Wake me up before you POGO

January 9, 2020

The BPO (business process outsourcing) industry was booming in the early 2000s where it helped revive the Philippine economy. In terms of revenues, BPOs registered a revenue growth rate of 43% in the period of 2005-2009 (annual average). The government has relied on the BPO industry for economic growth but even that is slowing down […]

Economic missteps in 2019, hope for 2020

January 4, 2020

The optimism of the economic managers that “the Philippine economy is strong and ready to soar” is misplaced.

Water You Up To, Mr. President?

December 13, 2019

FEATURES

Pres. Rodrigo Duterte is posturing against oligarchs again. This time, the tough talk is against corporate water giants Manila Water and Maynilad. It is a popular and justified stance – the firms make billions of pesos every year while consumers suffer expensive water and incomplete services.

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 […]