The Marcos administration’s imposition of a price cap on rice and new prices for palay as well as its subsidy for rice retailers could be “costly” to the government, according to resigned finance undersecretary Cielo Magno. The government can ill afford the costs arising from the three policy packages because these are not part of...
Author: TJ Burgonio (TJ Burgonio)
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Marcos urged to push proposed Maritime Zones Act in the face of China’s ‘10-dash’ line map
China’s latest map should not distract the Philippine government from addressing the more “disconcerting” Chinese harassment of Philippine vessels in the West Philippine Sea, according to a foreign affairs and security analyst. If anything, said Lucio B. Pitlo III, the map with a new 10-dash line that still encompasses parts of the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive...
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Mayors unite for good governance and against corruption
It started with a phone call by Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong to like-minded local chief executives in July, shortly after he delivered a speech at the Philippine National Police headquarters in Camp Crame railing against corruption in high places. For that scathing speech, Magalong reaped a heap of “messages of support,” including one from...
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Pelikulove presents anthology of young voices in Cinemalaya Festival
“How to Make an Effective Campaign Ad” reels you in from the opening scene: An inmate swaggers along the corridors of a provincial jail while escorting two young men past rows of crowded cells into the cell of a jailed politician. The young men are scholars of “Gov,’’ and they are there to shoot a...
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Gov’t urged: Defend, assert territorial integrity in West Philippine Sea
The Philippines should step up its joint patrols with other countries around Recto Bank and other reefs and shoals in the West Philippine Sea to forestall any attempt at occupation by the Chinese military, a political analyst said on Tuesday. On June 30, a Philippine military reconnaissance plane spotted dozens of Chinese vessels swarming a...
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14 Filipinos are among Asian Scientist Magazine’s top 100 researchers
Fourteen Filipinos, including CoverStory.ph’s science writer Mario Juan A. Aurelio and environmentalist Anna Oposa, are in Asian Scientist Magazine’s list of top 100 Asian researchers this year. The Asian Scientist 100 list “celebrates the success of the region’s best and brightest, highlighting their achievements across a range of scientific disciplines,’’ the magazine said on www.asianscientist.com....
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‘Let’s not be blind to history’ in enforcing new rice production program
The strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was said to have achieved some measure of success in “Masagana 99,” when farmers harvested more palay per hectare in the late 1970s. Backed by new technology, high-yielding varieties, cheap fertilizers and the construction of megadams in Luzon, the rice production program yielded modest surpluses for farmers for one or...
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In Payatas, the Church helps widows and orphans pick up the pieces
The women are all business inside a tailoring shop a stone’s throw from Ina ng Lupang Pangako church in Payatas, Quezon City. They work on fabrics and sewing machines to produce bags of all shapes and sizes—totes, “ecobags,” shoe bags, envelope bags, lunch bags, laundry bags. For six days of work a week, they take...
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‘Water crisis’: Government has no integrated water infrastructure program
(Last of two parts) ‘Water crisis’: No cause for worry yet, authorities say The first order of business is for the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) to put its foot down every time the two water concessionaires close their valves to repair pipes and clean filters during the dry season, according to an activist...
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‘Water crisis’: No cause for worry yet, authorities say
(First of 2 parts) Call it déjà vu on a yearly basis. The dry season sets in, dam water dips, taps run dry for as long as 12 hours a day in certain parts of Metro Manila, and “water crisis” comes to everyone’s mind. What else is new? And El Niño hasn’t even set in...