The daughter of Filipino immigrants who docked in post-war Hong Kong with little more than a saxophone and resilience, Rowena Cortes grew up in a North Point apartment humming jazz standards and brushing up on Cantonese tones between French class and stage lights. Her father, Avelino Cortes, a jazz saxophonist and musical director at the […]

As the Philippines commemorates the 164th birth anniversary of Dr. José Rizal this June 19, attention once again turns to the many facets of the national hero’s life—patriot, writer, martyr. But for architect Emmanuel Miñana, Rizal’s essence is captured not just in his novels or letters, but in the flourishes of ink that bore his […]

Before the coffee brews and the roosters crow, a Filipino dad in Vancouver is already saying goodnight—not to the close of his own day, but to his daughter, half a world away, blinking up at him through a tablet screen. This is modern fatherhood: fewer hugs and high-fives, more buffering and bedtime calls. For a […]

As economic pressures mount across the developing world, the Philippines should shift its focus—placing jobs, not aid, at the heart of its fight against poverty. That opportunity lies in harnessing the country’s most abundant asset: its people. With nearly 1.2 billion young people in emerging economies reaching working age over the next decade—and only an […]

The email looks official. The caller sounds professional. The text message seems routine. But behind the slick formatting and the familiar tone, a digital predator is waiting. Across the globe, a new wave of cyber fraud is blending old-school scam tactics with sophisticated psychological tricks and tech mimicry. From phishing emails to fake reward texts […]

Asia Pacific’s real estate markets are holding firm despite global economic turbulence triggered by aggressive policy shifts from Washington. The region, including the Philippines, is proving resilient, as Cushman & Wakefield’s latest report outlines, buoyed by structural strengths, digital infrastructure growth, and strategic supply chain shifts. In a Manila briefing titled “The 2025 Triad: Trump’s […]

Philippine banks are betting big on hyper-personalization—using artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time data to create highly tailored content, services, and offers for individual customers. The goal: greater relevance, deeper engagement, and lasting loyalty. But as they push deeper into people’s digital lives, the line between convenience and intrusion is getting thinner. Hyper-personalization goes beyond traditional […]

The country’s 2025 midterm elections smashed records for speed and scale, with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) proclaiming all 12 winning senators on Saturday, just five days after polls closed — the fastest canvassing in the country’s electoral history. Voter turnout also reached a historic high, with 57,350,968 out of 69,673,653 registered voters casting ballots […]

Gold from the Philippines is mostly mined by hand—but rarely traded above board. With about 500,000 artisanal and small-scale gold miners (ASGM) producing 70% of the country’s gold, formalizing this fragmented sector remains a political, legal, and environmental quagmire. Research conducted by the World Gold Council in early 2025 highlights how underregulated gold processing plants […]

In the stifling heat of a Manila afternoon, where giant fans stirred the incense-laced air, parishioners packed into the Sacred Heart Parish Shrine to bid farewell not just to a pope, but to “Lolo Kiko.” The screens above the altar broadcast the funeral of Pope Francis from Rome, but in this corner of Asia’s Catholic […]