The Philippine public land transportation industry was beset with problems during the Covid-19 pandemic. With restricted mobility and physical distancing measures enforced as early key strategies to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, it was inevitable that the livelihood opportunities of transport workers would be negatively affected as the number of trips and passengers dwindled. ...
Category: Economy
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In 2022, crisis in incomes and jobs pummeled labor sector
Despite the economy’s recovery from the recession induced by the pandemic, workers faced a worsening crisis in incomes and jobs in 2022. Thus, while businesses were slowly recuperating, formal and informal workers continued bleeding from wage and income erosion, job losses, and a fall in employment quality. Inflation climbed steadily for the whole year, from...
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Debunking objections to a wealth tax
A wealth tax is based on the market value of owned assets minus debts and other liabilities, i.e., one’s net worth—anything that has monetary value. These include cash, landholdings, bank deposits, shares of stocks, vehicles, real property, pension plans, crypto funds, housing, trusts, jewelry, yachts, planes, works of art, antique collections, copyrights, etc. Opponents from...
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Continue to oppose Maharlika Investment Fund, says ex-central bank official
As the battle shifts to the Senate after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the bill creating the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), a former official of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has called on the public to amplify its objections to the measure. Diwa Guinigundo, BSP deputy governor until 2019, said that while the...
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‘Maharlika Wealth Fund’: wrong in principle, thus beyond repair
Let us reflect on process and progress. The more common source of failure to progress is “circling”—moving round and round in circles, only to arrive at the original location. Many things have been said about the proposed “Maharlika Wealth Fund” (MWF). Now the framers are scrambling to make the legislation enabling it, House Bill No....
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‘Maharlika Wealth Fund’ is uniting Filipinos in resisting it
The cost of administering the Maharlika Investments Fund (MIF), the Philippines’ sovereign wealth fund to be established should the bill seeking its creation be passed into law, is alarming many Filipinos. Its ability to generate the “consistent and stable investment returns” that its proponents tout is also raising loud questions. One wonders how the Fund...
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Endless want, endless Christmas
The Christmas holiday season in the Philippines starts in earnest after All Souls’ Day. Gift lists are updated, the holiday-party, vacation and reunion schedules finalized. Weeks prior, the mall and tiangge merchants are already on holiday marketing mode, playing carols to set the mood and reeling in customers with irresistible discount sales. But now is...
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Advocacy merch and the ‘latag’ economy
With the unfolding and evolving drama on Twitter comes the predictable worry that dialogue—whether mindless or profound and operating in so-called real time in a space that one has gotten used to—has been interrupted. For frequent Twitter users, the basic question boils down to this: How can they now make known their thoughts and opinions, as well...
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Tax the rich: 9 reasons for a wealth tax
Rising inequality has been an inescapable phenomenon of global economic development over the past 200 years. Per the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, growing inequality affects 70% of the global population and threatens “long-term social and economic development, [harming] poverty reduction and [destroying] people’s sense of fulfillment and self-worth,” all of which “can breed crime,...
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The dubious legacy of the Marcos debt
As the nation marks the 50th year of the declaration of martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, it is relevant to recall how that chapter in Philippine history has affected the country and its people. Three months after the ouster of the Marcos regime in February 1986, a group of 16 economists from the University...
