Forty-nine years ago this month, on Sept. 21, 1972, then President Ferdinand Marcos, whose second four-year term under the 1936 Philippine Constitution was ending in 1973, signed Presidential Proclamation 1081 placing the entire country under martial law. By doing so he extended his time in office indefinitely, and made himself dictator of this rumored “show window of democracy in Asia.”

THE Asia and Pacific region is home to three-quarters of global coral reefs and more than half of all mangrove areas. The region’s aquaculture production supplies 60% of the globe’s total fish consumption. However, the region is also the epicenter of marine plastic pollution. Overharvesting of fish here is also putting global food security and, indeed, the entire seafood industry in peril.

Nineteen months into the world’s longest continuous lockdown and we’ve run the gamut of letters from GCQ, MECQ, to ECQ such that the government felt the need to shift to numerals (as of this writing), something about Alert Levels 1 to 4. The question that remains, however, is still: what legal authority or basis actually allows all this?

I am often so embedded in financial markets, corporate decision makers (often concerned with “where is the money”), and economists that I do not get enough exposure from people in other fields, specifically from the brand and sales sides of things.

The economy is in the doldrums, and with all its spending of late, the government is in dire need of money. The Department of Budget and Management has just submitted to Congress a proposed national budget of over P5 trillion for 2022. With the urgent and compelling need to fund this unprecedentedly humongous budget, it is all too clear that new taxes are inevitable.

“Insight from Oversight” was the title of the talk of former Commission on Audit (CoA) Commissioner Heidi L. Mendoza when she and former Supreme Court Associate Justice and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales appeared before the regular Archer Talks and Eagles Meet our Leaders Zoom webinar.

CERTAIN ISSUES are too predictable and almost expected to be adopted by any candidate for high office. What about positions on inconsequential issues often overlooked in favor of the sweeping themes that pop up in debates?

Despite the continuing weaknesses of our still fragile democracy, the Philippines is no longer known in international circles as the “sick man of Asia.”

IT IS NO SECRET that the COVID-19 pandemic has made business unusual. Whether in large companies or startups, there is a struggle to remain fully operational amidst the decreased market demand for products and services. During the pandemic, enterprises were surviving and not thriving. With COVID-19 cases rising once again as new variants spread, pushing the government to tighten restrictions even further, how long can business owners endure this seemingly endless cycle?

The pandemic continues to devastate our population and economy. Government response leaves much to be desired. This is where we are at during this budget season, when, more than ever, accountability and performance should be at the top of our minds.

IN THE DAYS before COVID, I’d often get frustrated by the response that doctors would give when I turned up at their clinics with some infection or other: “It’s just a virus,” they’d say.

The gig economy involves work done in digital labor platforms which includes both web-based platforms, where work is outsourced through an open call to a geographically dispersed crowd (crowdwork), and through location-based apps (work on-demand via apps) which allocate work to individuals in a specific geographic area.