Features
Address climate inaction, fund the People’s Green New Deal
September 22, 2022
To guarantee that everyone benefits from our transition to a greener future, a strong and comprehensive policy framework like the People’s Green New Deal is required. Substantial new public spending and re-directing of private spending is also needed to finance this.
Invisible poverty, trivial solutions
August 22, 2022
The most fundamental cause of poverty is in how the overwhelming majority of Filipinos only have low value-added and low productivity work. This is not for lack of individual effort or capacity but because of the structure of the economy distorted by neoliberal policies.
No Mavericks Among Economic Top Guns
June 15, 2022
The next administration’s economic agenda will be fully presented at the state of the nation address in July. There are hardly any specifics yet. Still, the tidbits already emerging can be interpreted against the incoming economic team members’ individual track record and especially in the context of the long arc of neoliberal thinking that has defined Philippine policymaking over the last half century.
WHO should call the shots, but it hasn’t
May 18, 2022
FEATURES
The 75th World Health Assembly will be the third one under one of the world’s worst pandemics. What exactly will be the agenda when WHO action is stalling?
The scourge of price hikes
April 16, 2022
Prices keep rising, cash subsidies are limited, and real wages keep falling. The situation will not get better if the government does not acknowledge that the rampant jobs crisis and worsening poverty are huge problems that require big solutions.
Chronically ailing PH public health system under Duterte
April 7, 2022
FEATURES
Duterte has not taken significant measures that will strengthen the public health system and make health services accessible and equitable to the Filipino people.
10 things about the economy that the Duterte administration should admit
April 4, 2022
At its economic briefing, the Duterte government will likely hype growth, claim successful COVID response and play up so-called reforms. All this seeks to distract from how social and economic development has been set back by the administration even before the pandemic.
Scar-crossed Labors
January 17, 2022
We will likely hear claims of strong economic performance, early recovery, and returning to a path of rapid and inclusive growth. But labor force and poverty figures for 2021 already show how any claims like that will just be bluster or, worse, blind to the daily experience of millions of Filipinos.
Yearstarter: Seeking better normal in 2022
January 14, 2022
The administration that is exiting and the new one entering can take a more rational and humane approach to recovering and reforming the economy.