The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
While lucid, the Philippine Development Plan is still wrong and will keep the Philippines backward. Three major flaws immediately come to mind, all of which stem from the plan’s obsolete market fundamentalism.First, the plan avoids correcting the severe asset inequities and income imbalances that keep millions of Filipinos marginalized from meaningful economic activity. This means that all the plan’s rhetoric …
Points of View & Perspectives
July, 2017
June, 2017
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11 June
An unlikely journey
Parades, after which blisters from thin-soled shoes on gravel walks on the way back home in my Girl Scout uniform, a Philippine paper flag pasted on a stick that we waved through the camino real—by then, limp if not hanging by a tip—would be all I remember of Philippine Independence Day in my growing up. Later as university freshman in …
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11 June
PDP recycles failed policies—Ibon
The Duterte administration came to power almost a year ago on the promise of change.
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4 June
Government should review state witness status of Ruby Tuason
While we were closely monitoring the news about the Resorts World Manila attack that killed 38 persons, detained lawyer Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, quietly asked the Sandiganbayan to grant her bail for the plunder charges related to the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam.
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4 June
Where a child is schooled: Does it really matter?
Not a parent myself, I’ve had a few vicarious experiences of this phase in parenting only recently, like hearing about three top graduating students at Point Grey, a public school here in Vancouver, already accepted in Ivy League universities, one of them, a girl at Harvard. Two weeks ago in the bus to the train station, Jeanine, daughter of a …
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4 June
Ibon seeks progressive tax system
Government should be willing to forge a genuinely progressive tax system instead of adopting one that remains pro-rich, research institute Ibon said.
May, 2017
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28 May
Can Danny Lim solve Metro Manila’s traffic?
President Rodrigo Duterte last week named former Army Brigadier General Danilo Lim as chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA).
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28 May
Just this one spot: Not simply a wondrous sight
How easy it sounds as if that spot on earth, where one might be instantly implanted, were the most wondrous sight. Consider romps on meadows that the Green Mountains let nestle on their bosom—the little I learned from browsing through Wikipedia on the state of Vermont, cloud shapes like grazing sheep, mountain mist on waist of giant firs, descending in …
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28 May
Military rule raises instability—IBON
The Duterte administration’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao increases political instability in the country, research group IBON said, and will not help the economy, which is already slowing as it is. While the 1987 Constitution provides for such a declaration, its indiscriminate use gives the impression of an authoritarian government arbitrarily using power for self-serving ends. According to IBON, …
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21 May
Why are DOTr and Transco competing with the private sector?
Has the “contractor mentality” syndrome overcome certain quarters in the Administration? Has the syndrome driven government to ease out key private sector participants in infrastructure development?