Asia News Wrap: Philippines election delivers a jolt, and more

Philippines election gives VP Duterte a shot at survival

The Philippines went to the polls to elect more than 18,000 officials nationwide on Monday, in midterm elections held every three years. Up for grabs were half of the 24-seat Senate, all 316 seats in the House of Representatives and thousands of local posts – from mayors to governors and their deputies in every province, city and town. Despite surveys predicting President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr's allies would sweep the Senate election, his rival, Vice President Sara Duterte gained an important foothold in the chamber that could ensure she survives an effort by Marcos loyalists to banish her from politics via impeachment. 

Monday's outcome showed Duterte's influence remains far from diminished, despite a fallout with Marcos, months of humiliating Congressional inquiries into her office's finances and the arrest and transfer of her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity. 

An unofficial tally showed four Duterte-aligned candidates will win seats in the upper house, where an impeachment trial could be convened with the 24 senators serving as jurors. With a two-thirds majority needed to convict her and ban her from office for life, Duterte would need only nine votes to be exonerated. Meanwhile, her father, Rodrigo Duterte, the former president, won the mayoral race in his southern stronghold of Davao City while locked up in The Hague. He was the city's mayor for two decades before he became president in 2016.

China begins building computing center in space 

China launched a group of 12 satellites on Wednesday aboard a Long March-2D carrier rocket, marking the world's first deployment of a space computing satellite constellation, dubbed the "Three-Body Computing Constellation."

The rocket lifted off at 12:12 p.m. Beijing Time from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. Jointly developed by Zhejiang Lab, a research institute based in Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province, and international partners, the constellation is designed to eventually comprise thousands of satellites with a combined computing power of 1,000 peta operations per second (POPS), according to Wang Jian, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the director of the lab. Wang is also the founder of Alibaba Cloud – one of China's leading cloud computing platforms. The project reflects China's growing ambitions to extend its computing power into space. This emerging frontier could eventually complement terrestrial cloud infrastructure and support data-intensive applications like AI and remote sensing.

Singaporean households get S$500 support vouchers

Singaporean households can now claim and use S$500 (US$380) in Community Development Council (CDC) vouchers, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced on Tuesday. S$250 worth of the vouchers can be used at participating supermarkets, and the other half at "participating hawker stalls and heartland merchants."

A typical family of four with two young children can receive around S$5,000 in support this financial year, said the prime minister. The Straits Times reported that "the scheme was continued post-pandemic to help cushion the impact of rising prices on Singaporeans."

Campaigning begins for South Korean presidential election 

Candidates in South Korea's presidential election kicked off their official campaigns on Monday ahead of a snap presidential poll to replace the country's impeached former leader, who was removed over a thwarted martial law bid. On June 3, South Korean voters will vote for a new president, after months of turmoil triggered by Yoon Suk Yeol's attempt to suspend civilian rule in December. 

For 22 days from May 12, the six officially registered presidential candidates will campaign across the country, with uniformed campaign staff dancing to choreographed moves. The front runner by a large margin, polls suggest, is the main opposition Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung, with 43 percent support. South Korea's former prime minister and acting president Han Duck-soo ended an ill-fated attempt to win the conservative party's presidential nomination on Sunday after days of disputes. Rival Kim Moon-soo was chosen as the nominee for the People Power Party.

Chess banned in Afghanistan over gambling, religious concerns

Afghanistan's Taliban authorities have banned chess across the country until further notice over concerns it is a source of gambling, which is illegal under the government's morality law. 

"Chess in Islamic law is considered a means of gambling," which is prohibited according to the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice law announced in 2024, sports directorate spokesman Atal Mashwani told AFP. "There are religious considerations regarding the sport of chess," he said. "Until these considerations are addressed, the sport of chess is suspended in Afghanistan."

(Cover: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr speaks during a campaign rally ahead of the elections, in Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, Philippines, May 9, 2025. /Reuters)