Category: Business Mirror

The proposed P7.2-trillion national budget for 2027 will move to the next stage of legislative review after the House of Representatives completed its nine-day plenary deliberations on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 General Appropriations Bill.

Following the completion of the line-by-line scrutiny of House Bill 10858-the proposed FY 2027 General Appropriations Bill-the Budget Amendments Review Subcommittee (BARSc) will review proposed amendments, revisions, and adjustments to agency budgets before the measure proceeds to third reading approval scheduled on October 9.

The House concluded its nine-day plenary deliberations last Friday, completing the examination of the government’s proposed P7.2-trillion spending plan for 2027.

From September 15 to 25, lawmakers conducted extensive reviews of the proposed appropriations of 245 departments, agencies, attached agencies, and government-owned and controlled corporations, as well as 113-state universities and colleges. Discussions focused on their funding requirements, implementation capacity, program priorities, and alignment with national development goals.

The deliberations covered major sectors, including education, agriculture and food security, higher education, social protection, health, energy, transportation, and infrastructure. Among the key issues raised were funding requirements for basic education, agricultural support and irrigation amid climate risks, the budgets of the Commission on Higher Education and State Universities and Colleges, social welfare programs, health services, energy resilience initiatives, mass transportation projects, and stronger evaluation and accountability mechanisms for infrastructure spending.

House Committee on Appropriations Chairperson Rep. Mikaela Angela B. Suansing said the House would continue strengthening safeguards in crafting the 2027 General Appropriations Act, particularly in setting clearer rules and standards for the evaluation and utilization of government funds.

‘Having successfully abolished the ‘Small Committee’ and constituted the Budget Amendments Review Subcommittee, or BARSc, last year, the BARSc will once again deliberate on amendments to the 2027 national budget in a manner that is open and transparent to the public,’ stressed Suansing.

She also emphasized the need for stronger reportorial requirements and continued coordination with the Department of Budget and Management, including matters involving the Local Government Support Fund.

She assured that projects included in the House General Appropriations Bill and eventually in the General Appropriations Act would comply with the same documentary standards required by the Department of Public Works and Highways.

She further highlighted the importance of climate preparedness and fiscal responsibility, assuring lawmakers that the proposed budget was being reviewed with consideration for possible climate-related challenges and fiscal constraints.

‘The 2027 budget is El Niño ready. We will do our best; I give you my assurance,’ Suansing said. Under the 2027 national budget, the government has proposed around P45.67 billion for the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund (NDRRMF) to provide additional fiscal support for El Niño and other disaster-related emergencies.

Suansing also cited the lower level of unprogrammed appropriations under the 2027 National Expenditure Program (NEP), saying the proposed amount represents the lowest unprogrammed appropriations-to-total-expenditure ratio in decades.

‘It is also noteworthy that the current level of unprogrammed appropriations, as reflected in the 2027 National Expenditure Program [NEP], represents the lowest ratio of unprogrammed appropriations to the total expenditure program. This is the lowest level of unprogrammed appropriations in a long time. This is also the view of the Department of Budget and Management [DBM]: if an item is programmable and identifiable, it is placed under programmed appropriations rather than unprogrammed appropriations,’ she said.

The Department of Budget and Management has proposed P111.984 billion in unprogrammed appropriations for 2027, equivalent to around 1.6 percent of the Total Expenditure Program. This represents the lowest proposed share since 1991 and the lowest proposed amount at the NEP level since 2019.

Suansing said the national budget must serve not only as a financial document but also as a framework for responsible public spending.

‘Our goal over the course of these deliberations is to craft a 2027 budget that would accelerate growth despite this challenging fiscal landscape, which would give due consideration and prioritization to the pressing needs of our most salient social and economic sectors,’ she said.

The House is also coordinating with the Senate to once again open the bicameral conference committee proceedings on the national budget to the public for the second consecutive year.

At P7.2 trillion, the proposed 2027 national budget is about 6 percent higher than the P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026 and is equivalent to approximately 21.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

By sector, social services continue to receive the largest share of the proposed budget at P2.456 trillion, or 34.1 percent of the total expenditure program. Economic services account for P1.833 trillion, followed by general public services at P1.317 trillion, debt burden at P1.143 trillion, and defense at P452.4 billion.

It’s time to tap into your romantic and feminine side with all things lace, bows, and everything soft pink with Ever Bilena’s newest collection-the EB Coquette.

This 25-piece lineup of products for eyes, lips and cheeks takes the brand’s ‘pink-girl’ DNA, building upon favorites like the Airy Fudge Lip Tints and Face Wand Brushes. Every single piece, down to the packaging, was designed to evoke a romantic, nostalgic makeup aesthetic.

‘We wanted the EB Coquette Collection to feel as good as it looks. It’s easy to chase a trend, but we built every shade and texture in this collection to actually earn a spot in your everyday routine, not just to look pretty in a video,’ shared Denice Sy, chief sales and marketing officer, Ever Bilena Cosmetics Inc.

Without a doubt, every piece from this newest drop is a beauty lover’s dream: the Le Petit Palette, in Cacao and Lavender (P395), a 12-shade eyeshadow palette with the perfect mix of mattes and shimmers for that soft, dreamy coquette eye.

For the lips, the Rococo Lipstick (P345) is the one to watch. This matte-finish comes in 6 shades that actually feels good on the lips. It offers full color payoff, smooth glide, and zero of that dry, flat feeling mattes usually give you.

Your ‘fwee’ blush-balm era just leveled up with Chiffon Blur Dip, 7 shades (P395). It features more pigment, is easier to blend, provides longer wear, and comes with a built-in applicator so your fingers stay clean.

Enjoy a juicy stain without the sticky feeling on the lips with the glossy, buildable lip tint, the Bisou Juicy Tint, 6 shades (P395).

Completing the collection is the Soirée Liquid Blush, 4 shades (P395), a lightweight liquid blush that seamlessly melts into your base, allowing for a buildable, streak-free flush that won’t disturb the makeup layered underneath.

The EB Coquette collection is available now at all Ever Bilena counters and retail partners nationwide, as well as on TikTok Shop.

In 2012, a Filipino teenager could walk up to a sari-sari store and buy a stick of cigarette for pocket change. Back then, a stick cost about a peso. Then Congress passed the Sin Tax Reform Law, and the country ran one of Asia’s most successful public health experiments.

The results are no longer up for debate. The share of current tobacco users fell from 28.3 percent of the population in 2009 to 23.8 percent in 2015, and to 19.5 percent by 2021. The Department of Health’s budget jumped 57 percent in a single year. The industry warned that smuggling would swallow those gains. It didn’t. A 2023 performance review of the reforms concluded that the Philippine experience shows illicit trade cannot justify blocking tobacco tax increases.

Fourteen years later, the same argument is back, this time aimed at vapes.

As the House Ways and Means Committee weighs the ProGRESS tax package, some legislators want to fold the vape tax into a single, lower rate, again citing illicit trade. Consider what that would mean for children. In the 2019 Global Youth Tobacco Survey, 14.1 percent of Filipino students aged 13 to 15 were current e-cigarette users. About a quarter had tried vaping, twice the 12 percent recorded in 2015. These are children who cannot legally buy the product. The most reliable barrier between them and a vape is price. Young people have the least money and the most years of addiction ahead of them. For a 14-year-old, a cheap vape is where the harm begins.

The Department of Finance has proposed a unified P72.90 excise rate for all e-cigarettes from 2027, plus a new P150 tax on each device. Congress should treat that as the starting point and build upward from there.

Sweetened beverages tell a subtler story. The 2018 TRAIN tax worked at first. Consumption fell by about 6.5% on average, with powdered drinks dropping 25 percent. Then its effect began to fade. Finance officials say consumption has been climbing again since 2022 because, unlike tobacco, the beverage tax was never indexed to rise yearly. A tax frozen in pesos is a tax that loses its effectiveness.

The exemptions matter too. Think of the Filipino breakfast table. As one legislator pointed out in hearings, a single sachet of 3-in-1 coffee holds four to five teaspoons of sugar, around a third of the WHO daily limit. So, exempting it makes little sense.

Britain’s soft drinks levy, tiered by sugar content, forced the industry to change. Between 2015 and 2024, the average sugar content of covered drinks fell by 47.4 percent, even as sales volume rose 13.5 percent. But reformulation is not the same as a healthier product. Much of that sugar was simply swapped for artificial sweeteners. In 2023, the World Health Organization advised against using non-sugar sweeteners for weight control, citing links to type 2 diabetes and heart disease with long-term use. Filipino endocrinologists have warned that artificially sweetened drinks carry their own risks of obesity and hypertension. Mexico has already drawn this lesson: since January 2026, it taxes ‘zero’ and ‘light’ drinks too. Congress should keep the Philippine tax on all sweetened beverages, whether sugar or substitute, and add higher rates and automatic indexation so the goal is less sweetness overall.

Our lawmakers do not need to look abroad for a model. The 2012 Sin Tax Reform Law already showed what works: steep tax increases, one uniform rate so no product becomes the cheaper escape, automatic yearly increases, and revenue earmarked for health. That formula cut smoking and funded health coverage for millions of Filipinos. Congress should apply the same formula, undiluted, to vapes and sweetened beverages.

A SECOND set of postcards, this time with the pieces of Philippine National Artist for Fashion Salvacion Lim Higgins, fondly known as Slim, has recently been released by the Benilde Fashion Museum of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB).

This new selection focuses on Slim’s obras from the last decade of her storied career.

It highlights creations such as a magenta-colored Dongin lace mini, a strapless garment with a black silk chiffon bodice, two-piece ensemble floral vision in butterscotch and dusty blue print, blue-green Shantung silk blazer and wrap pencil skirt, fuchsia-pink satin ruched dress with bow appliques, and more.

The sought-after postcards, which were photographed at the residence of the artistic collector son Mark Higgins, is the first time the residence has been captured for the public eye.

Salvacion Lim Higgins was a pioneer pillar of Philippine fashion, as she studied and immersed in the fashion capitals of Paris and New York-eventually bringing home her discoveries, insights and learnings back to Manila. Together with her sister Purificacion, they established the Slim’s Fashion and Arts School, now under the custodianship and an institution of DLS-CSB.

Proceeds from the sales of these postcards will support the operations, conservation, archival, educational, and preservation efforts of the Benilde Fashion Museum.

THE Philippines has introduced the most fossil fuel and renewable energy (RE) policies in the region from February to July this year.

Citing a report from research group Zero Carbon Analytics, Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said the Philippines has introduced the most energy policies since the start of the Iran conflict, with 22 in total, leading in both fossil fuel and renewable energy policies.

‘This is likely due to its declaration of a national energy emergency on March 24, 2026,’ Garin said.

The policies are a combination of immediate oil procurement and price controls with long-term clean energy acceleration.

‘The declaration included a list of emergency relief measures, such as directly procuring oil and increasing government control over fuel prices, as well as longer-term steps to accelerate renewables, EVs and energy efficiency across all sectors,’ she added.

The report indicates that the Philippines leads in the total number of renewables and electrification policies released, at 13.

The DOE aims to increase renewable energy’s share in the power mix to 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040, focusing on solar, wind, and geothermal projects.

Also, EV sales have accelerated sharply, supported by the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act promoting sustainable transport adoption.

‘Our analysis found that more of the renewable energy and electrification policies introduced since the war focus on long-term change, with implementation periods of roughly three years or more, while more fossil fuel policies focus on temporary measures, to be implemented in less than six months,’ the Brussels-based group said.

It also noted that renewables and electrification are seen as long-term solutions for future energy systems, while fossil fuel policies were primarily focused on temporary relief.

The Philippines introduced at least seven solar power policies since the start of the war. The proposed Sariling Kuryente Act, for instance, aims to make solar and battery energy storage system installation easier for households by removing permitting requirements and utility-applied charges, while the DOE fast-tracked net-metering applications to help lower electricity bills.

‘These measures align with the Philippines’ overall ramp-up of solar in the past year: during the first five months of the war, the Philippines imported more than double the amount of solar capacity from China compared to the same period last year,’ it said.

Besides the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand have released the most clean energy policies, at seven and six, respectively. Both countries have issued policies that aim to restructure the current energy system.

‘These findings indicate that governments of Southeast Asian countries, many of which have abundant renewable energy resouces, are looking to renewables and electrification as the long-term solution to fossil fuel-related power crises,’ it said.

Conducted in August, the analysis covered the six-month period from February to July 2026 during the Iran crisis.

It’s been a busy week for Iranian diplomacy that may have come to nothing.

Iran’s president and foreign minister visited New York for the UN gathering of world leaders and proposed a dealwith the Trump administration that would end the fighting and open the Strait of Hormuz in seven days. That’s if the US ends its military blockade of Iranian ports, releases frozen Iranian assets and waives sanctions on Iranian oil sales, among other conditions-none of them new.

What’s different after past failed attempts is the speedier timeline. Iran’s pitch to President Donald Trump said a quick deal might help him in the midterm elections in November.

On Saturday, Trump told reporters he rejects Iran’s proposal to reopen the strait. Hours earlier, the US president posted an image on social media calling the crucial waterway the ‘Trump Strait.’ Around the same time, Iran’s state media reported that President Masoud Pezeshkian was on his way back to Tehran.

Here’s where things stand as Iran and the US each try to outlast growing economic pain following seven months of war.

The two sides hold their first indirect talks in months

The US said its envoys and the Iranians held three hours of indirect talks via mediators Tuesday, their first since the countries’ previous agreement to end the fighting and launch nuclear talks collapsed within days of its signing in June.

The latest talks were good and the US was open to more, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday. But Trump used his speech to the UN gathering on Tuesday to threaten to ‘annihilate’ the Islamic Republic. In his own speech a day later, Pezeshkian said Iran would fight ‘until our last breath.’

In the final seconds of his speech, however, Pezeshkian said Tehran remained open to diplomacy.

Behind closed doors, Iran describes a new proposal

In a private gathering Thursday on the sidelines of the UN meeting, Iran’s top diplomat described Tehran’s new proposal to the US The conditions for Washington largely echo the ones agreed to in the June deal that fell apart.

At stake are the biggest sources of frustration for both sides.

Opening the Strait of Hormuz, over which Iran asserted control after being attacked by the US and Israel, would ease global markets and relieve some pressure on the US military, which has been guiding commercial ships through the waterway at risk of Iranian attack.

Lifting the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, as well as waiving sanctions on oil sales, would allow Tehran to ship out more of its crude and help its battered economy as its currency hits record lows and inflation soars.

Iran makes another push before heading home

In a sign of Tehran’s apparent sense of urgency, Pezeshkian hosted the prime minister of Qatar, the mediator in the indirect talks, early Friday before much of New York rolled out of bed.

‘The choice now rests with the United States,’ Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told journalists Friday evening.

On Saturday, Trump said Iran wants an agreement because they’re ‘losing so badly.’

‘They want to make a deal and I think that’s fine,’ Trump said. ‘I’d like to make a deal, too. But that deal would not be acceptable.’

Trump made the comments to reporters outside the White House before leaving for a college football game.

Before his comments, the White House had said U.S. officials were having positive and constructive conversations with mediators.

Tehran has spent long weeks in discussions with Oman, on the other side of the strait, on how to manage shipping traffic. Its new rush for a deal with Washington, analysts said, reflects its eye on the midterms. Trump might decide an agreement has political benefits. But his rejection risks a return to fighting that would drive oil prices higher just as he needs happy voters.

‘Washington may believe that time is on its side: Maintain pressure through November, avoid another major military escalation before the midterms, and reassess afterward. Tehran may reach precisely the opposite conclusion,’ Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said on X on Saturday.

Trump has said he’s in no rush for a deal as the US strains Iran’s economy with sanctions. The White House had yet to expand on his ‘Trump Strait’ social media post overnight.

As for Iran, there was no immediate sign its top diplomat had left New York. At home, Iran’s security forces have warned they still have targets left to strike.

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has halted preparations for the 2026 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) after President Marcos signed the law that moved the polls to November 2028.

Comelec Chairman George Erwin M. Garcia said the Commission en banc has stopped election-related activities after confirming that Republic Act 12326 had been signed and published, making it immediately effective.

‘A commission en banc session earlier decided to stop the activities related to our preparations for the November 2, 2026 Barangay and SK Elections,’ Garcia said.

RA 12326 moves the next regular BSKE from Nov. 2 to the second Monday of November 2028, with succeeding polls to be held every five years.

The Comelec said the filing of certificates of candidacy, which was scheduled from September 28 to October 5, will no longer proceed.

‘There will no longer be filing of certificates of candidacy starting Monday, September 28 until October 5,’ Garcia said, explaining that the law signed by Marcos had already been verified as published in the Official Gazette.

Garcia said the postponement could also mean the eventual cancellation of activities that the Comelec had already scheduled for the Nov. 2 elections, with the Commission expected to issue a formal resolution covering the matter.

Garcia said the postponement could affect election preparations already undertaken by the Comelec, although some election materials may still be preserved and used for future polls.

However, under the Comelec’s latest action, the ongoing printing of additional ballots, accountable forms and voter lists will continue until the allocated quantities are completed, while pending procurement of BSKE forms and supplies will also be finished.

Election materials already printed or procured for the 2026 BSKE will be secured, properly stored and preserved for future use, the poll body said.

PNP to use additional time

THE National Police (PNP) on Sunday announced that it will use the time gained by the suspension of this year’s barangay elections to ‘refine its election-security planning, strengthen coordination with partner agencies, and incorporate lessons from recent electoral exercises’ for the 2028 BSKE.

For the PNP, the new law provides the basis for adjusting its future security planning and coordination with the Comelec, local governments, and other concerned agencies.

‘The PNP’s role in election security is likewise anchored on existing election laws, including Section 261(r) of the Omnibus Election Code, which provides for the deputation of law-enforcement agencies for the protection and security of the electoral process,’ it added.

Likewise, the PNP can also build on its recent experience during the September 2026 BARMM parliamentary elections, which the PNP assessed as generally peaceful and orderly, while maintaining coordination with Comelec and other concerned agencies.

The PNP chief, Gen Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr., said the additional time will allow the organization to prepare based on actual security conditions and lessons from previous elections.

‘We can look at what worked, what needs to be improved, and what new concerns we need to prepare for. By the time the elections come, our people should already know their roles and our coordination should already be in place,’ he added.

Nartatez said the will continue reviewing election-security experiences and emerging local conditions as part of its preparations.

Coordination with Comelec and other stakeholders will help ensure that police support is aligned with the actual security requirements of the 2028 BSKE.

Rather than limiting preparations to election day, the PNP will continue monitoring developments that may affect the security environment before and during the electoral period.

The House prosecution team on Monday offered to enter into stipulations with Vice President Sara Z. Duterte’s defense panel that could remove the need to present up to 20 witnesses in her impeachment trial, as prosecutors seek to shorten proceedings involving alleged unexplained wealth.

The proposal centers on subpoenaed bank records that prosecutors are presenting in connection with allegations of unexplained wealth. The prosecution said an agreement could remove the need to call as many as 20 witnesses who would only testify on the authenticity and existence of the documents.

House prosecutor Akbayan Party-list Rep. Chel Diokno said the request for admission was intended to identify facts that are not genuinely disputed and allow the court to focus on the issues that require further examination.

‘We filed the request for admission to make the trial more organized and faster. Our only goal is to determine what is truly disputed without using the court’s time on matters that can simply be acknowledged,’ Diokno told the Senate Impeachment Court.

The prosecution offered to withdraw its request if Duterte’s defense agrees to stipulate on three points: that the bank records exist, that the documents were submitted by the identified banks pursuant to subpoenas issued by the impeachment court, and that the records are authentic copies maintained and produced by those institutions.

‘That is all that is being asked, Your Honors. We will withdraw our request for admission if the respondent agrees to this,’ Diokno said.

Diokno emphasized that the proposed stipulations would not require Duterte to admit liability, accept the prosecution’s interpretation of the transactions, or concede that the records prove wrongdoing.

‘The respondent would remain free to challenge the relevance, meaning, evidentiary value, and legal effect of the records,’ he said.

According to Diokno, agreeing to the stipulations could allow the prosecution to remove the need for testimony from at least 10 to 20 witnesses who would otherwise discuss the same foundational matters.

Duterte’s defense team, however, maintained that it could not immediately agree to the proposal. Lead counsel Shiela Sison said additional bank documents were still being marked and that the defense needed more time to examine the records.

The defense also argued that requiring Duterte to respond to the request for admission could affect her constitutional right against self-incrimination. It maintained that impeachment proceedings do not automatically follow the same procedures as ordinary civil cases.

Diokno rejected the argument that the request should be completely dismissed, saying the prosecution was not asking Duterte to confess to any offense.

‘We are not asking her to admit any wrongdoing or responsibility. We are only asking for recognition of documents submitted by the banks themselves pursuant to the subpoena issued by this court,’ Diokno said.

The prosecutor also pointed out that Duterte’s defense had not claimed that the bank records were fake or fabricated.

‘To be clear, the respondent has not claimed that these records are fake or fabricated. That is why we are saying the authenticity of the bank documents is not genuinely disputed,’ Diokno said.

He added that the records came directly from financial institutions and did not pass through the prosecution before being submitted to the court.

‘The documents were submitted by established banks that understand the importance of this case and the reputation attached to the records they provide,’ Diokno said.

Presiding Officer Sen. Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero directed the prosecution to submit the proposed stipulations in writing so the defense could formally respond.

Escudero said the impeachment court would still resolve the legal dispute over the request for admission even if both sides eventually reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, Davao City Mayor Sebastian ‘Baste’ Duterte is scheduled to testify in the impeachment trial after requesting additional time to prepare documents covered by a subpoena.

Escudero said Mayor Duterte asked to appear on Tuesday and Wednesday instead of Monday because he needed time to gather, organize, authenticate, and reproduce the requested documents.

‘The Presiding Officer grants the request of Mayor Duterte to appear tomorrow [Tuesday] and Wednesday. This is already covered by the subpoena issued, so there is no need for another subpoena,’ Escudero ruled.

The prosecution is expected to question Mayor Duterte regarding his sister’s declared business interests and government transactions in Davao City that prosecutors say may be relevant to their allegations involving unexplained wealth.

The prosecution also presented testimony from Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) Division Chief Rendell Sopeña regarding government contracts awarded to GenCorp Industries Inc.

Sopeña told the Senate impeachment court that 11 of 15 contracts awarded by the Davao City government to GenCorp were processed through negotiated small-value procurement rather than public bidding.

He estimated that the 11 contracts had a combined value of around P7 million to P8 million, while the total value of the 15 Davao City awards was about P34.216 million.

Sopeña clarified that his testimony was limited to information contained in the PhilGEPS system and did not determine whether any procurement transaction was unlawful.

He explained that PhilGEPS records show procurement information submitted by government agencies but do not independently determine whether prices were reasonable or whether all legal requirements were followed.

Lead prosecutor Atty. Gerville ‘Jinky Bitrics’ Luistro argued that GenCorp’s participation in Davao City procurement raised conflict-of-interest concerns because Duterte had declared an interest in the company while her brother was serving as Davao City mayor.

Luistro said the prosecution’s position was based on the conflict-of-interest provision under Article VII, Section 13 of the Constitution, while acknowledging that procurement laws do not explicitly describe every possible scenario.

Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo questioned whether GenCorp could participate in Davao City procurement given Duterte’s declared ownership interest and her brother’s position as city mayor.

Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian also asked whether PhilGEPS records showed the number of bidders, bid prices, and conflict-of-interest declarations. Sopeña said those details were not automatically reflected in the system unless uploaded by the procuring entity.

Constitutional right against self-incrimination

Defense lead counsel Sheila Sison on Monday argued that the constitutional right against self-incrimination and the right to remain silent are absolute, and that these protections must be upheld, as prosecution panel attempts to summon or subpoena Vice President Duterte.

Sison invoked the 1969 landmark Supreme Court ruling in Pascual Jr. vs Board of Medical Examiners to assert that Duterte cannot be compelled to take the witness stand or testify against herself during her Senate impeachment trial.

‘The admission is akin to testimony. Kaya nga may tinawag na admission. At kung ano ang garantiya ng Konstitusyon natin ay ipinagbabawal ang compulsion sa isang respondent o akusado na mag-testify against himself, dapat ding pagbawalan ‘yung pagtatangka na kumuha ng tinatawag na admission,’ Sison said.

House prosecutor and Akbayan party-list Rep. Jose Manuel ‘Chel’ Diokno asserts that the timing for invoking rights against self-incrimination should be when specific questions are propounded to a witness, rather than as a blanket objection to a request for documents.

The Senate sitting as the impeachment court is tackling Article II on the alleged unexplained wealth of Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases ‘Mans’ Carpio.

Diokno told the impeachment court that the prosecution is willing to withdraw its request for admission of Duterte’s bank records if the defense agrees to stipulations on three matters: the bank records exists, were produced by the said banks pursuant to the subpoenas identified by the impeachment court, and they are genuine and authentic copies of records maintained by the said banks.

Diokno stressed that the stipulations would not require the vice president to admit liability, the accuracy and truth of every entry in the documents, or the prosecution’s interpretation of any transaction in the documents.

Sison also stated that the Constitutional guarantee protects as well as the right to silence.

‘As far back as 1905, we had the occasion to declare the accused has a perfect right to remain silent and his silence cannot be used as a presumption of his guilt,’ she added, emphasizing that the constitutional right against self-incrimination should apply with even greater force in an impeachment proceedings, which she described as ‘highly penal in character.’

Sison said the defense also could not agree on what the prosecution proposed, which is the stipulations immediately since additional documents were still being marked.

‘Isa pa po na nakikita naming concern dito ay hindi pa nga nasisimulan ang pagmamarka ng mga dokumento na galing sa bangko today,’ Sison said, adding that they were informed that more documents are set for marking on Monday.

Sison also argued that Duterte and the defense team has not been given enough time to review the said documents.

‘Ibig sabihin, wala ring sapat na panahon para makita ng respondent at ng kanyang mga abogado ang mga dokumento na ito and there will be no basis for any stipulation today or even tomorrow, or even on Wednesday,’ Sison explained.

‘If we will have a stipulation, our suggestion is that the proposal form stipulation be made at the appropriate time,’ she said, as she proposed that any stipulation of the documents be taken up later when the prosecution formally offers its testimonial evidence accompanying the documentary evidence.

Later, she said the lead defense will no longer quibble on the matter after Diokno withdrew the request for admission in exchange for stipulation.

‘We will no longer quibble with the arguments profounded today by the Honorable Diokno considering also the statement that had been made in respect of the withdrawal of the request for admission in exchange for stipulation,’ she added.

The court then instructed the parties to submit their arguments in writing.

Presiding officer Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero confirmed they will issue a formal ruling on the motion within the week to guide future proceedings in the trial.

At a circuit built to punish the smallest miscalculation, the tenth Azerbaijan Grand Prix delivered one of the tightest finishes in its history – and handed George Russell the release he had been chasing since June

By the time the chequered flag fell, six cars would not see it. That fact hung over the Baku City Circuit before a wheel had turned, a quiet warning under a hardening evening light along walls the sport has now raced beside for a decade.

Wind came off the Caspian in short, testing gusts, rattling the flags above the castle stone and reminding the tens of thousands packed into this corridor of medieval architecture and Soviet-era boulevard that the track does not forgive distraction. Ten years into its residency on the calendar, Baku still carries a reputation it has never bothered to shed: a street course that looks manageable on a sighting lap and turns vicious the moment fuel loads and tire wear enter the equation.

Azerbaijan built its modern identity on a 19th-century oil boom that made Baku one of the world’s first great petroleum capitals, and long before that it sat astride the Silk Road, the corridor where Europe and Asia traded goods and architecture for centuries – a history still standing in Icherisheher, Baku’s walled Old City, where the 12th-century Maiden Tower and the Shirvanshahs’ Palace form a UNESCO World Heritage site. The circuit doesn’t skirt that history; it threads modern grandstands past medieval fortifications before opening onto the glass-and-steel Flame Towers, cars topping 200 miles per hour a few meters from walls older than the nation itself.

Baku has always operated on a different physics than the rest of the calendar. The escape roads are generous, almost inviting, which is precisely the trap. During practice, drivers had ducked into them all weekend with no real cost. Kimi Antonelli found the one exception to that leniency the previous day, planting his car into the barrier near Turn 8, the Castle Section – at 7.6 meters across, the narrowest corner left on the Formula One calendar, a stretch so tight that cars routinely graze the centuries-old stone on one side while brushing the wall on the other, with almost no room to correct a mistake before one of them does it for him. The message going into Sunday was blunt: with full fuel tanks and a race to lose rather than a lap to bank, the margin for that same error would not exist. Antonelli would start from the middle of the pack carrying that knowledge like a bruise, a championship leader suddenly forced to play catch-up on the one weekend where patience and recklessness look almost identical from the cockpit.

For Isack Hadjar, the weekend carried a different weight entirely. Three races removed from the grid after an injury layoff, he arrived in Baku having barely climbed out of the simulator – his team’s words, not embellishment – to find a car that had evolved without him. He had spent his idle Sundays watching Liam Lawson do competent, unspectacular work in his seat, and there is a particular kind of pressure that builds in a driver who knows exactly how replaceable he looked from the outside. His practice pace was cautious enough to alarm his own team. Qualifying told a different story. He banked every lap, extracted what the car offered, and rolled off the grid in a position that suggested the caution had been calculation, not rust.

It showed on Sunday. Verstappen, by contrast, spent Saturday fighting something he never quite solved. He had topped final practice with pace that made rivals recheck their own sector times, but qualifying left him irritated about a car that refused to sit still under braking, and he would ultimately line up from a distant eighth. Baku demands a ride height low enough to court disaster and a suspension stiff enough to survive the bumps, and when Red Bull doesn’t thread that needle exactly, the car turns unpredictable. Verstappen described losing half a second down the straights, a complaint that pointed toward the engine rather than the chassis. Starting eighth and finishing second is its own quiet indictment of a Saturday gone wrong, and its own quiet testament to a Sunday recovery drive that nearly rewrote the result.

Williams arrived with the kind of upgrade package teams talk about for months and then quietly downplay the week it lands. James Vowles had promised something substantial to his stakeholders, and it delivered more than the paddock murmur suggested: fifty-one uninterrupted race laps became a data-gathering exercise for the winter, and Carlos Sainz brought the package home in the points. Alex Albon’s race ended early in one of the day’s several crashes, proof that Baku’s walls do not distinguish between a car on new parts and a car on old ones.

Russell had arrived at this weekend still carrying the sting of Monza, where his own teammate had scythed through the field late on and taken a result away from him – a memory he has called chastening. Once the lights went out, he converted pole into a lead he would spend the next two hours defending, not chasing points so much as chasing the feeling of winning again. Afterward, he credited Antonelli’s near-flawless run atop the standings but made clear his own focus had narrowed to himself alone – that if he kept producing performances like this one, whatever happened by season’s end, he could live with it, given how difficult the stretch behind him had been. Baku’s long front straight became the stage where that stretch ended.

Two safety car periods turned a comfortable lead into a live contest. Russell had built a cushion of several seconds inside the opening ten laps, but each intervention – including a chaotic multi-car scramble that eventually claimed Lando Norris’s race alongside both Alpines of Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly – reset the gap and dragged Verstappen back into striking range. The compressed restarts brought Verstappen close enough to smell the exhaust ahead of him, and through the final stint the gap narrowed lap by lap into something the pit wall could no longer measure comfortably.

They crossed the line separated by 0.196 seconds, one of the tightest finishes this address has produced in ten years of hosting it. Russell took his eighth career victory, his first since Austria earlier this season – a result that felt less like a statistic and more like oxygen returning to a driver who had spent recent weeks defending his position rather than expanding it. Verstappen crossed second, still hunting his first win of the season, visibly frustrated that half a second of straight-line pace and a lost qualifying lap had been the difference between chasing and winning. Isack Hadjar completed the podium in third, giving Red Bull a result the team had gone a considerable stretch without tasting: both cars, side by side, on the top step’s flanks. Speaking afterward, Hadjar described the six weeks away as long ones, and said he had deliberately taken his comeback step by step rather than forcing it – an approach that had delivered, in his words, his first genuine podium built on pure pace rather than circumstance.

Charles Leclerc brought Ferrari home fourth, a tidier result than the team’s shaky long-run pace in practice had suggested was coming, with Lewis Hamilton following in sixth. Antonelli’s recovery drive supplied the afternoon’s quieter drama: sixteenth to fifth, eleven positions reclaimed through patience rather than desperation, enough to preserve his championship lead even as it shrank to sixty-six points. Baku served notice that the remaining street circuits will not hand him anything for free, and Sepang’s very different demands arrive next.

Further down the order, the race turned unforgiving in exactly the way Baku always does. Racing Bulls team-mates Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson tangled with each other in an incident significant enough to draw its own post-race scrutiny, with Lindblad recovering to snatch a points finish from Esteban Ocon right at the line, the two separated by three-hundredths of a second. Haas took full advantage of the disorder around them, Ocon and Ollie Bearman both scoring to pull clear of an Audi team that had arrived in Baku with its own package of updates and left with comparatively little to show for it.

Three-hundredths of a second in the midfield. Two-tenths at the front. 7.6 meters of asphalt at Turn 8, where the walls of a medieval fortress leave no room for a car to be anywhere but exactly where it needs to be. Ten years into hosting this race, Baku’s ribbon of stone and concrete has built a private reputation for reducing entire afternoons of strategy, tire management, and mechanical anxiety down to numbers too small to argue with. This year, that ruthlessness worked in George Russell’s favor. He will take it. On this anniversary weekend, almost nobody else got to.

When Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the war, choking off sea passage for some 15 million barrels of oil a day, many feared that prices would skyrocket, cratering the world economy.

Instead, nearly seven months on, oil is expensive but not exorbitant, and analysts say there’s enough oil available to meet current global needs, even as the higher prices cause political problems for U.S. President Donald Trump and others.

That’s because Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers quickly found alternative routes and reached for unused pipeline capacity. When Iran and its militant allies targeted those, the oil exporters and the US military found still other ways-workarounds for the workarounds-in an often clandestine game of whack-a-mole.

With oil now at around $100 a barrel- higher than before the war but not as bad as feared-Iran has diminished leverage, while a US naval blockade and tightened sanctions smother its own economy.

But the workarounds are expensive and may not be sustainable. The drawing down of existing commercial oil stocks-especially by China-has also helped keep prices in check, but cannot continue indefinitely. And Iran could yet gain an edge with continued attacks on key oil facilities.

Pipeline backups were ready

Iran began attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S.-Israeli bombardment that started the war. In response, the Saudis turned to their East-West pipeline that carries oil to their Red Sea port of Yanbu.

From there, tankers headed out through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait toward Asia. Likewise, the United Arab Emirates used its pipeline cutting across neighboring Oman to Fujairah-a route that skirts the strait.

Both pipelines had spare capacity, and the UAE’s state oil company ADNOC and Saudi Aramco used it to keep exports from collapsing completely during the first weeks of the war.

Meanwhile, some oil leaked out of the Strait of Hormuz. In May, ship operators willing to risk Iranian attack started taking advantage of a US-supervised route near Oman, defying Iran’s demands to use its own vetted route. They shuttled back and forth at night with location systems and mobile phones turned off, and offloaded to tankers waiting outside the strait. Flows from Kuwait, Iraq, and the UAE started to rise again.

But Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen disrupted the Yanbu workaround in July by declaring a blockade of Saudi oil shipments, threatening the Bab el-Mandeb-a repeat of the Hormuz disruption.

In response, the Saudis redirected Asia shipments northwest to the Mediterranean, either through the Suez Canal or-for tankers too big to use it-a pipeline across Egypt to another tanker. The oil then made a huge detour as it was shipped around Africa and back to Asia.

Then the East-West pipeline was attacked earlier this month and forced to shut down, potentially for weeks.

The Saudis shift to the US-protected dark shuttle through Hormuz

With oil loading halted at Yanbu from Sept. 11, the Saudis shifted again, joining other Gulf producers sending oil through the US-guided corridor in the Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, six supertankers loaded 12 million barrels at Saudi terminals on the Persian Gulf, according to shipping data company Kpler.

US officials have touted the role of the southern corridor in keeping energy flowing while their blockade increases pressure on Iran. Adm. Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, said in a video on social media Saturday that US forces had assisted 2,000 commercial ship transits and the transport of more than 1 billion barrels of oil from Gulf partner nations over ‘the past couple of months.’

Analysts estimate some 6 million barrels of oil per day or more have been passing through the Strait of Hormuz on the dark shuttle route on average-some 40% or more of prewar flows.

The workarounds keep the economy supplied, for now

Rahul Choudhary, vice president of upstream research at energy data firm Rystad Energy, did the math as follows: With 6 million or 7 million barrels per day now flowing through the southern route, plus 2 million barrels through the pipeline to Fujairah, fully 8 million or so of the blocked 15 million barrels per day from before the war have been restored.

That still leaves roughly 7 million barrels per day missing from prewar flows.

But wait: About 3.5 million barrels per day are being drawn down from the globe’s abundant oil inventories. Meanwhile, demand has fallen by perhaps another 5 million barrels per day, due to the higher price and sluggish economic growth in key markets. Add in 500,000 to 700,000 barrels per day from other suppliers such as the US, and that pretty much evens out the global oil market.

‘Our take is that the market is very tightly balanced,’ Choudhary said. ‘That is why you are not seeing exceptionally high prices for crude; they are still in the $100 range, and they have not touched $140-$150 per barrel – which could have been the case if there was a deficit of 5-6 million barrels.’

In fact, Rystad foresees oil at $85-$90 per barrel in the last three months of the year, and falling to $80-$82 next year if Hormuz is reopened.

But the workarounds are costly-and not a permanent fix

The workarounds are time-consuming and expensive.

Sending oil to Asia through the Suez Canal instead of the Red Sea can add as much as a month to the voyage. Meanwhile, the Hormuz shuttle trade involves expensive tankers waiting at least a day and a half in the Gulf of Oman for the ship-to-ship transfer.

The demand for supertankers has sent charter rates-normally $30,000 to $50,000 per day-through the roof. Spot charter rates for Hormuz transits reached $1 million per day on Sept. 11, according to maritime data company Windward, equivalent to roughly $26 per barrel. That means shipping is a quarter of the cost, instead of the usual 1% to 3%.

And markets are braced for further disruption. The attack on the East-West pipeline has shown pipelines can be vulnerable. Iran could try to disrupt the U.S. route through the Strait of Hormuz or target areas near the Omani coast where the ship-to-ship transfers are taking place.

If that happens, the workaround would be to do the transfers farther away-taking more time and running up even bigger bills.