Good day. Here are the stories of The Manila Times for Monday, June 30, 2025.

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READ: China tightens grip on Panatag shoal

CHINA has tightened its grip over Panatag Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Shoal, in the past year, doubling maritime patrols and expanding an exclusion zone that keeps Philippine government vessels at least 25 nautical miles away from the disputed feature, according to new tracking data released by Stanford University’s SeaLight program. Satellite imagery and automatic identification system (AIS) data from May 2023 to April 2025 showed a sharp rise in Chinese activity around the shoal. SeaLight said 78 China Coast Guard (CCG) and maritime militia vessels transmitted more than 1.57 million AIS signals during the period — more than double the 724,000 signals from 57 ships the previous year.

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READ: 19TH CONGRESS ENDS

THE new set of senators will file their first set of bills today, June 30, the last day of the 19th Congress. The senators last week held two rounds of raffles to determine their ranking in filing their proposed measures. The Senate adjourned sine die last June 12 after graduating senators and Senate officers delivered their valedictory speeches, marking the end of the third regular session of the 19th Congress. The 30th Congress begins on July 1 but will officially start on July 28 with the joint opening of the Senate and House of Representatives to hear the fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

READ: Newly elected officials start term

NEWLY elected officials formally assume office today, June 30, the date enshrined in the Constitution as the official start of new terms following last May’s elections. With transition teams finalizing handovers and preparations, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is also racing to resolve the remaining election-related cases to avoid uncertainties. Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia earlier said the poll body hoped to decide pending cases before June 30.

READ: AI is learning to lie, scheme, and threaten its creators

The world’s most advanced AI models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming, and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic’s latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT-creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: more than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still don’t fully understand how their own creations work.

BUSINESS: Poll: Inflation likely to edge up in June

FUEL price hikes following heightened uncertainty arising from tensions in the Middle East could drive an inflation uptick in June, analysts said. The median forecast in a Manila Times poll was 1.5 percent, slightly higher than May’s 1.3-percent result but within the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) 2.0 to 4.0-percent target. The central bank will issue its own estimate for the month today and official data will be released by the Philippine Statistics Authority on Friday, July 4.

SPORTS: Eala shifts focus to Wimbledon

Filipino tennis hotshot Alex Eala just had to take her turn and suffer the most stinging defeat of her young professional career at the Eastbourne Open final in England Saturday. Already making history as the first Philippine player to reach the final of a WTA tournament, Eala aimed at elevating that to becoming the first Filipino netter to win the gold. The 20-year-old went back and forth against fellow wunderkind Maya Joint of Australia, just one year younger, and found herself on the verge of seizing her first WTA championship. In the third set tiebreak, Eala held the match and championship point four times but each time she just could not capitalize and Joint somehow in some way found a way to deny her and the whole Philippines by extension. Joint won three straight points to flip a 9-10 deficit into a win and her second WTA title after a fiercely-fought match that lasted for two hours and 28 minutes. The final score, 4-6, 6-1, 6(10)-7(12).

READ: Opinion and editorial

Rigoberto Tiglao, Fr. Ranhilio Calangan Aquino and Francisco Tatad are today’s frontpage columnists. Tiglao, in his column, explains House Speaker Martin Romualdez’s big blunder on Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment. Meanwhile, Aquino said that the dismissal of the Vice President’s impeachment trial is not a constitutional option. Tatad’s column is about Duterte’s possible presidential run in the 2028 elections.

Today’s editorial said that mystery still shrouds Covid pandemic’s origins.

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