THE big question when schools reopen for in-person classes is whether the traditional configuration of a classroom — blackboard in front, space for student seating, and not much else — can continue after the pandemic. Will the classroom need to be redesigned, and who needs to be protected more — students, or teachers, some of whom may be elderly?

THE HOUSE Ways and Means Committee approved bills that proposed new economic zones in various parts of the country, including Mindoro, Sangley Point, Cavite, and Bacolod City.

THE Bureau of Customs (BoC) collected P4.29 billion worth of rice tariffs in the first quarter on imported volume of 606,000 kilograms (kg), Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said at a forum Monday.

LESS THAN 40% of local government units (LGUs) have so far automated their business permit systems with smaller municipalities falling behind, the Department of Trade and Industry said.

OUTSTANDING LOANS made to the agriculture sector totaled P229.70 billion at the end of March, the Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) said.

THE Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) is putting together an education task force to draft policy recommendations to the government to address gaps in the education system that were exposed during the pandemic.

THE Transportation department said Monday that the LRT-2 (Light Rail Transit Line 2) East Extension Project is set to be inaugurated by June, while the Common Station project will begin partial operations by the end of the year.

LEGISLATORS on Monday said the excise tax regime on sweetened drinks needs to be properly enforced, after it found revenue shortfalls and the non-implementation of programs for sugar farmers.

THE House Committee on Ways and Means approved on Monday a bill calling for the establishment of a bureau and special fund focused on procuring medical supplies.

It’s been more than a year since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This global health crisis, which has claimed millions of lives and continues to change the ways businesses operate, has spanned two tax seasons in the Philippines.

The pandemic found the government in the midst of an airport building frenzy, no doubt based on ambitious assumptions for financial returns before COVID-19 shut the world down. But now that travel demand is going to be depressed for the foreseeable future and the airlines the airports were meant to serve as gleaming new home bases hanging on precariously, many of the projects could be in for a hard rethink, because by the time they are all built or upgraded, the travel volumes they were designed around might not be there for years.

THE TRANSITION to imported natural gas was dictated by the impending depletion of the Philippines’ only indigenous provider of the resource, the Malampaya project. Malampaya provides fuel to natural gas-fired power plants in Batangas, which account for around 30% of the Luzon grid’s power needs. But with the field’s commercially viable reserves expected to run out by 2024, the power industry is racing to build out the infrastructure needed to bring in the gas and keep the power plants running.