CORONAVIRUS is spreading at an accelerating rate, but inappropriate quarantines and travel bans could cause more havoc than the disease itself. The World Health Organization (WHO)has a duty to protect human health, but also an obligation to protect the world’s citizens from the human rights violations or unnecessary economic hardship that panic could cause. So far, they’re doing a good job of striking this tricky balance.

It should be more than evident by now that much like its predecessors, doing nothing until things get worse, and then blaming everyone else except itself is what passes for the Duterte regime’s principle of governance. As the last three years of its benighted rule have amply demonstrated, it has neither a sense of urgency nor purpose except power and self-aggrandizement. Only indifference, if not contempt, is what it has for the people it should be serving. But have Filipinos, particularly President Rodrigo Duterte’s die-hard, fact-resistant, untutored hordes, even noticed?

“Sleep, perchance to dream.” -- William Shakespeare, Hamlet

RECOGNIZING the potential risk of the novel coronavirus (nCoV) getting worse, the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) on Thursday moved for the postponement of several of its managed events lined up.

LOS ANGELES -- The Rockets completed their transformation to a small-ball team, as the four-team trade sending center Clint Capela from Houston to the Atlanta Hawks was officially announced late Wednesday night.

PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. Duterte has reiterated that he is not open to negotiations over the revised deals that will be offered to Metro Manila’s two water concessionaires unless they pay consumers back the money collected based on the previous “onerous contracts.”

THE PESO ended stronger against the greenback on Thursday as global equities and the local stock market continued to recover.

THE MAIN INDEX continued to gain ground on Thursday to break into the 7,500 level and recover following more than a week of decline.

THE PHILIPPINE’S anti-graft court has convicted Al Sanchez Vitangcol III, former Metro Rail Transit-Line 3 (MRT-3) general manager, and his uncle-in-law, Arturo V. Soriano, for graft and violations to the government’s procurement law over the rail system’s maintenance deal in 2012.

THE DEPARTMENT of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is ready to send the termination notice on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States, even as the country’s top envoy said such a move would place the Philippines on the “losing end.”

THE DEPARTMENT of Labor and Employment (DoLE) on Thursday announced the partial lifting of the total deployment ban on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Kuwait, which excludes household service workers.

THE overall year-on-year increase in prices of widely used goods picked up for the third straight month in January by its fastest pace in eight months, the government reported on Wednesday.