Category: Business Mirror

Carlos Yulo’s dominance – just like two years ago in the Paris Olympics – happened just once again in the Aichi-Nagoya 20th Asian Games on Friday in Japan.

After a disastrous qualifying round campaign last Monday that almost eliminated him, the three-time world champion proved to be a winner as he bounced back when it mattered most by scoring 14.599 points in the final to win his second gold medal.

Iran’s Mahdi Olfati settled for silver with 14.533 while Hong Kong’s Ng Ka Ki got the bronze with 14.166.

He ended seventh among eight qualified gymnasts in Monday’s vault qualification after a disastrous landing.

But this time, Yulo made sure he would get his second gold medal after winning the men’s floor exercise gold last Thursday.

Yulo is also set to see action at the parallel bars later Friday.

He gave team Philippines its second gold medal so far.

THE National Food Authority (NFA) can only purchase 75 percent of its 790,000 metric tons (MT) palay procurement target in 2026 if El Niño ‘severely’ strikes the local rice sector.

NFA Administrator Larry Lacson expressed confidence that the grains agency could purchase 500,000 MT of unmilled rice in the wet season harvest.

On top of the 92,032 MT that the NFA already procured as of September, its paddy rice purchase could reach 592,032 MT.

The projected figure, however, only constitutes 75 percent of the grains agency’s total target of 790,000 MT for 2026.

‘If the El Niño is severe, I cannot hit 790,000 MT,’ Lacson told reporters in a press conference on Friday.

‘As long as everything [farmers] sell [to the NFA] is clean and dry, we can absorb up to 500,000 MT,’ he said.

The NFA currently purchases wet palay at P22 per kilo and dry palay at P27 per kilo.

Meanwhile, Lacson said the NFA will earmark at least P500 million annually from its corporate receipts to bankroll the modernization of its warehouses starting next year.

‘Starting next year, whether the national government provides a subsidy or not, I will allot at least P500 million from our corporate receipts so we can build and modernize [warehouses], even if it’s just a few,’ Lacson said.

He added that the agency will prioritize modernizing NFA warehouses in geographically isolated, disadvantaged areas (Gida), such as Polillo, Lubang, Batanes, and Casiguran, among others.

‘We really need to do something. It’s expensive to transport there, so the stocks should have been there a long time ago.’

Lacson said the NFA will also build the succeeding warehouses that use renewable energy and equip these with air conditioning systems to prevent the quality of rice stocks from deteriorating.

‘From this time on, we will be building warehouses that use renewable energy, plus the [quality] of stocks won’t deteriorate much because we’ll be building air-conditioned or low-temperature warehouses.’

Yvon Bisera made good on her vow to fight back, closing with a solid five-under 67 to storm into the Top 10 while local ace Yu Chiang Hou held her nerve through a dramatic three-way playoff to capture the Kenda Tires TLPGA Open at the Taichung International Golf Club on Friday in Taiwan.

After a costly 73 in the second round dented her bid following an impressive opening 67, the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour (LPGT) star returned to the course with renewed purpose and produced her second five-under card in the tournament to vault from joint 16th to ninth at nine-under 207.

Bisera hi three consecutive birdies from No. 4 to ignite her final-round charge. Birdies at Nos. 13 and 17 completed a gutsy comeback that restored the momentum she had lost a day earlier. She was just one stroke off the lead after the opening round but slipped seven shots behind the pace following a costly second-round stumble.

While the late surge came too late to put her back into contention for the title, it provided a strong finish to a tournament in which Bisera showed she could contend with the region’s leading players.

Seoyun Kim also rallied strong, firing a bogey-free 68 to emerge as the next-best LPGT player, tying for 20th at 212 in the NT$4-million, 54-hole championship, a co-sanctioned tournament by the LPGT.

The young Korean made two birdies on each nine and relied on a couple of clutch scrambling pars to keep her card spotless and complete a steady final-round recovery.

Sarah Ababa carded a 72 after making two birdies on the back nine that offset a pair of bogeys, finishing joint 23rd at 213.

Mafy Singson mounted her own late charge. She opened the back nine with a sizzling 33 but wavered down the stretch, needing a birdie on No. 8 to salvage a 36 coming home. Her closing 69 nevertheless lifted her six places to a share of 31st at 214.

Jiwon Lee, the other LPGT mainstay to make the cut, closed with a 72 to share 49th at 218.

But while Bisera and the other LPGT players were battling to finish strong, the tournament at the top was turning into a gripping local thriller.

Hou, one of the former twin prodigies of Taiwanese golf, overcame a double bogey on No. 8 with a remarkable back-nine response, draining three birdies to shoot 68 and finish regulation at 14-under 202.

That proved just enough to force a three-way playoff with local amateur Jie-En Lin and Korean SeulGi Geong, who also finished at 202 after closing with rounds of 63 and 68, respectively.

Lin failed to match Hou and Geong’s birdies on No. 18 and bowing out of the title race.

Geong appeared to have a chance to seize control, standing just 12 feet from the hole, but the pressure of the moment proved unforgiving. She three-putted, turning what had been a title opportunity into a costly collapse.

With the championship suddenly in her hands, the local star calmly stepped up and drained a seven-foot birdie putt to seal the victory.

Thai Sherman Santiwiwatthanaphong, who had surged into the lead with a blistering 63 in the second round, finished fourth at 12-under 204.

NAGOYA-Cherry Ann ‘Sisi’ Rondina and Bernadeth Pons opened their campaign with a 17-21, 21-10, 10-15 loss to a towering pair from Kazakhstan but hope is not lost in the Aicho-Nagoya 20th Asian Games for the Philippines most popular and No. 1 tandem.

‘We missed the opportunity, that’s all I can say,’ Rondina said after the match at the Hekinan Ryokuchi Beach Court. ‘We could have done better, but we remain on the bright side.’

The duo joined compatriots Sofiah Shanine Pagara and Khylem Harl Progella in the last 16, but the men’s pair of Lerry John Francisco and Alnakran Abdilla went winless after setbacks to Qatar and Oman and didn’t get past the pool play.

The two Filipina pairs are in the knockout round and a victory would push them to the medal play for a chance to improve on the fifth-place finish in the games Dij Rodriguez and Gen Eslapor booked in Hangzhou three years ago.

James Buytrago and Ronniel Rosales, meanwhile, fight for survival against Vietnam’s Lam Toi Nguyen and Van Viet Tran-both teams are 1-1 won-lost in Pool C behind Indonesia (2-0).

‘We’re looking positive for the coming days,’ Rondina said. ‘It’s saddening and at the same time exciting to see what happens next.’

She added: ‘We need to prepare for the coming matches, the games are far from over.’

They’re now focusing on recovery and making adjustments and cleaning up their execution before their next match on Monday-they await Sunday’s results for their next opponent.

The Philippines sent three pairs to the knockout rounds in Hangzhou-Rodriguez and Eslapor to the quarterfinals and finished fifth and Khylem Progella-Grydelle Matibag and Jude Garcia-Buytrago both reached the round of 16.

The Philippines has yet to make the podium since beach volleyball was on the Asian Games program in 1998.

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is moving deeper into Philippine recruitment, with 39 percent of employers already using the technology in hiring, according to Jobstreet by SEEK.

The adoption rate puts the Philippines ahead of the 27 percent recorded across Southeast Asia, as employers turn to AI amid low-quality applicants, limited time, increasingly complex hiring workflows and rising cost pressures.

For entry-level applicants, the shift means AI can increasingly shape who gets matched, screened and moved forward before a human recruiter enters the process.

Employers that have adopted AI reported faster and more efficient hiring, more precise job matching and less time spent on administrative tasks, according to Jobstreet.

Jobstreet by SEEK unveiled its seekAi platform during its Jobstreet Connect hirer convention, which gathered more than 200 business leaders, human-resources practitioners and industry decision-makers.

‘We believe that AI should make hiring better, not busier,’ Jobstreet by SEEK Managing Director Dannah Majarocon said.

‘By combining employment-specific data with agentic AI built directly into the workflow, seekAi is designed to reduce friction, improve talent matching, and give leaders more time so they can focus on what matters most: their people,’ the job platform said.

AI in early hiring stages

SeekAi Personalised Targeting feature uses role requirements, employer preferences and historical hiring activity to identify high-fit talent instead of relying mainly on broad keyword matching.

The system also incorporates real-time candidate-intent data, with Jobstreet saying candidates reached through targeted matching are up to five times more likely to apply.

Meanwhile, the SeekAi Assist feature covers several recruitment tasks, including AI pre-screening voice interviews, applicant ranking, next-best-action guidance and automated reference checks.

Jobstreet said SeekAi draws on more than 25 years of employment-market intelligence and 750 million daily candidate and employer signals across Asia-Pacific.

Governance remains a human job

As AI takes on more recruitment tasks, Kin Enriquez stressed that companies should first establish sound hiring processes before deciding which parts should be automated.

‘The process has to be right first before you decide which part of the process you want to make into AI,’ Enriquez said.

Ralph Regalado likewise pointed to data governance as a critical condition for effective AI adoption.

‘If you don’t have good data governance, then it’s not going to work very well,’ Regalado said.

Majarocon also underscored transparency and accountability as AI becomes more involved in hiring.

‘We feel extremely strongly about this, the job transparency,’ she said.

‘Someone has to be accountable. A human really should be accountable in the AI,’ Majarocon said.

Jobstreet said final hiring decisions in AI-assisted recruitment remain firmly under human control.

THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) released P23.67 billion in tax refunds in the first nine months of the year to aid taxpayers and businesses amid higher operating costs and a prolonged energy crisis.

Refunds from January to September 2025 rose 90.6 percent from P12.42 billion in the same period last year, according to a BIR statement issued on Friday.

Under the National Internal Revenue Code and various BIR issuances and regulations, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue may credit or refund taxes that are erroneously or illegally paid, as well as excess payments and statutory relief or incentive.

Refundable taxes include value-added taxes, withholding taxes, income tax, excise taxes and other internal revenue taxes.

‘These are lawful refunds due to our taxpayers. Once a refund has been properly evaluated and approved for release, we see no reason to unnecessarily delay it,’ Internal Revenue Commissioner Charlito Martin R. Mendoza said.

The refunds could provide businesses with additional cash for operating expenses and working capital, Mendoza said, as the government seeks to ease pressures on companies while maintaining tax collection efforts.

‘We want to put that money back in the hands of our businesses so they can use it for operating expenses, preserve cash flow, and keep their businesses moving, especially during this energy crisis,’ Mendoza said.

‘Tax administration is not only about collecting what is properly due to the government. We must also return what is properly due to the taxpayer once the claim has been evaluated and approved,’ he added.

For the month of August, the BIR recorded a 0.70 percent year-on-year decline in its collection, down to P248.4 billion from P250.1 billion, mainly due to the higher tax refund paid for the month amounting to P10 billion.

From January to August this year, the BIR collected a total of P2.238 trillion in revenues, up by 4.60 percent from P2.139 trillion in the same period a year earlier.

THE hypothetical 2028 tandem of Vice President Sara Duterte and Sen. Robinhood ‘Robin’ Padilla continues to lead the pairing of Naga City Mayor Maria Leonor ‘Leni’ Robredo and Sen. Paolo Benigno ‘Bam’ Aquino IV.

Nonetheless, its advantage has narrowed substantially, according to the latest Tugon ng Masa (TNM) survey of OCTA Research.

The Duterte-Padilla tandem registered 48 percent of the national voter preference, compared with 36 percent for the Robredo-Aquino tandem, giving the former a 12-percentage-point lead. Another 16 percent of respondents remained undecided.

OCTA pointed out that the 12-point gap is the narrowest recorded between the two hypothetical tandems to date, pointing to a continuing tightening of the potential 2028 matchup.

In previous commissioned surveys conducted in 2025, the gap between Duterte-Padilla and Robredo-Aquino ranged from approximately 20 to 25 percentage points. The latest result therefore represents a substantial reduction in the lead enjoyed by the Duterte-Padilla tandem, according to OCTA.

The survey results provide an early indication that the hypothetical contest could become more competitive as the 2028 elections approach. However, the figures remain a snapshot of voter preferences nearly two years before the scheduled elections and should not be treated as an election forecast.

The latest findings also come amid other signs of movement in the Duterte-Robredo political matchup. In a separate Q2 2026 TNM survey, Duterte led Robredo in a hypothetical presidential head-to-head matchup by 43 percent to 34 percent, a nine-point margin that was down from 11 points in the first quarter. OCTA said the national movement was modest, with Duterte’s support declining while the undecided or uncommitted bloc increased.

The survey data also showed that voter preferences vary depending on the vice-presidential partner paired with each potential presidential candidate. Earlier Q2 results involving Robredo and Sen. Raffy Tulfo versus Duterte and Sen. Imee Marcos, for example, showed Robredo-Tulfo at 45 percent and Duterte-Marcos at 42 percent, a three-point difference that OCTA described as statistically a toss-up given the survey’s margin of error.

For the Duterte-Padilla versus Robredo-Aquino matchup, however, the latest national figures remain separated by 12 points.

The Q2 2026 TNM survey, according to OCTA, was conducted through face-to-face interviews from July 4 to 11 among 1,200 male and female probability respondents aged 18 and above. It has a national margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points at a 95-percent confidence level. Subnational estimates for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao have a margin of error of plus or minus six percentage points.

OCTA described the TNM as an independent, non-partisan and non-commissioned nationwide survey that it conducts regularly and releases as a public service.

With 16 percent of respondents still undecided in the Duterte-Padilla versus Robredo-Aquino hypothetical matchup, OCTA said the latest survey leaves a substantial portion of the electorate outside either tandem. It said the narrowing from the 20-to-25-point margins recorded in 2025 nevertheless marks a notable shift in the relative standing of the two pairings.

OCTA said the figures underscore that while Duterte-Padilla remains ahead in this particular hypothetical contest, the distance between the two tandems has contracted significantly from earlier measurements.

Carlos Yulo’s dominance – just like two years ago in the Paris Olympics – happened just once again in the Aichi-Nagoya 20th Asian Games on Friday in Japan.

After a disastrous qualifying round campaign last Monday that almost eliminated him, the three-time world champion proved to be a winner as he bounced back when it mattered most by scoring 14.599 points in the final to win his second gold medal.

Iran’s Mahdi Olfati settled for silver with 14.533 while Hong Kong’s Ng Ka Ki got the bronze with 14.166.

He finished seventh among eight qualified gymnasts in Monday’s vault qualification after a disastrous landing.

But this time, Yulo made sure he would get his second gold medal after winning the men’s floor exercise gold last Thursday.

Yulo is also set to see action at the parallel bars later Friday.

He gave Team Philippines its second gold medal so far.

A playful yellow character has started appearing around Serendra, BGC, pointing pedestrians toward a new Japanese dining destination coming soon. His name is Torikki, the official mascot of TORIKIZOKU, Japan’s popular Yakitori chain and a Yakitori-ya specializing in freshly grilled chicken skewers.

Designed to be visible during the day and illuminated at night, the Torikki installations feature different poses inspired by the Philippines and Japan. Each carries an invitation to gather:

‘Good Times, This Way.’

‘From Group Chat to Group Table.’ ‘Traffic Can Wait.’

Each installation also features a QR code that guests can scan to visit the TORIKIZOKU Philippines website, receive updates, and make a reservation. The signages mark the beginning of the countdown to TORIKIZOKU’s first Philippine restaurant, opening on October 12, 2026, at Serendra, BGC.

Founded in Osaka in 1985, TORIKIZOKU has grown to more than 600 stores across Japan and continues to expand its Global YAKITORI Family internationally. The brand is known for freshly grilled Yakitori, carefully selected ingredients, welcoming service, and a lively atmosphere where people can gather comfortably over food and conversation.

In the Philippines, that spirit of gathering comes to life through ‘Toriki Tayo’, a local invitation to turn everyday moments into opportunities to come together.

See Torikki around Serendra, scan the QR code, and follow where he leads. From group chat to group table, TORIKI TAYO.

TORIKIZOKU Philippines opens on October 12, 2026, at Serendra, BGC, Taguig City.

Be among the first to experience TORIKIZOKU’s authentic Yakitori-ya experience at Serendra.

Justine Gumbao and Julius Otoc stamped their class in the Palawan Pawnshop’s Kidapawan City Juniors Age-Group Tennis Championships, powering to a combined six titles and emerging as the standout performers of the week-long Group 2 tournament at the Kidapawan courts.

Gumbao was particularly dominant, sweeping the girls’ 14-and-under and 16-and-under singles crowns before adding two doubles titles for a rare four-title haul.

The top seed in the girls’ division overwhelmed Chandra Felecio, 6-1, 6-3, in the 14-and-under final, then dispatched Marxian Sira, 6-1, 6-0, for the 16-and-under championship. She dropped just 11 games in six singles matches across the two age groups.

Gumbao completed her four-title sweep in doubles, teaming up with Kathryina Makabangit to whip Sabrina Esiderio and Maurin, 8-1, for the 14-and-under crown. She later paired with Clar to rout Gorre and Sira, 8-2, in the 18-and-under final.

Otoc matched Gumbao’s dominance in the boys’ division, collecting the 16- and 18-and-under singles titles to share MVP honors. He overwhelmed recent Isulan, Sultan Kudarat leg winner Kresthan Belacas, 6-1, 6-1, in the 16-and-under final before turning back Kyle Ramos, 6-4, 6-2, for the 18-and-under title.

Otoc and Belacas joined forces in the boys’ 18-and-under doubles, beating Kurt Alcantara and Krisnel Batilo, 8-1.

Kirsten Mae Gorre beat Camille Clar, 6-2, 6-2, for the girls’ 18-and-under title, while Belacas defeated AJ Rabino, 6-3, 6-2, in the boys’ 14-and-under final.

Christine Ann Teposo blanked Aleushia Maurin, 6-0, 6-0, for the girls’ 12-and-under plum, and Andrei Domasing beat Peter Cabaña, 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-3, in a thrilling boys’ 12-and-under championship duel. In the boys’ 14-and-under doubles, Rafael Pascua and Rabino defeated Yuki Menoza and Philmanuel Palmones, 8-1, to claim the title.

The Kidapawan stop capped another three-leg swing through Mindanao, following earlier tournaments in Davao del Sur and Sultan Kudarat, as the talent-search continues to provide young players with competitive matches and a pathway to higher-level tennis. The Group 2 tournament was held under the Palawan Pawnshop talent-search initiated by president and CEO Bobby Castro and sanctioned by Philta and Universal Tennis Rating. It was supported by Icon Golf and Sports and the Palawan Group of Companies.