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Reissued bonds fetch lower rates as market expects more BSP cuts

BW FILE PHOTO

THE GOVERNMENT made a full award of the reissued Treasury bonds (T-bonds) it offered on Tuesday at a lower average yield amid strong demand and as expectations of easing inflation bolstered bets of another rate cut by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) as early as this month.

The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) raised P30 billion as planned via the reissued seven-year bonds it offered on Tuesday as total bids reached P59.869 billion or nearly twice as much as the amount placed on the auction block.

This brought the total outstanding volume for the bond series so far to P321.7 billion, the Treasury said in a statement.

Following the strong demand for Tuesday’s offer, the BTr opened its tap facility window to raise P5 billion more through the papers.

The bonds, which have a remaining life of five years and one month, were awarded at an average rate of 5.887%. Accepted bid yields ranged from 5.8% to 5.899%.

The average rate for the reissued papers was down by 5.6 basis points (bps) from the 5.943% fetched for the series’ last award on April 29 and was 48.8 bps lower than the 6.375% coupon for the issue.

It was likewise 1.1 bps below the 5.898% quoted for the five-year bond but 2.9 bps higher than the 5.858% seen for the same bond series at the secondary market before Tuesday’s auction, based on PHP Bloomberg Valuation Service Reference Rates data provided by the BTr.

The Treasury fully awarded its T-bond offer as the issue’s average rate was lower than the yield fetched for the previous reissuance and in line with prevailing secondary market rates on expectations that Philippine headline inflation eased further in May, which would give the BSP room to cut benchmark rates further, Rizal Commercial Baking Corp. Chief Economist Michael L. Ricafort said in a Viber message.

“The T-bond auction yield was also slightly lower on relatively higher total bids compared to previous Treasury bond offerings in recent weeks,” Mr. Ricafort said.

“As mentioned, the BTr will take advantage if there is a hint of strong demand,” the first trader said in a text message.

A BusinessWorld poll of 17 analysts yielded a median estimate of 1.3% for the May consumer price index (CPI), slower than the 1.4% in April and 3.9% in the same month a year ago. This is within the BSP’s 0.9%-1.7% forecast for the month.

If realized, this would be the lowest CPI in more than five years or since the 1.2% in November 2019.

The Philippine Statistics Authority is scheduled to release May inflation data on Thursday (June 5).

Analysts have said that cooling inflation bolsters the case for further policy easing by the central bank, with another rate cut likely at the Monetary Board’s June 19 meeting.

The Monetary Board in April reduced the target reverse repurchase rate by 25 bps to 5.5%, bringing total cuts thus far to 100 bps since it began its easing cycle in August last year.

BSP Governor Eli M. Remolona, Jr. last month said that they could deliver two more rate cuts this year amid easing inflation, still in “baby steps” or increments of 25 bps.

After June, the Monetary Board’s remaining meetings will be in August, October, and December.

Meanwhile, the second trader flagged that despite the oversubscription for Tuesday’s offer, the non-competitive bids fetched for the papers were relatively lower compared to those seen for recent issuances with longer tenors.

“The awarded yield also landed at the higher end of the range. At this point, the market appears to be seeking fresh catalysts, with the anticipated policy rate cut seemingly already priced into investment assets, while bank funding costs remain elevated,” the second trader said.

The BTr is looking to raise P230 billion from the domestic market this month, or P100 billion via Treasury bills and P130 billion through T-bonds.

The government borrows from local and foreign sources to help fund its budget deficit, which is capped at P1.54 trillion or 5.3% of gross domestic product this year. — Aaron Michael C. Sy

Hong Kong activist challenges China’s Tiananmen taboo from exile in Taiwan

TAIPEI — Fu Tong and his wife Elaine To were among the first demonstrators in Hong Kong to be charged with rioting in 2020 after pro-democracy and anti-China protests started in 2019 in the former British colony.

After leaving for Taiwan, Mr. Fu continued his activism and is now preparing to mark this year’s anniversary of Beijing’s bloody June 4, 1989, crackdown on protesters in and around Tiananmen Square.

Mr. Fu has co-hosted a Hong Kong human rights exhibition in Taipei, showcasing artwork from the protest movement, and leads guided tours of the displays.

“When Hong Kong can no longer hold the June 4 vigils, and can no longer even mention it, Taiwan’s existence becomes very important,” Mr. Fu, 43, told Reuters in Taipei.

“It’s one of the very few places in Asia, where people can openly commemorate the accident on June 4, discuss it, and even condemn the Chinese Communist Party. The existence of such a space is already hugely significant,” he said.

Taiwan is the only part of the Chinese-speaking world where June 4 can be remembered openly, though Chinese communities in the United States, Britain, Australia, and other Western countries will also mark it.

In Hong Kong, a national security law has outlawed such events, which previously drew tens of thousands of people.

Mr. Fu says he remains committed to advocating for Hong Kong issues and the values of freedom.

“I really feel like I’ve been chosen to be in this era. If I don’t step up to do things that seem foolish and unrewarding, then who will? As long as I can, I’m willing to keep going,” he said.

Before dawn on June 4, 1989, Chinese tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square, crushing weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations by students and workers.

China has never provided a full death toll, but rights groups and witnesses say the figure could run into thousands. Public discussion of what happened is taboo in China, which blamed the protests on counterrevolutionaries seeking to overthrow the ruling Communist Party. — Reuters

Responsible leadership in the age of AI

STOCK PHOTO | Image from Freepik

(Part 1)

Call it serendipity or Divine Providence. During the week of May 5 to 11, I accompanied a group of top Philippine business people to take a short upskilling course at one of the top business schools in the world, the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain.

This was part of the Executive Education course at the University of Asia and the Pacific called the Strategic Business Executive Program that upgrades the economic literacy of top executives of both private and public institutions. With the ongoing thrust in the business world of upskilling, reskilling, and retooling the work force, the very first example has to be set by the CEOs and top executives themselves. Among other knowledge and skills, they need an appreciation of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can enhance their ability to lead.

I often remind top executives that even those who obtained their MBAs or other advanced degrees from the best business schools five or more years ago are already obsolete today in their knowledge of the tools and technologies of what is called the Industrial Revolution 4.0 which encompasses AI, Robotization, the Internet of Things and Data Analytics, among others.

We were fortunate to learn of the IESE Custom Program for top executives that is considered the best in the world. IESE professors conduct specialized programs on specific topics that address the upskilling needs of management personnel of corporations all over the world. Those interested in this very valuable training program can contact Dominique Hudson, Program Manager of the IESE Custom Program at DHudson@iese.edu.

Little did we anticipate that in the very same week during which some of the top professors of the IESE Business School would be helping us attain a minimum understanding of AI and its responsible use in business, the whole world would be waiting with bated breath the election of a new Pope during the Conclave that was held after the death of Pope Francis the week before.

Even less did we expect that a little known Cardinal by the name of Robert Francis Prevost, whose chances of being elected Pope was rated by the pollsters at 1%, would be elected Pope. And that he would choose as his papal name Leo XIV because, following the example of Pope Leo XIII, he would give the highest priority to proclaiming to the world the social doctrine of the Church concerning AI and all matters related to the Industrial Revolution 4.0 in the same manner that Pope Leo XIII wrote the first social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, that delved deep into the ethical issues involved in the First Industrial Revolution (1790 to 1830), especially about the obligations of employers to their workers.

The workshop participants from the Philippines spent one whole day under the supervision of Professor Oscar Gonzalez-Peralta of IESE who wrote the case used for the workshop. As in all case discussions inspired by the Harvard Business School methodology, we were reminded that cases are designed to promote class discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective management of a given situation. Before the actual case discussion, the participants were asked to read some materials defining some key concepts. First, AI was defined as a machine’s ability to perform the cognitive functions we associate with human minds, such as perceiving, reasoning, learning, interacting with the environment, problem-solving, and even exercising creativity (McKinsey and Company, 2024).

At the present state of technology, AI capabilities are as follows: perception, including audio, visual, textual, and tactile (e.g., face recognition); decision making (e.g., medical diagnosis); prediction (weather forecasting); automatic knowledge extraction and pattern recognition from data; interactive communication (e.g., chatbots, virtual personal assistants); logical reasoning (e.g., theorizing from premises); and creativity (e.g., text, images, sounds).

These capabilities can be deployed through the use of a long list of AI technologies such as chatbots (natural language processing); LLM or large language models (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini): text-based knowledge generation; virtual personal assistant; image and video classification; object detection and localization; language understanding; sound detection and recognition; sentiment analysis; language translation; face detection; person identification; LLM image and video generation; speech to text; emotion recognition, physical devices (IoT or the Internet of Things); recommendation; targeting; autonomous vehicles; and virtual reality and optical character, handwriting recognition.

There is no question that all these capabilities enabled by AI technologies can do much good to enable human beings to be more productive in their work, home, and leisure.

In the case chosen for the workshop to probe into the ethical principles that come into play in the use of AI, the industry involved was the healthcare sector, and in particular residential care homes. In the demographic transition that occurred over the last 20 years, especially in Western Europe and East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore), the rapid ageing of the population and the need for ever increasing care for the aged made residential care homes more profitable for healthcare entrepreneurs. The Philippine workforce has especially benefited from this ever-increasing need for caregivers, nurses, physical therapists, and other healthcare professionals. A significant portion of the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) work in this industry. It may take time before this industry becomes a major component of the healthcare sector of the Philippines itself because of the cultural preference of Filipinos to minister to the needs of their ageing relatives in their respective homes. The increasing participation of our OFWs in residential care homes all over the world, however, makes it necessary for us to understand the ethical principles at play in the application of AI to the important humanitarian work of taking care of the ageing population in residential care homes.

The case discussed by our business delegation was about a family enterprise called “Old Tree: Residential Care Homes,” written by IESE Senior Lecturer Oscar Gonzalez-Peralta. The residential long-term care industry has experienced rapid growth over the last three decades as a consequence of the increased demand for long-term services and support (LTSS). Especially in countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, the population of older adults has grown, and life expectancies have increased for people with disabilities and chronic conditions. Care work, however, must increasingly turn to technologies that can be provided by AI to lighten the burden on the human workers.

As described in the case, care work can be incredibly taxing, both mentally and physically. In addition to monitoring health, planning care, administering treatments, dressing, preparing meals, and helping users with small tasks, care workers perform many other functions that can be physically demanding. LTSS care workers are expected to use their own bodies to move patients many times a day — including in and out of bed, to and from the bathroom, and in and out of bathing chairs. As a result of the high physical demands of this work, the caregivers experience significantly higher rates of on-the-job injuries.

It is very understandable that those who own and manage residential care homes are among those who are most eager to use AI to improve their margins and offer a differentiated value proposition, given the evolution of society and the sector. If one considers the vast potentials of the technological offerings of IR 4.0 (AI, Robotization, IoT, and data analytics), it is understandable that a sector like the residential care homes industry would want to waste no time in adopting the use of robots, AI, and data analytics in serving their clients and patients.

(To be continued.)

 

Bernardo M. Villegas has a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard, is professor emeritus at the University of Asia and the Pacific, and a visiting professor at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. He was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.

bernardo.villegas@uap.asia

ALI targets December opening for first phase of Ayala Malls Arca South

Ayala Malls Arca South — AYALA LAND, INC.

LISTED Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI) said it targets to open the first phase of Ayala Malls Arca South in Taguig City in December.

“The first phase is launching at the end of the year, and it will be a reflection of a new way of thinking about what community centers are, most especially destination centers,” ALI Leasing and Hospitality Group Head Mariana Zobel de Ayala said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday.

“We envision Ayala Malls Arca South as the ultimate destination marketplace — fresh produce, flowers and plants, crafts, pa-luto, and coffee roasteries — all anchored on the best of the Philippines. If we succeed, it will be a place people will go out of their way to travel to,” she added.

Ayala Malls Arca South will feature a food hall designed as a convergence space for diverse flavors and cultures. It will also have a dedicated market hall spotlighting regional delicacies and fresh produce through a cook-to-order dining concept, as well as an artisanal coffee hub.

The mall is situated within ALI’s 74-hectare Arca South estate in Taguig City.

ALI said Arca South has gained momentum in residential, healthcare, and infrastructure development. It currently features six residential projects from Ayala Land Premier, Alveo, and Avida.

Arbor Lanes and Gardencourt Residences, Ayala Land Premier’s signature developments, continue to draw strong interest, the company also said.

Arca South also hosts Healthway Cancer Care Hospital, Landers Superstore, and The Arca South Pitch.

The company plans to open the Blue Leaf venue next year, offering a premium space for social and corporate events.

Accessibility to the area is expected to improve with the completion of the Taguig City Integrated Terminal Exchange (TCITx), an intermodal facility developed in partnership with key government agencies and the private sector.

Once operational, TCITx will link Arca South to the Skyway, Southeast Metro Manila Expressway (C6), Metro Manila Subway, and North-South Commuter Railway.

ALI shares rose by 1.06% or 25 centavos to P23.75 per share on Tuesday. — Revin Mikhael D. Octave

A high-stakes sector: Momentum and continuity in education

PHILIPPINE STAR/NOEL PABALATE

We perfectly appreciate the rationale for President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.’s call for his Cabinet secretaries and other officials to hand in their courtesy resignations after the midterm elections last May 12.

It is, after all, the President’s prerogative to choose who will be his alter ego. These are positions of confidence, and those occupying these key posts are presumed to enjoy the full trust and confidence of the appointing power, not only for their credentials and expertise, but their actual experience on the job.

Thus far, President Marcos Jr. has retained several key officials and replaced or transferred some. These are critical decisions that will affect the next three years of his term, and even beyond that if we are talking about long-term reforms that must be put in place in key sectors.

One such sector is education.

It is widely acknowledged that the Philippine education system has numerous complex challenges that need to be addressed over the short, medium, and long term. The first and second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM) reports give a sense of the daunting problems at all levels of education — in fact beginning at the very early stages of a learner’s life — hindering the realization of our youth’s full potential.

Compared to other countries, and despite the constitutional provision that mandates that education get the highest budgetary priority, the Philippines has been spending less per student compared to other countries. According to the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), per-student spending in the Philippines has seen a decline, from P22,979 in 2017 to P19,943 in 2021, ranking among the lowest globally.

Comparatively, the Philippines spends only about 60% and 72% of Indonesia’s per student public spending for primary and secondary levels, respectively. This is despite the fact that the Philippines’ per capita income is 84% of Indonesia’s. When using Purchasing Power Parity (PPP$) — defined by the World Bank as being a method used to compare the purchasing power of different currencies — Singapore spends PPP$16,704 and PPP$20,632 per primary- and secondary-level student, respectively. The Philippines, on the other hand, spends PPP$813 per primary level student and PPP$777 per secondary student.

As in many other sectors, the partnership of the public and private sector would do much to strengthen education. This will help resolve many issues in education, such as classroom congestion. Through these partnerships, schools can be equipped with and maximize digital learning tools, collaborate with industry partners, and improve access to quality education.

From the legislative front, a concrete example would be the proposed expansion of the voucher program of the Department of Education (DepEd) to assist private schools, as filed in the Senate. Currently, the voucher program only includes Senior High School, and the proposal aims to expand this to Kindergarten to Grade 6. Indeed, steps toward greater complementarity between public and private schools are already being undertaken in the current administration.

But it is in the Executive Department, under the leadership of Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara, and also TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) Director General Francisco Benitez, that the government needs continuity most of all.

In recent days, private school groups have expressed support for the two Cabinet secretaries: the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations, the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities, the Unified TVET of the Philippines, Inc., and the Private Education Assistance Committee.

The support is well founded. Mr. Angara’s policy direction aligns with urgent priorities: improving teacher support, efficient use of resources, and revamping outdated systems. As a former legislator and commissioner of the 2nd EDCOM, Angara brings policy depth and political advantage — both critical to push through long-overdue changes in DepEd. He has pushed for equity in subsidies, focusing on outcomes and institutionalizing transparency.

Meanwhile, Mr. Benitez has been laying the foundation for 21st century workforce readiness — with strategies rooted in inclusivity, industry relevance, and lifelong learning.

He is pushing for the modernization of the TVET (technical and vocational education and training) system, moving away from short-term programs toward sustainable career pathways. He has improved TESDA’s alignment with industry needs, a crucial move as the country faces a skills mismatch and high youth unemployment.

These two officials deserve to be given the opportunity to continue the good work they have been doing at their respective agencies. Both leaders represent a shift toward evidence-based, inclusive, and accountable governance in education. Their retention would not only benefit students and teachers but would also send a strong message that performance matters more than politics.

The stakes are high in education: it involves our youth, our future, our economic progress, and the preservation of democracy. The effects of education initiatives are not immediate — they take a while to manifest in the quality of our students’ performance, not just in aptitude tests but in how they navigate the challenges of a tech-driven world and how they are able to ensure a good quality of life for themselves and their families.

We thus echo the call to retain Secretaries Angara and Benitez in their respective posts. Keeping them would ensure momentum and continuity in what they have begun. It would ensure that the pockets of change that we are beginning to see would ripen into substantial and sustained transformation of the education sector for our students and teachers, and for our nation.

 

Victor Andres “Dindo” C. Manhit is the president of the Stratbase ADR Institute.

VistaREIT, Inc. to conduct 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders online on July 7

 

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Two exiled Belarusian publishers share Prix Voltaire for defending their language and culture

TWO BELARUSIANS who fled repression in their native country were named on Monday as winners of the Prix Voltaire, a prestigious award that recognizes publishers who fight for freedom of expression.

Dmitri Strotsev is a publisher and poet who was briefly arrested and jailed during mass demonstrations in 2020 against Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. He now operates from Berlin.

Nadia Kandrusevich founded Koska, a children’s publisher that had books seized and offices closed after the crackdown by Mr. Lukashenko’s security forces. She now lives in Poland.

James Taylor, director of communications and freedom to publish at the International Publishers Association, told Reuters the pair were being recognized for the personal risks they had taken and for their contribution to preserving the Belarusian language.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Strotsev, 62, said the pro-democracy protests five years ago had provoked an outpouring of poetic expression in Belarus as demonstrators clamored for Mr. Lukashenko, in power since 1994, to step down after a disputed election.

But as the crackdown gathered pace, poets deleted their work from the internet because they feared it could endanger not only themselves but anyone who commented on it or “liked” it.

Mr. Strotsev said he himself was arrested in October 2020 by operatives of the KGB security service. He was handcuffed and bundled into a minibus, with a bag placed over his head, then interrogated and sentenced to two weeks in jail for taking part in an unauthorized demonstration.

After his release, he was briefly detained twice more and lived in hiding for a time before leaving the country in 2021.

‘POLYPHONY’
In Berlin, he founded the small publishing house Hochroth Minsk as a platform for the poets of the failed revolution, whose voices he compares to a choral symphony.

“It was very important for me to somehow present to Belarusians and the world this polyphony, this one big symphonic choral work. I left Belarus with that task,” he said.

Ms. Kandrusevich, the children’s publisher who shared the prize of 10,000 Swiss francs ($12,200) with Mr. Strotsev, said: “This recognition affirms not only the importance of publishing and translating books for children but the belief in the quiet power of words to shape minds, to open hearts, and to build bridges across languages, cultures, and generations.”

Both publishers are dedicated to promoting the Belarusian language, although Mr. Strotsev has also published Belarusian poets writing in Russian, Yiddish, Polish, and even Norwegian.

Russian has been the dominant language in Belarus since Soviet times, so speaking and writing in the native tongue is itself an act of resistance, Mr. Strotsev said.

His mission, he said, is “to bear consistent witness to this language and this culture, because if things continue as they are, there will be no Belarusian language in Belarus.” — Reuters

Lazada Philippines to boost AI features for sellers and buyers

CARLOS BARRERA, CEO of Lazada Philippines — LAZADA/BW FILE PHOTO

ELECTRONIC commerce platform Lazada Philippines is set to integrate more artificial intelligence (AI) features to streamline seller workflows and increase buyer traffic.

“We’ve been working on certain work streams to integrate AI. Today, there are more than 12 separate work streams where we are looking at the value of AI and the ways to support it,” Lazada Philippines Chief Executive Officer Carlos Barrera said in an interview with BusinessWorld.

The platform aims to use AI to enhance its content and catalogue offerings, he said.

“For example, AI can automatically fill in the attributes of a [particular] item so that the moment you upload a T-shirt through the automated search, it will recognize that the T-shirt is size M (medium), is black in color, and has this type of cut,” Mr. Barrera said.

“That can easily save thousands of hours a month for some of our top sellers.”

According to Mr. Barrera, AI has contributed to double-digit percentage increases in traffic for its campaigns.

With AI, customer inquiries have become more complex, and the platform is able to provide more “situational recommendations,” he said.

“We power our entire recommendation system and our homepage to be fully personalized depending on the person using the app,” he said, noting that AI can tailor platform content based on predictive variables.

AI has also been used to track routes and streamline delivery systems, he added.

Lazada projects double-digit sales growth this year, Mr. Barrera said.

“We want to grow double year on year for sure. Our goal is to grow at least as fast as the market,” he said.

The Philippine e-commerce market is expected to reach $150 billion in gross merchandise value by 2030, according to a 2024 report by Google, Temasek Holdings, and Bain & Co.

However, Mr. Barrera emphasized the need for improved internet access, logistics, and financial inclusion to increase e-commerce market penetration.

“When you take a step back and think about the current situation of the [Philippine] market, we’re still one of the countries with the lowest penetration,” he said.

“There’s significant improvement, but there’s still room to grow.” — Beatriz Marie D. Cruz

DBP posts P1.6-B net income in Q1

BW FILE PHOTO

DEVELOPMENT Bank of the Philippines (DBP) saw its net income surge by 82% year on year in the first quarter as it continued to boost its lending to its priority sectors.

The state-run lender’s net income stood at P1.608 billion at end-March, its financial statement showed. DBP said this was up from P571 million a year ago.

“DBP’s strong financial performance in the first quarter is reflective of the robust performance of the local banking industry that has greatly benefitted from the stable macroeconomic environment brought about by the sound economic policies of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.,” DBP President and Chief Executive Officer Michael O. de Jesus said in a statement on Tuesday.

“We expect another banner year for the bank given the favorable economic landscape even as we pursue more programs and initiatives that would contribute positively towards the ‘deep economic and social transformation as embodied in the Philippine Development Plan’ 2023 to 2028.”

Mr. De Jesus said the increase in its first-quarter net profit was driven by “significant increases in interest income from its lending and investment portfolio.”

The bank’s net interest income was at P7.14 billion in the first three months. Interest income stood at P12.83 billion, while interest expense was at P5.69 billion.

Loans to borrowers rose to P519 billion in the period from P509 billion a year ago. “About 60% of DBP’s total loans, or P314.7 billion, went to the infrastructure and logistics sector with most of the projects located in the National Capital Region, Central Luzon, Davao, Eastern Visayas, and Central Visayas,” Mr. De Jesus said.

The bank also disbursed P96.7 billion in loans to projects for social infrastructure and community development, P47 billion for environment-related projects, and P25 billion for micro, small, and medium enterprises, he added.

DBP’s other income stood at P771.67 million.

Meanwhile, the bank’s operating expenses stood at P4.07 billion.

Total deposits rose by 9% to P820.84 billion in the quarter from P756 billion a year ago.

DBP’s total assets expanded by 7% to P1.04 trillion as of March from P977 billion in the same period last year. Total capital was at P97.17 billion.

The bank’s net worth stood at P97 billion, up by 11% from P87 billion a year ago.

DBP has a total of 150 branches, including 14 branch-lite units.

Mr. De Jesus said the bank “will continue to be aggressive in pushing for programs in support of the National Government’s economic agenda, especially those that promote infrastructure development, food sufficiency, and energy security, while ensuring that it remains responsive to the banking needs of its clients.” — A.M.C. Sy

Kazam connects homeowners with ‘right’ helpers

OFFICIALGAZETTE.GOV.PH

By Almira Louise S. Martinez, Reporter

KAZAM, an online platform by Azcalun, Inc. that connects homeowners and housekeepers, seeks to help more users find the right matches through its app.

“You waste a lot of time by texting people, posting online, and then ending up not getting exactly what you’re looking for,” Cris Azaña, co-founder and chief executive officer at Azcalun, told BusinessWorld in an interview.

She said people usually find domestic helpers through agencies, referrals from friends and family and Facebook, which causes a lot of frustration.

“If people are going digital in terms of hiring kasambahays (house helpers), maybe it’s high time we give them an app or platform where they can talk there directly,” she said.

Kazam was launched in 2021 as a website and expanded to a mobile app in 2022. Both helpers and homeowners can register for free, but employers need a “reply credit plan” or an “unlimited time-bound subscription” to reply to job seekers.

Upon registration, users can also verify their profiles by scanning or uploading valid IDs or a live selfie. “This is to create trust between the two users, so that their profiles can be more trustworthy to each other,” Ms. Azaña said.

The app works like most dating apps, where users can swipe right to their preferred candidates, and left to decline. It uses a “personality-matching algorithm” funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DoST), which aims to create a compatible employee-employer relationship.

“One of the things that the grant funded was deep-dive research into how helpers and employers interact and how to predict whether they will stay or have a good working relationship,” she said.

Helpers can also add their desired salary, skill set, job experiences, gender orientation and preferred work setup to find the employer who fits their needs.

“We’re trying to make it like a LinkedIn for helpers,” Jesus Antonio Gerardo Lucero, co-founder and chief operating officer at Azcalun, said.  “We want to let them showcase what they have done so they can increase their earning potential through the app.”

Once the helper and employer agree on a job offer, a pre-filled employment contract is provided through the app, in line with Republic Act 10361 or the Kasambahay law.

“They can fill out an editable contract that states the scope of benefits like Social Security System, PhilHealth (Philippine Health Insurance Corp.) and allowances,” Ms. Azaña said.

Out of 1.4 million domestic helpers in the Philippines, only 2.5% or 35,000 have written employment contracts, while 1.36 million have no contracts, according to the Labor department.

Under the law, contracts must include the duties and responsibilities, period of employment, compensation, authorized deductions, hours of work, rest days, allowable leaves, board and lodging, agreements on deployment expenses and termination of employment.

“We do not intervene in the interaction of the kasambahay and the owner, but we can sure as hell make it easier for them to comply for the protection of each other,” Ms. Azaña said.

Kazam has 22,000 users, 16,000 of whom are house helpers and 6,000 are homeowners. It aims to reach a million users by June 2026.

Development budget priorities

PHILIPPINE STAR/MIGUEL DE GUZMAN

In literacy and numeracy tests given to elementary level students in the ASEAN region, Vietnam is now the topnotcher. The Philippines ranks just a level above Myanmar at the bottom of the standings. This is likely because when “Uncle Ho” (Ho Chi Minh) became president of his victorious country, he focused on investing in his people. In other words, education became a development budget priority.

In the United States, for a long time the world’s top-performing economy, Donald Trump has banned foreign students from obtaining student visas at Harvard University. One reason he cites is it has allegedly become a hotbed of communist sympathizers. Xi Jinping’s only daughter has been a student there, along with many descendants of China’s communist party leaders. Some Chinese students have gone to Stanford, Columbia, and other Ivy League schools.

Today, Vietnam and China are fast becoming dynamic economies, powered by its highly educated engineers and scientists who are leading their manufacturing industries. China, for one, is going deeply into high technology sectors including AI.

Meanwhile, the Philippines, once upon a time second only to Japan as the leading economy in Asia, has become a consumer-led economy powered by its heroic overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), mostly low-level domestics, whose families suffer the consequences of the separations. The sad reality is that our “high growth” economy would collapse without these remittances from our OFWs.

Meanwhile, our legislators have violated the Constitutional provision requiring education to have the highest share of the national appropriations. The legislators have prioritized public works, which provides for pork barrel in our election year. The congressmen reduced the allocations for education and other social services, including provisions for hungry families. We know the effect of malnutrition on the ability of hungry children to learn.

A whole warehouse of laptops which somehow were not distributed to teachers had become obsolete; a waste of millions of pesos of taxpayer money. There are not enough classrooms for our high growth population; and so, there are too many students crowding too many classrooms burdening too few teachers.

The word “education” has its roots in “educe” (“draw out”). And yet, basically our education system is what you might call “banking.” Teachers are expected to deposit information which the students have to play back when the teachers ask them to withdraw the same information. Because of the need to give grades, quizzes are given and corrected regularly to produce numbers. True or false and multiple-choice questions are the easiest to correct. So, students are not challenged (not drawn out) which does not develop critical thinking. In-depth discussions would be possible if the grading system were reduced to Pass, Fail, and Distinction.

It is never too late to undertake reforms. As a new manager of a small ad agency that had just lost its biggest account, I found the staff consisted of “order takers.” Little by little, I challenged them, including secretaries, to become thinkers and initiators. And in less than two years, the ad agency had become the fastest growing in the industry. The corporate culture had evolved into a participative, empowering culture. In an interview with the business paper, the ad agency’s art director, when asked what the secret was behind the dynamism of the company, replied “kusang palo” (Self-propulsion).

As a missionary schoolteacher in the province (my first real job), I challenged my students whose command of English was very poor, to read and carry on conversations in English. In a year, they had won regional contests in declamation and spelling.

I am so glad that Bam Aquino took the No. 2 slot in the senatorial race. His campaign focused on his legislative work promoting free education for state universities. His victory indicated that our people consider education to be a valuable benefit to their families.

Let us hope that in the near future, our politicians will realize that we need to invest in our people, first and foremost. We need more classrooms. We need more and better-trained teachers. We need to establish new frameworks for learning. We need to replace “teaching methodologies” with student-centered “learning methodologies.”

 

Teresa S. Abesamis has been a development management, social and political marketing consultant for over 20 years.

tsabesamis0114@yahoo.com

ABS-CBN Corp. to conduct 2025 Annual Meeting of the Stockholders via remote communication on June 26

 

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