The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Luis Leoncio The groundwork for the return of normal relations between China and the Philippines has been laid down in the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Laos that, unfortunately, was overshowed by the diplomatic row between the Philippines and the United States.
Points of View & Perspectives
September, 2016
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4 September
Banking globalization and its discontents
Globalization is here to stay and its numerous upsides are undeniable for an economy such as ours. The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry that had ratcheted up and provided much needed employment during the incumbency of former President Gloria Arroyo is a clear example. So also is our contribution to the global telecommunications industry as we churn out microchips and …
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4 September
Living with EpiPen
A fancy-sounding name for a life-saving shot, isn’t it? EpiPen (short for epinephrine), the self-injecting food allergy drug, dominated Wall Street headlines, with Mylan, the drug company that manufactures it, under attack a week ago, when it announced a 500-percent price increase. Among parents, worries ballooned about their children dying instantly of anaphylaxis, as well as adults constantly threatened by …
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4 September
Is de Lima desperately seeking public sympathy?
It appears that Sen. Leila de Lima, chairman of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, now wants to pick up another cause after her supposed probe into alleged extrajudicial killings proved to be a dud.
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4 September
Hunger, malnutrition cost economy P328B a year
By Luis Leoncio Hunger costs the economy an estimated P328 billion a year – the amount being drained from the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) as a result of childhood stunting, according to a study and a report.
August, 2016
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28 August
War by inspiration
When people terrified by radical Islamic fundamentalism as advocated through a Salafi jihad by the Islamic State (IS) or the ISIL caliphate (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a.k.a. ISIS or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), think of ending such threat, they debate on the use of overwhelming force as the final solution. “Bombing-the-hell-out-of-them” has been so often …
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28 August
Prove your love
Under the same chestnut trees, where three years ago she had mused with me her expectation of Johnny finally joining her here in Vancouver, Daisy, pushing a stroller, and I, on the same side of the sidewalk on Cartier Street, met from opposite sides—she, in glee waving her hand, “Ate!” The baby, already her second since, my first time to …
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28 August
The de Lima circus
We can only commiserate with the neophyte senator, former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. It looks like her planned expose’ on alleged extrajudicial killings linked to the police was not just a dud – it is backfiring on her.
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21 August
Gaming the grid
Recently the Department of Energy (DOE), alarmed at what seems to be creeping up slowly at a time when the regulatory hierarchy may at be its most vulnerable, its newly appointed officials experiencing honeymoon period pangs, implored its strongest regulatory arm to investigate possible market abuse and cartelized criminality.
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21 August
‘A murder convict naka-escape daw, and on the prowl’
Overheard at lunch, from behind us in a restaurant on Amsterdam in New York. Turning my head—I guessed right, apparently visiting moms of Filipino nurses working in a hospital close by. Their conversation pitched as each grabbed the floor from the other, throwing in cinder to burn this alleged virtual criminal at a stake, in their minds, that is.