More news about how the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines is being handled by the public and the government.
The Philippines is still struggling to breach the gaps in education caused by the pandemic.
The number of struggling third-grade readers nationwide plummeted from more than 51,000 to fewer than 2,000 following intensive literacy programs, the Department of Education announced earlier this week.
In an event last Tuesday, the agency attributed the dramatic 96% decrease to two key initiatives: the Learning Recovery Program and the Bawat Bata Makababasa Program, implemented to address learning gaps caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
So-called “low-emerging readers” — students who struggle with basic reading skills like letter recognition, sound blending and word decoding — dropped from 51,537 to 1,871 students across all regions, according to DepEd data.
Education officials described the improvement as a significant milestone for the country’s education system, particularly for early learners who faced severe disruptions during pandemic school closures.
The Learning Recovery Program focuses on accelerating student progress by strengthening literacy and numeracy skills through evidence-based interventions and improved teaching quality. The initiative targets learning gaps created by extended periods of remote or limited classroom instruction.
The Bawat Bata Makababasa Program, which translates to “Every Child Can Read,” specifically targets literacy improvement among struggling learners in grades 1-3.
The program aims to ensure all students achieve grade-level reading proficiency through targeted interventions.
Low-emerging readers typically demonstrate significant difficulties with fundamental reading competencies and require intensive remediation to match their peers’ progress, DepEd explained.
The pandemic severely disrupted traditional classroom learning in the Philippines, with schools closed for extended periods and many students lacking access to reliable internet or devices for remote learning.
Education officials emphasized the need to maintain transparency and continued monitoring to preserve and build upon these literacy gains in coming years.
The reading improvement data covers students nationwide, though DepEd did not immediately provide regional breakdowns of the progress.
There has been a 96% drop in this program which is great but don't let that overshadow the rest of the work needed to be done.
The Philippine government borrowed a lot of money during the pandemic and is looking to borrow more money to fight future pandemics.
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| https://mb.com.ph/2025/08/14/philippines-seeks-world-bank-loan-to-better-fight-epidemics-and-pandemics |
Another loan from the World Bank is forthcoming for the Philippines, this time to finance the country’s fight against epidemics by strengthening both human and animal health systems to improve pandemic preparedness.According to a Aug. 12 concept environmental and social review summary disclosed by the Washington-based multilateral lender on Aug. 13, the Philippines is seeking an investment project financing (IPF) for the so-called Pandemic Fund-Resilient Philippines.According to this World Bank document seen by Manila Bulletin, the upcoming loan is aimed at “[improving] the country’s capacity to detect, report, and respond to existing and emerging pathogens with epidemic potential among humans, animals, and wildlife.”The World Bank’s board is expected to approve this loan on Nov. 28, 2025.The project will be implemented by the departments of Agriculture (DA) and of Health (DOH), as well as the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI).The World Bank document did not disclose yet the specific amount of financing sought by the Philippine government, only indicating a total project cost of $18.85 million, or over ₱1 billion.This project has three components: the first component focuses on strengthening human health systems through expanded disease surveillance, upgraded reporting and lab systems, and workforce capacity building for pandemic preparedness.The second component enhances animal health by improving surveillance, information systems, and lab capacity; the third component supports overall project management and monitoring and evaluation.The first component will enhance national human health surveillance by expanding the One Health pilot to two epidemic-prone provinces, digitizing disease tracking, improving laboratory systems, and building workforce capacity, including the establishment of a One Health Genomics Consortium and piloting rapid diagnostics in underserved areas, the World Bank said.The second component will address animal health by upgrading surveillance systems and diagnostic laboratories in two hotspot provinces for African swine fever (ASF) and highly pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).Specifically, “this component will finance upgrading of BAI’s animal disease diagnostic reference laboratory (ADDRL) located in Manila and two regional animal disease diagnostic laboratories (RADDLs),” with the aim of “[providing] timely and reliable diagnostic testing, addressing both food safety and animal disease risks, while supporting broader agricultural objectives,” the World Bank said.As Manila Bulletin reported earlier, the Philippines plans to borrow a total of $7.85 billion from the World Bank in the next two years under their new six-year Country Partnership Framework (CPF) or lending program supportive of the country’s climb to upper-middle-income country (UMIC) status.The World Bank Group (WBG) had programmed to extend to the Philippines up to $23 billion in loans and other financing from mid-2025 to mid-2031, covering the lender’s fiscal years (FYs) 2026 to 2031.
With all the recent furor over botched flood control projects why would the people trust the government to use the money for these pandemic prevention programs properly?
The Philippine workforce is "aging faster than expected" due to low fertility rates which were only exacerbated by the pandemic.
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| https://business.inquirer.net/542096/young-ph-workforce-seen-aging-faster-than-expected |
The Philippines will remain a relatively young nation over the next three decades, but its population is set to age faster than expected as declining fertility—influenced by rising living costs and more women entering the workforce—weighs on family formation.
This points to “emerging chinks” in the country’s population armor, UK-based Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a note to clients, adding that the gains from the so-called demographic dividend “won’t be as big as previously thought.”
Pantheon, citing United Nations projections, said the Philippines’ working-age population was now expected to peak in 2053—24 years earlier than a prior estimate of 2077. The shift comes as the fertility rate slips below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman, dropping to 1.9 in 2022 from 2.7 in 2017, a decline that may have been accelerated by the pandemic.
Miguel Chanco, chief emerging Asia economist at Pantheon, said the drop reflects both “positive long-term changes” and “negative economic reasons.”
The former includes higher female labor-force participation and wider access to contraception and family planning, albeit from a low base. The latter, he said, stem from rising living costs since 2022 and the pandemic’s heavy hit to household balance sheets, which many families are still struggling to recover from.
“What I found the most interesting about the Philippines’ recent demographic trends is the rapid drop in fertility rates over the past ten years or so, aligning the country more with the rates of its peers,” Chanco said in an interview.
“For a start, a few members of the Asean four—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam—are greying more rapidly than previously expected,” he added.A declining fertility rate could complicate the Marcos administration’s Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028, which counts on the country’s legion of young workers to help boost growth prospects for the next several decades.
Despite the trend, Chanco said the Philippines isn’t at risk of aging too quickly. A bigger challenge, he noted, is still overpopulation, which is straining public resources and fueling fierce competition for scarce quality jobs.
That, in turn, is driving an acute “brain drain” of skilled Filipino workers that could undermine human capital, innovation and long-term growth.
“There’s a reason why the country remains a huge exporter of manpower, for instance,” Chanco said. “There simply isn’t enough quality jobs domestically, so brain drain remains a big issue.”
And yet in the same article the Philippines is said to be more at risk of overpopulation. Which is it?
Three Filipino doctors are using TikTok to push back against medical misinformation. They each got their start during the pandemic.
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| https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/2025/8/17/filipino-doctors-push-back-against-medical-misinformation-on-tiktok-1021 |
At first glance, TikTok may seem an unlikely space for serious health conversations. But scroll past dance trends and lip syncs, and you'll find a growing number of Filipino doctors building digital clinics through bite-sized videos.
Among them are Lyien Ho, Drew Valdez and Dex Mallari, three physicians from different specialties, backgrounds, and regions, but who share a common calling: making health information more accurate, accessible, and less intimidating for Filipinos online.
Though none of them planned to become full-fledged content creators, all three were pushed by the same moment: the pandemic. Suddenly, clinics were less accessible, patients were left to Google their symptoms, and misinformation spread faster than most diseases.
“There was a need,” said Ho, a primary care doctor who now specializes in lifestyle medicine.
“I felt that responsibility to bridge that gap.” Valdez, a urologist trained in both surgery and media (he took up broadcasting in college), found the pandemic a perfect storm to begin posting.
“We had more time, and more people needed accurate information,” he said. Mallari, an OB-GYN from Pampanga, was inspired after seeing other professionals use TikTok to creatively bust myths. “Hindi lang siya sayaw at lip sync. Nakita ko na puwede din pala siya maging educational,” he recalled.
Their videos don’t just educate — they translate. For these doctors, the challenge isn’t just knowing the science, but making it stick.
All three doctors say they create content as if speaking directly to their patients. “If you can’t explain something to a 10-year-old,” Valdez said, “then you probably don’t understand it well enough yourself.”
For Mallari, that also means being sensitive to what his audience may be too embarrassed to ask. “Nakakahiya minsan para sa iba ‘yung tanong. Pero ‘yun ‘yung mga pinaka-nakakatulong na sagutin,” he explained.
Whether it's about menstruation myths, the dangers of excessive vitamin C, or spotting the signs of diabetes, these doctors choose relevance over reach. “Fun never has to compromise facts,” Ho said.
And while each has their own style, Ho uses real-life hooks, Valdez speaks plainly to the camera, and Mallari zeroes in on misunderstood issues. Their goal is the same: to raise health literacy while respecting people’s lived realities.
Their collective concern? Medical misinformation.
From “natural cures” for kidney stones to feminine washes that promise false results, all three doctors have seen how quickly bad advice circulates and how dangerous it can be.
“There are creators out there using their platforms to sell products by sounding scientific,” Ho said. “But emotional appeal doesn’t make something true.”
Valdez, whose videos have been stolen and used by AI scam pages to promote unverified products, warns of a growing crisis: “There are entities online who claim to be doctors or act like doctors and give advice sa general public without the benefit of performing proper history and physical examination, then plugging in their products. So that's really bad.
“[‘Yun ‘yung pinakapotentially] dangerous, especially those quack doctors saying they can cure cancer. So, imagine the delay na pwedeng mangyari kapag they believe that the one product can cure their cancer. So, hindi sila na-a-address agad. Hindi sila na-b-bypass agad, hindi sila na-operahan agad, hindi sila na-ki-chemo agad.”
Their solution? Stick to evidence. All three fact-check religiously before posting. Mallari even writes scripts for most of his videos, checking everything against textbooks and published journals. “We owe it to the viewers,” he said. “They trust us, so we need to be sure what we say is right.”
But credibility isn’t always enough. Being a doctor online means walking a tightrope between being serious and being shareable.
Mallari said being relatable often means answering what may seem like “sobrang simple” questions, whether one can bathe during menstruation, for instance. “Kaya for me, being engaging din is being able to answer even the simplest type of questions,” he said, noting that many of his viewers are too shy to ask these things in person, but deeply want to know.
Their content also chips away at bigger social taboos.
As an OB-GYN, Mallari often receives skepticism simply for being a man discussing women’s health. But he sees this as part of the education process. “I may not experience what they are actually physically experiencing,” he said. “But I know why they are experiencing it. I know what to do or I know how it happens. I know how to manage it.”
Dr. Ho also uses accessible language and creative hooks to break stigma. “Fun never has to compromise facts,” she said. “You can be fun and engaging, but at the same time, giving medical health information to people.” For her, even something as simple as “I-check mo ang kuko mo” can be a way in—drawing someone into a deeper discussion about preventive care.
In a landscape where anyone can claim expertise, their medical degrees—and caution—help set them apart.
All three are clear about the limits of social media advice. “You can’t give out advice,” said Valdez. “What I try to avoid… I don’t answer it without the benefit of proper history and physical examination because it might be harmful.” Instead, they urge viewers to consult professionals in person.
Ultimately, that’s their shared hope: that Filipinos feel more empowered to ask questions, verify what they see online, and seek real medical care when they need it.
“I just want to be known as a credible source,” Valdez said. “Anything urology, gusto kong maging at the top of their heads… credible source, ako.”
Mallari echoes this in OB-GYN: “Kahit I don't experience these physical symptoms, at least I know why they're happening—and I can explain it to you.”
There is certainly a lot of medical misinformation amongst people these days. Maybe these three will sort it out.
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