Category: Philippines Daily Inquirer

NLEX looks to strengthen its hold on a PBA Governors’ Cup quarterfinal berth on Wednesday when the conference resumes after a nearly two-month break, while TNT and Terrafirma clash in a game with major implications in Group A’s top-four race.

The Road Warriors face a depleted Macau side at 5:15 p.m. before the Tropang 5G battle the Dyip at 7:30 p.m. at Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

NLEX returns with new import Deonte Burton and a 7-2 record, tied with San Miguel Beer atop Group A, as the drawn-out 50th PBA season resumes following a pause for Gilas Pilipinas’ campaigns in the Fiba World Cup Asian Qualifiers and the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

Burton replaced the injured DeQuan Jones and gives the Road Warriors a different look with his perimeter game and up-tempo style.

‘I think he’s made huge strides, and I think that’s the advantage of having him in this break,’ NLEX coach Jimmy Alapag said of Burton, who saw action in tune-up games against Magnolia, Mongolia’s Omni Erdenet Miners and Barangay Ginebra.

‘He’s been with the team for probably three weeks now, so hopefully that by playing these tuneup games, he would find his rhythm and find a way to help us,’ Alapag added.

NLEX also gets back star guard Robert Bolick after his stint with Gilas in the Asian Games.

The Road Warriors will face a Macau team missing Damian Chong Qui, Ramon Cao, Jenning Leung and import De’vondre Perry. The Giant Pandas added Oscar Lopez Jr. and Chen Li Hsing while activating Chong Pong Lao.

Macau carries a 2-6 record into the resumption of a difficult guest campaign, leaving NLEX with an opportunity to move closer to securing its place in the knockout stage.

Members of the newly elected Bangsamoro Parliament must be free to choose their leaders, including who will head the regional executive, Peace Adviser Mel Senen Sarmiento said on Wednesday.

‘The gains of the peace process must now be carried forward through the parliamentary process,’ Sarmiento said in a statement. ‘Members of Parliament must be free to choose their leaders and determine who will lead the executive branch.’

Respecting that choice, he said, ‘honors the essence of autonomy and self-determination, and the trust that voters have placed in their representatives.’

Sarmiento, who also chairs the government’s Peace Implementing Panel, described the Sept. 14 elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) as ‘successful and relatively peaceful.’ He said, ‘Our duty is clear: respect the will of the people and sustain the peace they have worked so hard to achieve.’

He urged elected leaders to ‘rise above political divisions’ and place the welfare of the Bangsamoro people ‘at the center of every decision.’ Healthy and respectful debate strengthens democracy, he said, but ‘differences must never stand in the way of serving our communities.’

The statement did not name a party or a candidate for chief minister. It was issued following the close of National Peace Consciousness Month, as the country marks Indigenous Peoples Month.

It came two days after 10 Bangsamoro civil society organizations released a manifesto urging President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to stay out of choosing the next chief minister and leave the choice to the elected Parliament.

The 80-member Parliament was proclaimed shortly after midnight on September 16. Canvass figures showed 2,018,478 voters cast ballots, a turnout of 84.34 percent.

Of the 40 regional party seats, the Bangsamoro Federalist Party won 16, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party 15, the BARMM Grand Coalition eight, and the Raayat Democratic Party one. District and sectoral representatives hold the remaining seats.

The Sept.14 vote was the first regular parliamentary election in BARMM, held 12 years after the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro.

A portion of the national highway in Barangay Taguihon here was closed on Wednesday after a section of the concrete road was found damaged and sinking, possibly due to a sinkhole.

The local government said authorities are inspecting the affected portion to determine whether a sinkhole is causing its gradual collapse.

As a safety precaution, authorities barred vehicles from passing through the affected section to prevent possible accidents.

Taguihon is one of Baclayon’s barangays along the national highway linking the town to Tagbilaran City and other municipalities in eastern Bohol.

Motorists were directed to use the Diversion Road-Sto. Niño Provincial Road, which connects to President Carlos P. Garcia Avenue, as an alternative route.

Authorities advised motorists to exercise caution, avoid the closed section and follow traffic advisories while the inspection into the cause of the road’s sinking continues.

For 24 years, the Arnold Janssen Catholic Mission Foundation, Inc. (AJCMFI), has raised money to keep its Alternative Learning System (ALS) program going. We have lost experienced teachers whose commitment to the mission I never doubted. Some moved to public schools because they needed better salaries to provide for their families. Others remain.

I understood their decision to leave. Our salaries were around the minimum-wage level, far below public school teaching salaries. Each departure meant losing someone who knew how to accompany learners returning after years away from school. Their years of working with ALS learners have developed skills that academic qualifications alone cannot provide.

While the Philippines battles to improve educational quality, community ALS providers like ours are also fighting to survive. The two concerns meet whenever we cannot retain a good teacher. If ALS is to offer a dependable second chance, the institutions delivering it need dependable support.

The AJCMFI partners with the Department of Education (DepEd) in delivering ALS. Our Catholic identity inspires this work. We equally serve Muslim learners in Marawi and Lanao del Sur, indigenous Molbog learners in Palawan, and learners, mostly from poor families, in several urban centers.

In Palawan, indigenous learners who acquired literacy can now cast their votes without someone else assisting them. In Metro Manila and Cavite, some learners have gained skills, found work, and began earning for themselves. Education gives them greater control over their own lives.

The Second Congressional Commission on Education’s (Edcom 2) 2026 final report, ‘Turning Point: A Decade of Necessary Reform,’ reports that only 46.2 percent of ALS enrollees completed the program in school year 2023-2024. Sustaining the people and institutions delivering ALS must be part of improving that result.

Support through DepEd’s Abot-Alam program and its partnership with Development Academy of the Philippines showed how public financing could strengthen community ALS, including our work after the Marawi siege and in Lanao del Sur. It offers an experience worth building on.

In Rio Tuba, a mining company has continued supporting indigenous education. In Dasmariñas, the local government supports ALS. But in Balabac, there is no dependable sponsor to support our work. Educational opportunity should not depend on whether a community happens to have a corporate sponsor or benefactor.

Revised Special Education Fund guidelines allow local governments to support ALS, including hiring Community ALS implementors. Smaller providers should know how to apply, how proposals are assessed, and why support is granted or declined. National financing is also needed where local resources are limited.

Some of our more dependable support has come from parishes, private schools such as Saint Jude Catholic School, and religious congregations. Some diocesan and religious-owned schools also run their own ALS centers. Making ALS part of an institution’s continuing mission gives it greater stability. Religious and civic communities can build on this experience.

Private companies and individual benefactors have carried much of our mission’s cost. Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) connected through Filipino chaplaincy work in Madrid, Berlin, Hong Kong, and Ansan have also helped. Non-Catholic supporters also believe that education can help people overcome poverty and make decisions for themselves.

An SVD mission procurator in Austria helped for about three years. Donors’ circumstances and preferences change, and repeated appeals can exhaust goodwill.

The ALS Support Group from Sacred Heart Parish Shrine in the Diocese of Cubao initiated ‘Swing to Educate 3,’ a charity golf fundraiser for ALS. Their effort brings companies and individual benefactors into a shared educational cause.

I am considering a network of individuals who commit a modest amount regularly. Some SVD missions were sustained by members of their faith communities through small, consistent contributions. Our OFW supporters have shown similar generosity. Such a network needs honest reports and continuing trust.

Predictable contributions would help us plan teachers’ pay and classes beyond the next fundraising event. They would complement public partnerships and institutional donors. Public support must be accountable, and private generosity deserves the same care.

I hope companies, communities, and Filipinos worldwide will become regular ALS partners. Our teachers should be able to serve learners and provide decently for their own families.

After 24 years, we know that ALS can change lives. What remains uncertain is whether we can sustain the people who make those changes possible. Giving learners a dependable chance to learn is a responsibility we can share, whatever our faith.

A 33-year-old man was killed while two others were wounded in a stabbing brawl late Monday in Sitio Amuguis, Barangay Sta. Rita here.

The victim was declared dead on arrival when first responders tried to provide emergency treatment. The two other injured victims were identified as a 60-year-old man and a 40-year-old man, both of whom received medical assistance and were transported to a health facility.

Dennis Escosora, head of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Department, said on Wednesday that the stabbings occurred during a drinking spree.

The Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) have begun processing the site, and authorities are conducting a full investigation to establish the motive and identify the perpetrators.

Malaysia anticipates increasing its palm oil exports to the Philippines this year due to expected tighter supply from Indonesia, according to an industry group.

‘I’m expecting exports to the Philippines to increase,’ Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) CEO Belvinder Sron said on Wednesday. ‘We probably exported more than 700,000 [metric] tons. We are definitely looking at sustaining that market.’

Sron said the archipelago will see increased palm oil shipments primarily due to limited supplies from Indonesia. Indonesia has boosted its domestic consumption after increasing its biodiesel blend to 50 percent oil-based fuel starting in July this year.

‘A lot of palm is being used domestically in the Indonesian market. There’s going to be less supply out there, so the country that will be able to provide sufficient supply for export markets will be Malaysia,’ Sron said on the sidelines of the Malaysian Palm Oil Forum.

‘We are in a position where we still have a lot of quantity or a lot of supply available for our markets there,’ she told Filipino journalists.

Sron predicts that Indonesia will use 17 million MT of palm oil for biodiesel, which will reduce the volume available for export to various importing countries.

Meanwhile, Malaysia is targeting at least 16 million MT in palm oil exports this year, up 5.3 percent from the actual shipment of 15.2 million MT in 2025as improved production bolsters its supply despite no increase in the total area planted with palm oil.

Sron said the El Niño phenomenon won’t immediately affect Malaysia’s palm oil production, adding, ‘We are only going to see that effect probably in 2027. At the moment, production has been good. We are in the peak production month.’

‘Even production is going to be good in this country. Production is not a problem here because the yields are improving. Our land area has not increased, but we are focusing on yields,’ she added.

Regionally, Sron said palm oil shipments across Southeast Asia will rise, noting that the ASEAN markets are performing very well.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved P116 billion in amendments to the P7.2-trillion 2027 national budget, adopting the redistribution recommendations of a select panel of ranking lawmakers.

The House floor resolved through a division of the House whether to adopt the Budget Amendments Review Subcommittee’s (BARSc) recommendation to rechannel roughly P116 billion in amendments. The vote was by acclamation of lawmakers in plenary.

The voice vote followed an objection by ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, who opposed approving the budget realignments by substitution, arguing that the method lacked transparency.

‘A total of P116 billion was changed here, with the significant amendments … going to aid programs which involve the discretion of legislators in allocating these welfare funds,’ Tinio, an opposition lawmaker, told the floor in Filipino.

The People’s Budget Coalition, a civil group monitoring budget developments, said in a statement last week that about P99.41 billion, or 85 percent, ‘went to items we tag as red flags,’ referring to the amendments made by BARSc.

The bulk of the rechanneled funding was streamed toward programs that rely on ‘politician referrals’ and ‘infrastructure insertions with opaque project plans,’ it said.

Reina Mercedes, Isabela Vice Mayor Jeryll Harold Respicio on Wednesday (October 7) has been cleared by a P28,000 drug test at the St. Luke Medical Center in Quezon City.

After he got the results on Wednesday (October 7), the local official joked that Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla should now reimburse him.

‘Jonvic, refund me. The drug test is pricey,’ Respicio said after posting the results of the test for cocaine, ecstasy, opiates, methamphetamine, tricyclic antidepressants, terrahydrocannabinol, poproxyphen and benzodiazepenes.

A lawyer and an accountant, Respicio also posted the hospital invoice indicating his expenses.

The vice mayor had been controversial for a furious and expletive-laden exchange he had with barangay officials at a municipal council session on the use of tobacco excise tax shares.

This scene was recorded and posted online.

Remulla was quoted as saying, ‘I advised (Isabela Governor Rodolfo Albano III) to have the vice mayor undergo a drug test because his behavior looks like that of an addict.’

‘Is there any normal vice mayor who behaves like that? He seemed out of his mind. It was like he wasn’t himself,’ the secretary suspected.

‘Boss Jonvic, here are the results,’ Respicio said in his post.

Hours earlier, he tried to provoke Remulla into taking the drug test with him.

‘Secretary Jonvic, let us have a drug test… Accompany me to St. Lukes, now! Today! Let us see if Atty. Harold Respicio is using drugs,’ he posted.

He later announced in a live interview that the qualitative results of his drug test would be released within 15-minutes, and the quantitative results would take two hours.

Respicio said he will be willing to be penalized as long as the national government will also punish those alleged corrupt officials in his town, among others.

‘Let them punish me. But what I also want to happen is for them to punish those who are stealing from our town, and those who are taking advantage of the water, or the farmers,’ he later suggested.

More Filipinos were employed in August as unemployment and underemployment declined, but labor coalition Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro) called for more decent jobs and higher wages, saying the latest labor figures also raised concerns about the quality of employment and workers’ purchasing power.

The number of employed Filipinos rose to 49.79 million in August from 49.21 million in July, while unemployment fell to 5.3% from 6% and underemployment declined to 11.9% from 12.9%, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In a statement Wednesday, Sentro welcomed the improvement but said the employment figures should also be examined alongside the types of work being generated and the number of hours workers are getting.

‘From July to August, the largest increase in employment by class of worker came among those who worked without pay in their own family-operated farm or business-the so-called unpaid family workers. This was followed by the self-employed and then those who worked for private households,’ the labor coalition said.

It said the same pattern was seen in the annual change from August 2025 to August 2026, with unpaid family workers recording the largest increase, followed by self-employed workers without employees and those working for private households.

‘This tells us something important about the nature of the employment being generated. An increase in the number of employed Filipinos does not necessarily mean an increase in the number of Filipinos finding stable, adequately paid jobs,’ the group said.

The labor coalition also pointed to the decline in working hours. The average Filipino worker worked 39.2 hours a week in August, down from 40.6 hours in July and 41 hours a year earlier.

‘So the question is no longer simply whether Filipinos have jobs. The question is whether those jobs provide enough work and enough income to live decently,’ Sentro said.

The latest labor figures came as inflation accelerated sharply in September.

The PSA reported that headline inflation rose to 7.2% in September from 6.1% in August, with food inflation reaching 6.7% and transport inflation accelerating to 14.6%.

Inflation was even higher among households in the bottom 30% income group, rising to 9% in September from 8.2% in August.

According to the PSA, inflation for households in the bottom 30% income group in the National Capital Region (NCR) accelerated to 5.7% in September from 4.3% in August. Outside the NCR, it also increased to 9.1% from 8.4% over the same period.

Sentro said the combination of fewer working hours and rising prices was putting additional pressure on workers’ incomes.

‘The government should not be satisfied with simply counting jobs,’ the group said. ‘The real measure of employment recovery must be whether jobs provide workers with enough income to feed their families, pay their bills and live decently.’

Sentro reiterated its call for an immediate ?200 across-the-board national wage increase, saying it would help restore workers’ purchasing power and support domestic consumption.

It also called for a stronger industrial policy backed by public investment, a public employment program, greater protection for workers in informal, precarious and platform-based employment, and the convening of a national dialogue on the cost-of-living crisis.

The group said the proposed dialogue should bring together workers, employers, transport workers, farmers, consumers and government representatives to discuss rising prices, wages and household incomes.

Sentro also urged the government to consider faster wage adjustments when inflation accelerates, provide income support during major external shocks, protect workers and commuters from fuel and transport price increases, and strengthen domestic food production.

‘The August LFS tells us that Filipinos are willing to work,’ Sentro said. ‘The challenge is whether the economy can provide them with enough work, decent wages and secure livelihoods.’

Two bank accounts belonging to a banana chips company partly owned by Vice President Sara Duterte’s husband, Atty. Manases Carpio, were closed in July 2026, the same month her impeachment trial began, the Senate Impeachment Court learned on Wednesday.

During Senator-judge Francis ‘Kiko’ Pangilinan’s questioning, prosecution witness and Security Bank Branch Banking Group Head Leslie Cham confirmed that Calle88 Foods Corp. had two peso-denominated checking accounts with the bank, both of which were closed in July 2026.

The first account, ending in 2013, was opened in August 2024 and had an ending balance of P332,530.95 in 2024 and P16,987.59 in 2025. The second account, ending in 8581, was opened in October 2025 and had an ending balance of P21,164.27 that year.

‘Both closed in July 2026,’ Cham said.

When Pangilinan asked the witness if the bank had records of monthly transactions in the company’s accounts from 2024, Cham answered in the negative.

‘These are all system-generated, and I don’t look into the day-to-day transactions of it. So I was not able to have that transaction in place,’ Cham explained.

Pangilinan noted that the two accounts were opened and terminated when Duterte was already vice president.

‘So from 2024 to 2025 to 2026, it would be interesting to get the information as to the amounts that went in and out, considering that in the AMLC (Anti-Money Laundering Council) report, about P319 million went in for transactions from China,’ the senator-judge said.

‘So we don’t know if that was through the peso account or if that was through the dollar account. That would be something that is worthy of looking into, honestly,’ he added.

Testifying for the prosecution on Monday, AMLC Secretariat Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura confirmed that Calle88 received over P319 million in funds from various Chinese companies.

The company appeared in the vice president’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth from 2021 to 2025.

When later pressed by Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo, the Security Bank official confirmed that Calle88’s first account had total incoming and outgoing funds of P40,138,766.28 and P40,001,101.79, respectively.