Where I live, Thursday mornings are dedicated to the ritualistic pilgrimage to the local talipapa, a humble expedition to secure a week’s worth of sustenance for the household. Our modest needs are dictated less by appetite and more by the pragmatic demands of advancing age. Reaching for a favorite, I inquired about the price of a kilo of pompano—a fish that, not so long ago, went for a respectable ₱440.

Philip Morris International (PMI) is eyeing further investments in the Philippines, but says regulatory uncertainty, cumbersome paperwork and infrastructure gaps threaten the country’s ability to compete with regional manufacturing hubs.

Transport authorities are rolling out a plan to ease the squeeze from limited LRT-2 operations. Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez has ordered the LTFRB and LRTA to study issuing special permits for buses to run the full LRT-2 route—Antipolo to Recto and back—stopping at all stations.