On 18 January 2019, three days before the January 21, 2019 plebiscite for the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), President Rodrigo R. Duterte alluded to pursuing charter change once the BOL is ratified. If ratified, the BOL creates the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and replaces the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Now that the BOL was ratified on 25 January, the path to charter change seems clear. Is it or is it not?

The second Trump-Kim Summit in Vietnam this week, February 27-28, points to many good and optimistic scenarios not only for both US and N. Korea but also for the ASEAN, East Asia and the rest of the world.

Much has been said about the difficulty of doing business in the Philippines, from the time it takes to incorporate a business to the complex maze of procedures we need to follow to get anything done, and the number of approvals needed to move anything.

PERIODIC surveys that check how respondents feel about the future show that as a people, we are an optimistic lot. Our scores on having a positive outlook rank us consistently in the top three in the happiness index. The results favor those who are full of hope on what’s coming ahead. This positive outlook persists even through the bad times we find ourselves in.

COULD a banquet of chicken, beef and rice be the solution to the trade tensions between China and the US.?

THERE’s an old theory that as an organism develops, it progresses through the same evolutionary stages traveled by its ancestors. Traditionally, economic development has worked in a similar way. When a country first shifts from agrarian poverty to industrialization, it tends to start out in light manufacturing, especially textiles. Later it masters more complex manufactured products, and finally it progresses to inventing its own cutting-edge technology. Thus, each country’s development tends to look a bit that of nations that already went through the process.

Competitive neutrality (CN) aims to provide a level playing field between public and private firms. State corporations competing in a market may be accorded many types of support on their operations not available to private firms such as tax and tariff exemptions, debt guarantees, exemptions from procedural requirements, exclusive purchase privileges, access to lower or subsidized interest rates, etc. These non-neutral policies distort the market and attenuate market gains. When extended to provide a level-playing field for all market players regardless of ownership in the same industry, we call it “Competitive Neutrality +” (CN+). The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) is committed to pursue efficiency and thus CN in the market. We begin by making a distinction between de jure and de facto neutrality. A rule or law may be de jure neutral but may be de facto non-neutral, that is, enforced in a non-neutral manner by the biased enforcement of the law. We start with the proposed non-exclusive franchise for Solar Philippines.

Most anti-coal activists would resort to disinformation and deception to advance their ecological leftist agenda and in the process, deprive energy consumers of the opportunity to have cheaper, stable and reliable 24/7 electricity, badly needed to sustain fast growth and generate more jobs for the people.

Growing old, we like to meet old friends. We “junior senior citizens” (a term coined by Nenette, a college friend of my late wife Mae) enjoy the luxury of time to get together for coffee or dinner. But in the case of Fides (our friendship dating back to almost half a century ago), we had our last couple of appointments at the Manila regional trial court.

TODAY, February 22, is the first of the four days of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. The Revolution against the Marcoses officially ended on February 25, when Corazon Cojuangco Aquino took her oath as President of the Republic. Her oath of office was administered by Supreme Court Justice Claudio Teehankee at what is now called appropriately the Kalayaan (Freedom) Hall of Club Filipino in San Juan.

ASKED if he caused the February 13 arrest of Rappler CEO and editor Maria Ressa, President Rodrigo Duterte said he had nothing to do with it, and that he did not “relish picking on her.” He also said he did not know Wilfredo Keng, whose complaint that he had been libeled by the online news site led to the Ressa arrest.

PROBABLY it’s intersectionality. Or identity politics. Or the glorification of victimhood. Whatever the cause, everyone nowadays seems to demand preferential treatment. Of course, it’s never stated that way. Usually, it’s called as a plea for “rights.”