No Free Lunch

Losing hope on corruption

We hear the word talamak increasingly being used to describe corruption in our midst. Its…

Inspiration and hope

For 66 years now, the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award has been bestowed on individuals or…

Let’s push renewable fertilizers

“Napapagod na ang lupa,” seasoned farmers told us over two decades ago, as my Brain…

What’s in BRICS for us?

Are we falling behind and getting left out again? Our close Asean neighbors Indonesia, Malaysia,…

Fixing financing failures

For the longest time, our financial system has been lopsided against the poor. I’ve long…

Our broken institutions

The latest Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to three economists has brought renewed interest in…

More pop for the peso

How do we get more pop for the peso—my “Filipinized” version of the American idiom…

US vs China in Southeast Asia

Who’s more valuable to Southeast Asia: its immediate neighbor China, or the other superpower across…

Pruning power prices

How can we lower the cost of electric power so that our producers can be…

All our presidents’ debts

Did you know that exactly 20 years ago, practically all or 99.5 percent of taxes…