Covid-19 was more than a worldwide health crisis. It was a stress test for every nation’s resilience. For the Philippines, the results were sobering. Hospitals overflowed, healthcare workers were stretched to exhaustion, and rural communities were rendered vulnerable and without access to doctors or medicines. Yet the pandemic also provided us clarity. It revealed not...
Tag: Philippines
Post
Rising seas, rising hopes: Why the Philippines can lead in green energy
Every year, Filipinos brace for typhoons. The seas are creeping ever closer to our shores, drought constantly threatens our farms, and heat waves are stretching our health systems. The Philippines has been called “ground zero” for climate change, and for good reason: It ranks among the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world. At first glance,...
Post
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...
Post
Edca and our center of gravity
Uncle Sam is literally back. Through our Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), the United States has access to a number of our military bases. Unlike before, when the former US bases on Philippine soil were exclusively America’s, now America has the run of some of our military facilities in Cagayan, Isabela and Palawan. Also, while...
Post
Film continues to help Filipinos remember the sins of martial law
Shortly after World War II, many survivors of the attempted annihilation of Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies recalled the final plea of their fellow prisoners while being herded to impending death: “Remember! Do not let the world forget!” It was in honoring that anguished plea that Holocaust survivors set up exhibits and scholarly...
Post
Wealth tax now: an argument by numbers
In August 2022, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) revealed that the poverty incidence rose to 18.1% in 2021 from 16.7% in 2018. Completely understandable, our technocrats said: After all, we all bore the brunt of the pandemic-driven recession. Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 9.5% from 2020 to 2021, the worst since 1947. Of...
Post
Edca puts Philippines on path to perdition
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s recent trip to South Korea and the Philippines and his meeting with Japan’s defense minister in January say much to validate the “war with China by 2025” prediction of US Gen. Mike Minihan, chief of the US Air Force’s Air Mobility Command. A media release issued by the US Department...
Post
Is the Philippine economy ‘backward’?
We are not a “backward” economy. It’s just that economies capable of producing sophisticated manufactures necessarily require economies that must specialize in raw material or labor exports. That’s global capitalism for you. Ours is a developed capitalist economy to the extent that the capitalist economic system that grips the world today is already fully mature,...
Post
Trafficking Filipinos: Are immigration, airport personnel involved?
(Last of two parts) :Trafficking Filipinos: Philippines becoming ‘incubator of scammers’ A mix of excitement and anxiety filled “Paulo” as he stepped off a cab at the departure area of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 3 on Oct. 4. He was flying to Thailand, his first trip out of the country. Everything had...
Post
Trafficking Filipinos: Philippines becoming ‘incubator of scammers’
(First of two parts) Trafficking Filipinos: Are immigration, airport personnel involved? Tantalized by the promise of being paid P50,000 a month, “Betty,” a single mother of four in Navotas City north of Manila, didn’t think twice about grabbing an opportunity last April to work as a call center agent in Thailand. Before the month ended,...