Incessantly inferior infrastructure

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 04/11/2023

When the government’s premier think tank calls out our infrastructure as inadequate and inferior, our leaders need to sit up and listen. The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) has done just that on our transport infrastructure,…

The economy’s backbone

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 04/04/2023

Over the years, I have described agriculture as the economy’s backbone. While I believe this to be true nearly everywhere, it’s more especially so for the Philippine economy. Many might find it hard to agree, especially considering…

When women lead

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 03/28/2023

Gender equality is good economics,” declared a 2019 International Labor Organization (ILO) report. It went on: “Increasing women’s labour force participation has been shown to boost the gross domestic product at the national level.” Labor force participation…

Persistent pig pandemic

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 03/21/2023

Unlike the human COVID-19 pandemic that appears to be behind us, the pig pandemic is still raging and causing tight supplies of pork, leading to continued high prices. It has been nearly four years since the first…

Bringing out our best

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 03/14/2023

In the early part of his 1992 to 1998 term, provincial visits of President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) would usually have local executives publicly presenting him with a litany of local problems and requests for various things…

Are Filipinos too selfish?

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 03/07/2023

Are we Filipinos generally more self-centered and selfish than other Asians? Is this a cultural flaw of ours that has kept our country from progressing at the same pace that most of our neighbors have done over…

‘Provincializing’ agriculture

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 02/28/2023

You know agriculture is in great trouble when so many op-ed columns are being written on the sector, even from writers who don’t normally deal on the subject. The attention is well deserved, as I consider agriculture…

Creative lessons from Korea

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 02/21/2023

It seems hard to believe now, but Filipinos on the average were twice richer than South Koreans back in 1965. Data from countryeconomy.com show average income (GDP per capita) in the Philippines then at $211, and $108…

Jockeying Filipino creativity

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 02/07/2023

The members of the globally popular K-pop boy band BTS have begun their military conscription, and the South Korean economy is set to lose at least an estimated $5.9 billion, based on estimates reported by CNBC. This…

PiTiK: Good news and bad

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 01/31/2023

With the release of fourth-quarter data on gross domestic product (GDP) last week, it’s worth doing another “PiTiK test” on the Philippine economy. Like the way people often test fruit for ripeness or materials for durability with…

The problem with eggs

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 01/24/2023

Eggs are the latest farm commodity to see significant price hikes, at a time when onions continue to be priced at scandalous levels that even exceed meat prices. Sugar prices remain at abnormally high levels, even as…

A neglected basic human right

Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet 11/22/2022

Give a family middle-class surroundings, and they begin to have middle-class dreams.” Gawad Kalinga founder Tony Meloto explained to me many years ago the rationale behind the colorfully painted houses that are the distinctive mark of their…

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