Farmer Rene Ravalo loads coconuts onto a truck in the Philippines for the 30-minute trip to market on a road built last year. It previously took half a day for a water buffalo to inch the goods down a mountain track. Read the rest of this entry »
Trucks oust buffaloes as Aquino $6.5 billion adds roads: Freight
April 25, 2013
Ryder warns that prospects for jobs recovery are receding
April 23, 2013
In a statement to the IMFC in Washington, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder says international policy response efforts are not matching growing global concern over growth, job creation and poverty reduction. Read the rest of this entry »
Revise telcos’ unfair pretermination rule
April 14, 2013
UNFAIR TELCOS: The National Telecommunications Commission should stop cellphone companies from holding hostage their contracted users by making them pay a flat pretermination penalty when they opt out before their two-year term is over. Read the rest of this entry »
Many poor in PH? NSCB cites dismal agri sector
April 12, 2013
MANILA, Philippines – The declining share of agriculture in the Philippine economy could be a reason for the country’s high poverty incidence. Read the rest of this entry »
EDITORIAL | What ‘investment grade’ means for Filipinos – and what it doesn’t
March 28, 2013
Fitch Ratings on Wednesday gave the Philippines a historic thumbs up, rating the economy “investment grade” for the first time ever.
There is no spoiling this development. It is good news. Our leaders deserve credit as well as some basking in the limelight. By leaders though, it’s important to stress that this refers to both Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Benigno Aquino III. The former’s government for initiating the reforms that Fitch says made the Philippines resilient at a time of great global chaos, and the latter’s administration for following through on those reforms, while also layering on top of everything a great push for transparency and good governance. Read the rest of this entry »
Wisdom from the grassroots
March 25, 2013
As we commemorate Christ’s suffering this Holy Week, I am led to revisit anecdotes I have written in past articles on the wisdom one can find by talking to those who suffer the most from our society’s inequities. Through the years, I have found some of the richest insights in conversations with common folk expressing their aspirations in ways that made me see their plight more clearly, and rethink old preconceived notions and ideas shaped by ivory-tower analysis. Read the rest of this entry »
BSP cuts SDA yield, retains key policy rates
March 15, 2013
Monetary officials still see no immediate inflation threat
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Thursday slashed the interest rate on special deposit accounts to help curb the appreciation of the peso. Read the rest of this entry »
Complacency in a leaderless world
February 24, 2013
DAVOS — The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos has lost some of its pre-crisis panache. After all, before the meltdown in 2008, the captains of finance and industry could trumpet the virtues of globalization, technology, and financial liberalization, which supposedly heralded a new era of relentless growth. The benefits would be shared by all, if only they would do “the right thing.” Read the rest of this entry »
Why the Philippines will shine brighter this year
February 7, 2013
- by Mike Manuel, Sun Life Chief Investment Officer for Asia
The lost generations
January 17, 2013
NEW YORK — A country’s economic success depends on the education, skills, and health of its population. When its young people are healthy and well educated, they can find gainful employment, achieve dignity, and succeed in adjusting to the fluctuations of the global labor market. Businesses invest more, knowing that their workers will be productive. Yet many societies around the world do not meet the challenge of ensuring basic health and a decent education for each generation of children. Read the rest of this entry »
