The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

By Luis Leoncio  As the Aquino administration draws to a close, more details are being revealed about the supposed reforms initiated under his term, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) attributing the improvement in fiscal management to measures undertaken during the term of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. 

A victory for potential strongman Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is causing considerable anxiety in the business community and has already resulted in a downswing in the Philippines Stock Exchange index (PSEi), among other business indicators. 

Even before the money-laundering scandal involving the $81 million hackers stole from Bangladesh Bank, foreign banks had already been reducing money-transfer operations that were having an adverse impact on the remittance costs and flows of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Gov. Amando Tetangco Jr. said. 

By Riza Lozada Manuel V. Pangilinan, chairman of the board of directors of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), has reminded the government that power interruptions remained a “cause for concern and visible indicators that much more needs to be done in the power supply chain.” 

By Riza Lozada Revenues of Philippine Long Distance Co. (PLDT) Inc from its so-called legacy businesses, which comprise cellular domestic voice, SMS or text messages, and international and national long distance (ILD/NLD) calls, dropped by P2.5 billion for the first quarter. In contrast, broadband, corporate data and data center revenues rose by P2.5 billion or a 22 increase during the …

Conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. (AEV) reported a 24-percent increase in profit to P5 billion in the first quarter on the back of power, banking and financial services, and infrastructure business units.

The Philippines posted an improvement of more than 5 percent in its score in the 2016 perception survey conducted by the international think tank Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd (PERC), the highest among covered developing countries. 

Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp.’s (ACMDC) Cebu unit Carmen Copper Corp. (CCC), engaged in copper mining copper and exporting, said in will lay off 551 employees, equivalent to 15 percent of its workforce, as part of cost reduction due to the depressed prices of copper in the global market. 

By the time this piece gets published, voting would have been under way. It may even well be the case that the counting has begun in some places, while in others, the counting has been completed long before the precincts opened. 

Years later, the burst of magnolias as huge as my face fails to arrest my steps. I haven’t even noticed when the blue irises, which seemed to block me to revel in a few seconds of bliss, have shriveled into brown scraps of yesterday’s beauties. And while I had bemoaned the loss of the redolent briar rose, it took me …