What is one common factor among all the Filipino Olympians who are favored to medal in Tokyo? It’s something that was made even more obvious by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Olympic golf tournament lost two of its top stars to coronavirus on Sunday, as world number one Jon Rahm and 2020 US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau were forced to withdraw from the Tokyo Games.

President Duterte has urged local governments to come up with “more sane” ways to administer COVID-19 vaccines to avoid exposing people lining up for jabs to health risks.

The Duterte administration has denied underspending funds intended to address the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left more than 27,000 people dead in the Philippines and dragged its economy into a recession.

The final year of the Duterte administration will remain focused on battling the COVID-19 crisis, especially with the highly contagious Delta variant now spreading and threatening to derail economic recovery efforts.