The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

By Riza Lozada Despite the still weak global economy, cash remittances from overseas Filipino work­ers (OFWs) grew by 8.6 per­cent from last year to $2.17 billion in January 2017, high­er than the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) target of a four percent growth.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report the global economy is showing more positive momentum, but warned that in­ward-looking policies and sharp tightening in global financial condi­tions could threaten the growth momentum.

With the booming economy, social enterprise The Global Filipino Investors Inc. (TGFI) encourages more Filipinos to save and invest their money properly.

The House committee on public works and highways has created a technical working group (TWG) that will consolidate several bills seeking to institutionalize and strengthen the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) expects this year more companies engaged in infrastructure developments to issue project bonds to fund expansion, boosting the coun­try’s focus on improving infrastructure.

The Construction Industry Au­thority of the Philippines (Ciap), in collaboration with the DTI Regional Operations Group (DTI-ROG), will open its 8th service window in the DTI Re­gional Office (RO) located in Palo, Leyte to serve the Eastern Visayas region.

Committed to developing Central and Northern Luzon through high impact infrastructure, the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) brings the Build Build Build Infrastructure Plan to the Clark Development Stake­holders Roadshow at the Royce Hotel, Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga province.

This discussion is less about the gov­ernment’s proposed jeepney moderniza­tion program or even about jeepneys than it is about an­other brazen lie foisted on the public. The danger about such constant afflictions where au­thorities are often caught in obvious falsehoods is in its numbing and cauterizing ef­fect. The Greek story-teller Aesop would have entitled it “The Boy who cried Wolf” …

In our radio program last week, Executive Session, aired over radio station DZRH, my co-hosts Am­bassador Teddy Boy Locsin, Jr., Rep. Jonathan Dela Cruz, lawyer Dodo Dulay, social media expert Paolo Capino and I, discussed a tragic in­cident which happened a day after Christmas last year.

While fasting and abstinence meant only one meatless meal, friends and I dreaded Lenten Fridays. At times, we practiced the extreme with just bread and water, though possibly only out of obedience—what do 14-year olds really under­stand in terms of self-deni­al for the atonement of sins, anyway?