The World Bank has approved an USD800-million financing package for the Philippines aimed at strengthening fiscal resilience, improving the business climate and equipping Filipino workers with skills needed for higher-quality jobs.
The Philippines landed at 53rd out of 101 economies in the World Bank Group’s 2025 Business-Ready (B-READY) Report, placing the country squarely at the midpoint of an expanded global ranking and signaling steady reform momentum.
The World Bank and the Philippine government are moving forward with a landmark agreement that could reshape the country’s agriculture sector. At a recent meeting, agriculture secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. and World Bank country director Zafer Mustafaoglu reviewed the progress of the Philippine Sustainable Agricultural Transformation (PSAT) loan program, with the goal of finalizing the USD1 billion loan agreement in July.
The International Finance Corp. (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank, has appointed Riccardo Puliti as its new Regional Vice President for Asia and the Pacific.
Fortinet, a global leader in cybersecurity, has announced it is accelerating its FortiAIGate solution using NVIDIA’s AI platforms and software. The partnership creates a combined security system designed to protect AI workloads, data, and autonomous agents in real time across data centers and cloud environments. It lets organizations safely build, run, and scale AI tools while keeping performance high and meeting governance rules.
Thousands of members of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC), clad in white shirts bearing the words "Accountability" and "Transparency," gathered Monday at Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila and the EDSA People Power Monument, causing heavy traffic as they protested the plunder case filed against Senator Rodante Marcoleta and his reported impending arrest. In a statement, the religious group said it was not opposing the enforcement of the law but objecting to what it described as its selective application to conceal corruption. The INC claimed the case was intended to silence Marcoleta's anti-corruption campaign, declaring that "selective justice is injustice."
The private sector is pushing for clearer merger exemption rules for public-private partnership (PPP) projects, arguing that greater regulatory certainty would accelerate infrastructure investments without compromising market competition.
The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) has received recognition from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for registering the highest number of participants in customer choice programs across Luzon.