Category: Philippines Daily Inquirer

Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. (IMI), a manufacturing arm of Ayala Group, divested its stake in Germany-based VIA Optronics Holding as part of its effort to strengthen core business.

In a stock filing on Friday, the company said it had sold its 50.32 percent interest in VIA Optronics, a provider of interactive display systems and solutions, to Kronen 3140 GmbH.

IMI did not disclose the value of the transaction.

‘This strategic divestment is part of IMI’s portfolio realignment strategy, which aims to sharpen the company’s focus on its core strengths in the automotive and industrial EMS sectors,’ it said.

Local vendors on Wednesday urged the city council to reject a public-private partnership (PPP) proposal from a mall developer to build a modern market, arguing that it would bind the city to a ‘market mallification’ deal that could last 50 years.

Instead, lawyer Zosimo Abratique said the city government could revive and finance an architectural plan for a modern market that vendors helped draft in 2019 through a directive by Mayor Benjamin Magalong.

That plan for a multilevel market building ‘was worked out every Thursday’ at the Baguio Market Vendors Association office, said Abratique, whose family runs a stall in the city market.

The collaborative effort with local architects incorporated special design features memorializing unique sections of the city market, such as ‘kaldero’ (cooking pot) and ‘chichirya’ (snacks or junk food).

However, the project required a P2.6-billion fund and, although adopted by the council, was set aside after city officials concluded that Baguio could not finance it without disrupting public services.

Signature campaign

The city government subsequently entertained several firms that submitted unsolicited proposals for the 6-hectare prime market property.

The group of rice, fish, meat, and vegetable traders also submitted the initial set of signatures they had gathered in an ongoing public campaign to the local government on Wednesday afternoon. Vendors continued to solicit support to ‘save’ the Baguio market on Thursday.

Abratique’s statements revived discussions on the original market plan two days after Vice Mayor Faustino Olowan said vendors’ objections were being heard. However, Olowan asked them to provide the city council with a workable alternative should it reject the PPP offer being negotiated with the mall developer.

Olowan said he was aware of the signature campaign against the P4.5-billion proposal now under council review.

He noted that some local officials have familial ties to the market, making them protective of the vendors and the legacy of the city’s main food hub, which began as an informal trading area of Cordillerans before a stone market was built in 1917.

Baguio residents, vendors, and activists have also proposed ‘crowdfunding’ as a solution to the government’s financial limitations for the market redevelopment.

Raising funds through donations and other arrangements with Baguio residents would allow the city to retain ownership of the century-old market and preserve its history, said Geraldine Cacho, chair of policy advocacy group Tongtongan ti Umili, during a Nov. 7 consultation organized by the council. INQ

Cacho cited how residents and local businesses financed the construction of the fence surrounding Burnham Park in 2013-an initiative led by the late Baguio Bishop Carlito Cenzon. With the same model, she said, residents and Baguio-based businesses could bankroll the modernization of the market, ‘since it is a public facility, we want to save for Baguio

Sun Life of Canada, the country’s leading insurance firm, is unfazed by domestic political challenges and anemic economic growth triggered by the deepening probe into public infrastructure corruption.

The insurer, which has reached its 130th year of operating in the Philippines, expects its local business to grow at a double-digit pace in 2026. This is despite the series of economic growth downgrades by a number of financial institutions following the country’s disappointing third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) performance.

‘We’re really focused on double-digit growth next year. There’s market volatility, but we’ve been through it. So we’re staying optimistic,’ Benedict Sison, CEO and country head at Sun Life Financial, says in an interview with the Inquirer.

‘We’ve been through several difficulties-martial law and all . If we allow [these] to affect our business, nothing will happen. So we just stay focused on our purpose to help Filipinos achieve lifetime financial security,’ he says.

As such, Sison notes that Sun Life has been able to maintain its leadership in this market.

To outpace GDP growth

In 2024, Sun Life topped the local life insurance industry in terms of net income (P10.68 billion) and premium income (P57.14 billion). The numbers are based on annual statements submitted to the Insurance Commission.

The double-digit growth targeted by the Canadian company for 2026 is much faster than the low- to mid-single digit GDP expansion expected by many economists for the country next year.

In the third quarter, Philippine GDP grew by just 4 percent, the worst performance seen since the recession caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns.

‘We’ve developed lots of products this year. We had one or two products every quarter. Because it’s very volatile, the preference of the Filipino market changes,’ he says.

Navigating the volatility

Because of the market volatility seen since the COVID-19 lockdowns, he says many clients have shifted from variable unit-linked to traditional life insurance products.

He also notes that Sun Life has been listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange for 25 years.

‘It means it demonstrates our confidence in the country’s economy,’ quips Sison.

He says the company is now trying to broaden its reach to include more overseas Filipino workers and high-net worth individuals-including the employees and professionals.

Overall, the Sun Life group, including various operating units, has built a local client base of more than 5 million.

‘Our purpose is not only expanding the number of clients, but also deepening a relationship with the clients. That means to sell more (products to the same client),’ he explains.

To date, less than 50 percent of total clients hold more than one Sun Life product, he reckons.

While the company is increasingly using digital channels, internal research shows that Filipinos ‘would still want to talk to somebody, to somebody they trust,’ Sison says.

As such, agency force is still seen as very crucial in expanding the business.

However, he says Sun Life is likewise building its capability to harness artificial intelligence (AI), particularly agentic AI, the type of AI that can make human-like decisions using good data. INQ

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has released payment guidelines for employees for three special non-working days and two regular holidays in December 2025.

The DOLE said that the payment rules are based on the Labor Advisory No. 17, Series of 2025, which is pursuant to the Proclamation No. 727, Series of 2024 which declared December 8 (Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary), December 24 (Christmas Eve), and December 31 (last day of the year) as special non-working days and December 25 (Christmas Day) and December 30 (Rizal Day) as regular holidays.

The following pay rules must be observed for December 8, December 24, and December 31 (special non-working days):

‘No work, no pay’ principle must be applied, unless there is a company policy or collective bargaining agreement granting special pay

For work done during the special day, the employee must be paid an additional 30 percent of the basic wage for the first eight hours (basic wage x 130 percent)

For work done in excess of eight hours, the employee must be given an additional 30 percent of the hourly rate of the said day (hourly rate of the basic wage x 130 percent x 130 percent x number of hours worked)

For work done during a special day that also falls on a rest day, the employee must be paid additional 50 percent of the basic wage for the first eight hours of work (basic wage x 150 percent)

For work done in excess of eight hours during the special day that also falls on a rest day, the employee will be given an additional 30 percent of the hourly rate on the said day (hourly rate of basic wage x 150 percent x 130 percent x number of hours worked)

Payment guidelines for December 25 (Christmas Day) and December 30 (Rizal Day):

The employee is entitled to 100 percent of their basic wage for that day, provided that they report to work or are on leave with pay on the day immediately preceding the regular holiday. Meanwhile, if the day before the regular holiday is a non-working day or a scheduled rest day, the employee must be given a holiday pay if they report to work or are on leave with pay on the previous working day. (Basic wage x 100 percent)

For work done during the regular holiday, the employee must be given double pay for the first eight hours of work. (Basic wage x 200 percent)

For work done in excess of eight hours, the employer must pay an additional 30% of the hourly rate on the said day. (Hourly rate of the basic wage x 200 percent x 130 percent x number of hours worked)

For work done in excess of eight hours during a regular holiday that also falls on the employee’s rest day, they must be paid an additional 30 percent of the hourly rate on the said day (hourly rate of the basic wage x 200 percent x 130 percent x 130 percent x number of hours worked.)

Meanwhile, the DOLE recently reminded private employers that the 13th-month pay of their employees must be paid on or before December 24, 2025. The agency also noted that the 13th-month pay should not be less than 1/12 of the total basic salary in a calendar year.

Four hundred and twenty-eight police officers were dismissed from the service between Aug. 26 and Nov. 26, 2025 for violations of law enforcement regulations, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said on Friday.

This was the result of the resolution of 1,339 administrative cases during the said period, according to the PNP in a statement.

Meanwhile, 71 police officers were demoted; 448 were suspended; and the remaining 1,361 were subjected to other penalties, the PNP noted.

It added that 1,152 other cases against police officers were dismissed. The police force maintained that the dismissals highlighted the ‘due process’ of its internal disciplinary mechanisms.

‘A disciplined police service builds public confidence. When we uphold fairness and responsibility inside the organization, we earn the respect of the communities we serve,’ acting PNP chief, Lt. Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. said in the statement.

For the first time since 2013, a Far Eastern University standout is expected to take home a UAAP men’s basketball Most Valuable Player award.

At the end of the Season 88 men’s basketball elimination round, Tamaraw sophomore Janrey Pasaol led the statistical points ladder with 81.5 SPs despite missing out on a Final Four spot.

Pasaol will be the first MVP for FEU since Terrence Romeo in 2013.

After 14 games, Pasaol normed 15.43 points, 7.5 assists, 4.14 rebounds and 2.14 steals per game.

Unfortunately, his efforts weren’t enough to will the Tamaraws to a playoff spot. They ended with a 7-7 record.

La Salle’s Mike Phillips finished second-best in the MVP race with 80.429 SPs. University of Santo Tomas’ foreign student-athlete Collins Akowe placed third with 79.286 SPs.

The league also noted that since Akowe didn’t top the statistical race, he will not be given the Best Foreign Student-Athlete award, a plum introduced by the UAAP this season.

Meanwhile, in the women’s division, National University’s Kaye Pingol led the MVP race with 93.571 SPs. Goodluck Okebata of the University of the East is the leader of the JHS division’s MVP joust with 96.214 SPs.

Love makes people notice your brand. Trust makes them stay.

Yet many companies chase ‘brand love’ as if it were the endgame, pouring budgets into viral campaigns, celebrity tie-ups and grand launches.

But affection built on hype is fragile. One crisis, one bad review, one broken promise-and that love vanishes.

In the Philippines, this distinction matters even more. Filipino consumers are passionate yet discerning. They admire, but they walk away when disappointed. Years of overpromising ads and inconsistent service have made them cautious.

In an environment of short attention spans and endless options, emotion alone rarely sustains loyalty.

Emotion vs logic

Brand love is emotional, built on passion and aspiration. It drives excitement and advocacy. But it’s fleeting. One misstep and affection turns to apathy.

Brand trust, on the other hand, is logical-earned through reliability, integrity and consistency over time. It grows slowly but endures through crises and competition.

Love attracts. Trust retains.

2 contrasting stories: Lily’s Peanut Butter and Samsung Galaxy Note 7

Lily’s Peanut Butter is a quiet force. No celebrity endorser, no massive campaigns-just 60 years of being present on Filipino tables. It thrives not on hype but on heritage, consistency and familiarity.

In contrast, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 launched to global admiration in 2016. Consumers loved its innovation until reports of exploding batteries surfaced. Airlines banned it. Sales halted. Trust evaporated overnight. No amount of love could override fear.

Yet Samsung didn’t disappear. Instead, it rebuilt credibility step by step, a process we call the Trust Flywheel.

How Samsung rebuilt trust: The Trust Flywheel

The Note 7 crisis could have ended Samsung’s dominance. Instead, the company turned disaster into a masterclass in restoring trust.

1. Humility: Samsung took full responsibility. Public apologies were issued, and 2.5 million units were recalled. Safety came before profit.

2. Cultural literacy: The company localized its response. A firmware update limited charging to 60 percent during the recall, balancing safety with convenience, especially in markets like the Philippines, where phones are lifelines.

3. Empathy: Customers were inconvenienced and Samsung acknowledged it, offering full refunds or exchanges.

4. Transparency: Over 700 engineers tested 200,000 devices and 30,000 batteries. Results were shared publicly, rebuilding credibility through openness.

5. Authenticity: Postcrisis communication matched action. No PR spin, just honesty.

6. Consistency: A new eight-point battery safety check became part of every future product. Later launches proved this was not token compliance but embedded change.

7. Accountability: Samsung absorbed the full financial and reputational cost without shifting blame.

By early 2017, just months after the recall, Samsung regained its No. 1 position in global smartphone sales. That rebound wasn’t luck. It was trust, rebuilt and rewarded.

The anatomy of trust: 3 dimensions, 7 signals

Trust isn’t a campaign. It’s an ecosystem built when beliefs, words and actions align. Together with anthropologist Chiqui Escareal-Go, we decoded seven repeatable trust signals across three dimensions:

1. Internal values: Humility, cultural literacy, empathy

Define who the brand truly is. These values shape how it listens, learns and responds. Without them, initiatives risk being performative.

2. Transparency-The bridge

Make internal values visible-no ifs, no buts. By openly sharing successes, setbacks and decisions, it turns intention into credibility.

3. External Behaviors-authenticity, consistency, accountability

These are promises in action: reliable service, truthful communication, responsible conduct. Without aligned values and transparency, even genuine acts can appear hollow.

In short:

Values reveal what a brand stands for.

Transparency proves those values are real.

Behavior delivers them in practice.

The Trust Flywheel spins when all three dimensions align. It shows how brands, organizations, and personalities can build, protect and restore trust using a strategic, repeatable framework grounded in clear behaviors, not just emotional appeal.

Every aligned action adds momentum. When values and behaviors reinforce each other, trust builds faster. Miss a step, skip a principle or act inconsistently, and the flywheel stalls. Fail completely, trust is eroded faster than it was earned.

Examples in practice

Lily’s Peanut Butter shows how quiet consistency sustains loyalty. It doesn’t need to shout. It simply delivers on its promise generation after generation.

Samsung proves that even global giants can fall, but with humility and accountability, they can rise again. Its recovery was not powered by marketing but by operational integrity.

The trust economy: Why it matters now

According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, 80 percent of global consumers now trust brands more than they trust government or media.

In the Philippines, trust isn’t assumed; it’s earned.

We live in a trust economy. Consumers don’t just buy products; they choose partners who reflect their values. Emotional marketing may spark attention, but only trust sustains it.

Trust today is operational, measurable and strategic:

Brands that respond transparently in crises build resilience.

Companies that deliver consistently reduce churn.

Organizations that align internal values with external actions create lasting advocacy.

Trust also drives business outcomes. Brands with high trust ratings command price premiums and enjoy stronger retention better than those built on buzz.

Trust, in other words, isn’t just ethical; it’s profitable.

If your brand wants to survive shifts, crises and competition, don’t just aim to be loved; aim to be trusted.

Are you ready to turn your own Trust Flywheel? -CONTRIBUTED

The Senate has restored the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) 2026 budget to its original level of P889 million, approving it in plenary on Thursday in less than five minutes – with no questions asked and no objections made – in stark contrast to the contentious process at the House of Representatives.

The next hurdle will be at the bicameral level, where the Senate and the House must reconcile their versions of the OVP budget. There was no need for such last year because the Senate had then adopted the House-approved P733 million for the OVP after P1.29 billion of the original proposal was realigned to other agencies.

The House earlier reduced the OVP budget to P733 million, similar to its 2025 budget, after Vice President Sara Duterte snubbed budget deliberations over her unmet demands, including that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should also show up to defend his office’s budget.

The vice president and the House had been feuding over her controversial intelligence funds when she was still education secretary.

In November last year, the House cited Duterte’s chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, for contempt and detained her at the Batasang Pambansa.

The vice president then refused to attend any of this year’s budget deliberations at the House.

She, however, showed up at the Senate on Thursday but stayed only briefly, as the entire process finished faster than last year’s 10-minute record.

‘Next year’

Duterte faced the media shortly after but dodged political questions.

‘Thank you, next year na,’ she told reporters when asked to comment on resigned Rep. Zaldy Co’s statements supposedly linking Marcos to graft-related anomalies in the national budget.

This was also her answer when she was pressed to disclose whether she was ready to succeed the president amid rumors of a destabilization plot.

Duterte further deflected queries by extending holiday greetings to the media instead.

‘And I wish you good health in the year 2026. We’d like to thank the Senate of the Philippines for approving the OVP year 2026 budget,’ she said.

Only Sen. Robinhood Padilla, a known Duterte ally, manifested his support for the OVP’s proposed funding after Sen. JV Ejercito moved for its approval.

‘I am pleased because here in our chamber, we did not reduce the budget of our Vice President; instead, we increased it,’ Padilla said in Filipino.

He went on to praise Duterte, who he said has always helped Filipinos ‘whenever calamities, sorrow, or death occur.’

‘I am happy and grateful to our colleagues. Thank you very much, and I am glad that the constraint or pressure against our Vice President did not come from this chamber,’ he added.

In October, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel ‘Migz’ Zubiri moved to extend parliamentary courtesy to the OVP at the committee level, saying that its proposed budget for next year was already ‘lean and mean.’

The OVP’s budget did not include allocations for intelligence funds next year.

Duterte had earlier said that she did not ask for a significantly higher budget in 2026 to avoid putting OVP officials in embarrassing situations during budget deliberations.

‘I don’t like to see OVP personnel being embarrassed when they face the House or the Senate,’ Duterte said in June ahead of Marcos’ submission of the National Expenditure Program to Congress.

The local business sector remained ‘resilient’ this year, as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) logged more than 43,000 new companies as of end-October.

While posting a decline from a year ago’s 45,624 registrations, the 10-month figure still mirrored the country’s ‘sustained entrepreneurial activity, according to SEC.

Breaking down, the newly registered entities are composed of 30,671 stock corporations, 10,117 non-stock corporations and 2,397 partnerships.

The regulator likewise noted a jump in foreign stock corporations, increasing from 116 to 206 registrations. The SEC said this showed ‘growing interest from foreign investors.’

This brings the total number of active corporations to 578,272, of which 420,483 are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

By business type

By industry, 22 percent of these active corporations are in the wholesale and retail trade industry; 8 percent in real estate; while accommodation and food services, administrative and support services, and construction companies account for 6 percent each.

‘The SEC is consistently looking for ways to streamline the company registration process as this is the first step entrepreneurs have to go through to expand and grow their businesses,’ SEC chair Francis Lim said.

‘Beyond improving the registration process, we also want to ensure that maintaining their active status remains easy and accessible to support seamless and uninterrupted operations,’ he added.

During plenary deliberations on the proposed 2026 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Senator Loren Legarda reiterated the need to apply nature-based solutions in public infrastructure planning and costing.

While she has long emphasized in her speeches that ‘Nurturing nature is our strongest flood defense,’ Legarda called for costing frameworks that also account for ecological and hybrid designs, compared with traditional civil works.

The four-term senator called on the Department of Public Works and Highways to extend the same rigor it has applied in revising its Construction Materials Price Data (CMPD) and Detailed Unit Price Analysis (DUPA) for traditional projects, such as roads, bridges, floodwalls, and pumping stations, to ecological and hybrid designs. Legarda urged the agency to ensure that nature-based solutions are given equal footing in the costing process, so they can be fairly considered alongside conventional civil works.

Legarda, a long-term advocate of environmental protection and climate action, said that constructed wetlands, vegetated floodplains, detention parks, bioswales, permeable surfaces, urban forests, mangrove and riparian restoration, and other climate-resilient landscape interventions are not only climate-resilient but also potentially more cost-effective over their lifecycle.

‘These approaches reduce energy use, withstand climate extremes, and deliver co-benefits for biodiversity, health, and tourism. Yet without standardized costing frameworks, they remain excluded from formal programming and from fair comparison with conventional civil works,’ she said.

Uniquely positioned

Legarda underscored that the Philippines, with its abundance of indigenous resources and ecological diversity, is uniquely positioned to lead in modern, climate-conscious infrastructure design.

‘We cannot continue to measure infrastructure value only in terms of cement,’ Legarda declared. ‘True value-for-money must account for the resilience and sustainability that nature-based solutions bring to our communities. If DPWH fails to integrate these into its costing, we are missing the opportunity to build smarter, greener infrastructure.’

Legarda proposed a dedicated Nature-Based Solutions Costing Framework, parallel to CPMD and DUPA, that would establish standardized unit costs, design templates, and material benchmarks for ecological and hybrid infrastructure.

‘We must conduct comparative cost-benefit and lifecycle analyses between traditional flood control structures and nature-based alternatives, particularly hybrid models that combine both approaches,’ Legarda said.

Legarda further called for a formal study to assess the integration of indigenous and locally sourced materials, such as bamboo, coconut lumber, volcanic aggregates, local stone, and native plant species, into national standards.

‘We have the resources, knowledge, and urgency. What we need is the institutional will to mainstream these solutions into our infrastructure program,’ she added.

She also suggested a pilot program, in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Department of Economic and Development (DEPDev), and the academe, to generate local cost data on nature-based and indigenous-material-based infrastructure. According to Legarda, such a program would ensure more sustainable, value-for-money investment decisions while grounding infrastructure planning in Philippine realities.

Legarda, in plenary deliberations with various agencies on the 2026 General Appropriations Bill, has consistently pushed for an all-government approach anchored on nature-based solutions. She underscored that embedding ecological resilience and sustainable practices into fiscal planning is vital to align infrastructure modernization with environmental stewardship.