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Is it time to move on?
The resiliency myth
Hunyo 29, 2022
The Philippines recently ranked as one of the five worst places to be as the ripples of COVID-19 continue. This is contrary to the outgoing Duterte administration’s repeatedly built narrative – that it did well on the pandemic and is leaving behind an economy that is on a quick rebound.
No Mavericks Among Economic Top Guns
Hunyo 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.
1.3M jobs lost: Fall in number of employed bursts full recovery hype bubble
Hunyo 11, 2022
The incoming finance secretary claims that the economy is on its way to full recovery, but the over one million drop in employed persons in April 2022 proves otherwise.
Real wages fall as inflation spikes
Hunyo 9, 2022
Higher May inflation pushed the real value of wages to even lower levels and is making basic food and transport services even more unaffordable. Inflation far outpaces the outgoing Duterte administration’s wage hikes and wage earners are worse off now than six years ago.
Pressure point
Mayo 30, 2022
The government’s trademark has been to obscure the truth, peddle its own version of reality, and go on ahead with its most-often carefully thought-out programs that make the local and foreign super-rich happy. The newly-proclaimed leaders of the land made it clear that they’re not changing that.
Is memory the enemy?
Mayo 29, 2022
Filipinos are known for being ‘resilient’ that once we ‘move on’ from bad experiences we also forgive and forget over time. Or do we just tend to do this as defense mechanism in order to survive as a people who have gone through really bad times?
New taxes to pay for Duterte indulgences, not for COVID response—IBON
Mayo 26, 2022
The DOF’s proposed new taxes for the incoming administration are for paying off the Duterte government’s relentless borrowing for its infrastructure and debt servicing fetish, not for much-needed COVID-19 response.
PH isn’t Sri Lanka… yet
Mayo 25, 2022
The Philippines isn’t going the way of Sri Lanka yet in defaulting on its foreign debt payments anytime soon. Which is not to say that there are no lessons to be learned from the first canary to die in the coal mine of growing global debt distress.
A legacy of killing farmers?
Mayo 24, 2022
Before Rodrigo Duterte concludes his presidency and paints a rosy legacy, let us not forget his bloody record as a relentless attacker of people’s rights to land, food security and social justice even amid a pandemic and crisis exacerbated by worship of neoliberal policies.
