Philippines in the UN: Aren’t we ‘financially unhealthy?’

 “An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.”

―Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IF the Philippines is deemed as “financially unhealthy” by economic analysts, why was it chosen to launch the UN Group of Friends (GoF) for Financial Health together with Peru and Kenya during the ministerial luncheon at the sidelines of the High-Level Week of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA81) in New York City September 22?

The launching of the Philippines’ UN team up with Peru and Kenya came a day after the South China Morning Post reported that the Philippines’ rise to upper-middle-income status “has done little to shield the country from short-term pressures weighing on growth: sluggish public spending, delayed infrastructure, high living costs and the fallout from investigations into alleged irregularities in flood control projects.”

Those strains have left the Philippines looking like a regional laggard, reported the South China Morning Post.

“Bank of America is forecasting gross domestic product growth of 2.5 per cent for 2026 – tying with Thailand for the slowest pace in the region – even as it raised its overall Asean growth forecast to 5 per cent, up from 4.7 per cent at the end of the second quarter,” it added.

 

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Quoting Bank of America’s September report, the paper said, “The Philippines is expected to see a sharp slowdown relative to 2025.”  The bank reportedly compared that to Singapore’s projected 5.1 per cent growth, Malaysia’s 5.2 per cent, Indonesia’s 5.3 per cent and Vietnam’s 8.2 per cent, according to the paper.

As other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations surge ahead, the paper stressed, “the growing growth disparity raises serious questions about whether Manila can convert its long-term strengths – a young population, a robust consumer base and an expanding services sector – into the growth momentum seen elsewhere in the region.”

It added: “Modest consumption gains and a bottoming-out of investment spending could support limited growth in the second half of the year, Bank of America said, while targeted subsidies for vulnerable consumers and the transport sector could cushion the impact of energy shocks.”

Quoting Filipino economist and market strategist Jonathan Ravelas, the paper said, “Compared with its Asean peers, the Philippines is currently facing a relative slowdown.”

“Countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia are benefiting more from manufacturing expansion, supply-chain relocation and stronger foreign direct investment inflows.”

 

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The Philippine economy had been “heavily dependent on consumption and that engine has been tempered by higher borrowing costs, elevated living costs and slower public spending”, Ravelas told the paper.

During the UN meeting. Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Ma. Theresa P. Lazaro represented met with Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Royal House of the Netherlands, who had a working lunch with the Group of Friends for Financial Health, an informal partnership of countries co-chaired by Kenya and the Philippines working to promote financial health.

According to the DFA, the GoF will bring together Member States that have shown strong leadership on financial health, which refers to the extent to which households can manage their day-to-day finances, withstand financial shocks, and build long-term financial security and confidence. 

During the launch, the DFA website reported that Lazaro shared that advancing financial health is a priority for the Philippine Government and emphasized that financially healthy households are a foundation for stronger and more resilient economies.

Lazaro said: “The Group speaks to a simple but important idea: that inclusive growth and national resilience must ultimately translate into resilience in people’s everyday lives.”

 

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The launch of the GoF also provided an initial opportunity for the co-chairs and prospective members to exchange national experiences and approaches to strengthening households’ financial health and resilience, added the DFA website.

The GoF will work closely with the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health (SGSA GoF), Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, in promoting greater awareness and understanding of financial health, and advancing the concept within relevant UN and intergovernmental processes.

Queen Maxima had earlier presented her annual UNSGSA report to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and have bilateral meetings with government representatives and various organizations in her capacity as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health (UNSGSA).

The theme for the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 2026) is “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all.”

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)

 

 

 

Ricah Trinidad, Hermie Rivera asked me to sue Freddie Roach

“I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.”

―Woody Allen

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

I MET the late sports journalist and columnist Ricardo “Recah” Trinidad for the first time in Las Vegas on December 3, 2008.

It started with a call I received from the then 65-year-old Philippine sports journalism icon while I was inside the hotel room intended for accredited reporters covering the Manny Pacquiao vs Oscar De La Hoya 12-round welterweight tussle dubbed “Dream Match” at the MGM Grand on December 6, 2008.

“Hello? Is this Alex? Alex Vidal? Si Ricah ito. Ricah Trinidad of Philippine Daily Inquirer,” the caller enthused. “Sabi ni Hermie (Rivera) ikaw daw ang may hawak ng susi sa room.” (Hermie said you’re the one in charge of the room key.)

“Yes, sir. This is Alex Vidal. Where are you po?” I answered.

“Nandito ako sa lobby (of the MGM Grand). May bakante pa ba diyan? Sa floor lang ako matutulog, don’t worry,” Trinidad added. (I’m here in the lobby. Is there a space for me inside the room? I’ll sleep on the floor, don’t worry.)

When Trinidad went upstairs, I offered him the bed, a custom 14-inch pillow-top hybrid mattress. “No. Dito lang ako sa floor. Marami na kayo at late ako eh,” the veteran Filipino sports columnist insisted.

“Ako na lang sa floor,” I asserted. “Nakakahiya po sa inyo.”

 

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Trinidad refused, insisting he was “comfortable” on the floor.

Even if Hermie Rivera, then 69, a San Francisco-based boxing analyst and manager of former WBA bantamweight king Luisito Espinosa, followed upstairs and goaded him to occupy the bed, Trinidad stood his ground: he belonged on the floor, the veteran writer asserted.

Trinidad, who earlier wrote critical stories about Pacquiao, probably knew he was outside the kulambo, so to speak.

He felt Team Pacquiao wouldn’t accommodate him in the MGM Grand thus he asked for his kumpare Rivera’s “intercession” to join us in the room. Nobody from Team Pacquiao said Trinidad wasn’t allowed to join us.

How did I become a key holder? Two days earlier (December 1, 2008), Team Pacquiao arrived in a caravan in the glitzy Nevada city shortly after 9 o’clock in the evening after a four-hour drive from Los Angeles.

After dinner inside Pacquiao’s MGM Grand suite, the then 29-year-old eight-time world champion distributed more than a dozen room key cards, valid for a week, to members of the caravan, including the accredited sportswriters from the Philippines.

Pacquiao handed to me the room key card for the “photographers” (that’s how he called press people who accompanied his team then). The room was for three other sports writers from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila Bulletin, Philippine Star, and yours truly.

Rivera, who had difficult time to join us, stayed with us, nevertheless.

Meanwhile, while inside the hotel room, Trinidad and Rivera discussed the incident where Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s famed trainer, scolded and pushed me over an article I wrote when he saw me outside the elevators of the MGM Grand on July 25, 2008, or five months earlier.

 

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The incident between me and Roach happened a day before the 12-round WBA welterweight title duel between Antonio Margarito and Miguel Angel Cotto at the MGM Grand on July 26, 2008. I was accredited to cover the event.

Both Trinidad and Rivera had contacted Gregorio “Sheriff” Asuncion, Pacquiao’s former bodyguard, in Covina, California to refer the incident involving me and Roach to a lawyer in Los Angeles.

Asuncion, then 51, had earlier filed an unlimited civil case suit before the Superior Court of Los Angeles against Roach for allegedly mauling Asuncion inside Roach’s owned Wildcard Boxing Gym in Hollywood, Los Angeles on October 20, 2008.

I learned about the incident involving Roach and Asuncion from Texas-based pediatrician Allan Recto, who called me to relay the news when I was in Iloilo City in the Philippines sometime in November 2008.

Meanwhile, lawyer Robert H. McNeill, Jr. of Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt, an LA-based law firm, contacted me while I was on a train in San Diego, California sometime in June 2009. And the rest was history.

Rivera died on January 15, 2016 at 77, while McNeill Jr. died in April 2016 at 75.

Trinidad, on the other hand, died on September 13, 2026 or two years after the death of his sports journalist son Chino. He was 83.

 (The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)

 

 

Defeat is an orphan: A lesson for ‘King Martin’

“Anyone can deal with victory. Only the mighty can bear defeat.”

―Adolf Hitler

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

FORMER Iloilo City councilor Dr. Nielex “Lex” Tupas once put it succinctly: “Naagyan man namon ang sitwasyon nga gina talikdan na kami sang mga tawo mo.” (We have been in situations where people turned their backs on us.)

This reportedly happened when the Tupases were “no longer in power,” or when one of them didn’t win a major elected position in the province of Iloilo and many people thought they were finished politically.

It turned out it was a temporary setback, so to speak, and the family may have regained those fair-weather political backers and nitpickers when the Tupases were back on the hustings and subsequently in power.

Arrested-but-is-now-staying-in-the-hospital plunder accused, former Speaker and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, may be in a similar situation right now as experienced by the Tupases based on Lex’s recollection.

However, the first cousin of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. may have been badly damaged politically and morally.

 

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Now that he is facing a non-bailable P7.44-billion plunder case, along with related charges of graft, bribery, and money laundering tied to an alleged flood control and government infrastructure kickback scheme, we doubt if Romualdez can win back his political allies who have started to vanish.

We doubt if King Martin can still win in another election assuming he will be exonerated and allowed to run again.

Following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, United States President John F. Kennedy used the phrase "victory has a hundred fathers, and defeat is an orphan" during a press conference on April 21, 1961.

It came to mean that many people eagerly claim credit for success, but nobody takes responsibility for failure.

When he didn’t yet resign as House speaker and wasn’t yet charged with plunder, fellow congresspeople were in mad scramble to ingratiate themselves with Romualdez.

They adored King Martin, including his influence and, perhaps, (unexplained) wealth, like a demigod. Ille est princeps dilectus or he is a beloved prince.

What King Martin wanted from the subservient and obsequious House colleagues, he got—including the imprimatur to sign the original impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio.

 

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Now that Malacanang has thrown him under the bus, King Martin’s life suddenly turned upside down in catatonic asphyxiation.

Beelines from the furtive and shifty House of Representatives colleagues are gone.

The kowtowing horde did not even bother to visit King Martin in his bed at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City, where he was rushed September 7 afternoon after “suffering” a cardiovascular event, unstable blood pressure, and an anxiety attack.

Sooner or later, he will be transferred anyway to the Payatas jail, or the New Quezon City Jail Male Dormitory in Quezon City, where many people believe, King Martin rightly belongs.

And the rest is now history. King Martin’s downfall has turned him into a political orphan.

Meanwhile, when Lex’s father, the late Niel Tupas, Sr. became the 30th governor of Iloilo from June 30, 2001–June 30, 2010, the family regained the support of some of those who abandoned them.

Lex’s mother, the late Myrna Causing-Tupas was also former mayor of Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, the position now held by his older brother, Nielo “Bongbong” Tupas.

Lex’s other older brothers, Niel “Junjun” Tupas, Jr. and Raul “Boboy” Tupas, were also former representatives in the fifth district of Iloilo.

 Another older brother, Nielito "Doc Darl" C. Tupas, sits as Iloilo provincial board member.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)

 

Greed for money destroys these ‘corrupt’ politicians

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IF our grandchildren turned the pages of Philippine political history, they would read the names of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., Joseph “Erap” Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., Jinggoy Estrada, Zaldy Co, Sara Duterte-Carpio, Loren Legarda, Manuel Bonoan, Chiz Escudeo, Joel Villanueva, among other prominent politicians, in the glossary of odium and infamy.

Records would ostensibly show they destroyed themselves because of “greed for money.”

When given the opportunity and elected to office, they allegedly took advantage of their positions by amassing unexplained wealth and living like patricians, oligarchs, and aristocrats while the ordinary people agonized and could hardly make both ends meet.

Some of them have been prosecuted and jailed, others escaped abroad and opted to become fugitives. Others fake their illnesses in order to avoid imminent arrest. Many of them have not been formally charged yet.

Even before they were accused of stealing billions of pesos from the taxpayers through kickbacks, “ghost” and substandard projects, intentionally misdirecting public funds, inflating, or manipulating during the planning, formulation, and execution phases of government spending, the government thieves were already living comfortably.

 

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In the first place, they weren’t supposed to bilk the people they serve. Accumulating more wealth than what is necessary at the expense of the taxpayers was supposed to be mortal sin.

But because of rapaciousness and their lack of moral scruples, they allegedly stole more; they built empires and purchased private jets and choppers, hid their loot in Cayman Islands and The Caribbean, acquired mansions in the Philippines and abroad, collected queridas and queridos left and right.

Their greed justifies dishonesty, fraud, and exploitation, ruining reputations and long-standing relationships. Spiritual and moral traditions have long warned that an obsession with wealth leaves people permanently discontent and spiritually empty.

By replacing community well-being and ethics with an endless, harmful chase for more, their greed for money destroyed some of them and even the society where they belong.

Their unchecked financial greed funneled resources to a tiny minority, draining stability from the working class. Their act of extracting cash and resources faster than a system can replenish them risks total economic or environmental failure.

Their risky financial schemes and the constant desire for more have frequently led them straight into debt, isolation, and ruin.

 

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I “saw” tears in Alexandra “Alex” Eala’s eyes while she was walking in the exit following a disheartening 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 loss to 18-year-old Iva Jovic of the United States in their third-round match at the US Open on September 5, 2026.

She really wanted to reach the next rounds and was a cinch away from snatching victory from the jaws of defeat when WTA No. 14 Jovic gave the break back in the decider after a double fault, and Eala held at love for a commanding 4-2 lead.

Eala, 21, would have faced former US Open champion Coco Gauf, 22, in the Round of 16 if the Filipina phenom beat her good (not best) friend Jovic, who was easily dismantled by Gauf, 6-1, 6-4 September 7.

Brad Kallet described the Eala-Jovic match in WTAtennis: “Jovic was excellent at the net, winning 12 of her 15 points, and struck 44 winners to 27 unforced errors. Eala came in even more, winning 16 of 25 net points, and had 34 winners to 33 unforced errors.

“Both returned exceptionally well, though Jovic was slightly more effective in the most critical moments, converting 9 of 17 break-point opportunities to Eala's 8 for 20.”

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)