BusinessWorld B-Side

Where should you put your money? NFTs (non-fungible tokens)? REITs (real estate investment trusts)? VUL (variable universal life insurance)? Mutual funds? Stocks?  In this episode of B-Side, Rex A. Mendoza, president and chief executive officer of Rampver Financials, a distributor of investment funds in the Philippines, shares financial advice and his picks for winning investment vehicles with Bus...

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have applications beyond crypto art and blockchain games. They can also be used in business-to-business transactions such as licensing, supply chain management, and invoicing.   Marissa Trew, marketing manager of TZ APAC, a Singapore-based blockchain consultancy firm speaks with BusinessWorld reporter Michelle Anne P. Soliman about the potential for NFTs as a tool f...

For every athlete whose Olympic dreams came true in Tokyo — like weightlifter Hidilyn F. Diaz and boxer Nesthy A. Petecio — there are so many others whose dreams were either dashed or delayed because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Tokyo 2020 was supposed to be part of the redemption arc of Mary Joy R. Tabal, who was looking to make up for Rio 2016, where she crossed the finis...

Weightlifter Hidilyn F. Diaz, 30, is one of 19 Filipinos competing in this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo after the event was canceled last year amid a coronavirus pandemic. In this episode of B-Side, Ms. Diaz speaks with BusinessWorld senior reporter Michael Angelo S. Murillo about going for gold, and training through a pandemic away from home, away from friends, and away from family.  By the...

With the Delta variant of the coronavirus spreading, remote work looks like it will continue throughout 2021. Data privacy and data protection are big concerns since hackers have become more aggressive, prompting stricter regulations around the world. "A lot of companies are still in infancy stages of implementing their data protection management programs. They still have to come up with a lot of...

Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk are in the news for competing with each other in a space tourism race. Like these billionaires, the Philippines also has ambitions of exploring the final frontier — but for much more practical reasons, such as detecting illegal mining activities and measuring environmental parameters like air quality and soil moisture.  The Philippine Space Agency (P...

The “play-to-earn” movement is an emerging phenomenon in gaming, wherein players collect rewards in the form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) within a game and later convert them to real cash. Guilds have also cropped up to invest in in-game assets, loan these out to a player community, and educate others who may want to join in.  “We do not only serve players themselves but it could actually be...

More than 60,000 book titles will be available at steep discounts in the online edition of Big Bad Wolf, a book fair that has, in the past, attracted half a million visitors over a single run.   In this episode of B-Side, Big Bad Wolf (BBW) founders Jacqueline Ng and Andrew Yap tell BusinessWorld reporter Patricia B. Mirasol how two years of planning went out the window because of the pandemi...

The Philippines isn't sleeping well. The anxiety-inducing pandemic has done no favors to a country that has a robust business process outsourcing industry that operates in a different time zone. "We have a lot of shift workers that usually go against their internal clock," said Dr. Jimmy V. Chang, head of the Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center of St. Luke’s Medical Center, Quezon City, and chair...

Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) — which are among the most vulnerable to economic disruptions brought about by the pandemic — have had to accept digitalization or lose business entirely.  "There are a lot of benefits for MSMEs to adopt digital solutions, including increasing productivity, reducing costs, and improving profit margins," said Dr. Denis Hew, director of the Asia-Paci...

Recreate , a new TV show hosted by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Daphne Oseña-Paez, documents the ways artists, local businesses, and cultural institutions are persevering despite the pandemic.  "There's a lot of innovation in technology, there's a lot of new businesses coming out … but it's still a creative thought process that is driving all of these changes," said Ms. Oseña-Paez. "People have...

The Philippines, often hailed as one the most gender-equal countries in the world, placed 17th out of 156 countries in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2021 . In the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippines came in second only to New Zealand, which ranked fourth globally.  The report doesn't paint the whole picture, said Nathalie Africa-Verceles, director of the Center for Wome...

The Philippine government went on a borrowing spree to support its pandemic response and make up for the plummeting revenues at the height of the coronavirus crisis. For 2020 alone, its gross borrowings — which does not include all the payments made during the period — hit P2.74 trillion, matching the P2.757 trillion debt incurred from 2017 to 2019.  In this B-Side episode, Alvin P. Ang, a pr...

Investment pledges approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) dropped by nearly a fifth last year after lockdown restrictions dented investor confidence.   In this B-Side episode, PEZA Director General Charito B. Plaza tells BusinessWorld reporter Jenina P. Ibañez how the investment promotion agency is planning a comeback over the next few years. PEZA is eyeing pharmaceutical c...

Companies might be spending on the wrong things when it comes to employee health. "We found that businesses were losing P100 billion annually due to poor employee health. That's in spite of companies already spending roughly P150 billion taking care of their employees," said Santiago J. Arnaiz, co-founder and chief operating officer of Project Fort, a health data consultancy. In this B-Side episod...

Art Fair Philippines is moving out of The Link car park in Makati City for its 2021 edition: it's going online and entering the world of crypto art and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). An NFT is a digital asset (a drawing, an image, a meme, an animated GIF, a video, even a tweet) and it uses the blockchain, the same technology behind bitcoin, to keep track of who owns the file. In March, a digital coll...

Alorica, a provider of customer management outsourcing solutions, has a young workforce: 30% are from Gen Z, and around 61% are millennials. "Freedom of thought is very important for them," said Irene L. Tan, vice-president for learning and development at Alorica Philippines, Inc., who added that the company has benefited from the "brilliant ideas" originating from these generational cohorts. In t...

The endemic tawilis—loved as deep fried, salted, smoked, or bottled in oil—is facing the possibility of extinction. The scientific community hatched an emergency plan to save the freshwater sardine to protect the livelihood of fishermen and to ensure that future generations will get to savor the fish. In this B-Side episode, Dr. Ma. Vivian DC. Camacho, station manager of the University of the Phil...

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have been called democratizers of wealth, allowing small investors to invest in big real estate projects. The Philippines has two REIT listings on the market, with the second listing holding the record for the most number of small investors. Officials from the exchange have expressed hope that more real estate developers will consider offering REITs.  In...

Economic growth can and should be inclusive, and the way to get there is to connect small businesses and individuals with the networks that drive the modern economy. In this B-Side episode, Alison L. Eskesen, vice-president at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, tells BusinessWorld reporter Patricia B. Mirasol how helping people gain access to these essential networks "can set in motion a...

Live theater is a collective experience: the audience is as much a part of the performance as the actors on stage.  "Social distancing is the antithesis of what we do," said Maribel A. Legarda, artistic director of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), which has been closed since March 2020. In this episode of B-Side, Ms. Legarda and Leloi T. Arcete, PETA head of public relat...

Not a Daydream, a women-led social enterprise, creates bags made out of native fabric. More important, it gives women in vulnerable communities in Tondo, Manila, a sustainable means of earning a living. In this episode of B-Side, BusinessWorld reporter Joseph L. Garcia speaks with Martine de Leeuw, co-owner of Not a Daydream, about running a social enterprise during the pandemic and the impact of...

Vaccine hesitancy threatens the rollout of coronavirus vaccines in the Philippines. In a Pulse Asia survey released in January, 47% of the 2,400 Filipinos polled said they were not willing to be vaccinated while 21% were undecided. BusinessWorld reporter Vann Marlo M. Villegas spoke with Dr. Lulu C. Bravo, executive director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, about addressing vaccine he...

Myanmar is in the middle of a bloody coup, where, as of this episode's recording, at least 50 people have been killed since it began in February. Pro-democracy activists are taking to the streets, protesting the military’s attempt to reverse the victory of Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League of Democracy.  In this episode of B-Side, Atty. Michael Henry Ll. Yusingco, a senior research fel...

The outsourcing industry was one of the few sectors that continued to operate throughout the entirety of the lockdown designed to contain coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Much of the industry moved their operations to work from home, creating new challenges when it comes to mental health. Professional isolation is the bane of telecommuters, while those who have to show up on-site—to address cy...