“I’ve brought you there before,” my protesting husband declared after I told him I’d honor an invitation to witness and take part in the Bangus Festival in Pangasinan early this month. For some reason I couldn’t recall that experience. Instead, I have memories of a lechon festival in the same province, when I was mindful...
Category: Economy
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Building an alternative regionalism from below for Southeast Asian peoples
As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) marks its 59th year in 2026, its relevance remains disputable. Its guiding principles—mutual respect, noninterference, peaceful dispute settlement, and renunciation of force—are noteworthy from a nation-state perspective but ultimately self-absorbed. They suffer from an absence of any reference to how Asean relates to the peoples of its...
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The mirage behind Asean’s vision of free labor flows
When the Asean Economic Community was officially launched in 2015, the rhetoric was intoxicating. A single market and production base. The free flow of skilled labor. A region where a Filipino engineer could compete on equal footing with a Singaporean counterpart, where a Filipino nurse could work in a hospital in Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok...
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Loans ‘R’ Us
The loaning culture has become diversified with the emergence of various platforms, ever-changing and increasing inflation rates, and immobility of households, among other factors. Loan sharks increase their visibility and accessibility by utilizing loan applications and guarantors, which are now institutionalized through registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s telling that according to the...
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The illusion of Asean’s economic integration
Since its establishment in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has gone through several phases in its bid for regional integration. From the 1992 Asean Free Trade Area, the 2002 Asean Economic Community, and finally the 2007 Asean Charter provision of three guiding pillars foremost of which was the Asean Economic Community, a...
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Something greater results when cooperatives harness the collective power
BAGUIO CITY—When cooperatives invest in their people and innovate together, they transcend traditional business boundaries to become something greater: both social movements and economic forces united by shared aspirations. This was the vision shared by leaders of cooperatives at the inaugural National Cooperative Summit 2025, which was held on Oct. 9–10 in Baguio City. It...
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Amid extreme inequalities, 306 million Southeast Asians languish in poverty and low incomes
Southeast Asians classified as poor and low-income shared a high 44.7% of the region’s population, or 306 million of a total of 686 million. Social inequalities are similarly endemic in Southeast Asia, as reflected in the distribution of incomes across seven categories—poor, low income, lower middle, middle, upper middle, upper income and rich (see Table...
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The unrest in Indonesia is driven by inequalities and entrenched oligarchic rule
Indonesia has been ravaged by its worst popular unrest since the downfall of the dictator Suharto in 1998. Large-scale street protests began last Aug. 25 in the capital Jakarta—the culmination of widespread economic frustration and anger at widespread corruption, democratic regression, gross inequalities, and the indifference and lack of empathy of Indonesia’s leaders, elite classes...
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The employment impact of a national ban on single-use plastic will be manageable
Negotiations for an international plastics treaty ended in failure last month, setting the stage for a new round of talks. Nevertheless, local environmental groups argue that no deal is better than a bad one or a watered-down treaty. An agreement could have nudged the Philippine government to finally enact a national ban on single-use plastic...
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Southeast Asian social protection systems have an erratic record and ignore informal work
Social protection refers to a set of policies and programs designed to reduce poverty, inequality, vulnerability, and social exclusion, and to mitigate economic shocks by ensuring income security, access to essential services (e.g., health, education, and housing), and support for life’s hazards (e.g., unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age). In Southeast Asia, social protection systems have a...