The Philippine political-business cycle

Smartmatic/TIM PCOS machines: Will they work to contract specifications today? The Philippine Star reports today that “foreign investors have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, putting on hold or temporarily withdrawing their investments in the Philippines due to jitters over today’s elections, according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo. Gunigundo is quoted saying: [...]

No-brainer Q on Manny Villar

Would the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have given Manny Villar the extra ‘time of day’ if he was a mere private citizen and not the Senate president in 2007? Villar claims he met PSE officials as a private citizen. At the time, Villar met with the PSE board [...]

Lakas’ woes

A clear casualty here is the ruling Lakas-Kampi-CMD party what with all the defections, internal wranglings about the lack of campaign funds, and a lot of talk about the First Couple’s “secret candidate(s)”.

‘People power’ reconsidered

Some twenty-four odd years after the ‘people power’ revolution of EDSA in the Philippines, the country’s democracy is still in trouble and illustrates the continuing problems of cosmetic change with unrevised socio-economic structure. The Philippines’ predicament mimics many of the post-authoritarian regimes created by the third and fourth waves of democratization.