The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

By Luis Leoncio  Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad’s Bottom-Up Budgeting (BuB), which is being described by the Aquino administration as a budget-reform package, has been “exposed” as a “brazen tool” of political patronage in a study by University of the Philippines (UP) School of Economics Prof. Benjamin Diokno.

By Jerry Maglunog  The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) is looking into reports that credit cards are now being used to launder dirty money.

By Riza Lozada An influential foreign trade group said the government “must” require the use of the precious frequency band available for fast Internet transmissions and “compel” companies that have it but are not using it “to give it up.”

Business confidence is on a slide, according to a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) quarterly survey, which showed that the overall confidence index (CI) fell to 41.9 percent in the first quarter from 51.3 percent in the final quarter of last year, partly due to uncertainties as a result of the expected change in administration after the national elections in …

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has released new rules for listed firms to qualify for the PSE index—the gauge for the performance of the local stock market.

Fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) has acquired full ownership through its international unit of the Chinese supplier of its operations in China after JFC engaged in an equity and asset swap deal worth P500 million.

Property conglomerate Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) has paid 25 percent of its P5.625 billion common shares subscription into Prime Orion Philippines Inc. (POPI) equivalent to 51.06 percent of total outstanding shares.

Listed Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said its core earnings reached P18.9 billion in 2015, up four percent from P18.1 billion in 2014. 

Even where the handful of presidential candidates insist on a list of platform topics principally designed to accentuate their strengths against the weaknesses of their rivals, throughout, the issue of the economy is necessarily central to any debate or agenda. 

The Arangkada Philippines Project (TAPP) recently launched a policy brief on Philippine broadband services, discussing challenges and solutions to improve fixed and wireless connectivity in the country.