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In conjunction with Punongbayan & Araullo, OBG explores the taxation system. This chapter features an interview with Marivic C Españo, Managing Partner and CEO, Punongbayan & Araullo.

In partnership with SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan, OBG takes a look at the Philippines’ legal system. Key points include the different ways of doing business for foreign entities, including their liability to suit and tax obligations. The section includes an interview with Rafael Morales, Managing Partner, SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan.

Advertising spending is focused on television, which enjoys 98% market penetration. Free-to-air is the dominant model, with cable television actually receding in coverage in recent years. Readership of print publications is declining, in line with worldwide trends. Meanwhile, the tremendous growth of internet usage and Facebook access makes a migration of news – and advertising spend – to the web inevitable.

The health situation in the Philippines is similar to that of a number of emerging economies, with communicable diseases having fallen in past decades but “lifestyle” factors like obesity and smoking causing an upsurge in cardiovascular disease and cancer. Spending on health is lower than in some neighbouring countries, but the government’s Philhealth programme is seeking to expand coverage through basic universal health care provision. Private services are widely used, although this has not been accompanied by a rise in private health care. This chapter has an interview with Enrique T Ona, Secretary, Department of Health.

Education in the Philippines suffers from chronic funding shortfalls, but budgets have risen significantly in the past several years, suggesting increased government recognition of the problem, though there is a ways to go yet. The addition of two more years of school will bring the Philippines in line with the rest of the world, but without additional money it could be an exchange of quality for quantity. At the university level, meanwhile, the private sector dominates, but schools face a similar funding crunch. This section features an interview with Patricia Licuanan, Chairperson, Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

Plans for agriculture in the Philippines include making the world’s largest rice consumer, which currently imports the staple, self-sufficient. Multi-million dollar irrigation projects are currently underway to help achieve this goal, while a National Irrigation Administration is seeking to teach farmers sustainable irrigation techniques. The government is also pushing farmers to adopt more commercial approaches to their businesses, forming cooperatives and specialising in high-value subsectors like organics. Finally, the sugarcane industry, facing the prospect of the sugar market being flooded with cheap imports when ASEAN liberalisation kicks in, is looking toward value-added products like bioethanol. This chapter includes interviews with Proceso J Alcala, Secretary, Department of Agriculture; and Rica Davila, Chairman and CEO, Lapanday Foods Corporation.