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, who believe in their hearts that they’ll have the wedding of their dreams in 2021.  

In this episode, Ms. Pascual gives BusinessWorld reporter Joseph L. Garcia tips on how to celebrate love and weddings in a grand but safe manner—think minimalist gowns and Swarovski-studded face masks—as well as insights on how the bridal industry is keeping afloat during the pandemic. 

Recorded remotely on September 25. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.

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 September 19, decided to stick to conventional wisdom, which says that people need to keep a distance of at least one meter from each other to limit the potential spread of coronavirus.

Recorded remotely on September 18. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.

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 prospects for logistics and warehousing. They talk about the impact of new consumer patterns on the future of the industry, and how the Philippines compares with the rest of Southeast Asia—8% growth is good, but that rate is slower when compared to the likes of Vietnam. Ms. Lobien shares insights on what the country has to do to get a bigger slice of the warehousing pie.

Recorded remotely on September 3.

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 best- nor worst-case scenario. It’s midway, where income declines by 10%. 

Mr. Albert explains the simulations and scenarios he and his co-authors ran to arrive at their numbers. He tells BusinessWorld reporter Beatrice Laforga that the government’s emergency subsidy programs minimized the pandemic’s impact on poverty. Without financial aid, he said, 5.5 million Filipinos could have been pushed into poverty.

Recorded remotely on September 1. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.

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 — pinagpipilitan niya through its press conference at iba-ibang mga briefings na siya ay handa. Hindi niya nire-represent ang hinaing at pangamba ng mga guro at mga estudyante at kanilang mga magulang sa pagsisimula ng school year,” Mr. Manuel tells BusinessWorld reporter Adam J. Ang. ("Our insensitive government has been daydreaming — it insists through its press conferences and briefings that it's ready for the start of the school year. It doesn't represent the fears and anxieties of the teachers, students, and parents.")

Recorded remotely on August 15. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.

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 beginning of a bike revolution. Ms. Sison is a member of Cycling Matters, a group that describes itself as “a happy collective of cyclists who have gotten tired of just waiting and ranting about how unhappy our local biking conditions can be.”

Ms. Sison tells BusinessWorld reporter Patricia B. Mirasol what kind of infrastructure Metro Manila needs to become a bike-friendly city. Bikes are "the most accessible, sustainable, and responsible mode of transportation," she added, making a case for integrating bikes with buses, jeeps, and trains in a bi-modal transportation system.

This episode was recorded remotely on August 13. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.

After several months, the coronavirus pandemic is still wreaking havoc on supply chains. Rosemarie P. Rafael, chair and president of express courier company Airspeed Philippines, tells reporter Arjay L. Balinbin that the price war sparked by the growing number of players in the last-mile delivery space is unsustainable. "It will not last," she said, "Operational excellence... cannot be supported if we do not price our service right." A veteran with more than 30 years of experience in moving goods, Ms. Rafael talks about what kind of commodities are moving, and what kind of technological innovations are changing the logistics industry. 

Recorded remotely on August 13. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.

The latest official labor data showed that the jobless rate shot up to double-digits, as millions of Filipinos became unemployed. The Philippine Statistics Agency reported that as of April 2020, there were around 7.3 million jobless Filipinos. 

Jobstreet, an online platform that has around 42,000 listings, saw two million visitors checking out their website from April to June.

If you’re looking for a job, forget those numbers. Career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine says that the only numbers you should be concerned about are your own, whether in a pandemic or not. That means, tracking the number of applications you’ve sent out, the number of interviews you’ve landed, the number of callbacks you’ve gotten. Now those numbers are important to you as a job seeker.

In this episode, Ms. Ceniza-Levine tells multimedia reporter Patricia B. Mirasol that the coronavirus is not the end of your career. She gives practical advice, from tips on how to handle online interviews to the two main skills that you have to be thinking about if you’re looking for a job.

Recorded remotely on July 29. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.

Political analyst Dr. Robin Michael Garcia talks about the issues affecting Philippine attitudes toward China, among them the coronavirus pandemic and the increasing tension in the West Philippine Sea. 

Because of this maritime dispute, the Duterte administration suspended the termination of the country’s visiting forces agreement with the United States. On top of this, the Department of Foreign Affairs said that the Philippine claim to disputed waters was “non-negotiable.”

The Philippine claim was rejected by China, but was reaffirmed by the United States when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared most of China’s claims as “unlawful.”

Philippine sentiment toward China is ambivalent, with an April survey finding that 54% of Filipinos think of China as a good ally to the Philippines. But attitudes and sentiment can shift quickly. Mr. Garcia, chief executive officer of WR Numero Research and an assistant professor at the University of Asia and the Pacific, explains to BusinessWorld reporter Charmaine A. Tadalan what he thinks of Duterte’s foreign policy and how China could become the President's Achilles' heel.

Recorded remotely on July 15. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.

The academic year is about to start. Universities and colleges are shifting to remote learning as physical classrooms all across the world have shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During his address, President Rodrigo R. Duterte said that face-to-face classes would be allowed only when a vaccine becomes available. We don’t really know when that is. 

Raymundo D. Rovillos, chancellor of the University of the Philippines (UP) Baguio, tells BusinessWorld reporter Revin Mikhail Ochave how the UP System is playing catch-up with the likes of Mapua Institute of Technology and Far Eastern University—schools that embraced remote learning long before the coronavirus hit because of Manila’s notorious traffic jams. 

Recorded remotely July 4. Produced by Nina M. Diaz, Paolo L. Lopez, and Sam L. Marcelo.