EPIRA beyond reform

February 28, 2025

COMMENTARY

The lament borders on cliché – the Philippines has among the highest electricity costs in the region.

Looking beyond corruption rankings

February 21, 2025

The real challenges are not simply about improving the country’s Corruption Perception Index scores. It is rather in seeking real accountability for high-level abuse of power.

Making upper middle-income status matter

February 20, 2025

Understanding what upper middle-income status really means easily clarifies that it is in many respects just a fantasy.

The bright side of the economy in 2025

January 7, 2025

Public awareness and demands for a better budget are essentially demands for an economic framework that prioritizes the welfare of the many over the interests of the few. This is a potentially powerful foundation for better economic policymaking in 2025 and beyond.

2025 BBM: Budget Badly Made

December 17, 2024

The government easily decides on austerity for the poor, yet just as easily decides to give huge budgets for pork and patronage, infrastructure for the rich, and even sacred debt service.

Rate expectations: Rethinking PH credit ratings

December 12, 2024

The economic managers don’t seem to realize that credit ratings are just, well, credit ratings. These shouldn’t be overstated as any kind of measure of economic performance or much less of national development.

The Long Game of Development (3)

December 8, 2024

We can’t neglect the most important strategy of democratic mass mobilizations to shift the balance of power and policies towards the majority.

The Long Game of Development (2)

December 8, 2024

From the 18th century and the first industrial revolution, how much have great leaps in technologies really contributed to fixing social underdevelopment? The expanding poverty and vulnerability of billions of people gives an answer.

The Long Game of Development

December 8, 2024

The current era remains fundamentally neoliberal in essence, agenda and practice – state power over the economy is still systematically wielded for the benefit of a few. In particular, the so-called market reforms that have made capitalist elites so prosperous remain in place.