More news about how the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines is being handled by the public and the government.
Australia is a major source of tourists for the Philippines and the DOT is working with Australia to sustain travelers interest to get the numbers back to pre-pandemic levels.
The Philippine government continues to work with Australia to sustain its citizens’ interest in traveling to the archipelago amid its latest travel advisory.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco said Australia remains one of the Philippines’ highest growth and recovery sectors post-pandemic.
“They are averaging around 22 percent in terms of growth for arrivals month-on-month compared to 2024,” she said.
“We continue to work with both the Australian government and stakeholders to ensure this interest of Australians in the Philippines is sustained,” she added.
The Philippine government, she said, is doubling efforts to ensure the quality of tourism safety as well as travel convenience and accessibility.
Frasco, meanwhile, encouraged the Australian government to continue partnering with the Philippines to help them “rationalize their travel advisory”.
In its March 19 travel advisory update, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) advised its citizens to “exercise a high degree of caution in the Philippines overall due to the threat of terrorism and violent crime”.
It reiterated its warning against traveling to central and western Mindanao, including the Zamboanga Peninsula, Sulu archipelago and the southern Sulu Sea area.
Frasco said the DOT is working closely with the Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of National Defense, and the Philippine National Police as well as related government agencies “to safeguard and continue to elevate the quality of our tourism destinations”.
Australia ranks as the fifth-highest source market for the Philippines in 2024, contributing 299,286 arrivals.
In the first two months of the year, a total of 56,629 Australian travelers visited the country, posting a 19.36 percent growth from the 47,694 recorded in 2024.
On top of ensuring travel safety, Frasco said the DOT is also in talks with international and local carriers to expand connectivity and number of direct flights to the Philippines.
Looks the problem is Mindanao. That's a no brainer. Stay in Luzon and the Visayas and everything will be ok.
Bacolod City is seeing a lot of tourists post-pandemic.
This highly-urbanized city logged a 6.72 percent increase in overnight tourist arrivals in 2024, further strengthening its status as a top destination in the country.
Data from the City Tourism Office on Monday showed Bacolod accommodated 833,345 overnight travelers last year compared to only 780,916 in 2023.
In a statement, Tourism Operations Office chief Ma. Teresa Manalili said overnight tourist arrivals in the city have steadily climbed in the past three years, recovering from the pandemic lows in 2020 and 2021.
“The city government remains committed to strengthening Bacolod’s position as a top destination in the Philippines under the banner ‘Smile, You’re in Bacolod!’ and in support of the Department of Tourism’s ‘Love the Philippines” campaign,” she said.
Last year’s total overnight tourists included 774,084 domestic and 59,261 foreign visitors.
The city’s top ten foreign markets were the United States, China, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong SAR.
Some 125,491 same-day tourists also visited Bacolod in 2024, data showed.
Meanwhile, the annual overview showed that from 803,911 overnight tourist arrivals in 2019, figures slumped by 82.22 percent to only 143,114 in 2020, and slightly increased by 3.12 percent to 147,582 tourists in 2021.
By 2022, Bacolod rebounded with 618,682 overnight travelers, showing an increase of 319.17 percent, followed by a growth of 26.22 percent to 780,916 tourists the following year.
In October last year, the MassKara Festival drew 98,563 visitors, higher by 24.03 percent compared to the 2023 figures.
“This marks the festival’s continued resurgence as a major cultural and tourism draw for both local and international guests,” Manalili said.
Aside from the MassKara Festival, Bacolod also attracts tourists to its other major festivals.
These include the Bacolaodiat Festival, one of biggest Chinese New Year celebrations in the country; Chicken Inasal Festival, a celebration of the city’s chicken inasal industry every May; and Bacolod Rum Festival, which highlights the role of the sugar industry in rum production every August.
As long as the Australians continue to visit Bacolod and stay far away from Mindanao they should be fine.
Private banks remain profitable post-pandemic.
THE PHILIPPINE banking system’s credit profile will likely remain stable on the back of the country’s strong macroeconomic fundamentals, Fitch Ratings said.
“Fitch Ratings believes the Philippines’ resilient medium-term economic potential and favorable banking business prospects reinforce banks’ standalone credit profiles,” it said in a peer credit analysis on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the credit rater hiked the country’s banking sector operating environment score to “bbb-” from “bb+.”
All rated Philippine banks’ viability ratings (VR) were also revised one notch higher this month.
“This considers the country’s strong growth prospects, with Fitch forecasting GDP (gross domestic product) growth of 6% over the next two years, which should underpin banking business volume and keep impairment risks at bay,” it said.
The government is targeting GDP to grow by 6-8% this year until 2028.
“Rising geopolitical tensions and greater trade protectionism pose downside risk to the Philippines’ growth momentum, but we believe it is relatively insulated and more resilient than many of its export-oriented regional peers, given its lower reliance on merchandise exports.”
The recent VR upgrade also “reflects steady improvement in the private banks’ profitability and asset quality since the trough of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic,” Fitch said.
“Rising capital buffers at the state-owned banks support their credit profiles, and we expect this to continue over the next 12-18 months, helped by enhanced internal capital generation.”
The net earnings of the Philippine banking industry rose by 9.76% year on year to P391.28 billion in 2024.
Fitch raised the VR of BDO Unibank, Inc., Bank of the Philippine Islands, and Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company by one notch to “bbb-” from “bb+.”
“The three privately owned banks have better standalone credit profiles than their state-owned counterparts, largely due to more established franchises and better underwriting standards,” Fitch Ratings said.
“These factors will continue to help the banks maintain their industry-leading profitability and loan quality even as they continue to broaden their retail customer base,” it added.
And they are doing better than state run banks.
A Filipino in Chicago started a bakery business during the pandemic. Now he is thriving.
While most don’t spend high school meticulously planning the future, that’s exactly what Justin Lerias did and he has the handwritten journal entries to show for it. Almost a year to the day after signing the lease and eight years since putting pen to paper, Lerias has finally opened Del Sur.
The 1,200-square-foot space in Lincoln Square is located next to the CTA’s Brown Line Damen stop. Lerias’s creative Filipino American baked goods — calamansi chamomile buns, turon danishes (in the tradition of sweet lumpias), ube oatmeal sandwich cookies, and longanisa-filled croissants — were born from an experimental pandemic home project that evolved to pop-ups and later at a more permanent home at Side Practice Coffee, the Filipino-inspired coffeeshop across from Amundsen High School in Ravenswood. Side Practice is owned by entrepreneur Francis Almeda, who’s also invested in Kanin and Novel Pizza Cafe. He’s also an investor in Del Sur, Lerias prefers to call him an advisor versus a co-owner. Almeda has played a big role in helping Lerias’s solo pastry career, including providing a home for his pastry pop-ups. Almeda, who constantly bounces around town working on projects, acts as an “investor advisor” at Del Sure, says Lerias. “Francis is too important in our little universe to force him to be in one space like he would if he was a partner here.”
Born on the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines, Lerias grew up on Chicago’s North Side. His culinary experience includes pastry chef positions at Lost Larson and Big Jones. At Del Sur, he dives deep into showcasing both his birthplace and Midwest upbringing.
“Del Sur has been the culmination of my life,” says Lerias, who recently turned 24. “I’m a quiet and introspective person, and I feel like my pastries are a very good indicator of who I am as a person and how I approach my career and my work.”
When it comes to Del Sur’s baked goods beyond those signature items, Lerias gave his small team of bakers one caveat: no basic pastries. “If we’re going to be a specialty bakery, let’s really ride that,” he says.
He would likely never experience this level of success in Mindanao.
The number of Filipinos self-reporting as hungry has hit the highest since the pandemic.
About 27.2 percent of Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger in the last three months, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released over the weekend.
The number of families who did not have anything to eat at least once "was 6.0 points above the 21.2 percent in February 2025, and the highest since the record high 30.7 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2020," the pollster noted.
The March figure was 7 points above last year's hunger average of 20.2 percent, SWS added.
It said families in Visayas were the hardest hit by hunger at 33.7 percent, followed by Metro Manila at 28.3 percent, Mindanao at 27.3 percent, and the rest of Luzon at 24 percent.
Some 21 percent of families faced moderate hunger, which meant they experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months. Meanwhile, 6.2 percent experienced severe hunger, which meant they felt it “often” or “always”.
Malacanang said it would look into the survey results.
“Let’s study where these statements that our fellow countrymen are still hungry come from and to know where it is and if there are any shortcomings, we can alleviate these kinds of situations,” Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said in a briefing.
She noted that the government was implementing several projects geared towards addressing hunger among vulnerable Filipinos.
“In the new report of the DSWD, there are already many programs that really help alleviate hunger. I will first mention the DSWD program that serves 300,000 food-poor households with the equivalent of 1.5 million individuals – across the country. They are given P3,000 monthly as food aid,” Castro said.
“The second program of the DSWD is Walang Gutom Kitchen. It is located in Pasay City where it serves hot free meals to families, especially children on the streets.”
“Apart from that, the DSWD has a program called the ‘Walang Gutom Project Kusinero Cook-off Challenge’ to improve public nutrition and there is also the Walang Gutom Project that provides eligible families with electronic benefit transfer – this is P3,000 monthly food credits,” she added.
The March 15-20 survey used face-to-face interviews with 1,800 registered voters. It had sampling error margins of ±2.31 percent for national percentages.
How were these hungry people surveyed?
During the pandemic a student decided to apply for a Thai royal scholarship as a joke. It changed his life.
Angelo Fernandez Virgo’s story may sound cliché — he is the youngest of seven children in a farming family with limited means, and from an early age, he knew that education would be his path to a better life.
“None among my siblings has ever finished college, that is why finishing college and becoming a professional is very crucial for me. I want to prove that poverty is not a hindrance to achieve success,” Angelo said in his introductory speech when applying for the Royal Scholarship for Asean Students at Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, in 2020.
In April 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Angelo Fernandez Virgo, a 17 year old from Valencia, Bukidnon, was browsing Facebook. He had just graduated from senior high school at Central Mindanao University – Senior High School and was looking forward to a university life under a DOST (Department of Science and Technology) scholarship.
One day, a friend tagged him in a Facebook post—intended as a joke—about the Royal Scholarship for Asean Students. Endorsed by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the program offered full scholarships for engineering and technology courses at Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. The link was posted by a professor from Mindanao State University (MSU), which at the time had a memorandum of understanding with SUT.
“I read the terms and conditions for the Royal scholarship grant, it is like the DOST Scholarship but without the return service condition and no refund policy in case the scholarship gets terminated during study (e.g., failing to meet the minimum average grade). It’s also a chance to explore Thailand and study for free,” Angelo recalled.
Angelo passed all the interviews and exams to clinch the scholarship. He was one of the seven Filipino students and 19 others from Asean countries who studied Innovative Agripreneur, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Petrochemical and Polymer Engineering. Angelo was accepted for the Civil Engineering course. But the real challenge was the travel restrictions due to the pandemic and the financial difficulties.
“I had to secure a quarantine pass just to travel and process the school requirements including my passport,” Angelo said.
Due to travel restrictions, Virgo and his fellow scholars attended online classes for a few months before flying to Thailand on January 20, 2021.
“I had to stay at the house of another SUT Royal Scholar in CDO because we didn’t have internet and computer at home,” he said.
Plane tickets were costly, and upon arrival in Thailand, he had to book a quarantine hotel, which cost more than 28,000 THB. Medical insurance was also mandatory. Yet, Angelo and his family did all they could to have this once-in-a lifetime opportunity.
In Thailand, Angelo and the foreign students struggled during their first few months.
“The language barrier was tough. Many locals struggled with English, and most signs were in Thai. Inside the university, it was easier because we were in an international program, but outside, I had to rely on gestures and body language. Over time, I learned basic Thai words to make interactions smoother,” Angelo explained.
He also learned to eat spicy Thai foods.
Homesickness was another major challenge. “I often cried during video calls with my family. But having fellow Filipino scholars at the university helped me adjust. We shared dormitory rooms and supported each other.”
Angelo also connected with the small Filipino community in Nakhon Ratchasima, eventually making friends and easing homesickness. He was only able to return home in October 2024 after completing his studies.
Was it his dream to become an engineer?
Knowing his family’s financial struggles, Angelo said that he resolved to study harder. He excelled in mathematics during his elementary and high school years.
“In elementary school, we had writing exercises about our ambitions. At first, my parents influenced my dream of becoming an engineer, specifically to plan and build houses. I believed that Civil Engineering would be our way out of poverty,” he said.
“My family remains my biggest inspiration—I want to give them the best life possible.”
Angelo and the first batch of Filipino Asean scholars graduated on March 23, 2025. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn conferred their degrees in the largest and most elaborate graduation ceremony in Nakhon Ratchasima.
However, earning his bachelor’s degree was not enough. Angelo believed that specializing in specific areas of Civil Engineering would open doors to various opportunities in the field.
In February 2025, Angelo was awarded another scholarship — becoming the first Filipino recipient of the One Research One Grant (OROG) Scholarship for Master of Engineering (M.Eng). He was endorsed by his adviser, Asst. Professor Dr. Theerawat Sinsiri. The scholarship covers full tuition and school activity fees, as well as research and conference expenses, though students must cover their own monthly and living allowances.
To the young people who are dreaming big, Angelo has wise words to impart:
“The possibilities out there are limitless. Do not be afraid to challenge yourself; you must be willing to get out of your comfort zone and grow. You have the ability and freedom to write your own story so be sure to make the most out of that. Dream as big as you can; it’s free. Be grateful to those who support you, and most of all, don’t forget to appreciate and give credit to yourself as well.”
Why did his friend intend it as a joke? What is so funny about studying abroad in Thailand?
Golf rose in popularity during the pandemic causing one family to cash-in.
Ask any young athlete what motivates them in their chosen sport and chances are, stylish outfits will make the list. The founders of Malbon know this all too well.
With their bold and visionary approach, Stephen and Erica Malbon bring a fresh, fashion-forward perspective to golf merchandise in a market of cookie-cutter homogeneity—propelling the Malbon brand to global success, with distribution in around 50 locations in South Korea and even making its way to Justin Bieber’s closet.
The Malbons’ entry into the golf apparel space is akin to a fresh, cool breeze on a hot summer day on the fairway.
Golf has seen a steady rise in popularity in the Philippines, especially through the pandemic when it was considered one of the few permitted activities. The sport continues to gain momentum with Filipino players making big swings overseas, from rising stars like Rianne Malixi to champions such as Bianca Pagdanganan, Yuka Saso, Miguel Tabuena, Angelo Que, Rico Hoey, golfers of all generations with Filipino heritage are making their mark on the global stage.
Just recently, it was announced that the Sta. Elena Golf Club in Cabuyao, Laguna will host the Asian Tour International Series in October this year—marking one of the most thrilling times for golf in the country.
It’s the perfect time for Malbon to step in and be part of the action, supporting the sport they love in a country close to their hearts. Founded in Los Angeles in 2017, Malbon is the work of husband-and-wife duo Stephen and Erica Malbon, the latter of whom has Filipino roots.
Now, Malbon has arrived in the Philippines with its largest store yet, launched last week under TKG Lifestyle. The space joins a curated selection of brands outside Shangri-La The Fort, on the same row of TKG Lifestyle’s brands %Arabica and Gentle Monster.
The store itself is an experience that merits a photo as soon as you step in, with sophisticated interiors, sleek water installation, and striking silver sculpture, all designed by architectural firm Eve Architecture. Customers can use iPad self-checkouts or enter the exclusive Buckets Club on the second floor where VIP guests can unwind after a round of golf (or shopping). Erica personally oversaw the design process, as she herself picked the wood and stone materials.
The Malbons have a deep love for golf which they consider “the greatest game on Earth.” As a golfer myself, I can’t help but appreciate the passion, the fresh concepts, and the excitement they bring to the sport.
Here, we sat down with Erica to get to know more about the brand as they open their first store in the Philippines.
What drove you to establish Malbon?
Stephen, my husband and co-founder, and I started Malbon with the intent of inspiring young people to participate in the greatest game on Earth—which we consider to be golf. We both had a passion for the sport, and we wanted to bring a contemporary flair to the brand.
Golf suddenly rose in popularity during the pandemic years. How did this affect your business?
The pandemic was actually a time for golf to really shine. I think that throughout the last couple of years, it’s all come to a head in terms of people playing. So I think there was the movement of brands like ourselves starting to make apparel and to make a culture around golf that was more fun and accessible simultaneously.
When the pandemic hit, it gave people more free time to explore hobbies and try something new. I think it really helped propel our Malbon movement and our business forward a little faster. The pandemic, of course, was unfortunate, but it helped us look for the positive in every situation, for everyone at that time.
What better reason to capitalize on a new fad?
