BusinessWorld B-Side

The tourism and hospitality industry is focusing on the domestic market since pandemic-related restrictions have hamstrung international travel. While the Philippines waits for vaccines, hotel operators—and other stakeholders—are finding ways to assure people that it's safe to venture out. "We're still hopeful that we can rely on local travel but it will take time. We need to get people back on th...

The pandemic is changing the way we design our world and the way we move around in it. "If you're creating a journey from home to destination, then obviously everything you touch and interact with is design," said Paul D. Priestman, founder and chair of PriestmanGoode , a design consultancy out of the United Kingdom that counts Airbus SE, Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway, and Transport for London...

Because of GameStop Corp.'s wild roller coaster ride on the New York Stock Exchange, people have been talking about retail investing and how social media is changing the game.  The video game retailer's stock price hit a high of $483 in what has been framed as a battle between "the little guys" of Reddit against the suits of Wall Street who had heavily shorted GameStop shares.  "Whatever...

Carvey Ehren R. Maigue, an electrical engineering student at Mapua University, invented a plastic-like material that makes renewable energy from rotting fruits and vegetables. His invention won the first James Dyson Award for Sustainability in 2020, beating a record 1,800 entries from around the world. And now he’s fielding inquiries from electric car manufacturers who are interested in his techno...

Charter change (cha-cha) is once again alive in Congress. Although business groups support the initiative to liberalize the economy, they say that amending the Constitution 15 months before the national elections will only be “divisive.” Lawmakers, they added, should instead focus on passing pending measures reforming the country’s existing economic policies while the country is in the middle of a...

Only 3% of invested dollars went to female-only founders in 2019. That percentage hasn’t changed since 2010, according to a Crunchbase report on gender disparity in startup funding. In 2010, female-only founded companies raised a billion dollars; their male-only counterparts raised $31 billion. In 2019, female-only founded companies raised $6 billion dollars; their male counterparts, $195 billion....

Everybody loves a comeback story, where the underdog—beaten and bruised—wins it all despite the odds. The sports industry has to recover from a year that saw tournaments canceled and stadiums silent and empty. In this B-Side episode, Rely San Agustin, a sports marketing professional who has been in the industry for more than 20 years, tells BusinessWorld reporter Michael Angelo S. Murillo how spor...

Jeremy Meltzer, founder of cause marketing platform i=Change, tells BusinessWorld reporter Patricia B. Mirasol how brands and consumers can make a difference, a dollar a time. "Cause marketing" is a term coined in 1983 by American Express to describe its campaign to raise money for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. American Express donated one cent toward restoring the statue every time so...

The disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic to global supply chains were unexpected.   “This has really been one of the most challenging times … in all walks of life,” said Chris Buono, managing director of UPS Philippines, who has been in the industry for 18 years. UPS is one of several logistics groups tasked with delivering billions of coronavirus vaccine doses to the world. On top...

"The plastic pandemic is only getting worse during COVID-19," the World Economic Forum (WEF) warned in July. As people continue to stay home to avoid getting the coronavirus, we have also become more dependent on courier services. Unfortunately, more food delivery and e-commerce shopping also mean more plastic packaging. In this episode of B-Side, Inna Serafin and Nikki Sevilla of EcoNest Philippi...

Typhoon season isn’t over. Before 2020 finally says goodbye, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) says that two to three more storms could make landfall and wreak havoc on a country that’s already been battered by storm after storm after storm.  According to the latest damage estimate from the Department of Agriculture (DA), the farming sec...

On November 25 and 26, BusinessWorld held a two-day virtual economic forum with the forward-looking theme “Forecast 2021: ReBoot. ReThink. ReShape.”  The event gathered over 40 local and international speakers who discussed the great economic reset as well as the future in a post-COVID era. B-Side is sharing excerpts from the forum, beginning with this fireside chat between Satish Shankar, re...

Fake COVID-19 cures and preventive measures are proliferating online, in chat groups and social media. Bananas, saltwater, and onions have all made the rounds as coronavirus remedies (which they aren't). As the world waits for an effective vaccine against the virus, netizens may fall prey to these fake stories and forward them. Fortunately, there are groups stepping up in the fight against these u...

Anchanto, a Singapore-based automation and logistics platform, projects that cross-border e-commerce in the Asia-Pacific region will grow to US$ 1.5 trillion by 2023. The Southeast Asian market—which has the highest number of young people with Internet access—is expected to account for 40% of this trajectory. Vaibhav Dabhade, founder and CEO of Anchanto, tells BusinessWorld reporter Patricia B. Mi...

The eight-month lockdown, one of the longest in the world, has kept much of the country’s workforce at home. Separation from colleagues, coupled with fears of the virus, has raised the level of anxiety among the working population.  Nikki Vergara, co-founder and chief well-being officer of Positive Workplaces, a training and consultancy organization, tells BusinessWorld reporter Jenina P. Iba...

It is a mistake for the Duterte administration to think that it can separate its sea dispute with China from issues like trade, investment, and official development assistance, said International Studies Professor Renato Cruz De Castro, a trustee and convenor of the National Security and East Asian Affairs Program of the Stratbase ADR Institute. After delivering his most forceful defense of the 20...

The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out 80% of the revenue of Bambike, a socio-ecological enterprise that handcrafts bamboo bicycles. Prior to the lockdowns, Bambike was renting out thousands of bikes a month for its ecobike tours, which won the company a Tripadvisor award in March.  Bambike founder Bryan Benitez McClelland tells BusinessWorld reporter Patricia Mirasol how the company is bouncing bac...

Online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC) is a crime that often happens at home, at the hands of family, the very people who are trusted the most by the victims of this horrible crime. Cases have increased because of the lockdowns. Reynaldo Bicol of the International Justice Mission tells BusinessWorld reporter Luz Wendy T. Noble why the Philippines is a global hotspot for this crime, how the...

Patrick "Patch" Dulay,  co-founder of local crowdfunding platform The Spark Project, is turning a series of webinars into a book titled Respark , which collects tips on restarting a business amid uncertain times. Mr. Dulay gives BusinessWorld reporter Patricia B. Mirasol a summary of the lessons he's learned from seven entrepreneurs: ECHOstore founder Pacita "Chit" Juan,  life coach Kitt...

The COVID-19 pandemic has stripped away a lot of what we expect from weddings: the pageantry, the ceremony, the large number of guests. Bridal designer Patricia "Patty" Pascual talks about love in the time of corona.  There are two kinds of brides, she said: the practical ones who get married via Zoom and take advantage of all the discounts offered by suppliers;  and the optimistic ones,...

Former Health Secretary Manuel M. Dayrit explains to BusinessWorld reporter Vann M. Villegas how the Department of Transportation (DOTr) came up with the Seven Commandments for public transportation and how these health measures are supposed to work together to make up for reducing the one-meter-apart rule.  DOTr suspended reduced physical distancing after President Rodrigo R. Duterte, on Sep...

Thanks to e-commerce and changing consumer habits, the logistics and warehousing sector expects to grow by 8% in the next three years. This is a bright spot in an otherwise battered economy that dropped by 16.5% in the second quarter. Sheila G. Lobien, CEO of property consultancy firm Lobien Realty Group, speaks with BusinessWorld reporter Denise A. Valdez about the real estate industry, and its p...

A million-and-a-half Filipinos could fall into poverty because of the pandemic, according to a discussion paper titled "Poverty, the Middle Class, and Income Distribution amid COVID-19," co-authored by Dr. Jose Ramon Albert, a senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies.  In this study, a million-and-a-half Filipinos creating a new kind of poor is neither the be...

The Duterte administration deserves a failing grade for its preparations for the upcoming academic year, says student leader Raoul Manuel. In this episode, Mr. Manuel, president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines, lists the union’s primary demands for the safe reopening of classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “Naging insensitive at para bang nagde-daydream ang ating gobyerno — pin...

When public transportation was suspended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, people turned to biking as a means of getting from one place to another. Thousands of bikes were donated to frontliners and essential workers who initially were walking to work. This June, bike lanes popped up along EDSA, the busiest highway in Metro Manila. Bike commuters like Karen Sison hope that this is the begi...