PHILIPPINE shares declined on Thursday amid a lack of catalysts and as investors continue to monitor the country’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation.

TELEVISION VIEWING level in the Philippines dropped to 13.5% in the first three months of 2021 from 17% in the same period a year ago, mainly due to the shutdown of ABS-CBN Corp.’s broadcast operations, a global measurement and analytics company said.

There was some convergence between market expectations of steady monetary policy on the part of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and its two recent pronouncements.

The thousands of wives widowed and the children orphaned by the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) the Duterte police unleashed in the course of the regime’s war on the poor in the guise of a “war on drugs” have long awaited the decision of International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to request the ICC’s Pretrial Chamber (PTC) to authorize her “to proceed with an investigation” into the killings. But it is only one more stage in a process that could take years to complete. Bensouda’s preliminary investigation into “the [human rights] situation in the Philippines” itself took more than two years to conclude.

CHINA has now delivered more than 1 billion vaccine doses, hitting that COVID-19 milestone the same weekend that Brazil passed one of its own: more than 500,000 deaths. Daily case numbers remain worryingly high, and those hospitalized and dying include larger numbers of young people. India, meanwhile, is at risk of a third wave of infections sooner than predicted, after a devastating second.

BANGKOK — A year after the start of student-led protests against Thailand’s military-backed government, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is facing growing anger amid a mounting wave of coronavirus infections and a dismal economy.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Wednesday it plans to move quickly to add a warning about rare cases of heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults to fact sheets for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

HONG KONG — Hong Kong cyber activists are backing up articles by pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily on censorship-proof blockchain platforms after the newspaper was forced to shut down as it became embroiled in a national security law crackdown.

KAYA FC-Iloilo created history late Wednesday by barging into the group stage of the 2021 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League (ACL).

Final decision on whether the 2021 Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam later this year would push through or be postponed was deferred for two weeks on the host country’s request. 

FILIPINO golfer Juvic Pagunsan is excited to compete in the Olympic Games in Tokyo next month and make the most of the opportunity presented to him.

BENIGNO S.C. AQUINO III, the Philippine president who tried to send corrupt officials to jail and took China to court for its island-building activities in the South China Sea, has died. He was 61.