WHO declares COVID still global crisis, pandemic at transition point

GENEVA—Three years to the day after the World Health Organization (WHO) sounded the highest level of global alert over COVID-19, it said Monday the pandemic remains an international emergency.

The United Nations health agency’s emergency committee on COVID-19

Fuel price hikes: Gas up P1.30/l, diesel by P1/l

By Alena Mae S. Flores and Othel V. Campos

DOMESTIC pump prices went up for the third consecutive week by as much as P1.35 per liter effective 6 a.m. Tuesday to reflect the movement of prices in the world oil market.

The oil firms raised the price of kerosene by P1.35 per liter, gasoline by P1.30 per liter, and diesel by P1 per liter.

Meanwhile, even as inflation remains high, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said the suggested retail price (SRP) for various commodities would remain at levels set by the August 2022 SRP Bulletin, as the agency has not yet finished assessing the petitions for price increases by companies.

met last Friday for the 14th time since the start of the crisis.

Following that meeting, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus “concurs with the advice offered by the committee regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and determines that the event continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC),” the organization said in a statement. Meanwhile, all countries remain “dangerously unprepared” for the next pandemic, the Red Cross warned on

By Vince Lopez and Macon Ramos-Araneta

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

on Monday said the education system has “failed” Filipino children as he vowed to do better to improve the education sector.

“We have failed them. We have to admit that we have failed our children. And let us not keep failing them anymore. Otherwise, we will not allow them to become the great Filipinos that we know they can be,” the President said after receiving the 2023 Basic Education Report from Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio yesterday.

“The Filipino is better than this. The children are better than this. And we cannot fail them. And that is the main motivation that we should keep in our hearts,” Mr. Marcos said.

In her report, Duterte-Carpio revealed the multiple challenges hounding the education system as she launched the so-called “MATATAG” roadmap to address the identified problems.

These problems included the lack of school infrastructure, the “cracks” in DepEd’s procurement practices, the decrease of enrollment in private

Monday, saying future health crises could also collide with increasingly likely climate-related disasters. Despite three “brutal” years of the COVID-19 pandemic, strong preparedness systems are “severely lacking”, the

Enrile slams ICC, suggests probers’ arrest for interfering

By Rey E. Requejo and Macon Ramos-Araneta

PRESIDENTIAL Chief Legal Counsel

Juan Ponce Enrile on Monday recommended that investigators working for the International Criminal Court (ICC) be arrested if they come into the country without government permission to probe the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs.

The Philippines “will not allow any of our officials to be investigated or tried by the International Criminal Court,” Enrile told reporters Monday.

“As the lawyer of the President, as far as I am concerned, I do not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court of Justice. They have no