The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Filipino youth have been winning in math contests, given our significant Chinese genetics and the Xavier schools of the Jesuits. Yet for the past several days, the whole world of Filipinos became an arithmetic class for Grade 3 students. What is 2/3 of 24 senators? 16. What if a senator has died in the meantime, what is 2/3 of 23? …
Points of View & Perspectives
September, 2026
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27 September
Legal circus around the impeachment trial
The camp of Vice President Sara Duterte appears ready to begin another legal circus aimed at undermining the Senate impeachment court after a majority of senator-judges voted to lower the threshold required for conviction. The Vice President’s lawyers have only one legal anchor: the Constitution. It provides the two-thirds requirement for conviction, and they are expected to seize on that …
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27 September
Reliable Pew attitudes survey
EBITDABy DIEGO C. CAGAHASTIAN Buried in the news pages of newspapers last week was an interesting item on the Spring 2026 Attitudes Survey of the US-based Pew Research Center. It was about behavioral patterns, political sentiment and attitudes, across various age groups in the Philippines, particularly on the issue of China. According to the survey, there is a striking age …
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20 September
Search for a savior
The return of siblings Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano to the Vice President’s impeachment proceedings adds another layer of political theater to an already extraordinary spectacle. Their participation is significant because the Senate impeachment court must ultimately confront a fundamental constitutional question: conviction requires the concurrence of two-thirds of all Senate members. The debate over how that threshold should operate …
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20 September
Customs Under Nepomuceno: The Numbers Tell the Story
LOVE FOR ALLBy: Virginia Rodriguez Government agencies are often judged by promises. The Bureau of Customs, however, can also be judged by numbers. Under Commissioner Ariel F. Nepomuceno, the BOC has reported substantial gains in revenue collection, enforcement, modernization, and trade facilitation since he assumed office in July 2025. The figures are difficult to overlook. From July 2025 to June …
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20 September
A wake-up call
REALPOLITIKBy Benjie Alejandro The latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) should serve as a wake‑up call. Net inflows of foreign direct investments (FDI) fell by 17.8 percent in the first half of the year, dropping from over $4 billion last year to just $3.38 billion today. FDI is not abstract money—it represents real businesses: factories, infrastructure projects, …
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20 September
China’s answer to high diesel prices
EBITDABy DIEGO C. CAGAHASTIAN The world is reeling under the weight of high diesel prices. That’s a cold fact, without any exaggeration. In Metro Manila, jeepney drivers, operators and other players in the transport industry are protesting en masse, with the Department of Energy and Malacañang unable to do anything substantial but to issue promises. During the Sept. 15-21 weekly …
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13 September
Democracy Is Bad?
There is talk, once in a while, that the qualifications of our candidates for public office leave much to be desired. Social media commentators point out that most employers require basic education and skills for even the lowliest of jobs, be it that of a carpenter, plumber or household help. But as for public offices, even for the Presidency of …
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13 September
Another big fish
It seems that only the government is celebrating the Philippines’ improved showing in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Four years after the advocacy group Philippine Business for Education ranked the country near the bottom of the list, hardly anyone appears convinced that the dramatic improvement in students’ science, mathematics and reading skills reflects reality. The numbers may …
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13 September
Fairer global governance at BRICS
EBITDABy DIEGO C. CAGAHASTIAN Before he left for New Delhi to attend the BRICS Summit on Sept. 12-13, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told the Filipino people why he was going and what were his expectations on this trip. Since his attendance there is tied to his responsibilities as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) this year, Marcos …