The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
With a housing backlog of 3 million, which is going up by at least 6 percent a year, the housing industry, specifically the companies that provide affordable housing, does not have at its fingertips the data needed to allow both the private sector and the government the tools to decipher what is happening and what are needed to make things happen.
Points of View & Perspectives
August, 2015
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23 August
The BBL’s sinister semantics
With a virtual gun pointed at our collective heads, its hammer pulled back, cocked, chambers loaded with deadly ordnance and a terrorist’s crooked finger itching to squeeze inside the trigger housing, such threat to accompany the double-bladed and crooked scimitar already positioned across the soft flesh of our throats, these are effectively the conditions under which we are compelled to …
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23 August
Mr. Postman was at your door
Rarely so these days, if ever, isn’t it? Like most figures in what seemed a forever-landscape less than 50 years ago, Mr. Postman—Mang Mianong in my Ilocos childhood, who linked us with Papa working away in Manila—has been fast withdrawing into mere memory.
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23 August
Let electricity spot market work
A new Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) chairman was named recently. His appointment to the post was met with mixed reactions.
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23 August
Philippines to open base near disputed sea, even without US
By Jim Gomez / The Associated Press Subic, Zambales— The Philippines will go ahead with a plan to open military camps at Subic Bay facing the disputed South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) even if a proposed American military presence doesn’t happen, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said.
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16 August
Hairdressers over heroes
The Aquino administration’s blitzkrieg counterattack against the Vice President’s True State of the Nation Address (Tsona) centered on several aspects that ranged from the Vice President’s recognition of the heroic deaths of the 44 Special Action Force personnel (SAF 44) from the President’s twice-bungled Mamasapano massacre to accusations that issues tackled were old media headlines and, eventually, to criticism of …
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16 August
Wild rides
What more powerful word-pair spurts adrenaline sky high, literally, than a wild ride? Out of maybe dozens to choose from, any pick catapults and then, takes you crashing hard enough, so much so that, for a minute, one feels alien on the ground.
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16 August
Driving us crazy
Last week, we woke up to yet another horrific road accident, this time involving a passenger bus of the Valisno Express Liner that crashed into the concrete boundary marker of Quezon City and Caloocan, killing four passengers and leaving 18 others with wounds and broken bones.
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15 August
NLEx and SCTEx: A study in contrasts
As a resident of Pangasinan, I usually take the NLEx-SCTEx combo, whereby I take advantage of the speedier route provided by the two expressways. Travel time has been cut by at least an hour, providing a senior citizen like me a more enjoyable public bus ride.
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9 August
Mining and inclusive growth
When we talk of gross domestic productivity (GDP) growth these days, the discussions are almost always tempered by the attendant criticism that, despite resplendent growth, what growth we experienced was non-inclusive. What exactly does that mean?