IBON Foundation
Amid price hikes: Minimum wage insufficient vs. rising family cost of living — IBON
April 20, 2018
The onslaught of price hikes since early this year has made the mandated minimum wage in the National Capital Region (NCR) even more inadequate for millions of Filipino workers to decently support their families, said research group IBON. IBON computations show that the NCR nominal minimum wage still falls considerably short of the rising family […]
First quarter of TRAIN: A preview of the worse to come for the poor
April 20, 2018
Nanay Inday joins the many ordinary folk in bearing the brunt of price hikes upon the January 2018 implementation of the first package of the Duterte administration’s Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN). A resident of the urban poor community in San Roque North Triangle, she laments that there are no longer Php5.00 bundles […]
Filipino workers’ plight continues
April 16, 2018
As International Workers’ Day approaches, many Filipino workers still endure poor quality jobs that lack benefits, are low-paying, insecure and under unfavorable working conditions. Those workers who attempt to assert their labor rights face repressive measures such as losing their jobs, violent strike dispersals, and other rights violations. The Duterte administration’s pursuit and implementation of […]
Greater burden due to TRAIN
April 9, 2018
While the change in global oil prices and peso depreciation were factors in recent inflation, TRAIN also already increased the prices of oil products, sugar sweetened beverages and other goods and services. The public has been feeling the weight of price hikes as early as January.
Public funds for private gain in education
April 8, 2018
Foreign ownership of education could lead to the further commercialization of education especially with the introduction of new competitors to the private education business. Commercialized PH education has already seen decades of increasing tuition and school fees, the rise of oligarchs-run educational institutions against a weakening public system, and a career-oriented curriculum instead of one […]
What You Need to Know About Charter Change and its Possible Effects on the Education Sector
April 4, 2018
By Jose Lorenzo Lim (In a series of articles, IBON tackles proposals to amend the 1987 Philippine Constitution*, focusing on social and economic provisions. These touch on agrarian reform for industrialization, and full foreign ownership and control of Philippine lands and natural resources including agricultural lands, public utilities, labor rights, educational institutions and mass media. […]
Less land for food
March 30, 2018
While foreign land grabbing intensifies across the globe, the concentration of Philippine agricultural lands in the hands of oligarchs amid sham land distribution is becoming even more rampant, depriving the tillers of the fruits of the land they made productive, and threatening the country’s food security.
Megadams: displacement looms
March 25, 2018
The Philippine government spearheaded Water Day 2018 celebrations themed “Nature for Water”. Water for the people advocates however note that the government’s big-ticket Build Build Build water and energy dams plans, aside from being unnecessary, could destroy lives and livelihoods. The New Centennial Water Source Kaliwa and Laiban Phases I and II and the Chico […]
Book: Guns Against Needles
March 25, 2018
“Communities are organizing themselves to form committees on health and sanitation, livelihood, and sustainable agriculture to provide social and economic services where government is absent or wanting. But State forces have often linked these development efforts to insurgency and anti-government actions thus have targeted them in counterinsurgency operations. Military operations have not only resulted in […]
