OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo Two weeks ago, we wrote a cautionary tale about Sri Lanka. It was showing an economic meltdown, with grassroots reality of struggling in endless queues for food, fuel and medicine, with rolling blackouts. Power is also in short supply. It was the...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo Two days ago, the Philippine Statistics Authority announced that inflation further escalated to 6.1 percent for June 2022. This was the fourth consecutive month of inflationary trend after peaking last year at 4.4 percent in August 2022. There is nothing...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo It’s difficult not to discern the similarities. But the impact of the crisis in Sri Lanka on the people’s lives is many times more severe even school examinations were called off. Their pupils had no pad paper to write on. People struggle with fuel,...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo It is good to remain watchful of the impact of sustained increases in oil prices on output and inflation following the Ukraine-Russia war and whatever is left of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC’s leverage in oil pricing...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo W hen Congress finally proclaims the winning candidate for president, as the indelible ink vanishes from our point finger, the so-called transition period from the Duterte administration will then begin. The Comelec partial and unofficial tally shows a big...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo In 2019, Volkswagen said goodbye to the Beetle we all know, stopping the production of the iconic car of the last 80 years. It was Adolf Hitler who commissioned engineer Ferdinand Porsche to design a practical and cheap vehicle for the people, volk in...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo This coming May 9 election is a defining moment for the Filipino people. We could not think of a better subtext than Palawan Pawnshop’s quintessential tagline: “Alahas ang isinasangla, hindi ang iyong kinabukasan.” Beyond endorsing VP Leni, it...
Of substance and spirit Diwa C. Guinigundo Y es, there is a good likelihood of yet another close vote and electoral protest between VP Leni and Marcos Jr. on May 9, 2022. This much was the bottom line of the recent analysis of GlobalSource Philippine country analyst Romeo Bernardo. This is what the...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo Lent brings to mind that time of penitence in some parts of Manila and Pampanga where flagellants abound on Good Friday. Some are nailed on the cross. Briefly done and with proper support, such is a pathetic partaking of the passion of Jesus. After an...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo 1Sambayan could not have clarified it more clearly, that no less than the Supreme Court in January 1999 ruled that the Marcoses owed the government ₱ 23.3 billion in estate taxes. For their failure to pay, the Marcoses accumulated tax liabilities...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo It was good that the Department of Finance (DOF) decided to prepare “a transition plan to help the next administration manage the country’s debt.” Some of its components must still be tentative. We have not seen a copy of the plan but it is crucial...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo By this afternoon, we expect the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to announce that it’s keeping its monetary policy stance of accommodating growth and looking through what it believes to be a temporary rise in inflation. This outcome is a foregone...
