By Art Jimenez So after all the efforts and expenses, our gross domestic product (GDP) or national output, still shrunk by a record-high 16.5 percent in the second quarter (April-June) with COVID-19 our unseen enemy, yet on the rampage. To illustrate: Two weeks ago on August 4, DOH reported 112,593 confirmed cases of C19. Two
August 19, 2020
By Art Jimenez You all know by now that COVID-19 has pushed our national economy into recession in the first half of this year. Recession takes hold when a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) experiences negative growth for two consecutive quarters. On the other hand, GDP is the total value of all goods and
August 12, 2020
By Art Jimenez After ministering to the continually rising number of COVID-19 confirmed and probable cases and with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads since the quarantine of mid-March, our health care frontliners have finally become bone-tired and called for a 15-day multipurpose “time out.” One, return Mega Manila from GCQ to
August 5, 2020
By Art Jimenez SONA basic. The State of the Nation Address (SONA) is the President’s yearly constitutional duty to report to the nation how the country is doing, what his administration’s agenda is this and in the coming year, and his legislative proposals to Congress. The protocol involves an official invitation for the President
July 29, 2020
By Art Jimenez The “discontinued” (read terminated) employees of shuttered ABS-CBN Network (ABS) should be considered “retired” and be given their company and SSS retirement benefits. However, the greater majority of the so-called 11,000 ABS employees who are contractuals or on a no-work, no-pay contract, especially those who have been on their broadcast-related jobs
July 22, 2020
By Art Jimenez From the way the hearings of the House Committee on Legislative Franchises progressed, the ABS-CBN camp could have given up on their hope of getting its franchise renewed even as early as the eighth or ninth marathon session. They couldn’t have been more correct. On July 10, the committee stamped “finis”
July 15, 2020
By Art Jimenez Former Pavia Mayor and Rep. Arcadio H. “Cadio” Gorriceta, 74, was laid to his eternal rest by his family, relatives, friends, and fellow Pavianon Monday afternoon at Christ the King Memorial Park. Cadio was a College of Business alumnus of UP-Diliman and was a dorm-mate of then law student and bosom
July 8, 2020
By Art Jimenez Unfortunate and saddening it is to learn how fast COVID-19 could infect not only one but six persons, all doctors, and in a 265-bed tertiary level training general hospital at that. The scene was silently chaotic last Sunday (June 28) evening when the DOH locked down St. Paul’s Hospital of Iloilo
July 1, 2020
By Art Jimenez Transport. Iloilo City and Province will soon inch closer to the “new normal” by opening up the economy in calibrated degrees. Every week Iloilo Airport in Cabatuan town will welcome 1,500 OFWs, LSIs, and persons with special permits to travel. Flight frequency of PAL, CebuPac, and Air Asia is twice-a-week. Arriving passengers
June 24, 2020
By Art Jimenez Two very much alive cases: ABS-CBN and Rappler’s Maria Ressa. Both claim their press freedom has been and still is being trampled upon by government. The former was issued a Cease and Desist Order (CDO) on May 5, 2020 by the National Telecommunications Commission. The latter was found guilty of cyber libel
June 17, 2020
By Art Jimenez That’s exactly what happened to two San Juan City mayors: one past tense; the other, present tense. Former San Juan mayor and ex-senator Jinggoy Estrada was arrested on May 4 for supposedly violating a number of DOH quarantine and health protocols while distributing fish and other goods to some residents. He had
June 10, 2020
By Art Jimenez In Part 1 of this column, Senator Kiko Pangilinan pointed to several contradictions that made the DOH preposterous claim that we were already on the second wave of COVID-19 (Covid) exactly that… preposterous. One, the first wave supposedly broke in January 2020 when three Chinese from Wuhan, China were hospitalized and detected
June 3, 2020