In its fight to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Philippine government’s move to decongest the National Capital Region (NCR) through its Back to the Province (Balik Probinsya) Program has become a key strategy. The NCR or Metro Manila, with a limited land area of around 636 square kilometres, is home to around 11 million dwellers. President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Executive Order (EO) No.

Manila's malls set air conditioners to warm and switched off free Wi-Fi to stop people lingering as many of them cautiously reopened on Saturday, after a two-month lockdown that brought the sprawling hubs of community life to a halt.Just a trickle of customers showed up at the huge commercial centres in the Philippine capital, which usually attract millions of people each day and often contain churches, restaurants, gyms and event spaces."This is good for me, this is good for our ec

A powerful typhoon hit the central Philippines Thursday, forcing a complicated and risky evacuation for tens of thousands of people, many of them heading to cramped shelters without proper safety gear to guard against the coronavirus.Typhoon Vongfong sheared roofs from houses, uprooted coconut trees and dumped heavy rain as it made landfall on the island of Samar, sending locals to emergency shelters.Because of the twin threat of the storm and the virus, evacuation centres in the central Phil

Filipina weightlifting star Hidilyn Diaz noticed live-streamed concerts were collecting money for coronavirus relief and was struck by inspiration: why not raise funds with an online workout?Since then the Olympic silver-medallist – and strong contender for her country's first Games gold –has made enough money to buy food packs for hundreds of hard-hit families in the Philippines.Diaz has done it all from Malaysia, where she was training to qualify for the now-postponed Tokyo Olympics wh

The shutting down of the Philippines' top broadcaster crosses a dangerous line in eroding the nation's democracy and sends a warning to those who risk angering President Rodrigo Duterte, watchdogs said.Since rising to power in 2016, Duterte has steadily tightened his grip on the nation's key institutions and jailed or side-lined his loudest detractors, but until now his worst threats against critical media had not been fully realised.Tuesday's halting of broadcasting giant

The Philippines' top broadcaster ABS-CBN was forced off air Tuesday over a stalled operating licence renewal, drawing fresh charges that authorities were cracking down on press freedom.Since running afoul of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, ABS-CBN has seen bills to extend its franchise languish in Congress as the leader repeatedly attacked the conglomerate in speeches.Duterte is notorious for tangling with media outlets critical of his policies, sparking concern that press freedoms ha

Families of coronavirus victims in the Philippines are being denied traditional death rites in favour of hurried, impersonal cremations, with virus restrictions often meaning they are forbidden a last look at their loved ones.It is a painful and disorienting process for both the families and crematory workers that has upended the Philippines' intimate rituals of laying the dead to rest.Burial is the norm in the Catholic-majority nation, and it usually follows a days-long display of the e

Nearly 10,000 prison inmates have been released in the Philippines as the country races to halt coronavirus infections in its overcrowded jails, a Supreme Court official said Saturday.The move follows a directive to lower courts to release those awaiting trial in prison because they could not afford bail, Associate Supreme Court Justice Mario Victor Leonen told reporters."The court is very much aware of the congested situation in our prisons," Leonen told reporters as he announced t

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought chaos to the world. The virus has negatively affected livelihoods and the global economy since it first emerged in the city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province. To date, more than 2.5 million people have been infected with the virus and over 180,000 have succumbed to the deadly outbreak. Governments across the world are scrambling to contain the new coronavirus.

Here are the latest developments in Asia related to the novel coronavirus pandemic: Wuhan Deaths RiseThe Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged has raised its death toll by 50 percent to a total of 3,869.The revision came as a growing chorus of world leaders suggested China had not been entirely open about the full domestic impact of the virus.The additional deaths in Wuhan were cases that were "mistakenly reported" or missed entirely, according to the official an