Spotlight

PHILHEALTH MESS

Incredible incompetence and large-scale corruption.   This is the situation at the country’s leading health insurance agency, the state-run Philippine Health Insurance Corp. or PhilHealth.  The top management of PhilHealth appears to me like a bigtime […]

Spotlight

THE WORST ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE

The world’s longest and strictest lockdown has produced the Philippines’ worst Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate in recorded history, a steep 16.5% nosedive in the second quarter of 2020.  The 16.5% drop is also […]

Spotlight

DUTERTE AND THE OLIGARCHS: THE FIGHT GOES ON

Some conclusions from President Rodrigo Duterte’s penultimate State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27, 2020: • Despite being poorly delivered, one hour 40 minutes, and 8,000-word long, it is the best of the […]

Spotlight

VICTORY AGAINST THE OLIGARCHS

Visiting elite army troops in troubled Jolo, capital of the Sulu archipelago, 1,544 kms southwest of Manila on Monday, July 13, President Rodrigo Duterte was visibly angry—and proud. The commander-in-chief was angry, not because Jolo […]