Senator Edgardo Angara today called for a change in the national strategy for the $31bn/year electronics sector that employed more than 464,000 direct employees last 2008. “Intel’s local closure is a signal that it is time to change our electronics strategy, and to focus on our homegrown sector,” he said.
“We must now concentrate on strengthening [...]

Ibon Foundation said the economic growth in 2008 has already fallen by nearly three percentage points, and adverse trends in joblessness, falling real incomes, and worsening poverty will deepen this year.

The global economic situation is expected to continue deteriorating until 2010 and even beyond, and the Philippines is going to be severely affected by the worsening crisis. Yet it is still possible to mitigate the effects on the country, and more importantly, to emerge from this period of crisis with a genuinely strengthening and forward-moving economy.

ECONOMY  By Sonny Africa  |  While the Philippines has been made vulnerable to external financial shocks as a result of the US crisis and made internally weaker by globalization, the Arroyo administration is still pushing for more of the same through the constitutional amendments.

ECONOMY   By Carlos H. Conde |  The Philippines appears to be walking an economic tightrope again. Three of the pillars of its economy – call centers, electronics exports and inward remittances — are all deeply exposed to the US economy, which is going into the tank.

With the worsening crisis of the US and global economy expected to further aggravate poverty in the country, independent think-tank IBON Foundation today said that it has become more crucial for government to ensure enough resources are spent for the poor.

As government’s economic managers prepare a contingency plan for the US financial turmoil, research group IBON Foundation urges the government to immediately increase social services spending to cushion the effect on the people.

“We are not surprised that the JPEPA has been approved while the rest of the country is not watching. This treaty has been negotiated by Malacanang and signed by Ms Gloria Arroyo in virtual secrecy. The undemocratic and non-transparent manner with which the deal has been conceived has resulted in a seriously flawed agreement that threatens to further destroy the jobs and livelihood of Filipino workers, farmers and fishers and further destroy local industries and stunt long-term economic development.”

By Renato Reyes Jr.  |  The government admission of lower growth targets, slower export growth as well as vulnerabilities in foreign direct investments and speculative investments show that the Philippines is not totally shielded from the US financial meltdown.

Analysis |  Having produced only disastrous results, economic management can no longer be left in the hands of an elite corps of bureaucrats and technocrats who ape models purposely to make corporate profits bigger at the expense of workers, farmers, and other marginal sectors.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Could a more watchful Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) have averted, or lessened the massive financial losses incurred by Philippine banks due to the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.?
Sen. Loren Legarda raised this question shortly after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said US regulators allowed Lehman to [...]

Across Asia, millions of people are pouring into crowded and often unmanageable urban areas in search of a better life. To some, particularly those who are tasked with running cities, these denizens of the “informal sector” represent a social and planning nightmare.

David Cay Johnston, a prize-winning reporter of The New York Times, urges his colleagues in the press to “start your skepticism.” The coverage of the bailout, Johnston says, “focuses on the edges, on the details. The focus should be on the premise.”

According to research group Ibon Foundation, Philippine banks are merely a conduit of foreign capital, and being in a liberalized and deregulated environment, are vulnerable to the current volatility of global finance.

Alternative poverty estimates say progress is too slow to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015
Contrary to repeated mainstream claims that poverty is diminishing fast in the world, the coverage of the basic needs required to escape poverty is slowing down and even regressing in many places, says the 2008 Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) released [...]