Category: Philippines Daily Inquirer

Surigao del Norte Rep. Francisco ‘Lalo’ Matugas and his son Francisco ‘Bingo’ Matugas II are facing complaints for graft and malversation of public funds over an P80-million road project that allegedly remained unfinished yet reported on paper as complete, with the contractor already paid in full.

This was according to the spokesperson of the Office of the Ombudsman, who said the filing of the complaints was recommended by the now-deactivated Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), the body created by President Marcos in September 2025 to investigate public works anomalies.

’65-70% accomplished’

Also included as respondents were several officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and officers of the private contractor Boometrix Development Corp.

Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano on Friday said a preliminary investigation is under way on the allegations against the Matugases, the DPWH personnel and Boometrix officers regarding the P80.61-million Mahayhay-Tuburan Road project in Del Carmen, Surigao del Norte.

According to Clavano, the project has been declared complete by the DPWH officials, allowing Boometrix to collect full payment.

However, a site inspection conducted in April by the Office of the Ombudsman found it ‘only 65 to 70 percent accomplished.’

‘The matter now proceeds to preliminary investigation,’ Clavano said at a press conference. ‘No finding of guilt has been made at this stage.’

House, AMLC notified

Aside from the proceedings at the Ombudsman, the agency’s investigators have notified the House committee on ethics and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) regarding the complaints against Lalo Matugas, he added.

The respondents will soon be ordered to respond to the complaints, Clavano said.

There was no immediate reply from Representative Matugas when the Inquirer asked for comment.

Recommendation

But in a statement last year, when the ICI made the recommendation for the filing, the lawmaker maintained there were no records that would link him to any financial interest and contractual involvement in the project.

But Clavano on Friday said investigators have also documented P457.13 million in loans between the Matugases and Boometrix, which he said supports the conclusion that both father and son held direct pecuniary interests in the company.

When the Premier Volleyball League was launched in 2017, Myla Pablo instantly became one of its faces together with Alyssa Valdez after they split the first two MVP trophies contested.

Pablo brought Pocari Sweat’s success from the Shakey’s V-League-the PVL’s predecessor-and took the country’s first pro league to greater heights with no-nonsense play and charisma not seen in everyone.

The National University product has remained one of the most reliable spikers in the league as she starts another chapter in her career after joining the Nxled Chameleons together with the core of Petro Gazz, which she helped win the All-Filipino and Reinforced Conference titles last year.

As the PVL kicks off its 10-year anniversary with the 2026-2027 season, the 32-year-old Pablo celebrates a decade in the league that made her a successful player, as a two-time Conference MVP, four-time champion and five-time Best Outside Spiker.

‘It’s really a blessing to see the PVL reach 10 years. I’ve been here since the Shakey’s days, so I’ve seen how much the league has grown,’ Pablo told the Inquirer in Filipino. ‘It’s also nice to still see Sir Ricky Palou (PVL president), who has been part of the journey.

‘I’ve been playing in the PVL for almost 10 years now, and I’m just grateful that I still have a team that trusts me and gives me the opportunity to play.’

Ten years in, but the veteran hitter continues to embrace bigger and tougher challenges, as Nxled continues to miss three-time MVP Brooke Van Sickle due to a shoulder injury in the Invitationals starting next week when the Chameleons face Creamline and the towering Jaja Santiago-Minowa on Monday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

‘We’re also expecting to learn a lot from the foreign teams,’ said Pablo, as she looks forward to playing against Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City and Thailand’s EST Cola.

‘This is another chance for us to show what we can do as a team and test how strong we are on the court,’ she added. ‘We’ll see how our connection develops with our setters-Gel Cayuna, Juliana (Tolentino) and Djanel (Cheng)-and how we can handle the challenges against these teams.’

In the PVL on Tour, Nxled split its four preseason matches, losing its first game to Creamline and its final game to another Invitational contender, Farm Fresh.

Pablo said their team is working on their connection with Cayuna as their new main setter, while trying to reduce their lapses ahead of the Invitational.

‘Our preparation really focused on the things we still need to improve on, especially our communication lapses,’ she said.

Local stocks extended their decline on Friday, sending the benchmark index below the 6,000 level as concerns over further monetary tightening and weaker economic growth weighed on investor sentiment.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) fell 0.8 percent, or 48.25 points, to close at 5,956.33. This marked the PSEi’s lowest close in more than two months, or since June 24, when it last traded at the 5,900 level.

Philstocks Financial Inc. said investors remained concerned about the impact of further Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) monetary tightening on the country’s economic growth outlook.

Sentiment was further dampened after Moody’s Analytics and the Asean+3 Macroeconomic Research Office had trimmed their growth projections for the Philippine economy.

The peso’s slide to a new record low also added pressure to the equities market. Luis Limlingan, head of sales at Regina Capital Development Corp., said the MSCI Philippine Index rebalancing influenced a significant portion of the market volume.

‘The rebalancing triggered broad-based selling across the market as investors adjusted their positions. Sentiment was further weighed by the recent BSP rate hike, keeping investors cautious,’ Limlingan said. Net value turnover reached P18.12 billion.

Foreign investors, however, remained on the selling side, posting net outflows of P3.51 billion

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is on red alert as it monitors the prolonged effects of the southwest monsoon or ‘habagat’ in parts of Luzon and the Visayas.

The alert status was heightened in adherence to National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) Memorandum 237, series of 2026, which raised the national alert status from blue to red effective 5 p.m. Friday due to recent weather systems affecting the country.

Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao of the DSWD’s Disaster Response Management Group (DRMG) assured the public that the department continues to prepare for the possible effects of prolonged rains and flooding.

‘We continue to be ready because of the continuous effects of the habagat in several areas of Luzon and the Visayas. Our field offices are on heightened alert, and our relief resources are ready so we can immediately respond to the needs of our countrymen when needed,’ the DSWD spokesperson said in a statement Saturday.

She said the DSWD will continue to monitor developments and maintain its relief resources and response teams on standby, in line with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directive to ensure that assistance can be promptly delivered to families and communities as parts of the country continue to experience the prolonged effects of the habagat.

According to the latest Disaster Response Operations Monitoring and Information Communication (DROMIC) report, as of 6 p.m. Friday, the DSWD has more than 3.4 million family food packs (FFPs) prepositioned in various warehouses and other strategic locations nationwide.

The DSWD Central Office also has P558.77 million in Quick Response Fund (QRF) available to support immediate disaster response operations.

Dumlao emphasized that DSWD field offices are in close coordination with local government units (LGUs), particularly in areas that may experience flooding, displacement, or other disaster-related incidents, to facilitate possible relief augmentation and provide technical assistance.

She likewise reminded the public to stay vigilant and regularly monitor official weather and disaster advisories, particularly as the habagat continues to bring rains to affected areas.

‘We remind the public to be updated of official advisories from [the weather bureau] PAGASA and their local governments. We also encourage everyone to coordinate with their LGUs if they need to evacuate or for any emergency assistance,’ Dumlao said.

The SM Group received 12 Stevie Awards at the 2026 International Business Awards, with recognition spanning parent-company reporting and programs delivered through its malls and communities.

SM Investments Corporation, the parent company of the SM Group, received four awards. It won Gold Stevies in the Conglomerates (Large) and Best Annual Report (Publicly Held Corporations) categories for its 2025 Integrated Report.

Its 2025 Sustainability Report received Bronze for Best Sustainability Report. The SM Sustainability School also received Bronze under Sustainability Initiative of the Year in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

‘Clear reporting gives investors and other stakeholders a better view of how we make decisions, manage the business and plan for the long term,’ said Frederic C. DyBuncio, President and Chief Executive Officer of SM Investments. ‘The other awards show how that same sense of responsibility is carried through by our businesses in the communities they serve.’

That work can be seen across the eight awards received by SM Supermalls.

‘People experience a mall through the things they do there, not through what we say about it,’ said SM Supermalls President Steven T. Tan. ‘A place to read, an event that brings local art to more people, or a program that makes the mall easier to use can make a practical difference to a community.’

The Philippine International Pyromusical Competition won Gold for Brand Experience of the Year (Consumer), while the Find Your SM campaign received Silver in the same category.

The SM Green Movement won Silver for Achievement in Corporate Social Responsibility. The SM Cares Coastal Cleanup initiative received Silver for Achievement in Environment, while SM Cares: A Mall for All received Silver for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.

The SM Cares Book Nook received Bronze for Most Innovative Creative Project. The program makes space in malls for people to read and share books. The Empowering Communities campaign was also recognized under Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

SM Mindanao Art received Bronze in the Corporate and Community (Community Engagement Event) category, giving Mindanaoan artists and their work a wider public audience.

More than 300 business professionals took part in two months of judging. Winners were determined from their average scores.

The International Business Awards, now in their 23rd year, recognize organizations, executives, entrepreneurs and teams worldwide.

More than 700 residents fled their homes and sought shelter in evacuation centers as nonstop heavy rains triggered flooding in low-lying areas of Cabangan town on Friday, Aug. 28.

Champ del Rosario, head of the Cabangan Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO), said 245 families, or 719 individuals, were staying in 10 evacuation centers as of 4 p.m.

More than half of the evacuees were from Barangay Mabanglit, where 180 families, or 518 individuals, were forced to leave their homes.

Other affected villages were Apo-Apo, San Rafael, Anonang, Casabaan, Cadmang and Sta. Rita.

‘The flooding was considered significant in the said areas where floodwaters reached above knee level,’ del Rosario said in a phone interview.

Rice fields and other farmlands in several areas were also inundated, he said.

Floodwaters had significantly receded in the affected barangays as of the latest update, with only light to moderate rain reported in the town.

A portion of the National Highway in Mabanglit that was earlier impassable to all types of vehicles due to flooding had also become passable.

The municipalities of Infanta and Lingayen have been placed under a state of calamity as prolonged rains from the southwest monsoon or ‘habagat’ continued to trigger flooding and affect communities.

In Infanta, the Sangguniang Bayan (municipal council) approved Resolution No. 137, series of 2026, declaring a state of calamity after persistent rains affected 62.72 percent of families in the municipality.

The declaration allows the local government to immediately use its Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund for relief goods, medical assistance and recovery programs in affected barangays.

It also provides protection to residents against overpricing and other forms of exploitation involving basic necessities during the calamity.

In Lingayen, the municipal government declared a state of calamity through Resolution No. 462, series of 2026, and authorized the use of its Quick Response Fund for immediate disaster response and relief operations.

The municipality has been affected by the southwest monsoon, with the effects worsened by Typhoons Maymay, Neneng and Obet, which brought prolonged heavy rains, flooding and other hazards to several barangays.

The declarations will allow both municipalities to mobilize additional resources for relief, emergency response and recovery efforts in affected communities

Philippines-Scottie Thompson’s defensive effort served as one of the subplots in Gilas Pilipinas’ 82-81 overtime victory over Jordan in the Fiba World Cup 2026 Asian Qualifiers on Friday at Mall of Asia Arena.

While his offensive numbers in his first game back with the national team could be seen as an eyesore after scoring just one point, Thompson put up six rebounds and three assists in almost 29 minutes.

But what did not reflect in the stat sheet was the way Thompson made an effort to defend Jordan’s naturalized player Jalen Harris and Freddie Ibrahim, something that was not lost on coach Tim Cone.

‘People give Scottie a hard time because he’s not a shooter, he’s not a true point guard, he’s gonna make a turnover here and there. But they dismissed all the stuff that he does,’ Cone said of his long-time Barangay Ginebra star.

‘As we know in the PBA, we call him ‘Scottie Things.’ He does all the ‘Scottie Things.’ He gets the rebounds, he gets the loose balls, he defends, he knows how to get teams into execution and he will make big shots and get to the rim when he needs to. But he relies on his teammates a lot to make shots.’

Thompson almost saw his effort become an afterthought when he was called for a five-second violation while trying to inbound the ball. But Kai Sotto bailed him out when he blocked Abdullah Olajuwon’s shot before time expired.

Thompson returned to Gilas duties after missing the third window due to a hamstring injury. Before this window, he had missed Ginebra’s first five games of the Governors’ Cup before suiting up against Meralco.

He was one of three returnees for this window, including two of the main stars in the win in Sotto and CJ Perez, who, like Thompson, entered the window coming off an injury.

‘He came off a really bad hamstring injury and it took a while for him to recover,’ said Cone. ‘Same with CJ, they’re both coming off injuries and both we’re really crucial to our success tonight.’

Global ports giant International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) is seeking to strengthen its foothold in Africa with a deal to acquire a port and cargo operator serving three key markets in the region.

In a disclosure on Friday, the Enrique Razon Jr.-led company said it had signed an agreement to acquire 100 percent of TLG Acquisition Holdings Proprietary Ltd., an integrated port and cargo handling services provider with operations across Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.

The seller

ICTSI is acquiring TLG from African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) and Mokobela Shataki Proprietary Ltd.

AIIM, through AIIF4 General Partner Proprietary Ltd. and IDEAS Infrastructure II GP Proprietary Ltd., collectively owns 74 percent of TLG, while Mokobela Shataki holds the remaining 26 percent.

ICTSI did not disclose the value of the transaction, which remains subject to regulatory approvals.

In purchasing TLG, ICTSI is acquiring a business that provides port and cargo handling services for a diversified range of bulk commodities and agricultural products across its portfolio of facilities in the three African markets.

Growth mode

The deal will further expand ICTSI’s presence in Africa, where the port operator already has operations in several markets.

ICTSI operates the Onne Multipurpose Terminal in Nigeria, Kribi Multipurpose Terminal in Cameroon, Matadi Gateway Terminal in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar International Container Terminal.

In December 2025, it also secured a deal to operate a terminal at South Africa’s largest port, the Durban Container Terminal Pier 2 at the Port of Durban, now its largest operation in the region. It holds a 25-year term under a joint venture with Transnet SOC Ltd., a South African state-owned company that owns railway, port and pipeline infrastructure.

ICTSI operates 30 terminals across 19 countries in Asia-Pacific, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa

In the first half, the company posted a 22-percent increase in net income to $641.39 million as revenue from port operations grew 27 percent to $1.92 billion.

Another mother who lost a teenage son to the Duterte administration’s war on drugs recounted to the civil society-led Truth Commission how she faced either intimidation or lack of support from authorities in her quest for justice.

Mariza Hamoy, mother of 17-year-old Darwin who died in what police described as a drug bust on Aug. 15, 2016, narrated her ordeal during the fact-finding body’s second hearing on Thursday.

She recalled spending days in search of her son’s body, being denied access to police records, having no ally to stand as witness and filing complaints that were later dismissed.

Darwin’s killing was among the thousands documented in official records about drug suspects who supposedly fought back or resisted arrest (‘nanlaban’) in police operations. The crackdown was part of ‘Oplan Double Barrel,’ the antinarcotics policy of former President Rodrigo Duterte, with then Philippine National Police chief and now Sen. Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa as lead enforcer.

Duterte has been detained in The Hague, the Netherlands, on charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court (ICC) since his arrest in March last year. He is expected to appear in court when trial starts Nov. 30.

Dela Rosa remains in hiding following the issuance of an ICC arrest warrant on the same charges.

A mother’s ordeal

Civil society groups in May launched the Philippine Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an independent body that seeks to document extrajudicial killings and other abuses linked to the drug war.

The commission held its first public ‘truth-telling session’ on Aug. 14. The first witness was Luzviminda Siapo, mother of a 19-year-old disabled man who was shot dead by masked gunmen in 2017 on suspicion that he was peddling marijuana and ‘shabu’ (crystal meth).

At Thursday’s session, Mariza, a street sweeper at Barangay Payatas, Quezon City, said that on the night before Darwin was killed, she and her husband were with their son attending a wake of a colleague.

During the wake, Darwin left ahead of them to join a birthday celebration at a house nearby.

Around past midnight, Mariza heard multiple gunshots. She later learned that Darwin was asked to buy cigarettes during the neighborhood party, and that the police showed up just as he was handing the cigarettes to the one who asked him to do the errand.

‘No questions were asked and the police officers just shot him and the others,’ said Mariza in her nearly three-hour testimony.

A spot report by the Quezon City Police District, which officers initially kept from her, showed that five people were killed and one was wounded in a buy-bust operation that day.

Two unnamed fatalities were cited in the report, but Mariza immediately knew that one of them was Darwin based on the physical features and the clothes described.

Mariza stressed that her son was never involved in the drug trade. She looked for him at two hospitals in Quezon City, where she was told no record of Darwin was ever registered. Eight days after the police operation, Mariza finally found her son at a funeral parlor in the Kamuning district-but she had to shell out P50,000 to have the body released.

Mariza later filed two complaints-first at the Commission of Human Rights, which later reached the Office of the Ombudsman; the second at the PNP Internal Affairs Service, which reached the Office of the President.

Both complaints were eventually dismissed.

No one among the people she asked for help agreed to come forward as witness in Darwin’s case. They included the lone survivor of the police operation, a tricycle driver she identified only as ‘Harold.’

Mariza’s husband was also not spared as he was charged five times starting in 2017 with drug-related offenses and illegal gambling, which she said had no basis at all since his drug tests yielded negative results.

She said someone, whom she did not identify, demanded that she withdraw her complaints in exchange for the dismissal of the charges against her husband.

‘My husband told me: Don’t drop the case. Let me go to jail; I can take it. Keep our son’s case going since you’ve already started it,’ Mariza told the commission.

Intimidation

Lawyer Raul Pangalangan, a former ICC judge who now chairs the Truth Commission, said it was important to highlight how the families of drug war victims were intimidated to ‘short-circuit or frustrate the remedies available to them under the law.’

‘[It was] a way of making sure that the legal processes in government don’t work … To prevent (them) from filing cases, or, if they have filed cases, for them to withdraw or not testify,’ Pangalangan, also a former Inquirer publisher, said at a briefing after the session.

Forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun, one of the commissioners, noted how Mariza and others like her ‘lost every step of the way.’

‘Who killed them? It’s the same people investigating … Remember that these (families) have no resources, their connection is limited, and they have no money. That’s why it angers me when people say ‘just file a case.’ Do you know how hard it is, especially if you are a nobody and a victim?’ she said.

Fortun again noted the lack of proper protocols in the police handling of the victims’ bodies, the inaccessibility of information, and the apparent acquiescence of some doctors in manipulating reports on the cause of death.

Mariza urged other families who had the same experience to continue fighting for justice, to keep speaking up, and to not lose hope as there are nongovernment entities that can help them.

‘That was my child … As long as I am alive, I will not give up- win or lose,’ she said.

The next Truth Commission hearing is scheduled for Sept. 11, where another mother is expected to share the story of her 23-year-old son who was killed in 2019