NEWS & ARTICLES

Friends ask me: Where do we invest post-COVID? Despite potential, agricultural export is stuck at around US$7 Billion (B). But agricultural imports are near US$11B or a trade deficit of US$4B. The Philippines I lags its ASEAN peers, most of which have trade surpluses. There...

They are omnipresent, quite inescapable, and — let’s face it — growing in number. As more people gain access to social media platforms and discover their voice and amass followers, influencers as we call them have exponentially increased digital content and, ultimately, changed the way...

“Unprecedented” is one word that we hear over and over again – unprecedented demands, challenges, threats, impacts, and the list goes on. Quoting the World Bank Group, what we are experiencing is “an unprecedented crisis, with devastating health, economic, and social effects felt around the...

Eleven years ago in September 2009, Tropical Storm “Ondoy”, internationally named as “Ketsana”, plunged many parts of Metro Manila (MM) into waist to rooftop-level floodwaters. The people of MM, especially those in the cities of Pasig, Quezon, Manila, Caloocan, Muntinlupa and Marikina lost their homes...

First, a look back at 2020. 2020 was unexpectedly a Year of SEVERE and MULTIPLE CRISES. We had and have a HEALTH Crisis. The COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic hit the world and the Philippines like a giant sledgehammer. Global statistics show over 20 million COVID-19 cases,...

At the forthcoming legislature’s bicameral conference on corporate tax reform, it should only be a choice between CITIRA (House Bill 4157) and CREATE (Senate bill 1357). CITIRA is the House version of Package 2 of the comprehensive tax reform. CREATE, on the other hand, is...

(FIRST OF TWO PARTS) Cellphones and coronavirus are icons of the 21st Age of Globalization. Six ages of globalization of humankind preceded the 21st C digital era however. Between robots and humanoids taking over our species, and the decimation of the human race by a...

Sustainable finance is more than simply issuing green, social, and sustainability bonds. More broadly, it refers to a process of taking environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into business decisions – particularly on investment and lending. Environmental considerations usually refer to climate change, deforestation, and...

I have seen many Facebook groups, rather FB support groups for Restaurant owners, business owners in general and just about every SME who has founded a business the past decades or maybe even just a few months before COVID started. And all of us, myself...