“Congratulations and wishing you prosperity!” -- that is what “Kiong Hee Huat Tsai” conveys in the Hokkien dialect, which is what the majority of...

Whether a typhoon-induced flood, a fire, an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption, every disaster swells the ranks of the poor and makes the already destitute even poorer.

One thing certainly needing removal should changes in the Constitution again come up is the “grave abuse of discretion” review powers of the Supreme Court.

DECADES AGO, I filled in for a speaker who for some reason couldn’t make it for her one-day training assignment. Her audience was made up of scores of school teachers and administrators from one of the provinces. Her subject was Business English. At that time I did not do Business English, I did Leadership English. The organizer said it would be okay.

CHINA’S happiest city isn’t so happy these days. Wuhan, which branded itself as a Chinese version of Phoenix, is now the epicenter of a SARS-like virus that has sickened hundreds. It’s worth asking why this disease came out of an inland technology hub that boasts a young -- and presumably healthier -- workforce, rather than the mega-cities of Beijing or Shanghai.

WE LIVE in an era of political earthquakes; but the Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s defense of her country’s ethnic-cleansers before the International Court of Justice at The Hague last month still came as a shock.

ERP or Electronic Road Pricing is a mechanism presently used in a number of countries that charge motorists a certain amount for passing a particular road at a particular hour. It is similar to a toll fee, but pricing is determined primarily by “congestion” and time of use. The fee is higher when one chooses to pass a main road at “peak” hours.

Recently it was reported that the growth rate of Germany, Europe’s largest economy and the world’s fourth largest, fell to only 0.6% in 2019. This caught my attention because it is a significant drop from 1.5% in 2018 and 2.2% average for 2014-2017. The UK and France managed to grow 1.4% in Q1-Q3 2019 so far, while Italy has crawled to only 0.1% growth.

Opportunities abound to develop or exploit underdeveloped industries such as agriculture and technology, given the right enablers and government support. Sport is one such sector that is gaining increased attention, especially with the recently concluded Southeast Asian Games 2019.

In the era of tax reforms that are meant to simplify life for taxpayers, streamline tax collection effort. and enhance revenues for government, the Philippine travel tax that is imposed on departing Filipinos for abroad (with exemptions) in the amount of P1,620 per person is outdated at best and illegal at worst.

THE OUTRAGE spiked social Geiger counters. The Imelda Marcos re-appearance at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), upon the invitation of its Board to be honored as founder, set off rumblings at a time of heightened seismic activity. Even if low intensity, the bubbling-over is as much produced by pent-up steam as Taal’s.

IF INVESTORS want a better world, they’ll have to pay for it.