QC gov't suspends classes for 2025 SONA
Under Executive Order (EO) No. 10 series of 2025, Mayor Joy Belmonte ordered the suspension of classes in all levels in QC amid the expected road closures for SONA, which is set to be delivered at the Batasang Pambansa Complex. Belmonte said the road closures will affect both motorists and the riding public.
'Classes shall be suspended in all levels tor both private and public schools in Quezon City in view of the State of the Nation Address of President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, Jr. All residents are enjoined to listen to the SONA of the President of the Republic of the Philippines,' the EO dated July 21 reads.
'The Office of the City Mayor, through the Philippine National Police, the City Department of Public Order and Safety, the City Traffic and Transport Department, City Task Force Disiplina, and all other implementing offices, as may be authorized, are hereby tasked to assist in the implementation of this order, and strictly adopt and implement security measures,' it added.
Marcos Jr. is expected to deliver his fourth SONA on July 28. Earlier, House Secretary General Reginald Velasco isued a memo for the austere holding of the SONA amid the impact of Tropical Cyclones Crising, Dante, Emong, and the Southwast Monsoon or Habagat on the country.
"There will be no staged ceremonies, fashion coverage, or photo setups in the red carpet area," read the memo.
"Members are respectfully urged to avoid ostentatious displays and exercise discretion in their wardrobe choices," it added.
The Senate will also not roll out the red carpet for the opening of the 20th Congress, according to Senate President Francis 'Chiz' Escudero.
Several parts of the country are still reeling from the effects of consecutive storms amid days of heavy rains. The reported death toll due to Tropical Cyclones Crising, Dante, Emong and the Southwest Monsoon or Habagat has increased to 25 as of Friday morning.
State weather bureau PAGASA, in a special outlook, forecast cloudy skies with rains over parts of the country, including Metro Manila on Monday.
A state of calamity has also been declared in 84 cities and municipalities. — BAP, GMA Integrated News
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
GMA Network
2 hours ago
- GMA Network
OCTA poll: 80% of Filipinos want VP Sara to face impeachment trial
Majority of Filipinos believe that Vice President Sara Duterte should face an impeachment trial to answer the charges against her, results of a survey conducted by OCTA Research showed. The July 2025 Tugon ng Masa (TNM) Survey, released on Sunday, showed that 80% of respondents answered in the affirmative when asked if they thought Duterte should face trial. There were 14% who disagreed, while the remaining 7% were undecided or refused to answer. Majority support for the trial was seen across all regions: 87% in the National Capital Region, 77% in balance Luzon, 92% in the Visayas, and 69% in Mindanao. This was also the case across socio-economic classes: 80% for Classes A, B, C, and D, and 78% for Class E. For those who agreed that Duterte should face the impeachment trial, the most commonly cited reason, with 59% of respondents, was that she should address the charges, clear her name, and prove herself worthy of her position. Other reasons include a belief in the charges with 21%, and the view that facing trial is necessary for her to remain eligible to run in the 2028 elections with 16%. Among those who opposed a trial, 44% said the issue is a political conflict between the camps of Duterte and President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr., whom she ran alongside with in the 2022 national elections. Other cited a belief in her integrity and disbelief in the allegations with 33%, while 19% said she should focus instead on serving the nation. The survey fieldwork was conducted using face-to-face interviews from July 12 to July 17, 2025, a week before the Supreme Court released its decision declaring that the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte as unconstitutional. SC spokesperson Camille Ting noted, however, that the SC is not absolving Duterte from any of the charges against her, but any subsequent impeachment complaint may only be filed starting February 6, 2026. The survey polled 1,200 male and female respondents aged 18 and above. It has a margin of error of ±3 % at a 95% confidence level. Subnational estimates carry a ±6% margin of error for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Out of the respondents, 97% said they have heard, read, or watched anything about the impeachment complaint, while 2% said they were unaware. The recent SC decision is in relation to the petition filed by Duterte and lawyer Israelito Torreon, among others, seeking to declare the Articles of Impeachment against her null and void Lawyer and Constitutional law expert Domingo 'Egon' Cayosa on Saturday said the Senate may still opt to proceed with the trial, as it may assert its 'exclusive power' with regard to impeachment matters. Three impeachment complaints were filed against Duterte in December 2024, all of which were connected with the alleged misuse of confidential funds. The fourth impeachment complaint, endorsed by over one-third of lawmakers from the House of Representatives, was later on transmitted to the Senate. Duterte, for her part, entered a 'not guilty' plea in the verified impeachment complaint filed against her, which she called merely a 'scrap of paper.' — BM, GMA Integrated News
GMA Network
3 hours ago
- GMA Network
Inflation, economy, price of rice: Where PH stands since SONA 2024
A resident of San Andres in Malate, Manila, purchases P20 per kilo rice at a Kadiwa center in the Bureau of Animal Industry on May 15, 2025. DANNY PATA Around this time last year, President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. opened his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) not with his administration's feats, but with the daunting reality check that the fruits of economic progress were not felt by ordinary Filipinos faced with the rising prices of commodities—particularly rice. 'The hard lesson of this last year has made it very clear that whatever current data proudly bannering our country as among the best-performing in Asia, means nothing to a Filipino, who is confronted by the price of rice at 45 to 65 pesos per kilo," Marcos said in his report to the nation on Monday, July 22, 2024. "Bagamat maganda ang mga istatistikang ito, wala itong kabuluhan sa ating kababayan na hinaharap ang realidad na mataas ang presyo ng mga bilihin, lalo na ang pagkain—lalo't higit, ng bigas," the President said. (Although the statistics are good, these mean nothing to our countrymen who face the reality of high prices of goods, especially food, and most especially, rice.) With this, Marcos declared 'hindi tayo titigil sa paglalaban sa kahirapan, at sa paghahanap ng lunas upang maibalik sa normal ang presyo ng bilihin—lalo na ang bigas [we will not stop in battling poverty and finding solutions to normalize the prices of goods—especially rice.]' IBON Foundation executive director Sonny Africa told GMA News Online that the President opened his 2024 SONA 'well, with the acknowledgement that the majority of Filipinos aren't feeling any benefits from hyped economic growth.' 'If sincere, this could've signaled a reorientation of economic policy to favor poor and middle-class Filipinos instead of the narrowest slice of rich families and large corporations at the very top,' Africa said. The President will once again face the nation to deliver his report on July 28, 2025—halfway through his term. GMA News Online looked at what the Marcos administration has so far accomplished in terms of fulfilling the chief executive's promise to lower inflation and rice prices. Inflation Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that inflation—which measures the rate of growth in consumer goods and services costs—slowed down to 3.2%, well within the government's ceiling of 2% to 4%, from 6% in 2023. The PSA attributed the full-year 2024 inflation decline to the downtrend in food and non-alcoholic beverages at 4.4% from 7.9% in 2023 as well as the lower print seen in electricity, gas and other fuels at 1.7% from 4.9% year-on-year. As of end-June 2025, inflation rate cooled down further to 1.8%. Also in June this year, food inflation—which tracks the price movements of food items in a "basket" commonly purchased by households—eased to 0.1% from 0.7% in May and from 6.5% in June of last year. This was on the back of a steeper deflation in rice at -14.3% from -12.8% in May. Rice prices Rice inflation has been contracting for six months in a row and is seen to end the year at a 'negative inflation' print, consistent with the PSA's expectation that it would begin easing towards the second half of 2024 due to base effects, particularly when it began its uptrend in August 2023, as well as the impact of lower rice import tariff which took effect early July last year. In the third year of his presidency, Marcos was able to fulfill his campaign promise of lowering the price of rice to P20 per kilo in a bid to ease the burden of consumers on the increasing price of one of Filipinos' basic food commodities. Initially launched in the Visayas region last April, at least 162 locations across the country have been offering the cheaper subsidized rice, according to the Department of Agriculture. Members of the vulnerable sectors are on the priority list of who can avail the P20 per kilo of rice. The P20-per-kilo rice initiative operates primarily through KADIWA ng Pangulo outlets. The rice is being sourced from stocks of the National Food Authority, which are procured directly from local farmers. The subsidized rice program not only ensures affordable food staple for consumers but also helps decongest NFA warehouses. Moreover, this will make space to purchase more palay at prices higher than those offered by private traders. Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the target is to serve 15 million households or about 60 million people by the end of 2026. The DA also vowed to intensify the implementation of industry recovery and expansion programs, such as the Swine Industry Recovery Project (SIRP) and Livestock Economic Enterprise Development, to strengthen food supply chains. IBON Foundation's Africa, however, said programs of the administration 'will all be tokenistic and exaggerated public relations efforts if the government does not commit budgets, resources and energy commensurate to the magnitude of the problems at hand.' 'The President spoke about supporting agriculture but, if anything, the smaller share of the sector in the 2025 budget to 3.9% of the total from 4.1% in 2024 indicates a deprioritization of interventions that were already inadequate to begin with,' he said. GDP target missed As far as economic targets are concerned, the Marcos administration still has a far way to go, missing its GDP growth target for the second straight year. In 2024, the economy only grew by 5.7%, revised from earlier reported 5.6% growth, below the 6.0% to 7.0% target for the year. Growth surpassed the target ceiling in 2022 at 7.6%. As of the first quarter of 2025, the country's GDP grew by 5.4%, faster than the upwardly revised growth rate of 5.3% in the last quarter of 2024. With missed targets, the Development Budget Coordination Committee has slashed again the growth goals for 2025 to 5.5% to 6.5% range from the previous target of 6.0% to 8.0%. The economic team cited heightened global uncertainties, such as the unforeseen escalation of tensions in the Middle East and the imposition of US tariffs as considerations for adjusting the growth targets. Nonetheless, the administration's aspiration to elevate the Philippines to upper-middle-income country (UMIC) seems to be getting closer, as it missed the minimum for entering the UMIC bracket under the World Bank's classification by $26. The country remained a lower-middle-income economy as its GNI per capita in 2024 stood at $4,470, while the required GNI per capita to enter the UMIC roster was at $4,496 to $13,935. — BM/NB, GMA Integrated News
GMA Network
5 hours ago
- GMA Network
Senate impeachment court to vote on whether to proceed with VP Sara trial
The Senate impeachment court is set to vote whether to proceed with the deliberations after receiving the Supreme Court's ruling on the Articles of Impeachment filed against Vice President Sara Duterte, its spokesperson said Sunday. According to Senate Impeachment Court spokesperson Regie Tongol, the body received the email transmittal of the SC decision on Friday evening, July 25, 2025, and will vote on it moving forward. 'Yes, as part of the usual deliberative process of any collegial body based on Senate rules,' he said in a Viber message to reporters over the weekend. This comes as the SC ruled unanimously to declare that the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte as unconstitutional and violate the right to due process. SC spokesperson Camille Ting noted, however, that the SC is not absolving Duterte from any of the charges against her, but any subsequent impeachment complaint may only be filed starting February 6, 2026. The decision is in relation to the petition filed by Duterte and lawyer Israelito Torreon, among others, seeking to declare the Artiles of Impeachment against her null and void Following the announcement of the decision, Tongol said the Senate Impeachment Court is 'duty-bound' to respect the finality of rulings issued by High Court. 'The Senate, sitting as an Impeachment Court, has always acted in deference to the Constitution and the rule of law. As a co-equal branch of government, we are duty-bound to respect the finality of rulings issued by the High Court,' he said then. Senators have since aired contrasting opinions on the decision, with some saying the Senate can still choose to proceed with the trial. Lawyer and Constitutional law expert Domingo 'Egon' Cayosa on Saturday said the Senate may still opt to proceed with the trial, as it may assert its 'exclusive power' with regard to impeachment matters. Three impeachment complaints were filed against Duterte in December 2024, all of which were connected with the alleged misuse of confidential funds. The fourth impeachment complaint, endorsed by over one-third of lawmakers from the House of Representatives, was later on transmitted to the Senate. Duterte, for her part, entered a 'not guilty' plea in the verified impeachment complaint filed against her, which she called merely a 'scrap of paper.' — BM, GMA Integrated News
