Diwa C. Guinigundo

When policy gears need some shift

We have been participating almost every year in the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Asian Regional Forum on Investment Management of Foreign Exchange Reserves, before and after my retirement from central banking in 2019. While there was some lull during the pandemic in 2020, which actually provided ADB with a new angle. In our spirited one-on-one session in Sapporo, Japan last September, the Bank’s Deputy Treasurer Sukhumarn Phanachet asked about the important lessons of the health crisis for central banking. 

‘Without growth, everything is nothing’

When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics in Stockholm last Oct. 14, the role of political institutions in economic development and long-term prosperity received some kind of a revival. It’s been 12 years since the initial release of the pioneering “Why Nations Fail.”

When nations fail…

It was the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that announced the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics at a press conference in Stockholm last week. They were Daron Acemoglu of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Simon Johnson also of MIT, and James Robinson of the University of Chicago. They collaborated in working on the linkage between political institutions, economic development, and long-term prosperity. We have been citing their work in many previous economic briefings on the Philippines’ failure to translate its decent economic growth since 1999 until the 2020 pandemic into real progress and catch up with its ASEAN neighbors. 

Candidates, legacy problems, and false hopes

The photos of those who trooped to the Manila Hotel and other Comelec offices to file their certificates of candidacy (COCs) gave us the impression that they have all figured out what they seriously intend to do in the next few years once they get elected. 

Same old bananas?

Two days ago, Oct. 1, poll aspirants started to flock to various filing centers of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to file their certificates of candidacy (COC) for 18,280 elective positions for the May 2025 national and local elections. Filipinos will be choosing 12 senators, 254 members of the House of Representatives, 63 party-list representatives, 82 governors, 149 city mayors and 1,493 municipal mayors, among others.