COVID-19 response
Higher inflation for poorest Filipinos underscores urgent need for continued cash subsidies
July 8, 2020
NEWS
Higher inflation is problematic but particularly burdens the poorest Filipinos. Inflation rates for the 30% poorest households are higher than the national average. Especially amid historic joblessness, this affirms how the government should continue giving cash subsidies as income support, the group said.
Duterte’s Pandemic Borrowing
June 30, 2020
The Duterte administration’s foreign borrowing has continued to rise during the pandemic. How much is really to respond to COVID-19, and how much for debt-driven growth and the illusion of development?
Gov’t should check SAP’s gross failure as COVID cases rise – IBON
June 30, 2020
The Duterte government should correct the huge shortfall of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) especially amid a continuously increasing number of COVID-19 cases. About 9 million out of the target 18 million poor households received only one tranche of emergency aid, or just Php53 per day over 106 days of COVID-19 lockdown.
Hatid Probinsya and Balik Probinsya, more harm than good?
June 29, 2020
In the absence of a mass testing program, Balik Probinsya and Hatid Probinsya are turning out to be additional sources of COVID-19 transmission in some provinces. It is a disaster slowly unfolding especially with the healthcare capacity in rural areas much lower than in the NCR.
Part 2: The anomaly of transport modernization
June 27, 2020
FEATURES
The Duterte government can address the transport crisis in the time of COVID-19 and in fact can look at the pandemic as an opportunity to overhaul the system. The health protocols may be followed indeed if only the government recognizes and addresses the transport crisis in a scientific manner.
The anomaly of transport modernization
June 26, 2020
FEATURES
If there is anything that COVID-19 has emphasized, it is the fact that the Philippine transport sector is in its worst crisis – a reality that the Duterte administration had repeatedly denied before the pandemic. If the economy has to transition to a genuinely better shape, the government has to address the basic woes of the transport sector. Vice versa, if the mass transport system has to be more efficient, the economy has to be transitioned to a genuinely better one.
