In 2024, the Marcos Jr administration implemented economic policies that favor big businesses and foreign investors while keeping wages at miserable levels.
The deal forged in Baku is an appalling development for the climate and planet, especially for the agri-food systems and all the vulnerable and marginalized social sectors that rely on it for their life and livelihood.
In his second SONA, Marcos Jr. sang the same old tune on his supposed economic achievements and platforms that have never truly benefited the ordinary folk. By ARNOLD PADILLA Bulatlat.com MANILA – "Dumating na po ang Bagong Pilipinas," (The New Philippines has...
The people rising for climate justice necessitates the struggle to dismantle corporate monopoly control over land and resources and give humanity a fighting chance to survive and reverse the climate crisis.
Over the past five years, at least two people from rural communities have been killed weekly in the struggles against land grabs, based on estimates by the Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific (PANAP). More than eight are arrested and detained weekly, and more than two are harassed or assaulted.
Marcos Jr.'s priority is to ensure that the neoliberal policies that his predecessor President Rodrigo Duterte passed are maximized to create the most favorable environment for big businesses, including foreign capital. To become an investment destination, the administration will provide massive tax breaks to corporations through the CREATE Law and provide foreign companies more profit-making opportunities with the amended laws on public services and foreign investments.
The Ukraine conflict is compounding in a multitude of ways the already upward and alarming trajectory of overall food prices.
According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), there is "no physical shortage" of oil. So, what is happening then? As in the case of major oil price volatilities this century, excessive speculation in the oil derivatives markets is pushing up prices, not the disruptions in oil's actual or physical trading.
A 20-passenger jeepney usually has a full tank capacity of 60 liters, which means that the driver is spending ?1,107 ($21.83) more to fill up his tank. That is equivalent to about 29 kilos of rice - or two weeks’ worth of the regular consumption of a five- to six-member household.
Overpriced gasoline and diesel, for instance, gave oil firms an estimated P38.47 billion (US$757.13 million) in additional income, of which P4.62 billion ($90.93 million) went to the government as value-added tax (VAT).
The Duterte regime may spin the narratives on the economy all they want. But all indicators show that the country is in a much worse shape today than when it took over in 2016.
Data show that the policies and programs of Duterte continued and inflamed the structural crisis of our economy. To be sure, the pandemic made it more acute. But make no mistake - Duterte’s economic legacy is far worse than the pandemic.
More than half of Filipino households said that if they lose all of their income sources, their resources to cover daily needs could only last up to two weeks.
It can be guesstimated that the total additional profits generated by the oil firms from overpricing gasoline and diesel is about P142.50 million a day. Of this amount, P17.10 million went to government in the form of the 12 percent value-added tax (VAT).
Indeed, there is a need, as the Asia Peasant Coalition puts it, for the farmers “to organize and mobilize for our own people’s summit together with other marginalized and oppressed sectors that suffer the gravest hunger and poverty because of imperialist control and domination over the world’s food and agriculture.”
But what is even more alarming for Filipinos is that amid the surge in new COVID-19 cases, the response of the Duterte government to the pandemic more than a year into the crisis remains grossly inadequate and incompetent. While implementing the strictest and longest lockdown in the region, the Philippines continues to lag behind our neighbors in Southeast Asia in actually responding to the pandemic.
This latest spate of attacks against activists came a mere nine weeks since the PNP launched a similar operation in Panay island. Nine people were killed and 17 were arrested by the police in several indigenous Tumandok communities on Dec 30, 2020.
As COVID-19 wipes out whatever is left of the limited opportunities for Filipinos to earn a living, the Duterte administration’s lacking response, combined with an oppressive political environment, creates conditions for a perfect storm of social unrest.
Oil firms-imposed price adjustments are higher than what should be – by P 2.41 per liter for diesel and P4.76 per liter for gasoline, based on a DOE-recognized formula. The Big Three, a Duterte backer and other oil firms, rake in tens of millions of pesos daily from profiteering.
The hundreds of thousands of LRT-2 commuters affected by the shutdown are at the mercy of, to the say the least, an inefficient government agency and its inept private contractors that profit millions of pesos in taxpayers’ and commuters’ money.
A community of readers and supporters that help us sustain our operations through microdonations for as low as $1.
