Business & Economics Perspective Blogger

Foreign Trade University The Lunar New Year isn't just celebrated by the Chinese. Chinese New Year is one form of the Chinese New Year. Other forms of Lunar New Year follow   the Chinese New Year cycle, such as the Tết Nguyên Đán of Vietnam, the Japanese Lunar New Year, and the Seollal in South Korea. There's also the Tibetan New Year and the Mongolian New Year. I remember when talking about Vietnam celebrating the Lunar New Year together with the Chinese, my fellow Chinoy made the squity-eyed gesture to talk about most Vietnamese looking like Chinese. Should we even be surprised that there's a Vietnamese student who looks like the deposed Alice Guo, aka Guo Hua Ping?  What was the Tet Offensive about? Right now, I want to talk about the infamous Tet Offensive , which was a Lunar New Year attack of January 31, 1968. The Western concept would prefer to talk about it on January 31 instead of the Lunar New Year. A Filipino would probably say, "So what if it was Lunar Ne...

That's right. Jose de Venecia  recently passed away yesterday. As an advocate for reform, it's sad but true that de Venecia didn't win because he was boring . It was easy to think of him as a boring guy. I remember the time when he was called in ISPUP as Yoda De Venecia (after the Star Wars character). I was just a clueless college student at that time when the ISPUP episode was shown. I was only 13 years old when de Venecia ran for president. It was also that era when Joseph Estrada (who's now 88 years old) ran for president, and it was that time when Atty. Hilario G. Davide Jr. (who turned 90 last year) became the chief justice.  Just recently, I found this eulogy   for JDV. I will not post the whole eulogy, but only the one from the one that would "fit better" for a business-economics blog: He helped advance policies that enabled major infrastructure projects through public private partnerships, converted former military bases into thriving economic centers...

Alice Guo aka Guo Hua-Ping may be in jail now . However, I believe the saga is far from over . It reminds me that I actually wrote about how several idiots on Facebook go so far as to say, " Alice Guo should be a warning about open FDI! " Some have even gone as far as to say that POGO and Chinese spies should "justify" the Filipino First Policy . However, the harsher reality is that the Filipino First Policy may actually be encouraging dummy investors instead ! As the saga continues, I've decided to write what I might call my harshest entry yet. It's going to be Chinese New Year this year. This might be an entry that may need to be shared before the Lunar New Year! My grievances are  still ongoing because some people still demand #SahodItaasPresyoIbaba, no matter how destructive it  will be . That's why I use Venezuela as an example, especially during Nicolas Maduro's downfall . Back to the topic, I remember writing a joke post where I said, "Wh...

Bao Thanh Nien On January 24, 2026, I read from the Philippine Star Facebook page  that a vendor from Baseco, Tondo, is selling Vietnamese rice at PHP 20.00 per kilo. Honestly, it made me laugh over President Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr.'s promise. Was this rice from Vietnam a rice surplus if it wasn't premium rice? My experience with rice selling was with wholesale,  and it was a very different time. What I learned in the late 2000s to 2012 may no longer be applicable today.  Taking a look back at the history of Vietnam and the Philippines before Doi Moi This time, I decided to go with history because a certain someone on Facebook (as always, I will not mention names as much as possible) has actually called it that the Philippines' dependency on Vietnam for rice, despite the International Rice Research Institute being actually located in Pili Drive, Los Baños, Laguna 4031, Philippines. This guy (whom I nickname Porky due to his obesity) I just mentioned, sp...

It's time for a bit of Chinese language Throwback Thursday. I remember how the Chinese school can be summarized as students  memorizing without understanding . The problem wasn't the Lǎoshīs (老師) but the system that ran them as persons . I decided to write this article to " bring up a trauma " associated with the Chinese education system. From Kiko Chinese, this picture shows the common complaints from children. Standard Chinese is so hard! The Chinese schools tend to lose students because they keep failing in Grade 2 or Grade 2 in Chinese. In fact, I remember someone failing Chinese four times back in the 1990s. Another one was three years in Grade 3 Chinese, where the Chinese teacher was even stricter than the Grade 2 Chinese teacher. The real issue was that there wasn't any real learning because the old traditional Chinese system wasn't doing anything right . People were treated as if Hokkien were their first language. However, we realize that people can...

Many people want to be rich, but not so many people want the discipline on how to be rich. Isn't that the plain hard truth ? As I do this sideline blog , I contemplated whether I should write another post after writing several posts years back, or when I wrote about Venezuela as a cautionary tale . Back on topic, I thought about how financial discipline is something often overlooked. It's easy to talk about Christmas since that's probably the most wonderful time of the year to be spendthrift , only to find out that one's broke by the New Year . The cycle of reckless financial habits tends to restart in January, even when January becomes that time of reckoning between debtors and creditors! January 2026 will end, February 2026 comes, and then the cycle of financial recklessness continues. It's the same cycle over and over! Last Christmas, I remember how DTI Secretary Christina Roque spoke about the PHP 500.00 noche buena, for a family of four . I called it tactless b...

The Sunday Guardian Years ago, I wrote about Venezuela's pride and protectionism , under a more "formal" style of writing compared to my latest posts. I decided to use an even "less formal" and "less academic" tone since I'm not writing a term paper. Instead, it's like how a professor and a student discuss the thesis using first person over third person, using contractions, etc., while the thesis doesn't use such tones. Back on track, I thought about the arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro can spark debate. Was it a violation of sovereignty? I'm no expert on international law. However, Venezuelans can be seen celebrating Maduro's arrest. Right now, I'm using Gemini AI and Google search to help me find some sources for this blog. It's because I don't want my blog to become another gossip central, but a place to discuss facts with my own personal opinions (making sure they don't  derail the facts).  I used Venezuela ...