Category: Business Mirror

To give incumbent barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials more time to wrap up their programs and improve their services, President Ferdinand Marcos signed on Friday Republic Act 12326, extending the term of these public servants to five years and postponing their next elections to 2028.

‘This is not additional time in office [for the incumbent officials]. This is additional time for accountability to the people,’ Marcos said in Filipino in a social media post.

He said he hopes the officials will use their extended term to complete their programs and improve their services.

‘I hope they will be able to use this time to further improve service delivery, complete ongoing programs, and focus more closely on the needs of every community, family, and youth [in their jurisdictions],’ Marcos said.

In a press briefing in Ilocos Norte on Friday, Palace Press Office Claire Castro said RA 12326 will help enhance ongoing efforts of the national government against crimes and proper waste management at the grassroot level.

She said barangay and SK officials are at the forefront in implementing both programs.

‘Preventing crime starts at the barangay level; when barangay officials themselves conduct rounds and enforce rules strictly [in their jurisdictions], the rise in the crime rate can be curbed,’ Castro said in Filipino.

‘Barangay officials can also help us organize proper waste disposal,’ she said.

RA 12326 amended RA 12232, which extended the term of barangay and SK officials from four to five years.

However, it reduced from three to two the consecutive terms that barangay officials can hold the same position. For SK officials, they can still not serve for more than one term in the same position.

The date of the next Barangay and SK Elections (BSKE) was also moved from November 2, 2026 to the second Monday of November 2028.

The transitory provisions of RA 12326, banned incumbent barangay officials fom running in the same position in 2028, since the new law already extended their term by two years.

Marcos signed RA 12326 on Thursday, days before the Commission on Elections is scheduled to hold the filing of Certificates of Candidacy for BSKE from September 28 to October 5.

The poll body already spent P8 billion for its BSKE preparations, which it said was already 90 percent complete.

FORMER death row convict Mary Jane Veloso, who was detained in Indonesia for nearly 15 years in Indonesia for drug trafficking charges, will soon be free after President Ferdinand Marcos granted her an absolute pardon.

The chief executive made the announcement when asked if he had already issued the pardon after inspecting the Felipe Abrigo Memorial Hospital in Eastern Samar on Friday.

‘Pinirmahan ko na….Pinirmahan ko na ‘yung pardon (I’ve already signed it…I’ve already signed the pardon),’ Marcos told reporters.

Veloso was arrested by authorities at an Indonesian airport in 2010 after 2.6 kilograms of heroin wwere found in her luggage.

The former overseas Filipino worker (OFW) claimed her employer tricked her to carry the suitcase, without her knowledge that it had a secret compartment hiding the drugs.

She was able to get a last-minute reprieve in her death sentence in 2015 amid frenzied interventions by the Philippine government under President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, with the call to stop execution coming just minutes before midnight.

After the Indonesian government approved the request of the Philippines government to allow Veloso to serve her prison sentence in the Philippines in 2024, she was transferred to the Correction Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City.

Last February, the family of Veloso submitted a letter to the Palace urging Marcos to grant her clemency.

The Office of the Executive Secretary conducted a review of the possible legal impediments on the request.

Executive Secretary Ralph G. Recto said Veloso’s pardon was the result of all of the diplomatic efforts of the government in over a decade.

‘Today, those efforts culminate in President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s grant of an absolute pardon,’ Recto said in a statement.

He said he hopes the pardon will allow Veloso to spend time with her family.

‘We cannot give Mary Jane back the 16 years she spent away from her family. But today, perhaps, we can give her back the future,’ Recto said.

In a statement, Migrante International welcomed the announced granting of pardon to Veloso, which it said was the result of her family and stakeholder’s relentless campaign to secure her freedom.

‘We celebrate this as a historic victory for the global people’s movement that has long fought for freedom and justice for Mary Jane as a victim of human trafficking,’ Migrante International said in a statement.

However, it noted that the Marcos administration committed injustice for ‘prolonging her detention.’

‘Mary Jane’s freedom is long overdue. While he ultimately heeded the relentless call of the people to free Mary Jane, let us not forget that Marcos has committed a grave injustice by prolonging her detention in Philippine prison for one year and nine months, when no charges have been brought against her in Philippine courts,’ it said.

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.

HOUSE prosecutors clarified on Thursday that the Senate Impeachment Court’s recent interpretation of the voting threshold in Vice President Sara Z. Duterte’s trial will only apply to the current case and will not automatically serve as a binding rule for future impeachment proceedings.

House prosecutor and Party-list Rep. Jose Manuel Diokno of Akbayan explained that the court’s use of the term pro hac vice, that means ‘for this particular occasion,’ was intended to emphasize that the ruling was limited to the unique circumstances surrounding the present trial.

‘I think the usual use of pro hac vice is simply to emphasize that this applies only to this particular case and cannot be used in future impeachment proceedings,’ Diokno said.

He explained that impeachment proceedings differ from regular court cases because decisions issued by the Supreme Court may become judicial precedents that guide future similar cases. This principle is known as stare decisis, where courts generally follow legal principles established in previous decisions.

‘The difference is that in an Impeachment Court, we have what we call judicial precedent, where a decision made by the Supreme Court may be applied in other similar cases in the future,’ Diokno explained.

However, Diokno stressed that rulings made by an impeachment court do not operate in the same manner as judicial precedents.

‘But it cannot be compared to judicial precedent or the principle of stare decisis,’ Diokno emphasized.

He said every future Senate sitting as an impeachment court will have its own membership and constitutional authority to interpret procedural matters based on the circumstances of each case. A different Senate composition may, therefore, arrive at a different interpretation of the constitutional voting requirement.

The ruling resolved the dispute over the voting threshold in Duterte’s trial but did not permanently establish a fixed formula that would govern all future impeachment proceedings.

Meanwhile, impeachment trial spokesperson Ace Barbers emphasized that the threshold decision should not be interpreted as an indication of how senator-judges will vote on the actual impeachment charges.

‘But we believe that it is not an indication of the possible results of the vote they will make once all four articles have already been presented by the prosecution,’ Barbers said.

Barbers explained that the Impeachment Court’s decision focused only on a procedural matter involving the computation of the required votes for conviction. It did not involve an evaluation of the evidence or the merits of the four Articles of Impeachment filed against Duterte.

‘We do not want to preempt whatever decision they will make,’ Barbers said.

The prosecution has already presented evidence related to Article I, involving allegations concerning confidential funds, and Article IV, involving alleged grave threats. Proceedings on Article II, which concerns alleged unexplained wealth, are still ongoing, while Article III, involving alleged bribery, has yet to be presented.

Trial spokesperson Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia-ur Rahman Alonto Adiong explained that the revised voting threshold was created in response to the unusual circumstances affecting the current Senate membership and was not intended to become a universal standard for future impeachment cases.

‘The main point is that what is happening now is very extraordinary because it affects the membership of the Senate,’ Alonto Adiong explained.

The dispute emerged because some senators may be unable to fully participate in the proceedings due to circumstances such as detention, absence, medical conditions, or other limitations. While the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of all Senate members for conviction, it does not provide a specific numerical figure.

‘But the practical application of this two-thirds fraction, in order to arrive at a final number for the Senate to make its decision, was what was being discussed,’ Alonto Adiong said.

He noted that the commonly recognized figure of 16 votes assumes a complete 24-member Senate that is fully capable of performing its constitutional duties during the final judgement.

‘The expectation of that number 24 is based on the assumption that there would be no consequences or special circumstances occurring, aside from situations such as death or vacancy,’ Alonto Adiong noted.

AN Austin, Texas-headquartered company sees significant opportunities in the Philippine digital finance market as the firm seeks to expand its business in Southeast Asia.

According to Troy Nyi Nyi, senior vice president and general manager for Asia Pacific at SEON Technologies Ltd., the rapid growth of digital transactions, alongside increasingly sophisticated fraud threats, in the country is a key growth driver for the company, which operates the eponymous Seon fraud-prevention platform.

Nyi Nyi told the BusinessMirror in an email interview that the company has tapped local IT-solutions provider Exist Software Labs Inc. (ESLI) to help integrate its fraud prevention and anti-money laundering (AML) capabilities into clients’ existing technology environments.

Nyi Nyi said ESLI’s integration expertise allows real-time fraud and AML controls to be embedded into core systems rather than operating alongside them. ESLI, he added, can bring these capabilities into the technology environments that clients already use.

‘Seon [the platform] becomes part of a broader technology stack rather than arriving as a separate deployment project,’ Nyi Nyi explained.

‘Our starting point was whether a partner could put Seon [the platform] into environments that are already complex and already running. [ESLI] met that bar, with more than two decades in software engineering and systems integration and a track record with banking, fintech and payments organisations across the region,’ he added.

Nyi Nyi said company executives believe their partnership with ESLI ‘extends our reach to more organizations as they strengthen their defenses against evolving financial crime.’

The growing role of online platforms in everyday commerce has been underscored by a central bank report that digital payments accounted for 64.7 percent of total retail transaction volume in 2025, up from 57.4 percent in 2024.

‘Organizations across banking, fintech, payments, e-commerce and iGaming are dealing with more sophisticated identity fraud, transaction abuse and financial crime, while needing to keep digital experiences fast and convenient for legitimate customers,’ Nyi Nyi said.

‘That creates a growing need for fraud prevention that operates in real time without adding unnecessary friction,’ he added.

Complementary

ACCORDING to Nyi Nyi, the partnership also brings together what the company describes as ‘complementary capabilities.’

He explained that Seon Technologies provides fraud and financial-crime intelligence covering fraud detection and risk scoring, customer and payment screening, AML transaction monitoring, identity verification, case management and reporting.

ESLI, meanwhile, provides the integration expertise needed to connect these capabilities with the systems that clients already use.

Nyi Nyi said fraudsters rarely operate through a single channel, making it important for organizations to connect signals across identity, devices, behavior and transactions to obtain a more complete picture of risk.

While most organizations already have fraud and compliance tools in place, he said many of these systems were not designed to work together, leaving risk information fragmented across different parts of the business.

‘We do not want clients to feel that fixing that means starting from scratch,’ he said. ‘Seon [the platform[ operates as an AI command center for fraud prevention and AML compliance rather than a point solution bolted onto one stage of the journey.’

Afasa

NYI Nyi also pointed to the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (Afasa) as another stimulant for the digital finance market. According to him, the law raised expectations for safeguards to be embedded across the full digital customer journey rather than applied as bolt-on checks after onboarding.

According to Nyi Nyi, risks need to be assessed continuously, beginning even before know-your-customer (KYC) procedures and extending through login, checkout and payouts, with decisions that remain explainable and auditable for regulators and supervisors.

Requirements also vary from one market to another, Nyi Nyi said. Regulations like the Afasa prompt organizations to adopt governance that can adjust to local regulatory lists and frameworks while maintaining consistency across borders.

For Seon Technologies, the opportunity lies in bringing together more risk signals so fraud teams can make decisions in real time when a customer is onboarding or a payment is being processed, rather than reviewing transactions only after the fact.

THE Philippine Global Media Group (PGMG) based in the US and Media Touchstone Ventures Inc. (MTVi) that operates in the Philippines have formally entered into a partnership to produce a coffee-table book chronicling the journeys, dreams, achievements and enduring legacies of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans in California.

The Memorandum of Agreement was signed by MTVi President Melandrew T. Velasco, PGMG President Dan E. Niño and PGMG Chairman Val G. Abelgas, with PGMG Public Relations Officer Ellen Rodriguez-Swing serving as the project’s Marketing Director.

The agreement was concluded following the unanimous approval of the PGMG Board, reflecting the organization’s full support for the publication and its commitment to preserve and promote the history, accomplishments and contributions of the Filipino community in California.

Tentatively titled ‘Filipinos in California: Journeys, Dreams, Achievements and Legacies,’ the premium coffee-table book will feature distinguished Filipino-Americans, community leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, artists, media practitioners, public servants, organizations, businesses and institutions whose stories reflect the growth and influence of the Filipino community in the Golden State.

The publication will document the experiences of Filipinos who built new lives in California while preserving their cultural identity and maintaining meaningful ties with the Philippines. It will also highlight the contributions of successive generations of Filipino-Americans to public service, healthcare, education, business, science and technology, media, culture, sports, the arts and community development.

Beyond recognizing individual success stories, the book seeks to preserve Filipino-American community history and institutional memory, inspire the younger generation, strengthen cultural pride and provide a valuable historical and educational reference for families, schools, libraries, universities and community organizations.

The project supports PGMG’s mission of advancing responsible journalism, amplifying Filipino voices, preserving cultural heritage and promoting service to the community. Through the combined networks and capabilities of PGMG and MTVi, the publication is envisioned as both a historical record and a legacy project that will connect generations of Filipinos in California and beyond.

‘This is more than a publishing venture. It is a collective effort to document the Filipino experience in California and ensure that the sacrifices, accomplishments and contributions of our community are remembered by future generations,’ said Niño.

Abelgas, who will also serve as Senior Editor of the project, underscored the importance of documenting the community’s history through credible journalism and compelling storytelling.

‘The Filipino presence in California has a long, rich and inspiring history. This coffee-table book will help bring together the stories of the people and institutions that have shaped that history and continue to build a lasting Filipino-American legacy,’ Abelgas said.

‘The credibility of this project rests on careful research, professional editorial standards and the trust of the Filipino-American community,’ Velasco said. ‘Our goal is to produce a beautiful and historically meaningful publication that does justice to the people, institutions and stories that have helped shape California.’