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).

Upon COVID-19: Time to tax the super-rich

May 25, 2020

FEATURES

The Philippines has never had a wealth tax. For as long as there has been a tax system in the country, taxes have been collected from what people pay for what they consume or from what they earn.

Why make the poor pay for COVID-19 response?

May 24, 2020

COMMENTARY

There’s more than enough money for all the COVID-19 response we need – the Duterte administration just has to take the side of the people and stop being so scared of the rich.

Duterte gov’t giving up Php667-B in potential COVID response funds to boost corporate profits

May 20, 2020

At a time when funds are urgent for the huge COVID-19 response needed, research group IBON said that the Duterte administration is giving up Php667 billion in revenues to boost the profits of the country’s largest corporations.

To give or not to give SAP tranche 2

May 19, 2020

How many mothers have been forced to leave their little ones at home, walk far, and stand in long lines for ayuda only to go home empty-handed? How many senior citizens and persons with disability (PWD), despite their frailty and limits, still tried to get support but in vain?

Financial strength, development weakness

May 14, 2020

COMMENTARY

In this kind of situation, you don’t obsess about fuel-efficient driving or not red-lining the tachometer or limiting the car’s mileage – you step on the gas. Glorifying ‘financial strength’ is stepping on the brakes.

Why can’t food self-sufficiency be our new normal?

May 8, 2020

FEATURES

From the outset of the Duterte government’s military lockdown as its response to the spread of the coronavirus, it has directed the continuous flow of food commodities, along with medicines and other essentials. Food is inarguably essential to people’s survival during a pandemic and in its socioeconomic aftermath.

ABS-CBN shutdown a threat to press freedom, a bane to transformative education

May 8, 2020

NETWORKS | EDUCATORS’ FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT

We are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic to which our government can only muster a militaristic response instead of strengthening our health system and relay incoherent reports, and at times, disinformation.

PH economy was already slowing – COVID-19 just made it worse

May 7, 2020

NEWS

The Philippine economy was already weak coming into the COVID-19 crisis. Growth will remain slow if the government does not acknowledge pre-existing weaknesses that the pandemic merely intensified.