Bottled danger?
By Marvin Tort
A recent US study validated previous research that every time people drink water from a plastic bottle, they are also drinking very small bits...
Grace and guts
By Maria Victoria Rufino
The world is rushing and spinning at a dizzying speed. Upheavals and natural disasters are happening almost simultaneously. People are overwhelmed by multiple issues such as health, food, income, housing. Survival in the prolonged pandemic is a priority. The political and economic scene is like a stormy sea. Unpredictable, tossing us off balance.
Training the next generation
By Chit U. Juan
I remember my father asking me to check the whole family in for our flight to New York — I was only 18 years...
Serving the public
Fence Sitter
A. R. Samson
The quickest, though not easiest, way to join public service is to get a job in a government organization like the...
Long-term agri productivity gap: The major cause of poverty
By Rolando T. Dy
Why is national poverty incidence in the Philippines more than twice that of ASEAN peers -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam? It is even magnified in the farmers’ and fishers’ poverty of 34%. Thesis: it is due to broad-based low productivity and concentration on few products.
Energizing growth via less intermittent wind, solar
By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.
As usual, we go straight to the numbers to quickly show the data behind this column’s argument. We computed the capacity factor, the ratio or percent of actual electricity generated by a given installed capacity in a given year. It is measured as total electricity produced in terawatt-hours (TWH) divided by the amount of energy produced if the plant was running at full capacity.
New IPO Guidelines for patent examination
By Danielle S. Cadiz
In line with its goal to deliver timely and quality patents, utility models and industrial designs, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPO)...
Not-so-common carriers tax
Static
by Marvin A. Tort
Let’s leave the Uber-Grab-LTFRB controversy for the moment and turn to what is supposed to be common but is not: the...
Developing an entrepreneurial mindset
By Brian C. Gozun
A national conference on health dubbed “Tech-Care: Revolution, Evolution and Innovations in Health Care” was recently organized by the Our Lady of Fatima University (OLFU) in Valuenzela City. It was organized by the indefatigable dean of the College of Nursing, Dr. Maria Luisa Uayan, who is a friend way back from our graduate school days and she asked me to give a talk on entrepreneurship. At first, I was taken aback because entrepreneurship and the health professions are not usually mutually exclusive. She then told me that in the latest Commission on Higher Education Memorandum Order for the Bachelor of Nursing program that the teaching of entrepreneurship is embedded in the program and is even a specific learning outcome that states “apply entrepreneurial skills in the delivery of nursing care.”
The campaign season and the security sector
By Jennifer Santiago Oreta
Members of the security sector, as citizens, have the right to choose the candidate they desire. But as members of the force, they are expected to be silent as to which candidate they support or not during elections.
Declining unemployment and the Tholos forum
By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.
There were a number of positive economic stories in the Philippines recently as reported in BusinessWorld: “AMRO sees PHL as fastest-growing economy in the...
Understanding labor and work
By Miguel Paolo P. Rivera
The month of May marks the country’s Labor Day. As such, it would do us well to take a step back and to look at the concept of labor and work, which will hopefully help us face the challenges that workers all over the world face today. There seems to be a preponderance of looking at work only on the level of its economic dimensions and effects, but such a view is severely limited. Labor and work, being fundamental human activities, certainly have social, political, and cultural dimensions that needs bearing out. I suggest beginning our pondering on this topic by defining how labor and work are instrumental in the constitution of ourselves, the way that human beings relate with their world, and finally, the way that work is tied to our relationship to each other as human beings.