WE shouldn’t worry too much over the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’(BSP) report saying the inflation rate reached 12.2 percent in July. We seem to have exaggerated the seriousness of this development when it described the figure as the highest in 14 years.
Sure, 12.2 percent is high, especially when we recall that our average inflation [...]

SINCE I started this series of columns on the need for a comprehensive and long-term renaissance program for agriculture, I have discussed several components of a grand strategy to implement that program, namely, conducting an inventory of agricultural resources, corporate farming, agricultural education and revisiting the carabao.
These are just a few possible components of the [...]

EXTRAORDINARY events such as the global fuel and food crises have prompted governments to take high-profile, costly measures in a near-panic or panic mode.
In the process, it is not unusual for those who are quick to declare the release of billions of pesos for this or that emergency measure to forget about less costly, longer-lasting [...]

IT’S heartening to read reports about two giant business organizations engaging in agricultural production amid the food crisis affecting all countries of the world today.
San Miguel Corp. and the Hong Kong-based Kuok Group of Companies, two of Southeast Asia’s biggest food companies, have just launched a P1-billion joint project to cultivate 1 million hectares of [...]

WHEN the Philippines joined the race to become industrialized several decades ago, it was at the expense of agriculture. The thinking then was that progressive countries must be industrialized, and that being an agricultural economy was being backward.
We now know that was a mistake. We forgot that the United States, one of the most industrial [...]

WHEN the President presents her State of the Nation Address (Sona) before the joint session of Congress and the people a few weeks from now, I sense a dilemma confronting the Chief Executive in the light of our current situation.
Politicians in the past like to downplay the setbacks and the gloomy part of the country’s [...]

THE SLOWDOWN in the growth of the economy to 5.2 percent in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) in the first three months of 2008 shows our vulnerability to developments in the Middle East, where our oil comes from, and the United States, where a large part of our products are exported; in addition the [...]

THE ECONOMIC slowdown should serve as a test of our capability to surmount the difficulties facing us these days.
I am referring to the not-so-good news that our economic growth—as expressed in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), or simply the total value of goods and services we produce, excluding income from abroad—had slowed down to 5.2 [...]

THERE is absolutely no basis to criticisms that the Senate has been slow in the passage of important legislative measures. Our record speaks for itself. And I believe that the current session will be among the most productive for the chamber in terms of legislative output.
Understandably, the wide publicity given to Senate investigations, compared with [...]

UNDERSTANDABLY, recent reports about global oil and food crises, as well as the subprime-led slowdown in the United States, have dampened growth forecasts for the Philippines.
I said understandably because the unexpected 7.3-percent growth in our gross domestic product (GDP) last year probably conditioned the minds of many that we would or should grow at the [...]