The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Cloud-watching to this day, for me, remains a constant source of inspiration—I bet yours, too. I believe it began when flying kites in the summer with my cousins; though I could neither make a kite nor fly one, I tagged along anyway, sometimes to their chagrin—when to keep a steady hand in silence, I’d be chattering tales I drew from …
Points of View & Perspectives
January, 2017
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22 January
In times of turbulence
Allow us to start off with a bold recommendation, and from there justify with an analysis how this year might turn out, including where the horizon might lie four years from January.
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22 January
Andanar frustrated with his own team?
Last week, Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Martin Andanar issued a statement blasting the media for “irresponsible” reporting on President Duterte’s martial law remarks.
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22 January
When honest-to-goodness winter hits
While no blocks of ice sliding off glass walls or falling from the roof happened like they did in New York a few years ago, endangering skulls, these past weeks of heavy snowfalls in the Lower Mainland, a region that includes Vancouver, car crashes and hurt limbs have marked a week of unpreparedness. As Gwen, our strata president, has said, …
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15 January
Bye, bye Barack
This week will be the last week in office for the first African-American president of the United States. It will, perhaps, be doubly poignant and triply painful for the Union’s 44th president, Barack Hussein Obama.
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15 January
Time to review Epira
Will President Duterte’s administration be open to amending the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) of 2001?
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15 January
When music could be a miracle
He recognized me instantly. I had raked my memory but found no trace of him—a gaunt old man, toothless and graying in the skin, squinting rheumy eyes under thick tinted glasses, flailing tentative limbs, swaying as he walked with a cane, and held in place only when seated. As he began painfully in my sight to slip into a stupor, …
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8 January
Bungling back to the future
The year just gone and the new year we heralded in are bridged with trumpet blasts, the tooting of horns, the clanging of pots and pans and the modest crackle of fireworks presumably to frighten away persistent demons of the past. As the din dies down and a new year begins, at least that is our fervent prayer. Unfortunately, not …
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8 January
Robredo ratings heading for the ‘laylayan?’
Has Vice President Leni Robredo’s political goodwill and value started on its downward slide?
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8 January
Who would have thought noise could kill?
“Nakakabingi!” Juliet had complained in equal loudness about the silence on New Year’s Day. Wet large flakes, which fell on New Year’s Eve, had dampened her spirits, or I bet like most Filipinos, especially new arrivals, used to an explosive Bagong Taon. We had huddled under a virgin-white mantle from evening to night, nibbling on leftover food from Christmas, made …