Saturday, July 25, 2026

The countdown to Monday is on, and the stakes could hardly be higher. Marcos delivers his fifth and second-to-last State of the Nation Address on July 27, with barely two years left to show for his term. He heads into it juggling a weakening peso, a fresh US tariff, storms, and West Philippine Sea tension, and aides say he will frame the speech around navigating what he calls a very difficult period buffeted by external forces (via Inquirer).

Not everyone is waiting inside the Batasan to hear him out. Groups led by BAYAN and Kabataan Partylist are massing for a People's SONA and a State of the Youth Address, with mobilizations planned across the country and overseas to press sectoral grievances from wages to corruption. Expect the streets around Commonwealth Avenue to be as loud as the hall itself (via Rappler).

Here is the practical rundown if you are trying to follow along. The address goes before a joint session of the 20th Congress, Malacanang has promised a simple production with no celebrity directors or A-list acts, and the guest list, dress code, and road plans are all locked in around the Quezon City complex (via GMA News).

Kiyapo is on its way out, but it did not leave quietly. The tropical storm slammed into Cagayan on Friday and is forecast to slip out of the Philippine Area of Responsibility by Sunday morning, with heavy to intense rain of 100 to 200 mm still hammering Cagayan, Apayao, and Ilocos Norte on its way through (via Philstar).

The real damage came from the water, not the wind. Kiyapo and the enhanced southwest monsoon triggered flooding, road and bridge damage, and evacuations across Northern Luzon and the Visayas, with the Coast Guard pulling stranded residents from floodwaters in Guimaras and Antique (via GMA News).

The storm's landfall was textbook for the Babuyan corridor. Kiyapo hit Camiguin Island in Cagayan around midday Friday with 85 km/h winds before speeding west-northwest at 30 km/h, and forecasters warned it could balloon into a full typhoon once it clears the country and bears down on southern China (via Rappler).

Washington just changed the terms of trade, and Manila is not happy. President Trump imposed a new 12.5 percent tariff on Philippine exports after US trade officials ruled the country had not done enough to block goods made with forced labor, replacing the flat 10 percent duty that lapsed on July 24. The US is the Philippines' biggest export market, worth $13.46 billion or nearly 16 percent of total shipments last year (via BusinessWorld).

The silver lining is who got spared, and the plan to fight for more. Semiconductors, coconuts, pineapples, bananas, and nickel ores are exempt, sparing most of the country's top exports, and the Department of Trade and Industry is pushing for a broader carve-out, arguing that only 0.01 percent of shipments to the US were ever turned away for forced-labor concerns. A negotiating team is being lined up to bring the rate down (via Inquirer Business).

The peso can't find a floor. It closed at a fresh record low of P61.847 against the dollar on Friday, July 24, blowing past the P61.75 mark set just a day earlier, as $100 Brent crude, Middle East tension, and a firm greenback piled on. Traders are now eyeing P62 as the next line in the sand and watching whether the central bank steps in (via BusinessWorld).

Stocks, by contrast, basically flatlined. The PSEi barely moved on Friday, ending near the 6,280 level as the new US tariff and the peso's slide kept buyers cautious and trading thin. The official close is on the exchange's own board (via PSE Market Report).

Brace the fuel budget, because next week looks ugly. Oil firms are set to roll out another round of increases on July 28, with diesel projected to climb by P6 to P6.50 a liter and gasoline by P5.50 to P6, as elevated global crude and Middle East supply fears keep pushing pump prices up (via Philstar).

The one bit of good news is that the ceiling is back. The Department of Energy reinstated its stricter fuel-pricing rules this week, capping weekly diesel increases at P10.68 a liter and setting minimum rollback requirements, a guardrail meant to keep any single adjustment from running away from consumers (via Philstar).

Ginebra needed a statement, and it delivered a blowout. The Gin Kings routed Blackwater 115-85 in the PBA Governors' Cup at Araneta on Friday, July 24, leading wire to wire and stretching the gap to as many as 40 points in the fourth for a tidy bounce-back win (via GMA News).

Magnolia finally got off the schneid. The Hotshots beat Meralco 112-98 the same night for their first win of the conference after dropping their opening two games to Phoenix and Blackwater, improving to 1-2 and steadying a shaky start (via GMA News).

One behind-the-scenes photo, and the internet did the rest. A pictorial shot set showbiz timelines abuzz with talk that Kris Aquino may be plotting a comeback, a tantalizing hint from a star who has been largely out of the spotlight while battling illness (via PEP.ph).

There is a new king of the local streaming charts. The series UnMarry ended Wonderful Nightmare's 16-day reign atop the Philippines' Netflix rankings, a changing of the guard that says plenty about what viewers are binging this week (via PEP.ph).

The backlash may be headed to court. Kakai Bautista said she is weighing legal action over the fallout from the Apple David controversy, drawing a hard line after days of online pile-on (via PEP.ph).

A cult Vietnamese sandwich empire may be crossing the Pacific. Foodies are buzzing over whether Canada's The Lunch Lady, made famous by Anthony Bourdain, is opening a Manila outpost, and the speculation alone is enough to start a queue (via Philstar Life).

Donut lovers have a new reason to detour through Makati. Japan's Jack in the Donuts has opened in a Makati mall, bringing its airy, made-to-order rings to a city that never says no to another sweet (via Philstar Life).

The tools built to defend you are now arming the attackers. New Sophos research says artificial intelligence is speeding up the development of cyberattacks while opening fresh holes in companies that rush to deploy AI without proper guardrails, a double-edged warning for local firms racing to adopt it (via NewsBytes.ph).

Digging up the same street twice may finally end. The Private Sector Advisory Council is urging Marcos to adopt a One Canal Policy that would force telcos and utilities to share standardized underground infrastructure, a move meant to speed up fiber rollout and cut the endless road excavations (via NewsBytes.ph).

Filipino scientists just built a cleaner way to measure dirty air. University of the Philippines researchers developed ROAM, a locally made optical device that counts airborne particles with accuracy the team compares to lab-grade systems, a homegrown answer to costly imported monitors (via NewsBytes.ph).