of authority] authorizing the BIR officers who conducted the audit,” the CTA en banc declared. In its petition for review, the BIR countered that a valid LOA had been issued to revenue officers and a group supervisor originally assigned to the PLI’s case. The BIR stressed that the subsequent reassignment of PLI’s records to a new set of tax officers did not divest the original LOA of its validity. The tax agency also maintained that PLI was not denied due process as it was informed of the BIR officers who would continue the audit investigation. Furthermore, the BIR noted that the memorandum of assignment (MOA) it issued did not confer authority upon the newly-assigned officers but merely implemented the authority granted under the original LOA. However, the CTA noted that an LOA “is a specific authority conferred upon the BIR officers” tasked to conduct audit investigations.
It added that the names appearing in the LOA are not mere administrative details but “the necessary nexus between the authority granted by the Commissioner or the latter’s duly authorized representatives, and the officers who actually conduct the examination.” “Thus, respondent’s receipt of the MOA informing it of the reassignment did not cure the defect. A notice of reassignment is not equivalent to authority to conduct an examination,” the CTA declared. “The former merely apprises the taxpayer of an internal administrative action; the latter must be conferred through an LOA issued by the CIR (Commissioner of Internal Revenue) or his duly authorized representative in accordance with law and the applicable regulations,” it added. The CTA added that the revenue officers specifically named in an LOA cannot be replaced through a mere MOA. “Consequently, when officers other than those named in the LOA conduct the examination, the taxpayer is deprived of the means to verify their authority. The defect thus arises at the inception of the examination and cannot be cured by the BIR’s subsequent issuance of an LOA,” the CTA explained.
NGAs obligated 42.5% of allotments in H1 By Reine Juvierre Alberto @reine_alberto
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ATIONAL government agencies (NGAs) obligated 42.5 percent of their allotments in the first half of the year, down from a year earlier, with Congress posting the lowest rate at only 8.8 percent, according to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). Based on the latest “Statement of Appropriations, Allotments, Obligations, Disbursements and Balances,” NGAs obligated P1.812 trillion of the P4.265 trillion in total allotments from January to June 2026. The obligation rate, which is an indicator of agencies’ capacity to absorb their allotted funds, was 12.3-percent lower than the rate recorded in the same period last year. Obligations are liabilities legally incurred by government agencies to be paid for immediately or in the future. Agencies may only incur obligations for carrying out activities in pursuit of its functions and programs authorized in appropriation acts or laws within the limit of allotment released by the DBM.
Congress logged the lowest obligation rate among NGAs at 8.8 percent, followed by the Department of Information and Communications Technology at 9 percent, the Department of Public Works and Highways at 16.6 percent and the Office of the President at 20 percent. Conversely, the Department of Energy recorded the highest obligation rate at 90.2 percent, trailed by the Department of Transportation at 71 percent, the Department of Social Welfare and Development at 64.9 percent and the Department of Migrant Workers at 62 percent. Of the P1.812 trillion in obligations incurred, P1.370 trillion, equivalent to 75.6 percent, had already been paid or disbursed. This was higher than the 62.7 percent disbursement rate recorded in the same period last year. Budget Secretary Kim Robert C. De Leon said the indicators help assess whether agencies can realistically absorb additional resources and identify areas where implementation constraints need to be addressed. “The DBM will continue working closely with the agencies to improve
the execution of their budget because the true measure of a budget is not simply how much is approved or released, but how effectively these resources become real results for our people,” De Leon said. Total available appropriations for NGAs stood at P7.542 trillion as of endJune 2026. These are funds authorized by law for payment out of the government’s coffers, including agency-specific funds, continuing appropriations, special purpose funds and automatic and unprogrammed appropriations. Of the total, P4.664 trillion is available for NGAs, P1.899 trillion for special purpose funds and P978.7 billion for automatic appropriations. Meanwhile, total unreleased appropriations amounted to P909.91 billion, of which P820.21 billion is from this year’s national budget and P89.70 billion from 2025 continuing appropriations. Latest DBM data showed it had released a total allotment of P6.391 trillion as of end-August, equivalent to 94.1 percent of this year’s P6.793-trillion fullyear budget, leaving P401.376 billion in the balance.
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AI, CLIMATE, INEQUALITY: With his tenure ending this year, UN chief António Guterres points to cooperation as the way forward amid deepening global divides By Edith M. Lederer
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The Associated Press
NITED NATIONS—The world is deeply divided and the UN’s most powerful body is paralyzed when it comes to ending conflicts. But there’s a way forward. So says the United Nations’ top official. On his way out of office at year’s end after nearly a decade, UN Secretary-General António Guterres — known for doom-andgloom speeches about the state of the planet — said Thursday he finds hope and possibility in the coming years. But that, he says, is only if the world’s governments can finally cooperate on curtailing conflict, upending inequality and grappling with the arriving juggernaut of artificial intelligence. “I believe in a number of fundamental things that need to be done, and need to happen for the world to be better — and I’m determined to fight to make those things happen,” Guterres told The Associated Press in a sit-down interview four days before world leaders convene for their annual meeting at the UN General Assembly. His message to leaders and ministers from the UN’s 193 member nations coming to UN headquarters was no-nonsense: You need to very seriously analyze the fact that the world is facing at least three existential problems—runaway artificial intelligence, galloping climate change, and escalating inequality that is becoming a serious driver of instability and conflict. Guterres also warned that the “huge geopolitical divide” and paralysis in the Security Council have created an environment of impunity with powerful countries flout-
ing international law and the U.N. Charter. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the attacks on Iran by the United States, both veto-wielding council members, are examples. “Many countries say, ‘If superpowers can violate the law, why can’t we?’” the secretary-general said. “And so what we are seeing around the world is more and more situations in which countries simply do not care. They do whatever they want, knowing that there will be total impunity.”
Behavior by nations, he says, is adding fuel to the fire
THE violations and impunity have caused death and enormous destruction, he said, and the combination of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the broader Middle East conflict are having “a dramatic impact” on the world economy. Food and energy prices are going up, interest rates are rising and developing countries face enormous difficulties in responding to the needs of their people. He expressed hope that these problems will force people to realize that the obstacles can’t be eliminated alone and require international cooperation. That’s especially true, he said, with reforms of the institutions formed by the victorious World
“SOMEONE must affirm that the law of force cannot prevail over the force of law.”—UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on the need for the United Nations to uphold international law amid geopolitical divisions and conflicts. AP/DAVID R. MARTIN
War II powers — the UN, especially the Security Council, and the major global financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. They must be overhauled to reflect the realities of the 21st century world where there are emerging economies and powers, he said, and their importance must be reflected in global institutions. As UN chief, the secretarygeneral has no army, no intelligence service and not much money. But, Guterres said, he has two powers — to speak out on global issues and to convene the world’s nations. Because of geopolitical divides, Guterres said the United Nations has “no leverage” on promoting
peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. But he said he has been firm in defending the UN Charter and the territorial integrity of countries, and in condemning “horrible violations of human rights.” He condemned Hamas’ “intolerable” attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and he also condemned “the horrible situation that Israel has created in Gaza with levels of death and destruction that have no parallel in the history of the United Nations.” The United Nations is not “in a transactional approach to politics,” he stressed. It must be “a reference of values and principles for the whole world, because
someone must affirm that the law of force cannot prevail over the force of law.” “That, of course, sometimes limits our capacity to negotiate an agreement because one of the sides is a clear violator that doesn’t like to listen to the truth. But that will never, never make us move away from what are the values in which a civilized society must be based,” the UN chief said. He says the AI revolution is sure to loom over this year’s UNGA leaders’ meeting This year’s global gathering is also certain to spotlight the future of the U.N. and the threat of AI getting out of human control.
Guterres has called for international cooperation and guardrails for AI, which he called “a universal problem.” To deal with the escalating problem, he said, countries developing AI at “a higher capacity” should exchange information, establish mechanisms for transparency, have some guardrails and “help create what ideally would be a multilateral mechanism to guarantee that risks can be avoided.” As for the United Nations., it has serious financial issues, largely due to the US failure to pay billions of dollars to its regular operating budget and the separate budget for the UN’s far-flung peacekeeping operations. But it has avoided a financial meltdown and is in the throes of major reforms, which the Trump administration has pressed for. Even with less resources, Guterres said, the UN has been able to maintain its activities, “and I think we demonstrated that we have the best control of public expenditure in any organization of any country in the world.” Guterres has dealt with US President Donald Trump for nearly six of his 10 years at the helm of the UN, and he stressed the importance of the US-UN relationship, which he said has sometimes been difficult, sometimes easier. Now, he said, the UN is cooperating with the US on peace negotiations in the Western Sahara and other parts of the world. When he meets Trump on Tuesday, the opening day of the global gathering, Guterres said he plans to raise peace in Ukraine and the Middle East, “and I hope that these two objectives might be able to unite the efforts of not only the US and the UN but the whole of the international community.” Edith M. Lederer has covered international affairs for The Associated Press for more than a half century.
By Chan Ho-Him AP Business Writer
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ONG KONG—As concern rises over the risks of artificial intelligence, hopes for any kind of global approach depend on cooperation between the US and China — superpowers that seem only to be more skeptical of each other’s AI strategy. AI governance is expected to be on the agenda in a meeting in Washington between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The topic has gained urgency in both countries, with American tech leaders saying that averting worst-case scenarios for rogue AI depends on a degree of cooperation with China. But both countries are vying for a decisive advantage on AI, with Trump warning that any efforts to regulate the technology would help China. That sets up a meeting in which any agreements might be superficial but a possible start to something larger. “A formal agreement or consensus may be near impossible, but they do not need to go that far,” said Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies’ Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs. “Trump and Xi just need to create political space by acknowledging AI poses risks to both countries.”
China and the US are increasingly at odds on AI
TRUMP has pushed back on calls to strengthen regulation of the
technology, claiming that doing so could cause China to eclipse America on AI. He has repeatedly declared that the nation that leads on the technology “wins.” “We are leading China, and all others,” Trump said Monday on social media. The two countries are moving the technology forward in different ways. US companies are chasing AI frontiers with computing power supported by cutting-edge chips and the country’s rapidly expanding data center infrastructure. China is pursuing wide global adoption of its open-source, more affordable models. Chinese AI models have made major advances and gained traction with American companies even as US-led restrictions bar China from getting the world’s most advanced AI chips. While most American frontier models are closed-source, with their design elements kept secret, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US needs to develop more open-source models to counter China. The US has accused China of “aggressive, malicious” efforts to extract capabilities from American AI systems. China has hit back, accusing the US of trying to suppress Chinese companies so it can build a “monopoly of the AI industry.” David Sacks, a top AI adviser to Trump, said that China has “already rejected” slowing down the pace of developing the most advanced forms of AI. He said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” that unlike the nuclear tensions with the Soviet Union during the Cold War it would be impossible to verify whether Chi-
SKYPIXEL | DREAMSTIME.COM
A global AI safety strategy depends on US-China cooperation. They each see the other as the problem
na honored any AI commitments. “In this case, we don’t have trust and we can’t verify,” Sacks said. “So let’s not be foolish about this and just hand the whole ball game to China.” Still, those with ties to the Chinese government see coordination on AI as helpful. At an annual security and defense conference in Beijing, Cui Tiankai, a former Chinese ambassador to the US, said that AI is an area where “we should go ahead and build up” dialogue between Beijing and Washington. “Because there is a need, a growing need, for cooperation,” he told the Xiangshan Forum. “So how can we manage the balance?”
American AI leaders call for keeping China in check—and cooperating with China
TWO leading American AI companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, each restrict access in China and have said the US has a national security imperative to protect its lead on
AI technology. But they also have called for cooperation with China to manage safety. In his essay calling for a slowdown of AI development for safety reasons, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the US should slow China’s progress, including keeping up US restrictions on China’s purchases of the world’s most advanced AI chips. He also added, however, that “global pacing will require cooperation with China, the autocratic country with by far the most advanced AI capabilities.” His essay quickly drew criticism from Beijing, with China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying that “fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance which serves no one’s interest.” China’s state-run Global Times newspaper went further, calling his remarks “packed with containment provisions targeting China and is, in essence, a ‘Cold War playbook’ for the AI sector.”
Trump has consulted with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, even calling the maker of the world’s most advanced computer chips in the middle of a podcast interview. Nvidia has generally favored some chip exports to China as a way to create an American ecosystem for the technology and a more open relationship on AI given the number of researchers in China.
Both countries have been alarmed by emerging AI capabilities
IN both the US and China, AI’s increasingly powerful capabilities have alarmed top officials and policymakers. The head of China’s Ministry of State Security, its spy agency, warned in an article that AI poses many threats to the country, from political and ideological security to cyberattacks. In the article, Chen Yixin argued that AI could threaten China’s political and ideological security if used by those “with ulterior motives,” while singling out Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s powerful AI models. It said they could be used to “weaponize” cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threaten China’s critical information infrastructure. Several other recent AI-related events were also causing concern in China when it comes to AI governance. That includes a US security firm’s recent discovery of AI vulnerabilities in WeChat, China’s key messaging app that also offers payment services among other functions, said Paul Triolo, a partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group. While Chinese officials said after Trump’s Beijing summit with
Xi in mid-May that China and the United States had agreed to pursue dialogue on AI development and governance, little progress has been made. At the same time, China and the US have been working to form AI alliances with like-minded nations. In July, China launched the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, a group with 29 initial founding member countries, including Russia and Pakistan, meant to promote global AI governance. This month, China’s Xi has called on BRICS member countries to accelerate the setting up of a global AI governance framework and establish an opensource AI community. Some political observers saw the China-led organization as a response to the US-led Pax Silica initiative, which launched last year focusing on strengthening collaboration with countries including Japan, the UK and Australia on AI supply chains. Asked about his expectations on AI from the Trump-Xi meeting on AI in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Amodei said “the more long-term thing would be working together to put a speed limit on the rate of AI progress.” But he said it likely would be very difficult. In the run-up to the Trump-Xi meeting, a recent social media post by Yuyuantantian, a Chinese state media-linked account, was similarly circumspect. “Only after the United States first demonstrates that the safety rules are equally effective for its own model companies can substantive discussions between the US and China take place,” the post said.
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BusinessMirror
Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • Monday, September 21, 2026
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Early Christmas rush at Rustans PHL BRAND-FOCUSED DEVELOPMENT AND EXHIBITION PROGRAM IN MILAN
FONDAZIONE SOZZANI, in partnership with the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem), Philippine Textile Research Institute, Philippines Consulate General in Milan, Philippine Fashion Coalition, and LIT Fashion Consultancy, presents the second edition of FASHIONPhilippines Milan. The brand development and exhibition program places Filipino fashion front and center on the international stage. The session culminates with a three-day exhibition at Fondazione Sozzani in Milan, via Tazzoli 3, from September 22 to 24, 2026, during Milan Fashion Week S/S 2027. The showcase features curated works by 12 Filipino brands, bringing the country’s vibrant creativity to one of the world’s most important fashion capitals. The brands include Adam Pereyra Jewelry, Bagasáo, Calli, Ched Studio, Idyllic Summers, Iñigo, Jun Escario, Orias, Palengke, Renz Reyes, Viña Romero, and Ziv Rei Alexi. Ahead of the Milan exhibition, the participants also attend intensive brand development sessions with a distinguished eight-member panel of global fashion leaders. The lineup, led by Sara Sozzani Maino, creative director of Fondazione Sozzani, includes: Silvia Bertocchi, head of cultural program of Fondazione Sozzani; Veronica Bertozzi, project director for HIMco; Helena Boissonnas, expert on buying and sourcing for department store at Le Bon Marché-Paris; and Riccardo Terzo, stylist, fashion editor, consultant and lecturer. Citem executive director Leah Pulido Ocampo shared that the first edition highlighted both the strengths of Filipino fashion and the work needed to prepare brands for international growth. “Our experience from the inaugural run affirmed the global potential of Filipino fashion while also showing the importance of strengthening brands’ readiness to compete internationally,” Ocampo said. “For 2026, we are developing a more strategic program that gives equal importance to creativity, business development, and longterm market access.” For Philippine Fashion Coalition President Jackie C. Aquino, one of the clearest takeaways was the need to treat fashion not only as a creative field but also as a business. “The business dimension of fashion is paramount,” Aquino said, noting that brands must be prepared operationally—not just creatively—to succeed internationally. Fondazione Sozzani is a cultural institution established in Milan by Carla Sozzani in 2016 to promote photography, culture, fashion, and the arts. The Foundation has taken over the patronage of the Galleria Carla Sozzani and continues the important public function that the gallery has performed since 1990. Sara Sozzani Maino has been curating and coordinating projects dedicated to education, responsibility, and the new generation of creatives.
GLAM TIDINGS
Queen Amidala by Lladro; Beauty Addict; Chat Fores brings confectionery charm and timeless elegance together in Santa’s Grand Salon; Hanoia from Vietnam; A.L.C; Marie Oamil, creative director of Mele + Marie
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EPTEMBER is the unofficial start of the holiday season in the Philippines. And having this long stretch before Christmas lends the gift-givers and gift-lovers a sense of discernment on what to splurge on, given the crisis besetting the country. Rustans, the upscale department store, offers some exciting options: n BEAUTY ADDICT. A celebration designed around beauty, confidence and self-expression, Rustans’ “Beauty Addict 2026: Spotlight” is inspired by the allure of Hollywood’s awards nights and the glamor of The Met Gala. Now in its 14th year, the event gathered beauty lovers for a celebration of discovery, indulgence and the latest in beauty. It started on September 11, where guests explored the Fragrance Library, shared their Skin Caviar collection moment at La Prairie’s Flower Cart, played The Murad Collection Match Challenge and played Acca Kappa’s Spin the Wheel, among many exciting surprises. The celebration continues with savings and promos throughout the Beauty Month of September 12 until November 30. Beauty Addict members can earn x5 Beauty Addict points when they purchase at least P1,000 worth of products and services at Rustans’ Beauty Source until September 30. The “Beauty Addict: Starlet’s Secret” GWP promo offers one complimentary MAC M·A·Cximal Silky Matte Lipstick with a customized lipstick case for a minimum purchase of P25,000 at Rustans Beauty Source. They can choose from four best-selling shades: Velvet Teddy, Taupe, Mehr, and Chili. Valid until October 31 only. Until November 30, Beauty Addict: LA Lights Raffle promo gives Beauty Addict members one e-raffle entry for every P5,000 spent at Rustans Beauty Source, for a chance to win a four-day, three-night getaway for two in Los Angeles, complete with a stay at a five-star luxury hotel and roundtrip business-class flights. n MELE + MARIE. Mele + Marie, a brand of exceptional artisanal handbags and fashion accessories, recently joined the store’s distinguished Global Artisan Collection. The late Zenaida Tantoco, former chairperson of the Rustan Group of Companies, discovered the award-winning brand at an international fashion event, then later on invited Marie Oamil, the creative director, to form a meaningful partnership. “We are deeply honored by this partnership,” Oamil said in a statement. “For generations, Rustans has represented excellence, impeccable taste, and timeless elegance. They have set the standard for luxury retail in the Philippines through their unwavering commitment to quality, gracious service, and refined style. To have Mele + Marie become part of that legacy is truly a milestone for our brand.” Founded in Nueva Ecija and nurtured in Cebu, the brand has become a familiar presence during Première Classe Paris held alongside Paris Fashion Week, and has showcased its collections at prestigious exhibitions in Versailles and New York “Our creations are guided by three values—they tell stories from our hearts, are born from our unwavering faith, and celebrate beauty in every aspect of life,” added Oamil. n LLADRÓ. Lladró figurines, which are handcrafted Spanish porcelain sculptures renowned for their delicate artistry, pastel colors, and collectible value, were exhibited at Rustans Makati and Rustans Shangri-La. Called “Popcelain,” the two showcases explored, on the one hand, the dialogue between porcelain and pop culture and, on the other, the continuity of its sculptural tradition. At Rustans Makati, the focus was on a selection of works linked to popular culture, reinterpreted in porcelain such as Pikachu, Mickey Mouse, Star Wars characters, and Superman, among many others. These global icons were translated into Lladró’s handcrafted language, “maintaining a balance between aesthetic fidelity and artistic expression.” One of Lladró’s most iconic sculptures, and said to be the most expensive, is The Spanish Horse, which represents an artistic challenge of the highest technical difficulty. Lladró faithfully reproduces the magnificent horses of the Royal
Andalusian School of Equestrian Art. n A.L.C. Founded by celebrity stylist-turned-designer Andrea Lieberman in 2009, the women’s ready-to-wear line blends New York edge with Los Angeles ease. Now “its luxurious quality, meticulous attention to detail, and confident silhouettes” can be worn by Manila’s A.L.C. stylish women for every facet of their life. The A.L.C. Woman, Rustans agrees, is “confident, cultured and connected; has a discerning eye and an innate sense of style. She lives in urban and affluent suburban areas and is between 28 and 55 years old. With an appreciation for cultural values, higher education and global awareness, she is environmentally conscious and active within her community.” The brand believes in “the power of community: As champions of women and womanhood, we stand for warmth and empowerment. Our creativity is grounded in respect, generosity, and deep understanding.... Style is personal: we seek to inspire and guide rather than prescribe. We provide our woman pieces with a point of view that she can make her own.” Created purposefully, specializing in the nuances of form, fit and fabrication, the brand is known for its scenestealing event dresses, directional knitwear, and statement tailoring and accessories. n HANOIA. The design house from Vietnam renowned for elevating lacquer into an art form for contemporary living has also joined Rustans’ portfolio of luxury brands, offering local
design enthusiasts’ access to a collection “where heritage craftsmanship and modern living converge.” Lacquer is at the heart of any Hanoia piece, each intricately crafted with extraordinary discipline and care. It is said that each creation undergoes a meticulous process that can take months, sometimes even a year, to complete, from forming the base object to applying an average of 15 layers of lacquer by artisans. “If the design, the illustration is the hallmark of the artist alone, lacquer is the collective work of many artisans and accumulates layers of meticulous small steps,” said the brand of its philosophy. n CHRISTMAS SHOP. The magic of decorating for the holidays takes centerstage at Rustans, with different interpretations creating a festive space that reflects how we celebrate the most anticipated time of the year. This time, the store invited a group of creative personalities such as Chat Fores, Mark See, Grace Tan, Cyndi Fernandez-Beltran, Nix Alañon, and Joel Cruz to bring their own views of the spirit of Christmas to life through thoughtfully curated holiday vignettes. Besides these personal perspectives, the Rustans Christmas Shop also presents its signature collection of Christmas themes such as Story Book. Christmas Atelier, Christmas Sparkle, Infinity Lights, Home for Christmas, Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice, Glory to the Newborn King, Where Christmas Comes to Life, and Our Own Christmas.
Target Pro: 10 years of targeted solutions for skin concerns
AMONG the Philippine brands exhibiting at Fondazione Sozzani in Milan are Adam Pereyra Jewelry, Ched Studio and Bagasáo.
IT’S been called “Watsons’ best-kept secret” because while it has been on store shelves for a while, Target Pro is relatively low-key. The brand has its loyal fans in the Philippines, all of them attesting to how effective the products are. To celebrate Target Pro by Watsons’ 10th year, the brand opened at pop-up at the SM Makati Main Atrium. The pop-up focused on 10 years of Target Pro “delivering dermatologytargeted solutions, powered by Japanese innovation.” The
brand offers products tailored to specific skin concerns. We asked Watsons brand manager Mary Adriane Aguado at the press launch for the pop-up what the best-selling Target Pro by Watsons products are in the Philippines. “People always go for the brightening and whitening products. These include the Vitamin C Serum, Whitening Serum, Luminous Sun Milk, Age Defense Eye Cream, Airy Spray, Body Moisturizing Cream, Dark Spot Corrector, and Whitening Lotion.” During the event, Target Pro by Watsons also presented highlights, including the successes of the past 10 years, key reviews from loyal users, and an expert chat featuring Dr. Vada So, who advocates for consumer education. “As consumers, we balance what’s new or what’s uso with what’s legitimate and what experts actually recommend,” said So, stressing that regular sunscreen use is important, even on rainy days. The event also served as the introduction of Target Pro by Watsons’ new product line called FEMTechLab, which is hair care tailored to hormonal, stress-induced, and postpartum hair loss. FEMTechLab offers a complete collection of products,
including Anti-Hair Fall Root Balance Scalp Serum (P1,199), Anti-Hair Fall Root Renew Scalp Serum (P1,199), Anti-Hair Fall & Clarifying Shampoo (P899), and Anti-Hair Breakage & Shining Conditioner (P899). Target Pro by Watsons also announced a special raffle that includes various special prizes, including a trip to Japan. Running from August 15 to September 30, 2026 and open to Watsons Club Regular, Watsons Club Elite, SMAC Regular, and SMAC Prestige members, the promo gives customers an e-raffle entry for every minimum P2,999 single-receipt purchase. Aguado said the haircare line is consistent with Target Pro’s philosophy of identifying a particular concern, understanding what consumers need, and developing products around it. “And as our skin needs continue to evolve as well, you can rely on Target Pro to keep listening, keep learning, and keep innovating, developing targeted solutions for every new stage, every new concern, and every chapter ahead.” she said. Target Pro is available at selected Watsons branches and all SM Beauty stores.
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Monday, September 21, 2026
SCG Sharing the Dream continues to empower youth through education
Stratworks takes home NEXT Awards Philippines honors for Jollibee campaigns
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iam Cement Group (SCG) continues to empower the Filipino youth through its SCG Sharing the Dream Scholarship Program, supporting deserving students who demonstrate academic excellence, gratitude, responsibility, and dedication to their families. As part of this continuing initiative, SCG held its scholarship event on September 11, 2026, at Acacia Hotel Manila in Alabang, Muntinlupa, bringing together scholars, educators, partners, and SCG representatives to celebrate education and expand opportunities for Filipino youth. “Today is not simply about providing scholarships, it is about opening opportunities for young people to pursue their dreams, discover their potentials and build a better future for themselves, their families and their communities,” said SCG Country Director Jirasak Kaewubol. SCG believes that education is the key to sustainable growth and development, particularly in ASEAN, where today’s youth will become the future drivers of their nations’ progress. This belief led the company and its organizational partners to develop the SCG Sharing the Dream program. Launched in 2008 as part of SCG’s ASEAN sustainable development initiative, the program has awarded scholarships to more than 4,000 students in the Philippines.
A total of 290 Filipino students receive scholarship support from SCG’s Sharing the Dream program. Photo by Vincent Peter Rivera. The educational assistance initiative for students across ASEAN also aligns with SCG’s commitment to enhancing the quality of life in the communities where it operates. Over the past 18 years, SCG Sharing the Dream scholars in the Philippines have achieved academic success, making SCG proud to have contributed to their growth and development. “SCG has made valid and tangible contributions by sponsoring and supporting the education of thousands of students in the Philippines under the ACT Charity Scholarship Program,” she highlighted. SCG Sharing the Dream scholars come from various parts of the country, particularly Batangas, Bulacan, Taguig, and Tondo, Manila. These areas reflect SCG’s strong ties to the communities where it operates and its commitment to supporting Filipino families in these areas. Every year, SCG and its partners continue to enhance the SCG Sharing the Dream Scholarship Program in various ways, including expanding the program to new locations across the Philippines. “At SCG, we believe in the value of individuals and that a nation’s greatest strength
lies in its people. This belief is at the heart of SCG Sharing the Dream,” Kaewubol emphasized. The SCG Sharing the Dream Scholarship Program is a long-term youth development platform that empowers young people through education, leadership, community engagement, and sustainability. Beyond the SCG Sharing the Dream Scholarship Program, the company also implements a range of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives focused on educational support. Through Green Active Generation, SCG empowers young people to create positive change in their communities. Through scholarships, mentoring, community projects, and continuous development opportunities, SCG helps nurture young people into futureready leaders who can contribute to a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Philippines. SCG demonstrates that creating a better future begins with empowering the youth. Through SCG Sharing the Dream and its other CSR programs, the company continues to give Filipino students opportunities to pursue their aspirations, develop their potential, and make a meaningful difference in their communities.
At Camp HARAYA, Baguio’s young women redefine what leadership looks like
Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong (center) and the BRIDGE Project Team with the women youth leaders of Baguio City during the Camp HARAYA Resilience Bootcamp.
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WENTY-SEVEN young women leaders spent two days building the skills to lead their city through crisis and change at the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation’s (PDRF) 3rd Camp HARAYA (Harnessing Advocacy and Resilience for the Advancement of Youth in Action), held on September 9 and 10, 2026, at Ridgewood Hotel in Baguio City. Camp HARAYA, also known as the Baguio City Youth Resilience Bootcamp, is organized by PDRF through its Building Resilience through Inclusive Development and Gender Equality (BRIDGE) Project, in partnership with the Government of Canada, the City Government of Baguio, and the SIGLAT Baguio Youth Innovation Hub. The program equips Baguio’s women youth leaders to support the city’s resilience agenda by strengthening competencies in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM), Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) through Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), and Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI). “Through the BRIDGE Project, Canada is working with PDRF to strengthen local capacity to address climate change and disaster risks. A key principle of this work is that lasting solutions require the participation of a wide range of stakeholders, including young people. That is why Camp HARAYA is so important—it creates opportunities for young people to lead, influence decisions, and develop solutions to challenges facing
their communities. Canada is proud to support young Filipinos as partners in building a more sustainable future,” said Isabel Hernando of Global Affairs Canada, Embassy of Canada. Samantha Hamada, Chief of Staff for the Office of the City Mayor, delivered the keynote address on behalf of the Baguio City local government. “The journey in public service is not without its trials. But it’s our unwavering commitment to our whys that empowers us to rise above adversity. As you delve into your experience at Camp HARAYA, keep in mind your whys. Let that be resounding— let it drive you, empower you, and push you forward in your meaningful journey of service as fabulous, tenacious, strong, kikay women leaders,” she said. Day 1 immersed participants in the fundamentals of the issues shaping Baguio’s future. Architect Donna Tabangin, Head of the City Planning, Development, and Sustainability Office (CPDSO), walked participants through the city’s official development vision. Engineer Charles Carame, Head of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO), then grounded the group in the fundamentals of DRR-CCA. Denise Navarro, BRIDGE Gender Specialist, followed with a discussion on GESI in leadership. The morning closed with a session on systems thinking in youth leadership for resilience with Van Payno of Country Club. The afternoon turned participants from listeners into
builders. Micaela Gay Rimando of SIGLAT-CPDSO led a session on “The Resilience We Want: Youth Leadership for 2043,” then guided participants through an extended workshop where they began shaping their own vision for a livable city. Day 1 closed with a special hands-on session with CDRRMO on youth emergency response and Basic Life Support training. The second day opened with sessions on youth leadership for climate resilience and “Leadership Under Pressure: The First 72 Hours,” featuring a tabletop emergency-response exercise led by Ruth Anne Salimbangon of the Quezon City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (QCDRRMO). Participants then took the stage themselves in a panel on Youth Leadership for Resilience, moderated by Alex Czar Masiglat, BRIDGE Project Manager. Panelists included Claudine Talaran, Sustainability Specialist at foodpanda; Salimbangon; and June Domingo Jr. of Baguio’s Local Youth Development Office. Moderated by Anna Katrina Aspuria, BRIDGE Project Director, the bootcamp culminated in a direct dialogue on leadership between five youth representatives and Mayor Benjie Magalong, who shared his own leadership journey alongside the realities young women leaders face today. It was a moment of learning from one another, highlighting that resilient leadership can look the same at any age: showing up, listening, and staying the course. “Leadership isn’t something you grow into someday— many of you already have it, right now. Leadership has nothing to do with age, and nothing to do with position. It’s about influence, and what you choose to do with it. Start with one person, then two, and that influence can grow into something that inspires communities to act,” Magalong said. After two days spent studying the city’s hazards, vulnerabilities, and official development vision, the young women leaders presented their own vision for a resilient, livable, inclusive, and creative Baguio by 2043. “Leadership needs both a poet and a plumber. The poet dreams the vision while the plumber lays the pipes underneath that make the dream survive. A poet without a plumber never builds anything. A plumber without a poet builds systems nobody remembers the why of. The leaders we need are both: people who still feel the fire, and people willing to do the unglamorous work underneath the dream,” Aspuria said.
Veterans Bank opens Ayala main office branch
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HILIPPINE Veterans Bank has officially started the operations of the newly relocated Ayala Main Office Branch at the SSS Building along Ayala Avenue corner V.A. Rufino Street, Makati City on September 14, 2026. The new Ayala branch is the relocation of the Bank’s Makati branch previously situated at the Bank’s Head Office. The relocation is expected to provide greater accessibility and convenience to PVB clients in the Makati business district, while allowing the Bank to continue delivering its banking services in the area. The opening was marked by a Mass and Blessing ceremony, welcoming the Bank’s clients and employees to its new location.
Present during the mass and blessing were senior officers of the Bank led by Chairman Emmanuel Herbosa and President Eulogio Catabran III, together with the division and department heads of Branch Banking Sector led by SVP Edwin Amahan, and other Veterans Bank Head Office officers and staff. The Ayala Main Office Branch is open from Monday to Friday, except holidays, from 9 am to 4 pm, and clients may visit the newly relocated branch for their banking needs or contact the main office branch for inquiries. The relocation reflects Veterans Bank’s ongoing commitment to making its services more accessible and enhancing the banking experience for its clients.
The opening of Veterans Bank Ayala main office branch with Chairman Emmanuel Herbosa (2nd from left) along with, from left, EVP Cynthia Almirez, Chief Finance Officer and Controller; Bank Director Cesar Rubio; and SVP Edwin Amahan, Head of Branch Banking Sector.
Stratworks and Jollibee received four trophies at the 2026 Marketech APAC NEXT Awards Philippines for their outstanding work in public relations, event marketing, and video marketing. From Jollibee Philippines are, from left, Jannelle Sorilla, Assistant Brand Manager Digital Commerce and Loyalty; Charisse Sumulong, Director, Digital Commerce and Loyalty; RJ Rodillo, Director, Digital Communications and Public Relations; Dorothy Dee-Ching, Marketing Head; Abby Joaquin - Brand Manager, Noodles & Kids; and Kay Segismundo, Stratworks Accounts Director.
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TRATWORKS continues to build on its strong awards momentum as the agency earns multiple recognitions at the Marketech APAC’s NEXT Awards Philippines, with its work for Jollibee named taking home awards across several key categories. The recognitions reflect Stratworks’ breadth of work for the country’s most beloved fast-food brand, ranging from digital rebranding and experiential marketing to public relations and video storytelling. Among the agency and brand’s standout entries is the “Bida Best, Bida Pinoy” campaign, which won Gold trophies for Most Innovative Public Relations Campaign and Most Innovative Event Marketing Campaign. The overarching concept brought Jollibee’s celebration of Filipino pride to life to engage audiences during the country’s Independence Day. The launch event emphasized this further through an immersive exhibit of memorabilia from world-class Filipinos, including Olympic gold medalists Hidilyn Diaz and Carlos Yulo,
and Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach. Also under the Most Innovative Public Relations Campaign category, Stratworks and Jollibee received a Silver award for Jollibee’s Values Kids Meal, which leveraged its iconic kids’ meals to create opportunities for meaningful values formation through story books in partnership with Adarna House. The agency’s #JoyDelivered video won Silver for Most Innovative Video Marketing Campaign. The campaign transformed the Jollibee mobile app into a visual storytelling platform. The digital experience turned into an expression of gratitude for Filipino frontliners who work during the holidays, further reinforcing the emotional connection at the heart of the Jollibee brand. “Our NEXT Awards Philippines wins are testaments of the kind of work we strive to build at Stratworks—ideas that are not only creative, but are rooted in strategy, reputation building, and a genuine understanding of people. Our work with Jollibee has allowed us to explore different ways of delivering joy,” said Mark Christian Parlade, Stratworks Managing Director. For Stratworks, the recognition reinforces the agency’s commitment to developing ideas that go beyond conventional communications and create meaningful connections between brands and their audiences. “This recognition by the NEXT Awards reflects the dedication of our team and the incredible partnership we share with Jollibee. Together, we are committed to crafting authentic, high-impact communications that resonate deeply with audiences,” said Donna Nievera-Conda, Stratworks President and Co-CEO. Additionally, “We Deliver Joy: Rebranding the Jollibee App Into a Joy Platform” was recognized as a finalist for Most Innovative – Branding/Re-branding Campaign. It highlights Jollibee’s evolution of its mobile app beyond a functional ordering platform, transforming it into a digital destination designed around the brand’s core promise of delivering joy. Together with Jollibee, client Ortigas Malls was also a finalist for Most Innovative Event Marketing Campaign for the 2025 Ortigas Art Festival and Most Innovative Seasonal Campaign for GH Mall’s “Holidays Around the World” campaign in partnership with EVA Air and RCBC. The NEXT Awards Philippines adds to Stratworks’ growing list of accolades, underscoring the agency’s ability to deliver work that combines strategy, creativity, innovation, and purpose.
Why Mang Inasal Is an influential brand: 5 ways it connects with Filipino consumers
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HAT makes a restaurant brand influential? Is it the number of stores it operates, the meals it serves, or the memories it creates for its customers? For Mang Inasal, it is a combination of these everyday experiences. The brand formally received its Influential Brands® trophy on August 24, 2026, following its recognition as the 2025 Top Brand in the Philippines under the QSR Grilled Category in April 2026. Rather than influence being something a brand simply claims, being an influential brand is built through the experiences customers have with it—from the food they crave, to the convenience of getting their grilled favorites, to the people who serve them. Here are five things that help make Mang Inasal an influential brand among Filipino consumers: It understands what Filipinos want from a meal At the heart of Mang Inasal is a simple Filipino dining insight: good food is better when it is shared. Its Ihaw-Sarap offerings, familiar Filipino flavors, and generous meal options have made the brand a choice for different dining occasions—from quick meals anytime ad anywhere during the day to family gatherings and celebrations with friends. Whether it is a craving for Chicken Inasal and unli rice or a shared meal with family and friends, Mang Inasal builds its menu around the ways Filipinos enjoy food: generously, together, and with room for a little extra saya experience. For Mang Inasal President Mike V. Castro, this everyday connection is what gives the recognition its meaning. “Influence is something that is earned over time. For Mang Inasal, it comes from the trust Filipinos have placed in us and from being part of their everyday moments. This recognition inspires us to continue earning that trust,” he said. It keeps the Filipino dining experience at the center As food trends and consumer preferences change, Filipino diners continue to look for experiences that feel familiar while offering something worth coming back to. Mang Inasal continues to build around its distinctly Filipino identity, allowing the brand to evolve without losing sight of what consumers have come to know and enjoy. This strong sense of identity gives the brand a foundation from which it can evolve while remaining recognizably Mang Inasal. This balance is particularly important as Mang Inasal connects with consumers across generations, from longtime customers to younger Filipinos discovering the brand for the first time. It makes the Mang Inasal experience accessible across more occasions A strong restaurant brand is not only about what is on the menu. It is also about the convenience of enjoying the meals anytime and anywhere its customers prefer. Mang Inasal continues to expand its store network and customer touchpoints, making its offerings more accessible to Filipinos across the country. Today, Mang Inasal has over 600 stores nationwide, reflecting the brand’s growing reach and the continued demand for its distinctly Filipino dining experience. From physical stores to digital and delivery channels, these efforts allow customers to enjoy Mang Inasal in ways that fit their changing routines and dining occasions. It continues to evolve with its customers Staying relevant means listening to consumers and responding to how their habits change. Mang Inasal has continued to evolve its consumer
Influential Brands® CEO Jorge Rodriguez (right) presents the Influential Brands® trophy to Mang Inasal President Mike V. Castro (center) and Mang Inasal Vice President for Marketing Mari P. Aldecoa touchpoints alongside changing dining habits. Its revamped Mang Inasal Delivery app and website, for one, give customers a more convenient way to order and engage with the brand digitally, complementing its growing network of physical stores and delivery channels. Mang Inasal has also explored new digital experiences and ways to engage with the younger and more diverse consumers, including its MI UNIVerse and Mang Inasal Creators’ Circle. As for its offerings, Mang Inasal continues to refresh its menu around changing consumer interests and occasions, from seasonal treats such as its Extra Creamy Halo-Halo offerings to campaigns that give familiar favorites new reasons to enjoy. It is also exploring growth opportunities in underrepresented dayparts such as breakfast and merienda. For Mari P. Aldecoa, Vice President for Marketing at Mang Inasal, this balance between evolution and authenticity is key to staying connected to the consumers. “As Filipino consumers and their preferences evolve, we continue to listen and find new ways to stay relevant while remaining true to what makes Mang Inasal distinctly Filipino. That allows us to continue building meaningful connections across generations.” These efforts show how Mang Inasal responds to changing consumer behaviors while keeping its core Filipino character at the center. It delivers the Ihaw-Sarap, Unli-Saya experience consistently Influence is built not only through big campaigns, but through the thousands of customer interactions that happen every day. Behind every Mang Inasal meal is an operating team working to deliver a consistent experience across its growing network of stores. This includes the people ensuring quality and safe food at the commissary to the store teams who prepare and serve the meals, as well as the franchisees and their manage teams as well as the back-end units supporting operations behind the scenes. This consistency helps turn individual dining experiences into the familiarity and trust that consumers associate with the brand. For Mang Inasal, influence is built through the everyday experiences that keep customers coming back—from enjoying familiar Filipino flavors to sharing meals with family and friends. As the brand continues to grow, its focus remains on staying close to Filipino consumers, improving the ways they experience Mang Inasal, and making its offerings more accessible across the country. In the end, the brand’s influence is reflected not only in the recognition it receives, but in the place it continues to hold in the everyday dining habits and moments of Filipinos.
Marketing BusinessMirror
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Monday, September 21, 2026 B7
THROUGH THEIR EYES: INTERVIEWS ON THE PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE
Part 2: Jess Chen
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HIS is the second of a two-part series of interviews conducted on two branding and communication leaders from Singapore. Through their sharing and reflections, the hope is to open the minds of the readers to how people who work with us perceive us. It’s not always easy to get feedback, especially in a clientsupplier relationship, or even among business acquaintances and friends, but getting good and constructive feedback is the only way for us to get better, be better and do things better. Honesty is always the best policy. In this piece, I pose the same questions I posed to John Ng to Jess Chen, who has been covering the Philippines in her leadership role at LABBRAND and is personally fast becoming an active member of the Filipino community in Singapore through her membership in the Philippine Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.
Tell me about yourself and your work. “AS Managing Director APACx based in Singapore, I lead LABBRAND’s development and growth across the Asia region. Passionate about business transformation, experience creation, brand innovation, placemaking and retail design, I have directed and produced brand work recognized in 17 international award competitions. I consider myself having an active and creative mind that runs wild and doesn’t sleep! Celebrating two decades of my career this year, I spent 13 years with FITCH (a leading global retail experience consultancy) rising to Business Director then served as Business Director, Asia at Brandient (a multidisciplinary strategic consultancy). I then joined LABBRAND (an independent global brand consultancy) in 2020 and over time also assumed a dual hat of “Brand Heart Director”—a title I created—to support and drive from within the organization’s global marketing efforts. That gave me the opportunity to bring LABBRAND to new territories by garnering “Best Luxury Brand Experience Consultancy Southeast Asia” at the Luxury Lifestyle Awards in 2024 and 2025, as well as obtaining the International Sustainability Awards in 2025.
What exposure have you had with the Philippine market? “A NUMBER of encounters, but the most significant and coincidentally worth mentioning upon joining LABBRAND, is the first major project that I undertook and participated in—the Corporate Brand Refresh program for
Monde Nissin, a global food and beverage multinational company headquartered in the Philippines.”
What work have you found to be the most fruitful or exciting in the Philippine context? “I FIND that the most thrilling work happens when we have to embrace the ‘tensions’ of senior stakeholder management alongside convincing buy-ins and being productive in the project process —navigating an intricate interplay of branding mandates and hyper-local cultural realities. When you can see a brand genuinely come alive with meaning and purpose in the Filipino context, the impact is measurable and deeply satisfying on a professional level.”
What work have you found to be the most difficult or off-putting in the Philippines context? “IT is for the same reason as the above that reflects itself in ‘trust deficit’ of consultancies whose brands and businesses have not been used to working without a pre-existing internal champion. A difficult dynamic that you’re asked to deliver innovation and transformation, but often met with a “prove it to me” skepticism that slows everything down. What's also off-putting is the compounding effect when trust is low, timelines stretch, budgets get scrutinized, and bold thinking gets watered down into safe, incremental work. That said, I've learned that the only way through this is to lead with transparency and results, sometimes even over-delivering on the small things first, to then earn the right to push for the big things later. Extraordinary relationship building. That is hard work, but when you finally break through, the loyalty you build is genuine and lasting.”
What makes the Philippines competitive versus Singapore and Asean? “THE Philippines’s edge has always been human capital: a young, English-fluent, culturallyadaptive workforce that understands both Western and Asian sensibilities. Undoubtedly a native balance. Singapore on the other hand serves as Asean region’s central nervous system for AI governance and related high-level strategy given the country’s focus on precision and advantage in the controlled ecosystem. So Singapore competes on infrastructure, regulatory trust, and capital access whilst the Philippines competes on creative and
communicative talent density. Filipino creatives, writers, and brand strategists have an intuitive fluency in storytelling and emotional resonance—you see it in how Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has evolved into Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), and now into genuine creative and brand work for regional and global clients. The competitiveness is in adaptability and warmth—qualities that are hard to automate and increasingly valuable as AI commoditizes the technical layer of branding.”
Does the Philippines and similar Asean markets need to adapt to AI sooner rather than later? “YES, but “adapt” does not mean “adopt everything at once”. Markets like the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia in the Asean region are consumption powerhouses known for socialfirst, mobile-first. This means AI-driven personalization and content velocity are already reshaping consumer expectations whether industries, businesses and brands are ready or not. If agencies and brand teams don't build AI fluency sooner, they risk being disintermediated by platforms and tools that don't get local nuance. For the markets in the Asean region, adaptation is not optional...it’s a survival imperative, and one that requires strategy on how to move forward. For the Philippines, the opportunity is to adapt aggressively yet intelligently, focusing on solving the market’s complex and systemic challenge areas i.e. in disaster resilience, agriculture, and education. The Philippines’s AI strategy is still in discussion stages, presenting an opportunity to shape it around the country’s needs and cultural authority.”
How will AI change branding/ comms in the region in the short term (2–5 years)? “SPEED where content production cycles that took weeks will take days, especially for localization across Asean’s linguistic diversity. Personalization at a scale covering segmented messaging across different Asean region markets and languages simultaneously. Change in role of the brand strategist shifting from “producer of content” to “curator and editor of meaning” because AI can generate infinite options, but distinguishing what's culturally resonant in contrast to generic AI speak becomes the real value-add. I’d also flag a real risk: brand homogenization. If every brand
uses the same handful of AI tools trained on similar data, we could see a flattening of the very distinctiveness that lets brands stand out in crowded ASEAN markets. The change will be fundamental: from visibility to trust; but not replace the human soul behind.”
What challenges will the region face in adopting AI into business ecosystems? “WE’RE looking at a few layers. In the aspect of talent, there’s a shortage of people who understand both AI tooling and brand strategy deeply enough to use it well rather than just quickly. Regulatory fragmentation across Asean means data governance and AI-use policies will look very different in Singapore vs. the Philippines vs. Vietnam, and so on… And then there’s the intellectual property (IP) question, which I think is somewhat neglected: AI-generated content whether for regional campaigns, copy, visuals, or even brand names sit in genuinely unresolved legal territory across most Asean jurisdictions.
Who owns an AI-assisted tagline? Can a brand asset generated by AI be trademarked or copyrighted in the Philippines vs. Singapore, where IP frameworks differ? CLIENTS are already thinking about these, and honestly, the legal frameworks haven't fully caught up. That gap is a real business risk: brands could invest in AI-generated assets only to find they have weak or contested ownership over them, or worse, unknowingly infringe on dataderived content that resembles existing IP.”
How will AI affect consumer/ stakeholder perception and decision-making? “FOR example, many consumers use Gen AI for shopping discovery. And for Gen Z, AI-generated overviews are often more trusted than traditional search. This implies that a brand's biggest advocate is now an AI algorithm. If the AI recommends you, you're perceived as credible by default. If it omits you, you become irrelevant. Consumers will use AI for validation, but they will still seek human connection to make the final call, especially for high-priced or emotionally-driven purchases. Because consumers are becoming more discerning, they also suffer more fatigue—the “AI-generated” label itself is becoming a skeptical trust signal, sometimes even negative.
In Asean specifically, where relationship-based and word-ofmouth trust still outweighs pure algorithmic recommendation in many categories, I believe we'll see a bifurcation of efficiency-driven categories (e-commerce, fintech) leaning into AI-personalized decision support, whilst trust-driven categories (F&B, healthcare, family brands) needing to work harder to signal human authorship and authenticity.”
What does branding/comms look like in the Philippines/Asean a decade from now? “I imagine that in a decade, Asean branding will be defined by: n Localized Co-creation with AI: AI will be used to co-create
culturally-resonant content adapting visual cues, narratives, and ‘humor’ at scale in real-time. However, this will be heavily driven by local creative leaders who understand the “why” behind the data. The “soul of the brand” stems from human insight vs. AI handles the “structure and style” of execution. n
Brands as ‘Trust Guardians:’
Brands will need to put focus on communication with “proof of human” and provenance in order to protect their IP and ensure trust, especially as AI creates new possibilities for brand impersonation and counterfeit becoming ubiquitous. So I think we will land somewhere with two co-existing realities: one that is AI-native, highlyefficient, hyper-personalized brand systems operating at regional scale with minimal human production; the other is a resurgent on distinctly human, deep with stories, culturally-rooted brand craft...almost a “slow branding" movement. And the latter dimension is where I see the Philippines well-positioned to lead.” PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (IPRA), the world’s premier association for senior professionals around the world. Margarita Locsin-Chan is the President of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. We are devoting a special column each month to answer the reader’s questions about public relations. Please send your comments and questions to askipraphil@gmail.com. For more insights and updates on public relations, follow PR Matters by IPRA Philippines on Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook.
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Monday, September 21, 2026
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Nationwide cleanup nets 46 tons of waste Indonesia link boosts Bohol’s tourist market C By Jonathan L. Mayuga
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ORE than 103,000 volunteers collected some more than 46 tons of garbage from 369 coastal, river, waterway, and underwater cleanup sites nationwide during this year’s International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) drive on September 19, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said. In a statement, the DENR said the sustained nationwide turnout, coupled with waste recovery levels nearly matching last year’s results, highlights continued public support for marine litter prevention and responsible waste management. The annual activity brought together national government agencies, local government units, schools, businesses, civic groups, communities, and other organizations to remove marine litter and document the waste collected from waterways and coastal areas.
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NGELES CITY—Pampanga Rep. Carmelo Lazatin Jr. is seeking the inclusion of P300 million in the proposed 2027 national budget for the rebuilding of the part of the Pampang Public Market here that was damaged by a fire on Wednesday night. Lazatin said that he had requested the funding from President Marcos through Executive Secretary Ralph Recto and Public Works Secretary Vivencio Dizon, with the concurrence of Angeles City Mayor Carmelo Lazatin II.
“Our understanding of solid waste management has evolved over the years. But regardless of how many ‘Rs’ we add to the framework of reuse, reduce, and recycle, there is one ‘R’ that makes all the others possible: this is our responsibility,” Environment Secretary Juan Miguel T. Cuna said. “Responsibility transforms policies into practice. It turns technology into solutions. And it turns individual actions into national progress,” the DENR chief added. In Metro Manila alone, more than 36,000 participants joined cleanup activities at 11 sites, including Baseco Beach, Manila Bay Dolomite Beach, Manila Ocean Park, Pasig River in Barangay 836, Las PiñasParañaque Wetland Park, SM by the Bay, Tanza Marine Tree Park, Bagumbayan North, Marikina River, Solaire Coast and Aseana Business Park. Food wrappers, paper and plastic cups
and plates, polystyrene foam food containers, straws and stirrers, and other discarded materials were among the waste collected. The waste was weighed, sorted and recorded by type, generating data that can help identify marine litter patterns and guide waste-management interventions in areas where they are most needed. The ICC also highlighted the role of the private sector, including companies covered by the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act of 2022, or Republic Act 11898, which requires large enterprises, or “obliged rnterprises,” to recover an increasing share of the plastic packaging they introduce into the market. The participation of businesses in the cleanup provides an opportunity to connect corporate responsibility and extended producer responsibility with actual conditions on the ground. Cuna said stronger systems must be matched by changes in everyday behavior.
“It begins with simple choices to refuse what we do not need, to segregate waste properly, to reuse what we can, and to dispose of what remains responsibly. When millions of Filipinos make responsible choices every day, we create lasting change.” The call comes as the government looks to strengthen the country’s solid waste management system. In his 2026 State of the Nation Address, President Marcos called for updating the 25-year-old Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, or Republic Act 9003, to align it with modern waste management practices and technologies, including waste-to-energy and wastetreatment technologies. “This presents an important opportunity to strengthen our waste management system from segregation and collection to recycling, resource recovery, treatment, and environmentally sound disposal,” Cuna said.
EBU CITY—Bohol’s international tourist market was boosted by the arrival of the first chartered flight from Jakarta-Bali, Indonesia, operated by Citilink, at the Bohol-Panglao International Airport (BPIA) on September 17. The new air connection is expected to make travel between Indonesia and Bohol more convenient while opening opportunities for tourism, business, cultural exchanges and other people-to-people links between the two destinations. Citilink, a subsidiary of Garuda Indonesia, operated the inaugural flight, providing Indonesian travelers with a new gateway to Bohol’s natural attractions, cultural heritage and tourism destinations. For the provincial government, the new connection is part of its ongoing efforts to expand Bohol’s international air links and tap into the wider Southeast Asian travel market. The initiative also supports the province’s strategy of developing tourism alongside economic opportunities for local communities under the Strategic Governance Roadmap of Gov. Erico Aris Aumentado. The new air link follows earlier efforts by Bohol tourism officials to develop closer tourism and cultural ties with Indonesia. At a May 6, 2025 meeting of the Provincial Tourism Council (PTC), members discussed a proposed cultural exchange with Bali, Indonesia, as part of several initiatives aimed at expanding the province’s international tourism reach. The meeting, presided over by PTC co-chairman Lucas Nunag, together with Provincial Administrator Asteria Caberte, also covered the review of the Provincial Tourism Masterplan, the planned Taiwan-Bohol flights, a Japan Business Mission, the Department of Tourism’s Philippine Experience program, and a proposed Pista sa Bohol Experience. The discussions indicate that the Indonesia connection forms part of a broader push to diversify Bohol’s international tourism and business links. Carmel Pedroza
Pampanga solon seeks ₧300-M for rebuilding of burned market The proposed funding would be sought under the Local Government Support Fund for 2027 and remains subject to the government’s budget and approval processes. The fire was the second major blaze to hit the market in nearly six years. A previous fire in November 2020 destroyed the original market, which was later replaced by a new facility inaugurated in 2024 at a reported cost
of about P400 million. “ Babangon muli ang Pampang Public Market,” Lazatin said. “ Ang Pampang Market ay hindi lang simpleng palengke, parte ito ng araw-araw na buhay ng bawat Angeleño at lahat ng nakatira sa karatig-bayan na namamalengke rin dito ,” Lazatin said. Lazatin also asked the Department of
Social Welfare and Development to provide Emergency Cash Transfer assistance to 412 stall owners affected by the fire. He said the requested assistance could range from P5,000 to P10,000 for qualified beneficiaries under the program, which is intended to provide immediate support to disaster-affected families during early recovery.
“Kahit paano ay makatulong ito sa pagsisimula ng ating mga kababayang nawalan ng hanapbuhay,” Lazatin said. The fire broke out around 7:00 p.m. Wednesday and reached the fifth alarm at about 10 p.m. It destroyed 412 stalls. Firefighters brought the blaze under control before midnight. No fatalities were reported as of Friday morning as authorities continued to assess
the damage. “ Nakikiramay at nakikiisa ako at ang aking tanggapan sa mga vendors at kanilang pamilya, gayundin sa kanilang mga trabahante sa naganap na sunog sa Pampang Market,” Lazatin said. The fire affected the old market building housing the sari-sari and wet sections, according to the Angeles City Information Office. The city government temporarily closed the two sections while safety personnel assessed the area. Ashley J. Manabat
Megaworld’s Chef Panky Lopez on the future of food: ‘Be intentional, go local’
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By Francine M. Marquez
“Our efforts are strongly focused on localism. It’s impactful that you’re given proximity. Regional properties, for instance, are empowered to source ingredients available in their area. “So, given that, it really impacts the reduction of carbon footprint and, at the same time, it helps the community around them,” he said. More importantly, “Timpla 2026” aims to develop next-generation leaders who can continue the MHR vision and legacy while getting future-ready. “It’s the people that give heart and soul to whatever technology is being presented,” he replied. “It’s still the human touch that would translate AI and let the guest experience that warmth,” he added.
ehind every memorable dining experience is a long journey of food production that begins with farmers and producers and ends with chefs, hospitality professionals, and business leaders. In the latest episode of Freshly Brewed, BusinessMirror’s podcast, Chef Franco “Panky” Lopez, Corporate Executive Chef of Megaworld Hotels and Resorts (MHR), sits down with Anne Ruth Dela Cruz, BusinessMirror Wine and Dine editor, to discuss how hospitality leaders are helping shape the future of food, sustainable tourism, and the next generation of industry professionals.
Metaphor for leadership and hospitality
AT the successful “Timpla Food Festival and F&B Conference 2026,” held at the Boracay Newcoast Convention Center in July, the word timpla (“blend” or “mixture”) served as the perfect metaphor for leadership and hospitality. Megaworld Hotels and Resorts (MHR), the biggest wholly Filipino-owned hotel operator in the Philippines, organized the event, which was anchored on the theme “Timpla: Balancing Heritage, Elevating Craft, Driving Growth.” This was the first time in five years that the group had used a Filipino word as the key theme of its yearly gathering. “From a culinary point of view, it’s more than just a methodology where you have a blend or a
mix of ingredients,” explained Chef Panky. “As a leader, I think it’s a good metaphor for how you would blend operations, strategies, and, of course, dealing with people and how to cohesively put together the hospitality experience that we want for our guests,” he added.
Leadership summit
BESIDES being a gastronomic event where 16 executive chefs from across MHR properties showcased regional Filipino heritage and signature dishes, “Timpla 2026” was also an important leadership conference. At its heart was a multi-day summit that served as an educational platform where hotel leaders could learn the latest industry trends and engage with topics such as F&B profitability, data-driven leadership, and preserving regional culinary heritage. According to Chef Panky, “We want to have more leaders in the kitchen. Really tapping into how they would translate everything that we do into profit because ultimately, profit will give us the fuel for everything that we want to do: our purpose, our effect on the community, performance, and progress in our industry.”
Chef Franco "Panky" Lopez, Corporate Executive Chef of Megaworld Hotels & Resorts, talks about how hospitality leaders are helping to shape the future of food, sustainable tourism and the next generation of industry leaders with Anne Ruth Dela Cruz, BusinessMirror's Wine and Dine editor.
Expanded role
HAVING held leadership roles in other hospitality groups before joining MHR, Chef Panky’s role as the group’s head chef brought him from the kitchen to a corporate office. “It was quite an adjustment from being behind and inside the kitchen, experiencing the heat and all,” he observed. “Now, I’m more often behind the desk, strategically looking after all the properties.” Overseeing culinary operations across MHR properties, Chef Panky collaborates with kitchen leaders, aligns their vision with the brand, and implements a centralized culinary system to enhance profitability and the quality of guest experiences across the group.
Food security, climate change
Chef Franco "Panky" Lopez, Corporate Executive Chef of Megaworld Hotels & Resorts
Anne Ruth Dela Cruz, BusinessMirror's Health and Fitness Editor
CHEF Panky believes creating a beautiful dish begins on farms and in coastal areas where fresh produce is sourced and brought to the kitchen, where ingredients are creatively prepared into delicious meals that also reflect hospitality. In this sense, food security is a concern in the sector because it affects access to safe, affordable, and healthy food. “The entirety of our business depends on the resiliency and the stable supply of all the things that we need for our business, especially the ingredients. Without all these, we can’t really push through with our business, with the hospitality, the experience that we want to give to our guests,” commented Chef Panky.
He also noted that supporting local farmers, fishermen, and food producers brings a positive impact to the food ecosystem. “By being intentional, by making sure that from menu development to the choice of ingredients, we really have to go out there and meet with the producers to make sure the effects and impact on the community are really felt and seen,” said Chef Panky. Climate change is another concern that has disrupted the supply chain and changed the way hotel kitchens operate. Chef Panky advised shifting mindsets by looking at the bright side of the challenge. “I think we should look for opportunities in the midst of the crisis. That’s where I think the Chinese character comes in. The Chinese characters for opportunity and crisis are the same.” “So, we should tap more local ingredients as an alternative. Eventually, it won’t just come as an alternative. And to look at what nature would give us or the seasonal ingredients in creating our menus,” he said. Sustainability, another issue in the food and hospitality landscape, calls for a paradigm shift that goes beyond surface-level practices. Intentionality is key, stressed Chef Panky. “From the start, it’s good to have a proper mindset and really be intentional, by choosing what ingredients should be used and how it should end up eventually in the landfill, or even beyond it,” he reflected. MHR employees are encouraged to value
small, eco-friendly actions as initiatives that collectively lead to meaningful, long-term impacts on the environment.
Promoting Filipino cuisine
AS international cuisines have become more present in the local food landscape through new restaurants and foreign brands, MHR continues to commit to advancing Filipino cuisine and promoting its appreciation among both local and international visitors. “By making sure that our menus would always have Filipino food there and by making it visible by sharing their backstories and really tapping the expertise of the chefs and their origins, and (discovering) the truthful stories behind the dishes.” At the “Timpla 2026” food festival, the love for food heritage came alive as all 16 hotels showcased their well-loved dishes and innovations. Local ingredients such as heirloom rice and souring agents like catmon, batwan, roselle leaves, and tabon-tabon were presented in several dishes. Durian also appeared in a savory dish. Cooking methods unique to Filipino cuisine, such as direct-fire cooking and the use of bamboo and banana leaves, were also showcased. By advocating Filipino cuisine, MHR aims to promote sustainability through cultural traditions, biodiversity, and support for regional economies.
Next leaders
WITH evolving guest expectations and the dynamic pace of the industry, training future leaders is essential to ensure sustainability and continuity. Chef Panky said young chefs should be encouraged to be curious and develop a good level of emotional intelligence, resiliency, and a strong work ethic. “They must also have a lot of respect for ingredients, for the process, especially local ingredients and food safety,” he continued. Beyond technical skills, future hospitality leaders need to be proactive and sensitive to others amid an increasingly dynamic industry. “A leader who is adaptable, empathetic, and solution-oriented,” he stated. “Somebody who can anchor Megaworld’s nurtured culture of love for God, love for country, love for work, love for family, and love for self.” More than a celebration of Filipino flavors, creativity, and hospitality, “Timpla 2026” was MHR’s big push to embrace the future of food and uplift the country’s tourism sector. A hearty takeaway, according to Chef Panky, is to “Love your craft and everything that goes with it. Ultimately and naturally, your craft will love you in return.” Food for thought from the corporate executive chef whose group continues to champion Filipino talent, sustainability, and innovation while supporting the communities behind every meal. • Watch the full interview on BusinessMirror’s YouTube channel. Catch new episodes of Freshly Brewed every Monday at 10 a.m. on BusinessMirror’s YouTube channel, Facebook page, and website