OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo The Philippine Review of Economics (PRE) is releasing a special issue in honor of Dr. Benito Legarda, Jr., former deputy governor for research of the then Central Bank of the Philippines. I had the good fortune of succeeding him after his three worthy...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo Two issues hogged the headlines and the social media in the last few days. The first issue is the administration of vaccines to priority health-care front-liners, senior citizens and other vulnerables. Only 63 percent of our estimated 1.7 million health...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo We have a circular strategy of managing the pandemic by imposing community quarantines (CQs) and re-opening the economy with very little done during time outs. Increment is marginal; it is bound to be never ending. We cause economic scars and uncertainty,...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo Two columns ago, we referred to noted book author Yubal Noah Harari’s contribution to Financial Times published in February which argued that “while science has turned (epidemics) into a manageable challenge,” we reaped death and poverty during...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo After inflicting us with economic scars which portend another bad year for output and employment, this pandemic is spreading the spirit of fear. From a Christian perspective, this is pathetic. The Scripture is categorical that “God hath not given us a...
Of substance and spirit Diwa C. Guinigundo There is science in lockdowns. Starting the first quarter of 2020, with shared information and scientific findings among scientists, lockdown strategies have been designed to be principles-based, aimed at fast but regular succession between lockdowns and...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT T hree years ago, Yubal Noah Harari released his book, 21 Lessons for the 21 st Century . Harari wrote on contemporary affairs and future of human societies. He observed the overwhelming victory of liberal democracy at the end of the 20 th century against fascism and...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT L ast week, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) report on the Philippines’ death statistics for January 2019 through December 2020 must have surprised many. The PSA reported fewer deaths in 2020 relative to 2019 tally. Despite the 9,244 deaths due to COVID-19 in...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT O ur column last week “Israel shows how to do things right” elicited several comments, admitting that while Israel also fouled up in the early days of the pandemic, it got things right towards the end of 2020. Israel’s government imposed lockdowns a few times and...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo In the last quarter of 2019, this column discussed in three parts the whys and wherefores of financial literacy. We were inspired by the earlier discussions during the first Asia Pacific Financial Education Institute organized by our friend Dave Fernandez,...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo In many of our previous columns, we would always emphasize that mobility and business activities are not something that government can simply mandate and wish for. Mobility and business activities are not something like rising pork and chicken prices that...
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT Diwa C. Guinigundo Our economic managers fully realize, and we agree, that prior to the pandemic, they inherited one of the most promising, most dynamic emerging markets. We reaped the benefits from a 30-year pursuit of policy and structural reforms that unleashed the...
