What’s up, pork? (Part Two)

March 19, 2021

FEATURES – The Duterte government can do a lot of things to recover domestic hog production, consumer capacity and the national economy. But it has just opted to cater to private profits, foreign pressures and whims of public officials. And they have just been hogging everything to themselves, as they have done during the pandemic lockdown and beyond.

What’s up, pork? (Part One)

March 19, 2021

FEATURES – Again, the Duterte government is proposing importation without careful consideration. A year of unscientific and irrational responses – that has been more fatal than the plague itself.

Inequality in a time of pandemic: perspectives and proposals from the global South

February 5, 2021

The severity of inequality has never been starker during the pandemic. We need to break the barriers of social distancing and isolation to collectively call for urgent proposals, for after all, addressing inequality will start from social solidarity.

Neoliberalism and our multiple crises in the COVID era: Dare to struggle, dare to win

November 1, 2020

Features | We may survive the pandemic, but we are headed towards even greater downward pressure on wages and working conditions amid greater repression of organized labor. We are headed towards increasing compulsion of capitalists to seek rapid growth at all costs, including environmental and social costs.

Talking ‘bout a (bike) revolution

July 1, 2020

BIRD FEED

In Metro Manila, you have to be a warrior to assert more sustainable options for mobility, including simply being a pedestrian. You have to fight for a lane, a space, a green light, a minute. And as a female cyclist, you also have to fight for a little respect. On the road, we are the lowest form of life, along with the mass of public transport commuters who struggle everyday to get to their destinations. It’s a lonely road.

Part 2: The anomaly of transport modernization

June 27, 2020

FEATURES

The Duterte government can address the transport crisis in the time of COVID-19 and in fact can look at the pandemic as an opportunity to overhaul the system. The health protocols may be followed indeed if only the government recognizes and addresses the transport crisis in a scientific manner.

The anomaly of transport modernization

June 26, 2020

FEATURES

If there is anything that COVID-19 has emphasized, it is the fact that the Philippine transport sector is in its worst crisis – a reality that the Duterte administration had repeatedly denied before the pandemic. If the economy has to transition to a genuinely better shape, the government has to address the basic woes of the transport sector. Vice versa, if the mass transport system has to be more efficient, the economy has to be transitioned to a genuinely better one.

PH Debt: All’s well that swells

June 13, 2020

The finance department underscores the need for government to borrow from foreign sources to fund its economic recovery plan. Multilateral and country creditors have unsurprisingly exploited the situation and recycled funds to lend. But do we really need to borrow for COVID-19 response? How are we going to pay for all of these debts?

GCQ Reality Check

May 27, 2020

BIRD FEED | Rosario Guzman | Struggling with the dilemma for about a month now – caught between the lack of science and intense pressure from big business to continue profit-making – the Duterte government is about to decide to transition the country to a general community quarantine (GCQ).