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It was such an emphatic word to describe the relationship between the Philippines and the United States especially given the tensions in the region and the complicated past of the two nations’ bilateral relations. But this was how President Joseph Biden described his country’s commitment to the Philippines defense.

The high inflation rate at the start of the year failed to greatly curb consumer spending. Filipinos continue to spend and travel more in the first three months of 2023, while business establishments are gaining more and more confidence as the Philippines transitions to the full new normal.

The changes around us are simply dizzying. We have restaurants using robots to serve food. We can now pay with our smart phones instead of physical, tangible money. Some supermarkets, including ours, have automated check-out counters. I just read about the wonderful possibilities (and dangers) of ChatGPT — a natural language processing tool driven by artificial intelligence — from answering questions and assist people with tasks, such as composing emails, essays, and code. As a result, a number of jobs will likely become obsolete because of AI technology.