LIKE MANY of you, I’m sure, I read Ross Douthat’s essay on “The Age of Decadence” in Sunday’s New York Times while sprawled on a chaise, picking at my smashed avo and laudanum. Stirring from the languor, I wondered: How does energy fit with this thesis?

ASIA’S EMERGING-MARKET currencies are sliding as the coronavirus outbreak threatens to slow the region’s economy and drives outflows into the dollar. Investors may consider the region’s copious foreign-exchange reserves to be a buffer against severe economic dislocation, capital flight, and currency fluctuations. That would be a mistake.

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addressed his nation last week. It’s best practice and worthy of global emulation. Here’s the transcript.

For over 14 years, the Global Gender Gap Index has charted the relative gaps between women and men in the areas of the economy, education, health, and politics. It has served as a measure for policy and programmatic decisions to improve the status of women. Specifically, the Global Gender Gap Index has the following sub-indexes and ratios:

Section 130 of the Revised Corporation Code (RCC) sets out three rules governing the liability of the Single Stockholders, thus.

The Philippines continues to be among the laggards in East Asia in attracting more foreign direct investments (FDI). Data from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) World Investment Report (WIR) show that our FDI inward stock, an indicator of cumulative foreign investments, was still below $90 billion in 2018 and only about 55% of that in Vietnam and Malaysia, 37% of that in Thailand. The only neighbors that we can “beat” as having lower FDI stocks are Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Brunei.

JUST TO show that news is not just about reading a script, disasters, weather disturbances, and unusual political developments provide the opportunity to project immediacy. Coverage of news as it happens is supplied by field reporters sent to where the action is. The live report is accompanied by video footage of related happenings that put context to the reporter’s story.

One of the bright spots of the economy under Duterte is said to be the rise in the investment ratio. In the last three years (2017-2019), the average proportion of investment to GDP approached 30%. Compare this with the previous six-year period (2011-2016) when the same ratio averaged 22%.

Much fuss has been raised about the proposed Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act or CITIRA (the erstwhile Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-Quality Opportunities or TRABAHO Bill), with claims that it affects the mood of investors who now choose to wait and see. What’s not emphasized enough is that much of the uncertainty results from the long-winded process the discussion on this reform takes. Proposals to rationalize fiscal incentives have been filed since the 10^th Congress, mostly in the Lower House, with the Senate joining the fray starting in the 13^th Congress. The push for the reform has been gaining momentum over time, getting much-deserved attention starting the 17^th Congress. It has been more than two decades. The issue has clearly peaked, indicating that the reform is bound to happen. It will serve all sectors better the sooner the law is passed.

Perhaps the question to be asked is not simplistically whether the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) is good for us or bad for us, but rather do we need a defense treaty with the US at this time, regardless of feelings over the fact that the US has some strategic advantage for itself by bonding with us? We have to be realistic about our status and capabilities before we thump our chests and bellow to be left alone to our own little devices against the big, cruel world.

Last week, the Sandiganbayan convicted Al Vitangcol III, former general manager of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) 3, of graft and for violating government procurement laws. Among the incorporators of PH Trams was Arturo Soriano, Vitangol’s uncle-in-law.

ALMOST ALL OF Asia’s central bankers have said the economic risks from the Wuhan coronavirus are significant. Then why aren’t they all taking action?