Counterproductive Counterinsurgency

November 17, 2019

BY SONNY AFRICA

Development policymaking is hard enough as it is – the Philippines after so many decades of so many development plans is a case in point. Now the military wants to take that over as well?

Solving the NCR mass transport crisis

October 28, 2019

The mass transport crisis is real. Millions of commuters in the National Capital Region (NCR) suffer inconvenient and inefficient travel every day. Average commuting time was around 37 minutes in 1980 and 51 minutes in 1996, according to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). A survey by commuter group Komyut reported this rising to as […]

Unmet targets: Poor water and sanitation service is failure of privatization

October 25, 2019

Yet another round of water service interruptions, mounting unmet sanitation infrastructure obligations, and looming water rate hikes highlight the failure of water privatization. It is unconscionable that water firms’ profits continue to rise and they are even expanding abroad despite their failure to meet their domestic service obligations. Water privatization is failing to ensure people’s […]

The Dangers of Development Work

October 20, 2019

This was presented by Dr. Judy Taguiwalo at the forum “UNJUST: Second Year of Detention of Development Workers Benito Quilloy and Rita Espinosa for Siding with the Poor”organized by the Assert Socio-Ecoonomic Initiatives Network (ASCENT) Mayaman ang Pilipinas pero naghihirap ang mamamayan. The Philippines is a rich country but the people are poor. Given this, […]

Transport and traffic woes: govt’s epic fail

September 30, 2019

One of President Duterte’s many promises at the start of his term was to resolve Metro Manila’s transport and traffic problems. But three years later, these remain just as bad if not worse than ever. The various programs and schemes that the government has come up with have done little to fix the transport and […]

Global crisis even less reason for charter change

September 28, 2019

The Duterte government argues that the protections for the economy in the 1987 Constitution are outdated, and that removing them will increase foreign direct investment (FDI) and improve competitiveness. This is however oblivious to the reality of growing protectionism worldwide amid slowing growth, trade and investment. Adverse global economic conditions undermine the arguments for economic […]

Part 2: Why the climate strike is a social justice issue (and why it should strike at the core of growing fascism)

September 23, 2019

Last of a two-part series Here is the social science The climate change we are experiencing is not natural. It is overwhelmingly anthropogenic – according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it is extremely likely (with more than 95% probability) to be the result of human activity. Climate change today is not the […]

Why the climate strike is a social justice issue (and why it should strike at the core of growing fascism)

September 20, 2019

First of a two-part series (Note: As this article goes to press, one of the Philippine groups organizing for the global climate strike is under surveillance by State security forces and has received reports of an impending raid on their headquarters.) Around the globe on September 20, the youth are leading a coordinated strike to […]

Here comes zombie neoliberalism

August 30, 2019

(This lecture was recently discussed by IBON research head Rosario Guzman with a group of international theologians) The South Korean independent film in 2016, Train to Busan, had definitely added a novel attack to the zombies genre. It appears now that the zombie theme has been revived after considerable time of having been run into […]