By ARNOLD PADILLA
The latest incarnation of the text tax comes in the context of an administration under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to widen its revenue base. It was the IMF that first openly pushed the text tax idea in 2002 to address the government’s burgeoning budget deficit.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
While the right of indigenous peoples to their ancestral land is recognized by international agreements and conventions, indigenous peoples in the Philippines are relentlessly being driven away by mining, tourism and other so-called development projects. In Zambales alone, more than 70 mining firms are now operating, with some preventing the Aetas from entering what used to be their land.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
No matter how oil firms deny the allegations that they are overcharging the consumers, the widespread public perception that oil companies are abusive and profit-hungry will remain. This will be the case as long as the oil industry is deregulated and oil companies are allowed to automatically increase their prices and at the same time not compelled to publicly divulge how they compute their price adjustments.
MANILA — Apart from the threat of massive retrenchment, global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s buyout of rival Wyeth would also result in higher drug prices as the giant firm would further control the drug industry. This was the contention of Wyeth workers and the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), who recently held their seventh picket-protest at Wyeth’s…
By MARYA SALAMAT
The massive layoffs in the Philippines brought about by the global financial crisis and the increasing appetite of companies for more profit have exposed yet again the Arroyo regime’s sympathy not for workers but for capitalists. And instead of ensuring that workers’ rights are protected, the Department of Labor and Employment has become an even more willing tool by companies to satisfy their greed.
Malacañang officials claimed they merely had “a simple dinner” in Le Cirque, but Nanay Evelyn Monicario cannot imagine what a lavish dinner for Arroyo and her cohorts would be, considering that she herself considers sardines a lavish meal these days.
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO Bulatlat.com MANILA — Ariel Guanlao was told that New Zealand was “the right choice” if one wants to work abroad. So after 16 long years working for the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), he went to New Zealand to work as a residential faultman for one of the country’s…
In her recent State of the Nation Address, President Arroyo claimed to have created eight million jobs, or an average of a million jobs per year in the past eight years. But where exactly did this figure come from? A closer look at the government’s own data yields a statistical distortion.
Days before the Sona, thousands of farmers, workers, students and activists braved the heat and the rain as they marched from the provinces of Southern Tagalog to Commonwealth Avenue. The march, called Lakbayan, is their way of fighting the regime’s abuses and asserting their basic rights.
In her ninth State of the Nation Address, President Arroyo painted a rosy picture of the Philippines – a world so much different from the one most Filipinos live in, her critics say.
The regime would not veer away from the economic policies that Arroyo has implemented in the past. These are the very same policies that made the Filipino people vulnerable to the world economic crisis and to price manipulations and speculative attacks by corporations wanting to pass on the burden of the crisis to the people.