A strategic reality: The Malampaya discovery and energy security
By Victor Andres C. Manhit
President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. announced some good news last week — the discovery of a major natural gas field about five kilometers east of...
It’s ICE that ‘engineered chaos’ in my Minneapolis community
ON SATURDAY MORNING, Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti on a busy Minneapolis street. The Trump administration wasted no time in doing a bit of preemptive inoculation.
Special and immigrant visas for foreign entrepreneurs and investors in the Philippines
By Kristine Bernadette F. Soriano
Public interest is a paramount consideration underlying Philippine immigration policy. In admitting foreigners and regulating the scope of their permissible activities, the government ensures...
Leadership in action, lifting the nation
By Donald L. Lim
I became part of MAP 20 years ago — and will shortly be officially a lifetime member in a few months.
Asia’s pivot to political satire is no laughing matter
POLITICS in Asia is getting funnier, but the punchlines are falling flat.
Illicit trade and tobacco taxation
By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.
While waiting for the full year 2025 cash operations report (COR) of the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), I checked the data from January-November...
Can ASEAN+3 economies still escape the middle-income trap in the AI era?
By Abdurohman and Xianguo Huang
FOR DECADES, the middle-income trap was viewed as a slow-burn structural dilemma. Economies grew rapidly by mobilizing labor and capital,...
Trump is a lot like Kaiser Wilhelm: Vanity itself
AN ADMIRAL writes of a world leader who is familiar to us: “He is vanity itself, sacrificing everything to his own moods and childish amusements, and nobody checks him in doing so. I ask myself how people with blood rather than water in their veins can bear to be around him.”
Sustaining our gains in tobacco taxation
By Pia Rodrigo
Last December, Economics for Health launched the fourth edition of its Cigarette Tax Scorecard, which studied cigarette tax policies in 171 countries, based on...
Public office is a public trust
By Amelia H. C. Ylagan
“Public office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility,...
Stronger action needed to address gaps in liver cancer care
By Teodoro B. Padilla
Liver cancer remains one of the most serious yet preventable public health threats in the Philippines. It is now the fourth most common cancer...
Missing the point — and falling further behind
By Diwa C. Guinigundo
In our “In Brief” for New York-based GlobalSource Partners last Monday, and in my interview with Cathy Yang on Money Talks that same day,...