Southern Leyte has declared itself to be in a “state of calamity,” the fourth province to do so in recent weeks, because of the spread of the mosquito-borne tropical disease dengue. Such a declaration allows the provincial government to access funds set aside for disasters or calamities, and use them to pay for interventions that can help address the epidemic.

As part of our Integral Human Development class, we went on an exposure to GK Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan. The professionalism and courteousness of everyone on the farm was both contagious and heartwarming and it was easy to see why there so many people who are involved in this social enterprise.

WITH SUPPORT for globalization and free trade declining in much of the world, Asia has a historic chance to break out of its traditional role as a capital exporter to the West and to instead redirect flows to improve its own economies and financial industries.

AS MORE AND MORE of the world’s population shifts into cities, traffic congestion is becoming an ever-larger problem. The average American now loses around 100 hours a year sitting in traffic. Globally, congestion slows driving speeds, increasing emissions of carbon dioxide -- more than 20% of which now comes from traffic.

“Now that I’m growing older, My pilot light is out; What used to be my sex appeal Is now my water spout...”

For two straight quarters, the Philippine economy has not grown as projected by its economic managers. The 5.5% gross domestic product growth in the second quarter of the year is considered the lowest in the past 17 quarters. This should be a wake-up call for lawmakers and economic managers; we are in “challenging times,” as economic planning secretary Ernesto Pernia put it.

The Revised Corporation Code (RCC), which took effect on Feb. 23 this year, introduced amendments to the otherwise outdated Corporation Code. One of the amendments can be found in Section 143 of the RCC which prescribed the amount of required securities deposit for branch offices of foreign corporations. Pursuant to such an amendment, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued Memorandum Circular No. 17, Series of 2019 (SEC MC No. 17-2019) on the revised guidelines on securities deposit of branch offices of foreign corporations, which superseded the guidelines set in Memorandum Circular No. 2, Series of 2012 (SEC MC No. 2-2012).

CHIEFS are averse to getting advice too willingly proffered by subordinates or peers, especially when these are neither solicited nor welcome. Routine pronouncements that the chief is always open to suggestions from the ranks, and that his door is always open for peasants to walk in unannounced are mere lip service to participative management. (Are you here to water the plants?)

SHOULDN’T we have space colonies and a universal cure for cancer by now?

eHealth is described as “an innovation process rather than just a structure or technology for the delivery of better healthcare” according to Beraterbide and Kelsey (2009). In the experience of many countries in the region, innovations in eHealth did not only require the adoption of new technologies but also the accompanying organizational change that takes into consideration social, political, and economic context. Innovations in eHealth must be “usable, sustainable, and scalable” and “address population-level needs and priorities. At the same time, they should serve a broader purpose, expanding to other population groups and contexts” (Shuvo, 2015). It then becomes not just a technology and innovation challenge but a governance challenge -- one that requires long-term commitment from stakeholders and a painstaking process of calibrating technology, the existing architecture for innovation, and the end-user: the regular citizen. These technologies are considered disruptive and as such come with deployment issues but at the same time huge pay offs for both the regulatory and implementing bodies as well as the clients. It is in the “systemically organized interactions between governments, knowledge based institutions and financial arbitrageurs” (Bartels, 2013) that these pay offs (not the least of which is better quality health care) materialize.

In her column last Wednesday, my friend Tess Abesamis attempts to understand why we seem to “elect so many undesirables.” She is no psychologist, having taken only the basic three units in college, according to her, but she came across Abraham Maslow’s paper on the Hierarchy of Needs. Tess finds in Maslow’s theory the explanation for the “atrocious kind of leaders we have today.”

There is more proof that Metro Manila traffic is among the worst in the world. Numbeo has quantified a “traffic index” for major cities around the world, shown in the table below. For brevity, I removed two columns -- Time expended index and CO2 emission index.