Business & Economics Perspective Blogger

October is United Nations Month. I would like to bring up the issue of Atty. Hilario G. Davide Jr., the favorite source and echo chamber of the anti-constitutional reform groups. I wrote an earlier post where I asked to whom Filipinos should listen to between Kishore Mahbubani and Davide, that Davide was actually a former UN diplomat , until such time of his honorable resignation . I Googled "Hilario Davide Jr. United Nations" and discovered Davide actually studied in SOKA University, during the time he was a UN diplomat ! I would even want to share these words written by Davide, 50 years after Soka University was founded. In just fifty years from its founding on April 2, 1971, our SOKA University has more than fully proven itself as the "highest seat of learning for humanistic education; cradle of a new culture; and a fortress of peace for mankind." It has gone beyond the borders of a great nation through various units in other parts of the world and its comprehens...

GMA News When it comes to constitutional reform, I'm afraid one of the worst sources quoted would come from the Makabayan Bloc. Some people I face who are so against FDI also want to end the OFW program. The solution comes out rather absurd, as the Philippines must have its own state where it's all beg and beg . It would be like: "Free education for all! No to FDI for schools!"  "Free lunch in school!" "No to open FDI! The government must fund our local production!"  " Increase the salaries, lower the prices of goods! " (which is just plain bad accounting ) That's just a few of the crazy demands that have been given! My favorite question has always been, "Where will you get the funding?" The usual answers can be: " Print more money! " "The government should just make it a law!" "Tax the rich all the more!" which can often be accompanied by, " After all, it's the fault of the rich that p...

It's was sad for me to realize that Little India (Cebu) has permanently closed. So far, the Manila branch has not closed yet. I wrote an article where I explained why vegetarian restaurants tend not to last long in the Philippines . The closure of Kongtiak Restaurant in Quezon City was just one. Little India Cebu City closed (eventually) due to constant losses. I was thinking about it that I usually ate vegetarian food at Bollywood Tandoor (which served meat) while I soon got into Little India (read my review here ), to eat their delicious vegetarian foods. However, things changed when they started to stop having dine-ins closed altogether .  I thought about the comparison between Little India Cebu City (closed), and Bollywood Tandoor. I looked into the fact that Bollywood Tandoor is very mainstream . Little India Healthy Cuisine is hard to market, especially when several Cebuanos may not be that health-conscious. Little India Cebu City was a vegetarian option , as they allowed mea...

Vietnam Youth Union It's been 80 years since Vietnam achieved its independence in 1945. Some time ago, I wrote about how Vietnam's Doi Moi actually disproves the Trust Me Bro School of Economics . I wasn't too accustomed to researching Vietnam's ironic economic miracle . Vietnam is a one-party state ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam. The word Communism would evoke fear and terror. What I find funny is that some people are using Vietnam as an excuse not to open up the Philippine economy (read here ). Such misinformed  people think that Vietnam "won this revolution," supposedly self-industrialized from its own treasury before opening up to FDI. In short, some people either believe that (1) Vietnam is an example of how a highly protectionist economy works, or (2) that Vietnam made itself rich before opening to FDI. Both of them are lies. I'll focus on the second point for this new blog post!  Right now, some people say that I'm just another marites...

24h.com I wasn't planning on blogging today. However, I saw from my Facebook feeds, I found something in interesting on the ANC 24/7 Facebook page. This was what I found: I read the full story on the ABS-CBN website. One reason why I'm critical of ABS-CBN is how they're very anti-reform. They tend to treat the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines as if it's so holy and pure, as if not one provision   of it must be amended! Oftentimes, Atty. Hilario G. Davide Jr. and/or Atty. Christian Monsod, are frequently featured when it comes to the welfare of the Philippines. Now, I'd like to share an excerpt from the ABS-CBN website, which makes me cringe.  Balisacan replied that the pandemic caused a bigger contraction in the Philippine economy compared to Vietnam .  “First, Vietnam over the last decade has been growing faster than the Philippines. Second, during the 2020 pandemic, our economy contracted by almost 10 percent. Whereas Vietnam contracted only a little. That pa...

Washington Times It's really entertaining (while it can also be frustrating ) dealing with economic neanderthals from my own country. Such people operate on what I call "Pinoy Pride Economics", never mind its high socio-economic post (read here ).  I ended up remembering the now-defunct Philippine Anti-Fascist League old page (and the new page is barely getting any views), which I believe is run by a group of Gen-Z brats blaming the USA for Venezuela's plight. I went Googling and found out that six years ago, President Nicolas Maduro showed he might be the champion of blaming other countries for his own country's poverty.  This incident was a massive blackout that hit Venezuela in 2019 . The news from CNN gives this detail why Maduro might win any blame contest if there was one: As the March outages left the country in the dark, Caracas saw dueling protests by supporters of Maduro and of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has been recognized as Venezuela’s interi...