The rise in the number of unemployed Filipinos in the midst of economic growth has made our government officials take a serious look at the current economic strategy. This pattern of jobless growth partly explains why the level of mass poverty in our country has remained unchanged even as the economy seems to be growing.
The big news this week was the Jan. 31 report by the National Statistical Coordination Board that the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the full year 2012 was 6.6 percent above the GDP for the full year 2011.
Confidence in the Philippine economy, whether from within or from outside, appears to be catching on. Various analysts are consistently coming out with positive predictions on how our economy will shine among others in the years ahead. We haven’t seen this level of confidence in our economic outlook since the 1990s, when President Fidel V. Ramos succeeded in attracting a lot of foreign investor attention for the country, leading to booming stock markets and accelerating production and incomes.
Philippine economic performance during the past decade came under close scrutiny at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and was found wanting.
MANILA, Philippines—For more than half a century, the country’s telecommunications sector was dominated by a private monopoly, Philippine Long Distance Co. (PLDT). During this period, our telecommunications sector was in a dismal state as indicated by the long waiting time of up to more than 10 years for owning a telephone. Due to underinvestment in [...]
Some years back, I wrote about how the economies of Thailand and the Philippines had been virtual identical twins in 1970, but have since dramatically parted ways. The numbers tell the story quite clearly. In 1970, both countries had the same populations of 36 million each, growing at the same rate of 3.1 percent per [...]
