THE SEARCH COMMITTEE formed by the Businessman’s Lunch Restaurant (BLR) is tasked to review candidates for CEO to replace the retiring incumbent. He has expressed his wish to have someone “continue his legacy,” mostly in reducing flagrant tipping, especially from suppliers. It’s no secret he is in favor of the head waiter taking his place. He is always photographed with him even when taking siestas.

EVERYTHING that we are, everything that we believe in and most everything that we are drawn to is influenced by good stories. Stories that we heard on the laps of our grandparents, stories our parents shared, and stories of and by people we loved and looked up to.

ONE OF THE MORE pernicious ideas now coming into vogue is that societies should voluntarily halt their economic growth. In a recent New Yorker article, John Cassidy chronicles the rise of this so-called degrowth movement. The idea holds appeal for environmentalists concerned about planetary destruction, egalitarians who worry that growth leaves the poor behind, futurists who envision a leisure society and so on. Degrowth might even be a way for citizens of wealthy, declining nations to maintain their pride as hungrier up-and-coming societies catch up, since it recasts economic slowdown as virtue.

Following the World Health Organization’s declaration of the 2019 novel coronavirus (renamed COVID-19) outbreak as a public health emergency, the Philippine government on Feb. 2 deemed it prudent to implement a temporary travel ban against all foreign nationals coming from China, Hong Kong and Macau; all foreign nationals who have been to China, Hong Kong, and Macau in the last 14 days prior to the arrival to the Philippines; and transiting passengers from China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Recently, the ban was clarified to include Taiwan, which, according to the WHO, is considered a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China. (This was subsequently dropped after Taiwan complained. -- Ed.)

HONG KONG/NEW YORK -- Apple could finally make investors as concerned as the wider population about the latest novel coronavirus. The iPhone maker warned on Monday that quarterly revenue would fall short of the $63 billion to $67 billion guidance it provided a few weeks ago because of supply and demand problems in China. The ripple effects from the outbreak may now become more apparent.

I’m almost done with my third book, The Republic of Santa Banana and other Ad Libs. It’s a compilation of my most irreverent satires in almost 32 years of writing “Ad Lib” for BusinessWorld.

Corruption is a universal evil. It spans countless countries, regardless of the level of economic development and political orientation. As the pervasiveness of corruption simply undermines all efforts attempted by a government in trying to make things better for a country, the responsibility is primarily local.

MANY THINGS divide the 27 member states of the European Union these days, but one controversy in particular sums up the bloc’s fundamental dilemma. It’s over “enlargement,” and specifically whether to formally start accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania. Seething below the surface is the question of whether the EU can, in Eurocrat jargon, keep “widening” and “deepening” at the same time.

EGYPT’S 100 millionth citizen was born last week, undoubtedly a happy occasion for one family, but a moment filled with foreboding for a country struggling to contain a population explosion. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has compared the elevated birth rate to terrorism as one of Egypt’s top national-security threats.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) disease outbreak as Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on Jan. 30. The WHO International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005), 3^rd edition defines PHEIC “as an extraordinary event which is determined, as provided in these Regulations (i) to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and (ii) to potentially require a coordinated international response.” Public health risk is defined as “a likelihood of an event that may affect adversely the health of human populations, with an emphasis on one which may spread internationally or may present a serious and direct danger.” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explained during a news conference at WHO’s Geneva headquarters that the declaration of 2019-nCov outbreak as PHEIC was made because of “the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with the disease outbreak.” At the time of the declaration, the WHO recorded 7,834 confirmed cases, including 7,736 in China, and 98 cases in 18 countries outside China, plus eight cases of human-to-human transmission in four countries: Germany, Japan, Vietnam, and the United States of America. WHO also recorded 170 deaths all in China due to the outbreak.

Recently there was a story on the huge debt of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) because it could not collect P59 billion from independent power producers (IPPs) and electric cooperatives (ECs). That is a big amount and PSALM continues to collect various universal charges (UC) for the various stranded costs and debts of the National Power Corp. (NPC).

On Feb. 3, Undersecretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Eliseo Rio, Jr. told CNN Philippines, “I filed my resignation and (am) awaiting acceptance of the President.” He said he sent his letter to Malacañang on Jan. 31.