Commentary
Charter Change Proponents Are Misinformed*
February 14, 2014
IBON Features | COMMENTARY | By Sonny Africa | There is nothing to indicate that rising foreign investment and greater globalization policies have created a strong domestic economy that creates jobs and expands domestic capital on a sustainable basis IBON Features–The House of Representatives has started hearings on House Joint Resolution No. 1 to amend […]
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 […]
Elections 2013: Public exercise, private process
May 16, 2013
IBON FEATURES | COMMENTARY | The state has become captive of a private firm by allowing it to have full authority over the technology and the whole voting process, in effect losing its power to ensure that the exercise is truly democratic IBON Features—The 2013 elections are over, but the voting public has yet to […]
Exclusionary Economics: How Aquino and Arroyo economics are the same
July 22, 2012
IBON Features | COMMENTARY | The reality behind the so-called gains must however be assessed before concluding that the Aquino administration has indeed been the much-sought change following former Pres. Arroyo’s legacy of corruption IBON Features— In his upcoming third State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Benigno Aquino III will surely attempt to highlight […]
