More news about how the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines is being handled by the public and the government.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2024/12/25/2409767/fewer-filipinos-expect-happy-christmas-year-sws |
The number of Filipino adults expecting a happy Christmas has plunged to 65% from 73% last year, while those anticipating a sad celebration rose to 10%, according to the latest Social Weather Stations survey.
The survey, conducted from December 12-18, 2024, also showed that at least a quarter, or 26%, of Filipino adults expect their Christmas to be neither happy nor sad.
While current expectations about the holiday remain above the pandemic-low of 50% recorded in 2020, they are well below the pre-pandemic level of 79% in 2019 and the record-high 82% set in 2002, according to SWS.
These numbers are still lower than before the pandemic. What cold possibly be the reason?
The Philippines is getting another loan from the Asian Development Bank to help with post-pandemic recovery.
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| https://hrsea.economictimes.indiatimes.com/amp/news/industry/adb-to-grant-a-500-million-loan-to-the-philippines-for-streamlining-employment-recovery/116669671 |
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $500 million loan to the Philippines. The loan aims to accelerate employment recovery and ensure the workforce is equipped for the evolving demands of the post-pandemic economy. The loan, part of the Post-COVID-19 Business and Employment Recovery Program, Subprogram 2, will focus on bridging the skills gap and enhancing job opportunities for vulnerable workers, including women and young people.
The ADB emphasised that the program addresses key challenges such as limited labour market programs, skills mismatches, and restrictive business regulations. By expanding training programs and liberalising the investment environment, the ADB aims to increase private-sector employment and promote sustainable job growth, especially in emerging industries.
In addition, the program will provide technical and vocational training for young, unemployed individuals, as well as workers at risk of job displacement. With a focus on improving women’s access to skills development, the initiative aims to enhance gender equality in the workforce.
This loan follows a similar $500 million policy-based loan approved earlier in 2023, which aimed to foster a more business-friendly environment to encourage private sector growth. Together, these efforts contribute to the Philippines' long-term goal of inclusive and resilient economic growth as outlined in its AmBisyon Natin 2040 vision. For the workforce, this initiative signals an opportunity for upskilling and better job prospects in a rapidly changing labour market.
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| https://www.traveldailymedia.com/philippine-tourism-outperforms-pre-pandemic-figures-in-2024/ |
The Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) reports that 2024 was an exceptional year for the country as it outperformed 2019 figures in terms of tourist receipts.
During the department’s year-end briefing on 17th December, tourism secretary Christina Frasco reported that the Philippines earned over US$12 billion from tourist spending since January of this year.
This represents a 119 percent recovery from last year’s figures and significantly higher than the over US$10 billion last seen in 2019.
Frasco said: “We have the highest tourism per capita spend within ASEAN at over US$2,000, and we have seen that over 70 percent of the tourists that come into the country are repeat visitors.”
She added that the department anticipates that this will expand further as the country now offers a more diverse range of destinations, attractions, and tourism products.
The Philippines targets to reach at least 7.7 million foreign tourists by year-end, a number now seemingly unlikely to be achieved with arrivals still at 5.64 million as of 15th December.
Frasco nevertheless pointed out that the sector had faced numerous challenges since the projections were announced.
These included inflationary pressures, geopolitical issues, climate-related disasters, and other developments over which the department had no control.
Thanks to these, as well as delays in the liberalisation of visa processing for the Chinese market, the DOT has opted to be more pragmatic in terms of its targets.
Frasco said: “While it has been the practice to only look at arrivals and automatically compare with our competitors as the singular measure of performance, I would urge a wider perspective on the full faculty of facts. Focus on the numbers that matter: visitor receipts, tourism spend, length of stay, tourism employment, for these are what drive our economy and employ our people, and in all of these numbers, the Philippines is doing exceptionally well.”
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1240596 |
The city government of Borongan in Eastern Samar has reported 85,000 tourist arrivals from January to September 2024 as regular flights from Manila and Cebu carried more visitors to the provincial capital, an official reported on Thursday.
Rupert Ambil, the city’s flight operations chair and tourism officer-in-charge, said that in the first three quarters of 2024, the city had already logged more tourists than the whole year's arrival recorded before the pandemic.
“We’ve hit the highest mark since 2017, based on our collected data. In the pre-pandemic years, we had 80,000, and now we’re on 85,000 as of the end of September 2024,” Ambil said in a phone interview.
Ambil said the operations of Manila-Cebu-Borongan flights by Philippine Airlines (PAL) largely contributed to the increase in tourist arrivals.
PAL started its operation in Borongan City on Dec. 19, 2022, after the city government and the airline officials sealed the partnership to signal the operation that started with twice-a-week flights catering to the transport needs of both tourists and Eastern Samar locals.
In September this year, the airline company increased its flights to three times a week and started accepting cargo shipments going in and out of the city.
That's what happens when you increase flights to the city.
The Philippines has recorded the first drop in residential property prices since the pandemic.
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| https://mb.com.ph/2024/12/30/metro-manila-home-prices-fall |
The country’s residential property prices posted a 2.3 percent year-on-year drop in the third quarter of 2024, marking the first decline since the pandemic began, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported.
Data from the central bank revealed that residential property prices also fell by 1.6 percent compared to the second quarter, reversing two consecutive quarters of growth.
In the National Capital Region (NCR), prices plummeted by 14.6 percent year-on-year, primarily due to lower prices for duplexes, single houses, and condos. This decline occurred despite an increase in townhouse prices.
Conversely, residential property prices outside NCR (AONCR) rose by 3 percent year-on-year.
"Higher house prices in AONCR were attributed to annual price increases in single-detached/attached houses and condominium units, which offset the decline in duplex and townhouse prices," the BSP report stated.
On a quarterly basis, residential property prices in the NCR and AONCR decreased by 3.7 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
Year-on-year, prices for duplexes and condominiums decreased, while prices for single houses and townhouses increased.
Quarter-on-quarter, only single houses showed a price increase (2.6 percent), while other housing types recorded declines: duplexes (46.6 percent), townhouses (5.3 percent), and condominium units (5.3 percent).
Good news for buyers but bad news for owners and sellers.
Here's another pandemic survival story from a teacher who decided to become an OFW a few months before the pandemic broke out.
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| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/pinoyabroad/dispatch/931471/filipino-family-welcomes-2025-with-mango-float-leche-flan-in-chilly-china/story/ |
When Melbe Miao Manipes saw the first snowfall in Daqing City in December 2019, her mind wandered off to the dining table in the Philippines where pancit, fruit salad, and humba are often served to welcome the new year.
Manipes, a native of Leyte province in the Philippines' Eastern Visayas region, resigned from her job as a public school teacher in Ormoc City to work in Daqing, an industrial city located in Heilongjiang province, northeastern China.
Manipes was 28 years old when she left her husband, Emelito, and their two sons, Lucas Raffy and Sandro Renjie, to accept the job offer as a Kindergarten teacher in a Chinese city that she has not heard of prior to her move.
"I arrived in China in October 2019. It was nearing Christmas. I cried and cried. I cannot imagine how I survived that phase of my life," said Manipes, now 33 years old.
Daqing can be reached from Beijing via a two-hour flight. High-speed trains also travel the Beijing to Daqing route with the fastest travel time of five hours.
Although Daqing pales in popularity to Harbin that is known for its annual Ice and Snow Festival, it is considered as a crucial element in China's progress and development as it is known as the country's petroleum and petrochemical city.
It is in Daqing that Manipes found a second home and a work environment that helped her family pay off their debts and improve the quality of life for her and her loved ones.
But the journey to her fifth year as a Filipino teacher in China was not without sleepless nights and feelings of despair.
Lucas was two years old while Sandro was only a year old when Manipes left for China.
Because Daqing is located in the northern part of China, the weather goes down to sub-zero temperatures during the winter season which Manipes have never experienced before her work abroad.
"The trees are covered in snow. Everything is white. It was terribly cold. It was sad during the holiday season, Christmas, New Year because I missed singing with the neighbors, making noise to welcome the year, and eating with the family," she shared.
But it was a sacrifice that she needed to face.
In Ormoc, it became impossible for her to pay the amount of debts that have accumulated over the years.
Her salary as a public school teacher was barely enough to raise their two children even with a two-income household.
When she learned from a colleague that a school in China was looking for Kindergarten teachers, Manipes said she was determined to be employed in the same job but with higher pay and better working conditions.
Living and working in Daqing, which is a small city in China, means lower cost of living so she is able to save more money.
Her employment contract also includes free accommodation, free internet access, and even free meals.
But with these perks also facing the reality that her family is moving forward with their collective life without her to physically witness milestones such as her son's losing a tooth or hearing them say "Mama" in person.
Her homesickness worsened when the COVID-19 pandemic happened just a few months after her arrival in Daqing.
"That was the saddest Christmas and New Year of my life. There was no work. Everything was in lock down. There was no person to talk to face to face," she recalled.
For a teacher who was used to interacting with her students and colleagues, the lock down made Manipes feel isolated and depressed.
In the next three years — 2019 to 2022 — she spent special occasions alone in Daqing.
If not for social media platforms and internet access which made it possible for her to connect to her family through messaging and video calls, Manipes said life would have taken a dark and negative turn for a Filipino woman working and living alone in a foreign country.
"Working abroad has never been easy, not only as an individual but also as a family," said Manipes adding that she could not see a future of being away from her family.
(I pity my children. We were not together for a long time. They did not have a mother during those times especially when the pandemic happened.)
In December 2022, she was able to take some time off from work.
She was able to fly home to the Philippines and spent Christmas and New Year in Ormoc.
It was during that visit that she and her husband decided to reunite the family by moving to China.
After returning to China from celebrating Christmas and New Year in the Philippines, Manipes focused on completing her family's paperworks so they can live in China with her.
By December 18, 2023 she flew to the Philippines to personally escort her husband and their sons for their major move to China.
It was in the white world of Daqing, surrounded by snow-covered trees and bone-chilling air, that the Manipes family celebrated Christmas and New Year 2024 together.
"Our family is finally in one country," said Manipes, her voice shaking with overwhelming emotion of gratitude as she remembered the years she had to wait to finally wake up knowing that her husband and her sons live under the same roof.
Her husband now works from home as a graphic artist while the two boys follow a homeschool curriculum.
For New Year 2025, the family prepared a feast of crispy pata, garlic-butter shrimps, pancit, and steak.
They also prepared round fruits and bought sweet treats such as leche flan and mango float from fellow Filipinos.
Manipes said they follow both Filipino and Chinese tradition in welcoming a new year.
Filipino desserts are staples on their table because they represent a prosperous year ahead.
She said the family will be able to face any challenges head on because they are together.
"We celebrate like we are in the Philippines. It is not as festive as the Philippines because China has its own new year celebration, the Spring Festival. But we are together as a family here in China for one year now so that is worth celebrating," she said.
From OFW during the pandemic to moving her entire family to China as permanent residents.
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