29 Philippine companies rank among TIME’s best in Asia-Pacific for 2025

American news magazine TIME has named 29 Philippine companies among the World’s Best Companies of 2025 in the Asia-Pacific region.

The list ranks 500 firms based on a quantitative study assessing their influence on the region’s role in global business. Companies were evaluated across three dimensions: employee satisfaction, financial performance and sustainability transparency.

Employee satisfaction was measured using a 2023 survey of over 50,000 employees across the Asia-Pacific region. 

Financial performance was assessed through Statista's financial database and targeted research, covering firms with at least $100 million (~P5.8 billion) in annual revenue in 2023 and positive revenue growth from 2021 to 2023.

Sustainability transparency was based on Statista’s 2022 environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. 

Factors included carbon emissions and reduction rates, Carbon Disclosure Project ratings, gender diversity in boardrooms, human rights policies, adherence to Global Reporting Initiative guidelines in corporate social responsibility reports and compliance with anti-corruption standards.

Each firm was assessed based on these factors and assigned a score out of 100. The top 500 companies were recognized as TIME’s World’s Best Companies of 2025 in the Asia-Pacific region.

This is TIME’s first annual list in collaboration with global data and business intelligence platform Statista.

Here are the 29 Philippine companies that made the ranking, along with their respective positions out of 500.

DBS Bank of Singapore emerged as the region’s top-performing company, followed by Malaysia’s Maybank and South Korea’s Kia, each scoring around 96 overall. 

This does not imply, however, that they ranked highest in every criterion.

In the Philippines, Ayala Corp. stood out as the top-performing firm and was the only one to achieve an overall score above 90. It was followed by San Miguel Corp. and Security Bank Corp.

According to BusinessWorld’s report on the country's top 1,000 corporations in 2023, the highest-grossing firms were in the manufacturing sector, led by oil company Petron — one of the 29 Philippine firms included in TIME’s list.

Source: Philstar

PH digital competitiveness drops

The Philippines' digital competitiveness has fallen for a second straight year based on an annual ranking released on Thursday by Switzerland's Institute for Management Development (IMD).

The country was 61st out of 67 economies in the 2024 list, produced by the IMD's World Competitiveness Center (WCC). This was down from 59th last year when it lost three spots from 56th in 2022.

It was next to last among 14 Asia-Pacific countries, unchanged since 2020, and 25th among 30 economies with populations of more than 20 million, also the same as last year.

Singapore continued to lead the list while the United States experienced a three-place drop to fourth. Switzerland and Denmark took second and third, respectively.

Singapore's top ranking was said to reflect its advanced city management, prolific high-tech patent grants, and robust banking and financial sectors.

Switzerland, meanwhile, improved in terms of high-tech exports and cybersecurity, and Denmark was strong in the areas of employee training, e-governance and secure internet servers.

In contrast, the US saw declines in its attitude to globalization, international managerial experience and increasing fears of failure among entrepreneurs.

The IMD ranking measures digital competitiveness using three main factors — knowledge, technology and future readiness — and the Philippines lost places with regard to the first two.

It was 64th in terms of knowledge, 56th in terms of technology — down from last year's 59th and 63rd, respectively. It edged up, however, to 58th from 59th in the area of future readiness.

Broken down further, the Philippines' rankings also slipped with regard to sub-factors under the three main categories.

It fell to 60th from 56th in terms of talent, 61st from 58th in scientific concentration, and remained 62nd in training and education — all under the knowledge pillar.

Sub-factor rankings under technology all fell: 66th from 63rd for regulatory framework, 45th from 41st for capital and 53rd from 43rd in the area of technological framework.

Improvements, however, came in the future readiness sub-factors of adaptive attitudes (52nd from 59th) and IT integration, 58th from 60th, although a drip to 54th from 50th was seen in the area of business agility.

There were some bright spots for the country: it was second overall in terms of female researchers (under scientific concentration) and high-tech exports (technological framework).

It was 22nd with regard to science graduates (training and education), 9th in telecommunication invest ments (capital), and 19th in flexibility and adaptability (adaptive attitudes).

The biggest weaknesses, meanwhile, were in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) articles (66th, scientific concentration), secure internet servers and communications technology (64th and 66th, respectively, under technological framework), and starting a business and enforcing contracts (65th and 64th, regulatory framework).

The country's main challenges, according to IMD partner the Rizalino Navarro Policy Center for Competitiveness of the Asian Institute of Management, are:

– sustaining job-generating investments;

– ensuring food security to temper inflation and keep prices affordable;

– addressing learning gaps to improve the education system;

– building sustainable infrastructure to reduce climate change vulnerability; and

– resolving the Philippines' territorial rights to the West Philippine Sea diplomatically and peacefully.

Jose Caballero, senior economist at the WCC, said that geopolitical rivalries — particularly between the US and China — were fragmenting the global digital landscape.

Geopolitical tensions have also become a defining feature in shaping digital competitiveness, the IMD said.

Economies, the business school said, will have to grapple with the pace of technological change and capability requirements.

Countries that effectively exploit the power of new technologies such as AI, blockchain and quantum computing, it added, "are likely to enhance their digital competitive advantage, leading to sustained economic growth, improved productivity and greater global influence.

Source: Manila Times

PH ranks 61st among 149 territories in World Happiness Report 2021

The Philippines dropped to 61st in the latest ranking of countries and territories in terms of happiness, as surveyed by the Gallup World Poll and other independent experts, from its 52nd position the previous year, according to the World Happiness Report 2021.

Finland, for the fourth time, remains at the top, followed by Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands.

Completing the Top 10, out of the 149 countries and territories that were assessed, are Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Austria.

In the bottom 10 are Burundi, Yemen, Tanzania, Haiti, Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan.

The latest results are based on the data gathered by the Gallup World Poll from 2018 until 2020, which include answers to a main life evaluation question, the report said.

Respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale, it explained.

The following factors in each country or territory were also considered: levels of GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom, and corruption.

In the World Happiness Report 2020, which covers data gathered from 2017 until 2019, the Philippines ranked 52nd out of 153 countries and territories.

The latest report, meanwhile, disclosed the scores solely in 2020 in an effort to show the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic to people's happiness.

In this ranking, the Philippines placed 74th out of 95 countries, down from 42nd based on the 2017-2019 average results.

There were a few changes as well in the top countries.

TOP 10 countries in 2020

1. Finland

2. Iceland

3. Denmark

4. Switzerland

5. Netherlands

6. Sweden

7. Germany

8. Norway

9. New Zealand

10. Austria

The 2021 report said that the pandemic was a big assessment point aside from its original "six key variables" - GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption.

"This shows that COVID-19 has led to only modest changes in the overall rankings, reflecting both the global nature of the pandemic and a widely shared resilience in the face of it," the report said of the latest findings.

"The countries that performed best in minimizing the direct death toll from COVID-19 were also able to do better on other fronts, including income, employment, and the mental and physical health of the rest of the population," it added.

In its summary, the report said "Although there were significant increases in average sadness and worry, we found that overall life evaluations, and happiness rankings, were (surprisingly) stable."

source: ABS-CBN