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By Luis Leoncio With the public hearings in Congress on the proposed 2017 national budget to start this week, a budget watchdog has urged the Duterte administration to release the money already appropriated to provinces devastated by Supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013.

THE new administration’s economic chiefs, acknowledging that the poor continue to be left behind in the country’s march to progress, have pledged to implement policies that would finally enable the masses to benefit from the country’s growth.

By Luis Leoncio The government crackdown on giant mining companies has started, with Environment Secretary Regina Lopez initially putting  in the firing line the Tampakan gold and copper mine operated by Sagittarius Mines Inc., and the Semirara open-pit coal mine, in response to demands by various agencies.    

The Duterte administration’s efforts to end Metro Manila’s monstrous traffic problem received a huge boost after Japan approved a $2.4-billion (P112.8-billion) loan to fund the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) 7 project that will connect Manila to Bulacan and decongest the capital.  

A budget watchdog is demanding an end to the country’s automatic debt payments that give priority to debt servicing over allocations for vital social and economic services.   

By Riza Lozada Ayala Corp. seeks to become the first homegrown vehicle manufacturer initially through the production of electric vehicles targeting the Southeast Asian market.   

By Luis Leoncio  President Duterte’s economic managers have abandoned the proposed increase in the value-added tax as a means to make up for revenues to be lost with the plan to lower income and corporate taxes.

Infrastructure would be treated as “public goods, not commodities for profit,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has said, revealing a policy shift in the Duterte administration to push projects that proved to ne sluggish in the previous administration. 

The Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee (ICC-CabCom) recommended 10 projects worth P136.44 billion for National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Board’s approval in its first meeting under President Duterte’s administration. 

By Luis Leoncio Despite posting a 6-percent growth, the Philippines’s relatively high gross international reserve (GIR) of $85.49 billion in July was still considered a “laggard” in Asia, mainly as a result of the low foreign-capital inflow.