From August 4 to 6, the People’s Republic of China conducted military drills and live fire exercises around Taiwan. In response to the visit of US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, these exercises included the firing of some 11 ballistic missiles. A portion of these missiles traveled over the island of Taiwan before landing on ...

President Marcos delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in a manner that was highly policy-focused and even technical. The speech stood in stark contrast to the SONA’s from the last six years under the Duterte administration, and even in comparison to the relatively policy-light campaign of Marcos as a presidential candidate. The President ...

COVID-19 cases continue to go up nationwide. The DOH is reporting over 2,000 cases per day, with the two-week growth rate of over 100 percent. Metro Manila on its own is reporting about 800 cases per day. Many cases are not being detected through testing as anti-gen testing is now widespread and the two-week positivity ...

The business community and international investors continue to eagerly await the announcement of incoming President Marcos’s cabinet. The announcement of a technocratic team of economic managers is likely the single most important step that could be taken to reassure both local and international investors. Headlines continue to circulate about investor anxiety stemming from uncertainty about the ...

Amid concerns about potential blackouts during the 2nd Quarter, and particularly during the May 9 elections, the Department of Energy released a revised power outlook. The outlook accounts for the forced outage at Calaca Unit 2, which is on an extended outage until July 2022. The outlook shows potential yellow alerts in the second half of ...

Two weeks after the implementation of Alert Level 1 in much of the country, cases are still low and falling in the Philippines. Meanwhile, several other locations in Asia and Europe are experiencing surges in cases and deaths, none more so than Hong Kong. What is happening in Hong Kong continues to highlight that Omicron can ...

Various media sources began reporting on Monday, March 14, that Russia was requesting military and economic support from China. According to the Financial Times, the US told allied nations via diplomatic cables that China had indicated willingness to provide military assistance. The Financial Times reporting cited, surface-to-air missiles, drones, intelligence-related equipment, armoured vehicles, and vehicles used for ...

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles in a statement, called on Congress to review provisions of that law relating to “unbundling the price, and the inclusion of the minimum inventory requirements…as well as giv[e] the government intervention powers” to respond to price spikes or prolonged elevated prices. The 1998 Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act (Republic Act No. ...

President Duterte has put nuclear power back on the table for the Philippines’ energy mix. By virtue of Executive Order 164: “The National Government commits to the introduction of nuclear power energy into the state’s energy mix.”  The order comes more than a year after the Nuclear Energy Program Inter-Agency Committee submitted their recommendations on the ...