CAN AN ECONOMIC BRIEFING be complete without introducing such political topics as the impact of China’s growing influence, the stalled infrastructure program, the short-lived water shortage, or the impact of the coming elections, even if this is just a mid-term one? Are politics and economics intertwined like two snakes doing the tango?

What’s the most important economic reform that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. can do at this stage? Is it to amend the restrictive economic provisions...

We visited Baguio City recently for the first time since the completion of what is really the extension of the Northern Luzon Expressway (NLEX).

During his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, July 24, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. highlighted economic recovery via high GDP...

The current pandemic has tested the resilience of almost all the country’s institutions -- and found them wanting. Not least affected has been the country’s education system. The prolonged suspension of classes, the abrupt ending of instruction, and the schools’ make-do closures of the school year effectively stopped learning dead in its tracks. While interrupted education may seem a side issue in the face of the more existential threats to life and livelihood, its long-term consequences for the nation’s future cannot be ignored.

First, there was the Great War, or the First World War, that ran from 1914 to 1918. Then, there was the Great Depression, or the worldwide economic recession that started in the United States in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s. And prior to these, there was the Great Plague or the “Great Mortality” of 1347-1351, deemed the most devastating plague pandemic in history.

Sangley Point’s development into the Sangley Point International Airport (SPIA) remains a topic of debate. Despite the project’s recent approval by the Philippine Competition...

It’s the season once again — for the Stratbase Group’s Pilipinas Conference, which this year will be held on Nov. 6 and 7 at...

Senate President Tito Sotto (he of Eat Bulaga fame) has proposed revising the final lines of the Philippine national anthem. He thinks the original lyrics, written in 1898 by Julian Felipe (“Aming ligaya na pag may mangaapi, ang mamatay nang dahil sa iyo”) is defeatist. Instead he has proposed the lines, “...ang ipaglaban ang kalayaan mo.”

About eight years ago, the Research Center for Responsible Consumption and Production based in the Wuppertal Institut asked us to organize a forum on jobs of the future, among other “futuristic” challenges and scenarios. We did not know what jobs there would be because we had just started Industry 4.0 then.

THE PHRASE “terminal leave” refers to a phase where someone who has already been terminated is technically still on the payroll and may be...

BEFORE Howard Schultz came along, the most famous example of a chief executive trying to use his company for social good was William Norris, the CEO of Control Data Corp. Based in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Control Data was a highly successful maker of so-called supercomputers; by the early 1980s, it was a $5-billion company with 60,000 employees.