Disasters and the dire state of economic, socio-cultural rights in the Philippines

December 10, 2013

IBON Features | The country’s weak capacity to adapt to the impact of disasters is a result of years of state neglect and its adherence to economic policies that ensure profit above people’s welfare. IBON Features—This year’s commemoration of International Human Rights Day finds the Philippines challenged with the devastation wrought by supertyphoon Yolanda in […]

2013: Unchanged policies and economic disasters

December 1, 2013

IBON Features | Growth is becoming more exclusionary with every year of the Aquino administration and its unreformed economic policies IBON Features— The year 2013 has seen more rapid economic growth, rising foreign investment, and praise from international agencies and big business – yet also falling job generation, rising unemployment, soaring prices, growing poverty, and […]

Pork Barrel and Systemic Corruption (Second of Two Parts)

October 25, 2013

IBON Features | COMMENTARY | By Sonny Africa | These funds need to be removed from the discretion of the chief executive – whose powers over budgets must also be reduced – and subjected to greater public oversight. (Second of Two Parts) Pork barrel abuses The PDAF accounts for just 2.2% of presidential pork barrel. […]

Pork Barrel and Systemic Corruption (First of Two Parts)

October 24, 2013

IBON Features/ COMMENTARY | by Sonny Africa | The PDAF is actually just a small part of the vast government mechanism of patronage and pork barrel politics centred around the presidency. (First of Two Parts) The Napoles pork barrel scam is a sensational corruption scandal involving billions of pesos, prominent senators and representatives of congress, […]

The Politician Versus the Collective (A critique of the pork barrel system in the Philippines)

October 1, 2013

IBON Features | COMMENTARY | by Edberto M. Villegas | The collectivism of the Katipunan has been drowned out by the noise and hurly-burly of self-centered modern living and the pursuit of unbridled political ambitions by some, which have wrought havoc among our (Second of two parts) Participative democracy: substitute to the pork barrel system […]

The Politician Versus the Collective (A critique of the pork barrel system in the Philippines)

September 30, 2013

IBON Features | COMMENTARY | By Edberto M. Villegas, PhD | It has been a long way since from the culture of the Katipunan to the present pork barrel system in the Philippines,a legacy of colonial US to the country to make its political protégées follow its bidding (First of two parts) The controversy regarding […]

MWSS water rate rollback: Tentative, partial and inadequate

September 19, 2013

IBON Features | COMMENTARY | By Sonny Africa | The MWSS unfortunately basically still operates within the bounds of the defective anti-consumer concession agreements with liberal rate-setting schemes, business-biased dispute settlement, and weak regulation The MWSS decision is welcome in being the first rollback since privatization in 1997. If implemented, it should give consumers some […]

Water arbitration: Lower bills still uncertain

September 18, 2013

IBON Features | By design, MWSS privatization was meant to protect the interests of the private investors, making effective regulation practically impossible IBON Features— Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water Co. Inc. have expressed that they are disputing through arbitration the decision of regulators to reduce water rates in the next five years. What […]

Inequality

July 25, 2013