Media and news purveyor NET25 has closely monitored a week in which the cost of living led the news, as the Philippine Statistics Authority reported October inflation at 7.8 percent and the NET25.com portal followed the figure to the fare, the market stall and the payslip.
For the Filipino household, an inflation figure is the same salary buying less at the jeepney, the palengke and the meter. In short, inflation is household news.
The PSA’s report, carried on November 5, set the figure against 7.2 percent in September and 1.7 percent a year earlier, with the average for the year so far at 5.6 percent. Transport did most of the pushing, up 20.1 percent on the year from 14.6 percent the month before.
Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels rose 9.3 percent from 8.4 percent, while food and non-alcoholic beverages eased to 6.1 percent from 6.7 percent, the one relief on the list.
The Department of Agriculture answered the next day. It will widen the “Benteng Bigas, Meron Na!” program to senior citizens, solo parents and persons with disabilities and keep its fuel and toll subsidies, financial assistance, farm inputs, crop insurance and lower tariffs on corn for animal feed.
The same day, the DA asked for Php 1 billion to vaccinate pigs in small backyard farms against African swine fever, with 238 barangays still carrying active cases as of October 22, according to spokesperson Arnel de Mesa, and a vaccine from South Korea under review.
On the commute, the portal carried the full account of the LTFRB’s Php 555.75 million penalty on Move It, computed at Php 10,000 for each rider above the 17,746 allowed, with a one-year freeze on new riders and a fleet cut to 6,836, and the company’s motion for reconsideration citing its riders’ livelihoods.
Relief came at the turnstile as well. For the ASEAN Summit, the Department of Transportation is giving free LRT-1 rides from 7 to 9am and 5 to 7pm on November 9, 11 and 13, and free rides on 15 ASEAN-liveried modern jeepneys on two Metro Manila routes from November 5 to 14.
On the payslip, the SSS and the Department of Information and Communications Technology signed a data-sharing agreement on October 21 to put the MySSS Card’s digital ID, contribution history and employer details into the eGovPH app, signed by DICT Secretary Robert Joseph de Claro and SSS President and CEO Victor Alfonso Limlingan.
The opinion page gave the figures a face. In “HOW TO MAKE ₱200,000 A MONTH”, posted November 5, columnist Rikki Mathay took the three men stopped at Davao International Airport on October 17 with a promise of Php 200,000 a month in Eastern Europe, and asked why such an offer finds takers.
The column’s answer is in the numbers: poverty at 9.7 percent in 2025 still leaves more than 11 million Filipinos short of the basics, 2.77 million were unemployed in August, and rice cost 20.3 percent more in September than a year earlier. It asks the Department of Migrant Workers to make recruiters verifiable before a ticket is booked.
NET25 makes a conscious effort to report inflation not as an index but as the fare, the pork price and the electricity bill, pairing the statistics agency’s release with the government’s response and the columnist’s question. This is what makes the portal’s business news useful and relevant to the Filipino household.
As always, these stories are free to read anytime, anywhere on the NET25.com portal and are carried on Mata ng Agila and “Open for Business” on Digital Free TV Channel 28 and Analog Free TV Channel 25 as well.
The “alternative mainstream” network’s commitment to the working Filipino continues through business news that follows the inflation figure from the statistics agency’s table to the jeepney, the palengke and the payslip.
