Category: Business Mirror

LAWMAKERS are pushing for the passage of the proposed Blue Economy Act, a measure that mandates the establishment of an integrated and science-based framework for the protection, sustainable development, and management of the Philippines’ vast marine and coastal resources while creating long-term economic opportunities for future generations.

Majority Leader Sandro Marcos of Ilocos Norte, one of the principal authors, said the bill recognizes the country’s identity as a maritime nation, anchored on the constitutional definition of the Philippine archipelago and its internal waters.

‘The maritime character of the Philippine State underscores the integral role of our marine domain in upholding national sovereignty, asserting jurisdiction, promoting ecological security, and advancing sustainable economic development,’ Marcos said.

He noted that the Philippines, endowed with rich marine biodiversity and a strong maritime workforce, must now adopt a ‘coordinated, science-based, and future-resilient approach’ to address resource degradation, climate change, and geopolitical tensions.

The measure institutionalizes the Blue Economy as a national development agenda-anchored on sustainability, inclusivity, and intergenerational equity. It aims to consolidate all existing marine-related initiatives under one coherent framework that promotes a whole-of-nation approach to the management and preservation of the country’s maritime and coastal resources.

The measure adopts the version of the Blue Economy bill approved on third reading by the House of Representatives on December 7, 2023, with 254 affirmative votes during the 19th Congress.

Negros Occidental Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez, also an author, highlighted the Philippines’ immense potential as a blue economy, given that it is the world’s second-largest archipelagic state.

‘Our maritime domains, including our exclusive economic zone, have a total area of 2.2 million square kilometers and compose 88 percent of our national territory. Almost 60 percent of our people live in coastal communities-proof that the sea is central to our history, culture, and identity,’ Benitez said.

He cited the Philippines’ rich marine biodiversity, being at the heart of the Coral Triangle and home to the Verde Island Passage, which harbors nearly 60 percent of the world’s known fish species. The country is also among the top 11 fish-producing nations globally, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Beyond fisheries, Benitez emphasized that maritime freight, marine energy, and coastal and marine tourism are also vital pillars of the country’s maritime economy, which generated $11.9 billion, or about 6.96 percent of GDP, in 2016 and employed around 2.2 million workers.

‘The challenge now is to transform our ocean-based industries into sustainable activities. In the face of growing threats from climate change, we need to act now to shift toward a low-carbon, blue economy,’ he said.

Benitez also called for the establishment of a marine and coastal resource accounting system to assign monetary value to the ocean’s ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and other natural processes, to better guide policy and management.

Support

THE Bangko Sentral (BSP) on Tuesday, meanwhile backed efforts to promote the country’s emerging ‘blue economy’ through sustainable finance but opposed proposals to impose mandatory loan quotas for banks to support small-scale fishers and ocean-based enterprises.

During the House Committee on Economic Affairs’ deliberation on several Blue Economy measures-House Bills 2250, 2480, 4791, 4855, and 5116-the BSP Deputy Director Cherryl Ofracia said it supports creating an enabling regulatory environment that promotes the ‘new economy’ in line with sustainable finance frameworks and international best practices.

‘The BSP shall provide an enabling regulatory environment to promote the development of the country’s new economy,’ Ofracia said, emphasizing that this approach aligns with the central bank’s sustainable finance policy and allows flexibility for government financial institutions (GFIs) like the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).

Instead of mandating that a portion of LBP and DBP lending portfolios be dedicated to ocean-based projects, the BSP proposed that the measure simply encourage these banks to integrate sustainability principles into their lending programs and consider ocean-based enterprises as part of their strategic sectors for financing.

The central bank also noted that loans extended to strategic and sustainable ocean-based activities may already fall within the definition of sustainable finance under the mandatory agriculture, fisheries, and rural development (AFRD) financing law, and thus may serve as an eligible form of compliance.

Lawmakers raised the possibility of requiring financial institutions with agriculture loan portfolios to allocate a portion specifically for small-scale fishers.

However, the BSP maintained that credit decisions should be based on banks’ overall strategic direction and risk management, not quotas imposed by law.

The central bank instead proposed offering incentives to encourage private banks to finance blue economy projects, saying such loans could be recognized as alternative compliance with the Agri-Agra Reform Credit Act requirements.

The BSP also underscored the importance of integrating digital finance strategies within the blue economy framework.

‘Recent innovations in digital payments and financial technology offer significant potential to promote financial inclusion and expand access to funding sources,’ Ofracia said, adding that digitalization can help unlock scalable, sustainable financing solutions that advance both environmental and economic goals.

The BSP’s position came as other agencies-such as the Climate Change Commission (CCC), the Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (Bfar), and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)-expressed support for the passage of the Blue Economy bills.

IBM arrived at its Quantum Developer Conference with a roadmap built on dates, engineering thresholds, and shared validation. The company set two key targets: community-verified quantum advantage by the end of 2026 and fault-tolerant quantum computing by 2029. The strategy pairs new hardware, upgraded quantum software, error-correction milestones, and scaled semiconductor fabrication.

IBM introduced Quantum Nighthawk, a 120-qubit processor designed with 218 tunable couplers in a square-lattice configuration, connecting each qubit to four neighbors. IBM states this delivers more than 20 percent greater connectivity compared to the prior IBM Quantum Heron processor. The company says this enables circuits that are 30 percent more complex while maintaining low error rates. Nighthawk is designed to execute up to 5,000 two-qubit gates, the foundational operations required for advanced entanglement and workloads such as molecular ground state energy estimation, one of the example use cases cited by IBM. Nighthawk is expected to be available to IBM users by the end of 2025.

IBM also presented a scaling trajectory for the processor family: 7,500 two-qubit gates by the end of 2026, 10,000 gates in 2027, and up to 15,000 gates by 2028, supported by systems with 1,000 or more connected qubits, enabled by long-range couplers previously demonstrated on IBM experimental devices. The roadmap focuses on connectivity and circuit depth as the determinants of performance, not qubit volume in isolation.

To move quantum advantage toward public validation rather than internal declaration, IBM, together with Algorithmiq, the Flatiron Institute, and BlueQubit, launched a community-led quantum advantage tracker. The tracker is an open framework for logging, comparing, and verifying advantage-scale experiments. It begins with three categories: observable estimation, variational problems, and workloads that remain verifiable by classical systems even when solved by quantum computation. IBM framed the tracker as a shared benchmarking layer rather than a claim of achieved advantage.

Algorithmiq CEO and co-founder Sabrina Maniscalco said the initial experiments target problem regimes that challenge classical simulation methodologies and have already seen independent testing by the Flatiron Institute. BlueQubit CTO and co-founder Hayk Tepanyan emphasized that the framework enables structured, external validation of quantum performance thresholds.

Error handling was the next major component of IBM’s update. Using dynamic circuits deployed at over 100 qubits, IBM reported a 24 percent improvement in execution accuracy. In parallel, IBM deployed HPC-accelerated error mitigation that, in the company’s words, ‘decreases cost of extracting accurate results by more than 100 times.’ The goal is to make error-mitigated results more computationally efficient to generate at scale, especially when sampling circuit output distributions.

IBM also extended Qiskit with a new C-API and C++ interface, enabling quantum workloads to run natively in high-performance computing environments without translation middleware. By 2027, IBM plans to further expand Qiskit with libraries for machine learning, optimization, differential equations, and Hamiltonian simulations, reflecting scientific domains where quantum workloads map directly to computational bottlenecks.

On the fault-tolerance track, IBM revealed Quantum Loon, an experimental processor that includes all major hardware components necessary for scalable error-corrected quantum computing. Loon integrates on-chip low-loss routing layers, extended qubit coupling beyond nearest neighbors, mid-circuit qubit reset, and architectural support for quantum low-density parity check (qLDPC) codes, a leading error-correction approach for future logical qubit implementations.

IBM also highlighted a decoding milestone, achieving real-time qLDPC error decoding in less than 480 nanoseconds, a speed threshold necessary for correcting errors within the coherence window of active computation. The company stated that this was completed one year ahead of schedule. Separately, in its summary statements, IBM reported a 10 times speedup over current leading approaches for efficient quantum error-correction decoding, reinforcing its focus on error-correction performance at operational time scales.

The lifecycle layer behind these milestones is manufacturing scale. IBM confirmed that quantum wafer fabrication is now being performed at the Albany NanoTech Complex 300mm semiconductor facility, aligning quantum chip production with advanced commercial fabrication processes. IBM reported that this transition has doubled the speed of its development cycle by reducing processor build time by at least half. The company also stated it has increased chip complexity tenfold and enabled multiple processor designs to be fabricated in parallel. Investments are ongoing to expand assembly, test, and system-integration capacity to accelerate deployment into live quantum computing environments.

IBM framed progress using execution metrics rather than generational labels: circuit depth, coupler density, decode latency, cost-to-accuracy ratios, classical integration layers, and manufacturing throughput. The strategy ties performance, reproducibility, software integration, and semiconductor scalability into a unified development track.

The company’s model emphasizes publicly accessible validation rather than isolated benchmarks, placing quantum advantage tests into a structure that encourages external contribution, classical comparison, and peer-measured advancement. The quantum advantage tracker, combined with disclosed targets, establishes a verification path built on shared evidence rather than announcement precedence.

IBM’s roadmap positions quantum advantage as an outcome tied to measurable runtime behavior, error-correction latency, and computational verification. The infrastructure, toolchains, and external evaluation framework now exist in parallel with hardware performance targets, grounding advantage in shared proof rather than internal assertion.

IBM has not framed quantum advancement as a single finish line but as a sequence of verifiable compute thresholds, supported by hardware scalability, software portability, classical benchmarking, and open validation. The timelines are public, the metrics are defined, and the verification layer is open.

AFTER government spending slowed the growth of the Philippine economy in the third quarter this year, a business leader called on the government to ‘fix the domestic economy’ first instead of being fixated on securing foreign investments.

‘The slowdown in spending [accounted for the] 4 percent. Government spending, especially infrastructure, has a huge impact on GDP. So in terms of overall investment climate and so on and so forth, we’ve been saying for years that you can make it about foreign investment but fix the domestic economy first,’ Rafael Alfonso Salvador Garcia Ongpin, Makati Business Club Executive Director, told reporters on the sidelines of the forum billed, ‘Competition Law in a Digital Economy’ organized by MBC on Tuesday in Makati City.

Ongpin said the business community is dealing with ‘a lot’ of issues on ease of doing business.

‘Ease of doing business is just a code for corruption. We have to deal with the [Bureau of Internal Revenue] BIR, we have to deal with the [Bureau of Customs] BOC. These are issues that are not going away,’ Ongpin pointed out.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) noted that gross capital formation (GCF) contracted by 2.8 percent in the third quarter of 2025. This was a reversal from the 12.8-percent growth in the same period of 2024.

Construction declined by 0.5 percent in the third quarter of 2025, attributed to the contraction of General government with 26.2 percent.

PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis S. Mapa said this 26.2-percent contraction on General government is the slowest since the 22.5-percent decline in the third quarter of 2011.

Explaining the abrupt decline in public construction, Department of Economy, Planning, and Development in the Philippines (DEPDev) Arsenio M. Balisacan attributed this to the ‘stricter validation measures for [Department of Public Works and Highways] DPWH’s civil works, as well as the implementation of stricter requirements that delayed billings and disbursements for government projects.’

Moving forward, Ongpin said the Philippines may not hit the government’s growth targets because of the slowdown in the third quarter.

In an earlier statement, the MBC official underscored that the ‘significantly’ lower third quarter GDP growth result of 4 percent ‘illustrates how the corruption scandal has begun to affect our macroeconomic performance.’

Ongpin said the corruption scandal slowed government spending, as many programmed infrastructure projects are on hold or even in limbo while the DPWH and the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) investigate these projects.

After the PSA announced on Friday that the economy grew by only 4 percent in the third quarter this year, Balisacan explained that the GDP is also about expectations and confidence.

‘It’s not just an infrastructure issue, but any noises or disturbances, shocks as we call them in economics that shape people’s perception of the future, can impact on your GDP. So confidence is key to that,’ Balisacan underscored.

HIDILYN DIAZ-NARANJO is on the comeback trail and set a modest goal of making the podium at next month’s 33rd Southeast Asian Games in Thailand.

‘All I can say for now is I will come up prepared and ready for SEA Games,’ Diaz-Naranjo told BusinessMirror on Wednesday. ‘I’m in the lineup for the December games and this is going to be a big sacrifice.’

Diaz-Naranjo won the country’s first Olympic gold medal at Tokyo 2020 (2021) in women’s -56 kgs of weightlifting, but failed to qualify for Paris after the weight category was scrapped to give way for the -59 kgs division.

She went for the heavier weight but failed to qualify during the International Weightlifting Federation World Cup in May 2024 in Phuket where Elreen Ann Ando earned her second ticket to the Olympics.

That was her last international stint but has since trained consistently in her weightlifting academy in Jala-Jala.

‘My training in Jala-jala everyday looks great and I’m thankful to my husband Julius for helping me out,’ she said.

Diaz-Naranjo isn’t promising a gold medal in Thailand-where she’ll be up against Thai Suratwadee Yodsarn, a silver medalist in the Asian championships last May in Jiangshan, China-but a mere podium finish.

‘They [Thais] are very strong now and they are competing at home,’ she said. ‘They have that Asian championship silver medalist who is expected to be very competitive.’

Thailand-and Malaysia-served a three-year ban starting from Tokyo 2020 from the IWF after several of its weightlifters failed anti-doping tests, but is now back in action in its fourth-time hosting of the biennial SEA Games scheduled December 9 to 20.

Diaz-Naranjo said she had bulked up and needs to shed at least 3 kgs to make the grade in the games.

‘I got bigger,’ she said.

She owns two SEA Games gold medals-in Philippines 2019 and Hanoi 2022-below her world championships title in Bogota also in 2022 and Asian Games crown in Jakarta 2018-victories she posted at -53, -55 and -59 kgs.

Diaz-Naranjo has been a weightlifter for 23 years and set up the HD Weightlifting Academy in Jala-jala after her success in Tokyo.

‘It fulfills me not only as an athlete but as a true weightlifter who want to spread the sport,’ she said. ‘When we started in Vigan [2022 Batang Pinoy], we only had a few athletes but right now we added a few more quality athletes.’

She brought her young weightlifters to General Santos City last month for the 2025 Batang Pinoy.

First Gen Corp. reported a 3-percent increase in attributable recurring net income to $212 million at end-September this year from $205 million in the same period a year ago, mainly due to the strong performance of its hydro and liquefied natural gas (LNG) operations.

The Lopez-led firm presents its financial report in US dollars because most of the business transactions are paid in the US currency.

‘The company’s hydro portfolio delivered a jump in earnings as it generated higher volumes of power this year, while FGEN LNG Corp. (FGEN LNG) was likewise profitable from its operations,’ it said in a statement.

Revenues from January to September this year stood at $1.79 billion, down 3 percent year-on-year from $1.85 billion. This was brought about lower electricity sales from its 420-megawatt (MW) San Gabriel gas power plant since the deal with its off-taker expired in February 2024. Moreover, FGen’s geothermal unit, Energy Development Corp. (EDC), suffered from lower revenues due to a reduction in spot market prices.

The natural gas business of First Gen contributed 65 percent of consolidated revenues, while 31 percent came from units Energy Development Corp. (EDC). The balance comes from FGen’s hydroelectric power plants.

Recurring earnings from its gas plants slightly declined to $138 million from $149 million while FGEN LNG contributed $31 million in recurring earnings, marking a profitable year for its operations.

Meanwhile, EDC’s recurring income dropped 36 percent to $38 million due to weak spot market prices and higher financing costs.

The hydro business reported a 65-percent surge in recurring income to $23 million.

Last June, First Gen said it will channel its capital from its core gas business to renewables and infrastructure, a move that will help achieve its 13-gigawatt (GW) renewables target by 2030.

This after the company agreed to sell 60 percent of its gas business to Razon-led Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc. for at least P50 billion.

A chunk of First Gen investments is allotted for expanding its renewable energy (RE) portfolio. In 2024, its total assets consisted of 28 percent gas investments while RE accounted for 72 percent.

IN recent times, the Philippines has endured a relentless procession of storms. Wipha (Crising) in July submerged entire communities in Northern Luzon. Ragasa (Nando) and Bualoi (Opong) arrived back-to-back in late September which brought heavy flooding and forced thousands into evacuation across Eastern Visayas. Last week, Kalmaegi (Tino) triggered landslides and flooded swaths of Central Philippines, which reportedly killed hundreds of people and countless others displaced. Homes were swept away, rice fields nearing harvest were drowned, and local governments once again scrambled to source relief, rebuild roads, and restore electricity, among others. Early this week, Fung-wong (Uwan) raged through the entire archipelago, and wrought even more havoc.

This story repeats so often that it risks becoming background noise. Yet the cost is staggering, not only in monetary terms or disrupted livelihoods, but also in the exhaustion of constant rebuilding. The 2025 World Risk Index report has named the country as the most disaster-prone in the world, with its adaptation capacity struggling to keep pace with the speed of global warming.

Across the Bashi Channel, Taiwan experiences these same typhoons, floods, and landslides, but it has systematically built a more robust resilience that can share with the Philippines.

Reliable disaster-resilience partner

WHILE we can consider disasters as natural, loss is not. Rain, earthquakes, and typhoons are normal in our region. What turns natural events into national tragedies is insufficient preparation and systemic fragility.

Over the decades, through repeated climate impact, Taiwan has forged battle-tested mechanisms such as a nationwide emergency response system, strict seismic and flood-resilient building standards, advanced warning systems and annual disaster preparedness drills.

Further, the international outreach has proven Taiwan’s strengths in disaster preparedness and response: Our search-and-rescue teams assisted in global disaster zones, including the 2023 Trkiye earthquake.

Through the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Taiwan has spent nearly two decades advancing emergency preparedness across the region.

The Global Cooperation and Training Framework hosted by Taiwan has facilitated disaster resilience workshops with over 30 participating countries. Its National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction has helped implement flood early-warning systems in Belize, Palau, India, and Indonesia, combining river sensors, forecasting, evacuation planning, and community drills.

Climate change is a pressing problem that requires concerted, collaborative action. The Philippines needs the technical cooperation, training networks, and standardized disaster-governance models that Taiwan has already refined. We are also willing to share with the Philippines our operational, technology-backed, community-rooted expertise.

Supporting Taiwan’s COP30 participation

AS the world prepares for the 30th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 30) in Belém, Brazil this month, Taiwan remains excluded from this major climate-governance mechanism.

Taiwan has voluntarily aligned its climate commitments with the Paris Agreement; operates the world’s most advanced climate monitoring satellites and has enforceable legislation supporting its 2050 net-zero transition.

A climate summit that excludes Taiwan-a country that demonstrates climate solutions-is a summit weakened.

Shared risks require shared action

TAIWAN and the Philippines are neighbors not only in geography, but in climate destiny. Supporting our meaningful participation in global climate governance is not geopolitics- it is practical climate survival.

If the Philippines is to break the cycle of destruction and rebuilding, it needs partners who understand not just the science, but the storm. Taiwan is one of those partners, and we stand ready to help.

Storms do not ask for visas, and floods do not stop at borders; yet, resilience is always stronger when it is shared. I therefore call on our Filipino friends to support Taiwan’s bid to participate in COP30, and to join hands with us in building a climate-resilient future for our region.

It’s happening: The US vs. the World is finally a done deal and will be the format for this season’s NBA All-Star Game.

The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association unveiled the long-awaited plan Tuesday night, after months of trying to figure out the latest way to spark renewed interest in the league’s midseason contest.

The game – which really will be a round-robin tournament of games – will be played on Feb. 15 at Intuit Dome, the Los Angeles Clippers’ arena in Inglewood, California. It’ll be aired on NBC at just about the midway point of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, which will also be broadcast on NBC’s family of networks.

And part of what NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and other stakeholders liked about trying the US vs. the World format was how the timing coincides with those Milan Cortina Games and the surge of national pride that people around the world get during an Olympics.

‘I think it’s going to be exciting for people to watch,’ Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo said earlier this season when asked about the idea of US vs. the World.

‘I’m going to play hard. I’ve always been playing hard, but I think it’s going to put a little bit more juice to the game. . All players have ego. Nobody wants to be embarrassed. Guys will play harder because they don’t want to become – I don’t know how you say this – they don’t want to become viral. I’m excited for this format.’

Players born outside of the US have won each of the last seven MVP awards, each of the last four NBA scoring titles, and each of the last five rebounding titles. Canada’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was MVP, NBA Finals MVP, the league’s scoring champion and led Oklahoma City to the NBA title last season.

What is the format?

While the NBA had made clear for several weeks that US vs. the World was going to happen – it was even talked about at last season All-Star weekend in San Francisco – some elements of the format were a mystery until Tuesday.

There will be three teams of at least eight players. Games will be one standard NBA quarter, or 12 minutes long.

Team A will play Team B in Game 1. The winner of that game will play Team C in Game 2. The loser of Game 1 will play Team C in Game 3.

The teams with the best two records will play in the championship game. If all three teams are 1-1, point differential would be the tiebreaker.

The end result, the NBA hopes, is four standard quarters – the equivalent of a typical game.

How will teams be picked?

Let’s start with the voting. It will be basically the same as it has been in recent years, with one notable tweak – the NBA is eliminating the frontcourt and backcourt position designations for players.

Each ballot from fans will include five players from the Eastern Conference, five players from the Western Conference. Positions will not matter, nor will nationalities. The fan ballots will be used as part of a formula to identify the starters; fan votes will be weighted at 50%, with NBA player voting accounting for 25% and voting from a panel of writers and broadcasters who cover the league making up the final 25%.

From there, 10 ‘starters’ – five East, five West – will be chosen.

The 14 reserves, seven from each conference, will be selected in balloting by the league’s head coaches.

How will rosters be filled?

This is where it gets a little tricky.

The NBA is roughly two-thirds American players, one-third international players. So, the plan is to have two eight-man teams of American players (or 16 total) and one eight-man team of international players.

But there’s no guarantee that exactly 16 American players and exactly eight international players will emerge from the voting. And it’s entirely possible that American players could wind up playing for the international team if they have ties to other countries.

If the voting doesn’t result in having a pool of 16 American and eight international players, Silver will add players until the minimum is met. In those cases, some teams will have more than eight players on their rosters.

How will the US players be split up?

This one is unclear.

The NBA says the ‘process for assigning players to the two U.S. teams will be determined at a later date.’ Same goes for things like how coaches will be selected (since it seems like three head coaches will be needed instead of the customary two) and how the player pool of award money will work.

How did we get here?

The NBA has wanted a more competitive All-Star Game for years.

It tried having captains like Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant pick their own rosters. It tried having a ‘target score’ finish, which made the 2020 game in Chicago one of the most memorable in years as the league celebrated the life of Kobe Bryant.

But the 2024 game in Indianapolis – with a 211-186 final score – was the last straw in many respects. The league tried a mini-tournament last season, with the winners of the Rising Stars game between NBA rookies and sophomores joining three teams of actual All-Stars, and that format ended up being largely panned.

The rest of the weekend

Vince Carter, one of the game’s great dunkers, used his NBC platform Tuesday night to urge more players to take part in the slam dunk contest – which Mac McClung has won in each of the last three seasons. McClung said going into last year’s contest that he wasn’t planning to participate again in 2026.

Carter, in his role as an NBC analyst, said he’d like to see Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, Memphis’ Ja Morant, New Orleans’ Zion Williamson, Portland’s Shaedon Sharpe, Chicago’s Matas Buzelis, San Antonio’s Stephon Castle, Philadelphia’s VJ Edgecombe and Indiana’s Johnny Furphy in this season’s dunk contest.

‘We’re looking for the wow,’ Carter said. ‘We want guys that can wow us.’

THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) has started investigating several of its personnel allegedly involved in ‘syndicate-style’ operations that manipulated shipment inspections, Commissioner Ariel Nepomuceno told senators on Wednesday.

During the organizational meeting of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian asked Nepomuceno about reports that some BOC employees had swapped vehicle inspection results to facilitate the release of imported cars.

‘Parang itong operation is really sindikato.mga BOC employees din ang gumagawa [This operation seems to be run by a syndicate involving BOC employees],’ Gatchalian said, asking whether those responsible have been identified and sanctioned.

Nepomuceno confirmed that show cause orders were issued to more than 10 personnel, who are now undergoing internal investigation.

‘We already issued show cause orders to those involved, and we already submitted this to the ICI to break this practice,’ he said, referring to the Independent Commission for Infrastructure which is currently looking into the flood control scam.

He added that some personnel had been relieved from their posts, while others remain under review as part of due process.

Nepomuceno stressed that the bureau has identified those possibly involved not only in the Discaya luxury car shipments, but also in similar cases.

‘Kailangan po talaga ng full digitalization. Otherwise, these problems will always be recurrent for the next 50 years [We really need full digitalization. Otherwise, these problems will keep recurring for the next 50 years],’ Nepomuceno said, noting that the bureau’s Electronic-to-Mobile (E2M) system still lacks the capability to trace which employee performs each transaction.

Committee chairperson Sen. Pia Cayetano expressed support for the bureau’s modernization drive, saying digitalization is necessary to enhance transparency and accountability.

Nepomuceno confirmed that the Senate Committee of Finance has committed funding for the digitalization initiative which he said has also the full support of President Marcos.

The investigation follows an earlier BOC report showing that most of the luxury cars seized from contractor couple Pacifico and Cezarah Rowena Discaya had no records of paid duties and taxes, with the bureau now investigating how some of the vehicles were released and registered with the Land Transportation Office despite incomplete import documents.

Nepomuceno assured senators that reforms are underway to ensure accountability and prevent recurrence.

RANKED as the world’s most disaster-prone country for 16 consecutive years by the World Risk Index, the Philippines faces an average of 20 typhoons annually, along with frequent floods and droughts that affect millions.

To build resilience against these threats, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has been implementing the Capacity Building for Integrated Water Resources Management and Sustainable Development Project since 2021. This initiative addresses the urgent need for an integrated approach to water governance, guided by key national strategies such as the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028, National Climate Change Action Plan 2011-2028, and Philippine Water Supply and Sanitation Master Plan.

The $2.5-million project contributed to the delivery of water supply, sanitation, irrigation and flood control services under the Integrated Water Resources Management framework by enhancing the technical and institutional capacities of Philippine water agencies.

Implemented by Yooshin Engineering Corporation and Dongbu Engineering, the project commenced with a comprehensive assessment of the country’s water landscape. This foundation enabled the identification of key development initiatives across water policy, resources management, flood control, irrigation, and water supply and sanitation, culminating in a mid- to long-term roadmap for bilateral water cooperation.

Through a series of training programs in Korea and local workshops, participating officials gained practical insights into Korea’s integrated water management systems and policy frameworks. In partnership with the Department of Economy, Planning and Development or DEPDev, KOICA extended support to key Philippine agencies such as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Water Resources Management Office, Department of Public Works and Highways, National Water Resources Board, National Irrigation Administration, and Local Water Utilities Administration to strengthen their capacities in sustainable and integrated water-resource management.

At the recent Project Completion and Closing Ceremony, senior officials and technical representatives from the six partner agencies presented their key achievements, institutional priorities, and proposed follow-up initiatives to sustain the project’s momentum. The discussions underscored the importance of cross-agency collaboration to ensure effective water governance.

Country Director Jung Young-sun of KOICA Philippines emphasized the long-term vision of the initiative: ‘We hope that the governance framework established through this project will serve as a foundation for the Philippines’ integrated water management. Beyond capacity building, this project has laid the institutional groundwork for sustainable implementation.’

By strengthening policy, institutional, and human capacities, the project directly advanced Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

Further, it is expected to support the Philippine government’s sustainable implementation of integrated water resources management through the Mid- to Long-Term Roadmap, serving as a foundation of a unified water governance and improved transparency and efficiency in water resource management.

THE Philippine capital has been included in the 30 Cities Program of The Ocean Cleanup (TOC)-a global initiative aimed at drastically reducing plastic waste flowing from rivers into the world’s international waters.

The program led by the Rotterdam-based nonprofit seeks to deploy its Interceptor technologies in 30 strategic cities across Asia and the Americas by 2030.

‘We are pleased that [TOC] is bringing its science-based solutions and impactful programs to the Philippines,’ Ambassador J. Eduardo Malaya said during a diplomatic briefing hosted by the organization on October 30 at the Carlton Ambassador Hotel in The Hague. ‘We look forward to the [Interceptors’ deployment] in the Pasig and Meycauayan Rivers, which will help improve water quality, protect aquatic life, and reduce plastic pollution in Manila Bay.’

TOC is currently working with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Municipality of Meycauayan in Bulacan in assessing river sites and finalizing arrangements.

Preliminary research and data analysis are underway in both Manila and Cebu, through Energies PH during the program’s early engagement phase.

The Philippines is among the world’s top contributors to oceanic plastic waste, generating some 2.7 million tons annually, with about 20 percent ending up in the ocean because of inadequate recycling and waste management systems.

Single-use plastics-especially sachets used for everyday products-make up nearly three-fourths of household waste and are neither compostable nor recyclable.

Malaya emphasized the need for sustainable alternatives to plastic packaging and called for the adoption of paper grocery bags. He also highlighted national and local efforts in combating plastic pollution-including the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (Republic Act 9003), the Extended Producer Responsibility Act of 2022 (RA 11898), and community-led initiatives.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is actively supporting the proposed Global Plastic Treaty, which aims to set ambitious targets for plastic reduction.

The United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France launched the TOC’s 30 Cities Program and builds on the organization’s success in cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch-an area with over 100 million kilograms of floating plastic. The initiative combines data-driven cleanup, monitoring by artificial intelligence, and community engagement to maximize environmental and social impact.

During the briefing, experts from the nonprofit presented strategies for sustainable waste management and river cleanup, including insights from River Survey Engineer Thaine Assumpcao, Environmental Manager Gabriela Alvarez, Waste Manager Nadhira Sagita Putri, and Global Director of Public Affairs Monty Simus, who recently visited Manila. TOC’s Global Public Affairs Specialist Rosa Heuveling van Beek facilitated the session.

Founded in 2013 by Dutch inventor and entrepreneur Boyan Slat, TOC operates in eight countries including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Its mission is to rid the world’s oceans of plastic by intercepting waste before it reaches marine ecosystems.

With Manila now part of the ambitious global effort, the city takes a significant step toward cleaner waterways and a more sustainable future.