By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo Streetwise | BusinessWorld The humanitarian crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of civilians in Zamboanga City in the wake of the eruption of hostilities between armed Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) forces under Chairman Nur Misuari and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) looms as a dark…
Category: Contributions
GDP growth downside
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star That the gross domestic product grew by 7.5% in the second quarter of 2013 the fourth consecutive quarterly GDP growth rate at 7% may continue to elate the Aquino administration. It gushingly parlays the international rating agencies’ reference to the Philippines as, next to…
Besieged
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Filipinos are under siege. Not by an external enemy, but by the enemy within. Everyone is under threat, but among the most frequently targeted are journalists and media workers, who, since 1986, have found their community increasingly at risk. The Aquino administration’s predecessor still holds the record…
Beware of the IRP framework agreement
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star The continuing, if not permanent, presence of hundreds of American troops in Mindanao and other parts of the country since 2002 purportedly in accord with the Visiting Forces Agreement has been a raging controversy, with several questionable acts and activities by the “visiting” foreign…
Hacienda Luisita — ‘Daang baluktot’
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo Streetwise | BusinessWorld The saga of the more than half a century of struggle by the farm workers of the vast Hacienda Luisita to own and benefit from the piece of land they have been tilling has been shaped and, to a significant extent decided, by the political fortunes of its owners,…
Open sesame
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Over 90 countries have one. Albania has one, and so has Zimbabwe — a freedom of information act, although known by different names. Albania has a Law no. 8503, which has recognized the right to information on official documents since 1999. Zimbabwe has the Access to Information…
Insurance, pre-need scam: A public-private partnership
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star Last week’s column discussed three parallels between the much-condemned pork-barrel scam and the unjust/unfair treatment, via varied schemes, by certain insurance and pre-need companies of their policy/plan holders. Both scams deal with public money, both bare the selfishness and greed of the parties involved,…
Bureaucrat capitalism
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo Streetwise | BusinessWorld Why is it few were truly surprised that Janet Lim Napoles, prime but wily fugitive in the pork barrel scandal, would have not only the cunning but also the ability to arrange her “surrender” to no less than the President of the Republic. Is this in exchange for much…
Casualties of ‘pork’
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Together with Congress, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are among the emerging casualties of the pork barrel outrage, which involves the loss of billions in public funds through, among other subterfuges, non-existent and/or non-functioning NGOs. As in the case of the party list system, it’s one more demonstration of…
Parallels: Pork barrel, insurance, pre-need scams
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star This column’s August 17 piece (“Insurance Commission remiss in regulating pre-need firms”) has elicited more reader reactions. Let me cite just two: • Leah Valientes rails against the Philippine Prudential Life Insurance Co., owned by the family of the late “businessman-philanthropist” Daniel L. Mercado…
Out of context
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld One of the great mysteries of life in these 7,000 islands is how and why people who haven’t seen the inside of a library or even read a book in their entire lives, and who think that the last word on anything is Google search, can hold…