IT is said that Filipinos dependent on parents or children working abroad are lucky because their one US dollar is now worth fifty-six (P56) pesos. They view this inflation as “advantageous”. This could be true if the goods we used to buy at fifty pesos would still cost fifty pesos. Indeed, there
July 22, 2022
“Information is liberating,” said the late United Secretary-General Kofi Annan during a BBC World Service lecture in New York on 10 December 2002. The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) is the world’s oldest radio-transmission network formed in London in 1922, a hundred years ago. Judging by the above quotation, MORE Electric and Power
July 20, 2022
REMEMBER when Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called China “our strongest partner” during a gathering of the Association for Philippines-China Understanding (APCU)? We don’t know why he said that. But what we know from the National Economic Development Authority’s (NEDA) is that China has extended to the Philippines a total of US $620.7
July 18, 2022
I have yet to receive a new one-thousand-peso polymer bank note. Had I gotten one, I would have spent it immediately because I don’t have a long wallet where to keep it unfolded. If you were as anxious as I was, keep your cool; it is “no longer true” that the plastic
July 13, 2022
MY friend Ting Aquino – who knows I had covered the entertainment beat in Manila — asked for my reaction to the conferment of the National Artist Award to singer/actress Nora Aunor. “It should have been given years earlier,” I answered. Nora is one of this year’s eight recipients of the Order of
July 11, 2022
“MISUNDERSTOOD” was the word used by Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno to defend Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who had disagreed with the report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) that inflation—the average rate of increase in the prices of goods and services—quickened to 6.1% in June from 5.4% in May. In its simplest
July 8, 2022
AN amendment to a law and a new law are aimed at providing us residents of Iloilo a better way of life . The former refers to the amendment to Republic Act 11212 – expansion of the franchise of MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) from Iloilo City to 15 towns
July 6, 2022
I had hoped to write positively about the birth of a new government of the Philippines today. But how could I when I honestly doubt whether Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had really won 58.77%” of the total votes cast for 10 presidential candidates? It is hard to swallow his number — 31.63 million
July 1, 2022
CURRENT events seem to portend uncertainty for Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., whose inauguration and oath-taking tomorrow (June 30, 2022) has been preceded by unexpected circumstantial flukes. There is the puzzle of why “vice-president-elect” Sara Duterte-Carpio had herself inaugurated last June 19 or 11 days earlier, thus breaking the concurrency tradition. For the
June 29, 2022
TIME could be running out for patients who could not afford or could no longer afford hospitalization. This I deplored in a past column, citing the case of Argie Caro, 39, who could not yet be hospitalized at the West Visayas State University Medical Center (WVSUMC) due to “fully-booked” free ward. He
June 27, 2022