The tax on sugar-sweetened beverages and malnutrition
The proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages has triggered a policy debate. The proposal aims to reduce the consumption of these unhealthy beverages and to nudge individuals into consuming healthier ones. We need to assess whether the current proposal is the best response in addressing our nutrition problems.
The tax on sugar-sweetened beverages and malnutrition
The proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages has triggered a policy debate. The proposal aims to reduce the consumption of these unhealthy beverages and to nudge individuals into consuming healthier ones. We need to assess whether the current proposal is the best response in addressing our nutrition problems.
Ending ‘endo’ — larger issues
The call to end “contractualization” is but a continuation of the opposition led by organized labor against the practice of employing workers on a non-regular basis. Costly regulation or not, there are real economic reasons for the variety of contractual arrangements observed in the Philippine labor market.
The Duterte-Dominguez disconnect: is another golden tide headed for the rocks?
It is said that poverty is more in the mind than in the pocket. Most income-challenged nations are poor not because of scarcity of resources but because of inability to seize the opportunities in fleeting instances of plenty.
Fair compensation and other prerequisites to mining for development
The challenge of mineral-based development is ensuring that the returns from extraction are invested in human capital and infrastructure to support development and ensure long-term benefit from the activities. Strong government regulations should also be in place to reduce damage to the environment.
Scrap pork, empower provinces
The untranslatable kahindik-hindik is how the Commission on Audit Chair described it. Indeed only the most cynical can read the 453-page COA special report on the allocation and utilization of pork barrel funds from 2007-2009 and not come away appalled.
Reading the Chancellor’s Report on Enrollment and Graduation, SY 2012-2013
Chancellor Caesar Saloma’s report is given purely in numerical terms and graphs. The Chancellor presumably wants the figures to speak for themselves and reflect his own concerns relating to faculty quality and operational inefficiencies in the university.
Kristal Tejada, in memoriam
Oh UP! the realization of many years of dreaming. Then for a measly P6,000 tuition loan, she had to stop schooling. It was near-impossible for her parents to raise P6,000 to pay the loan on time. Where would a taxi driver find the funds for this large outlay?
Searching for the balance between flexibility and workers’ security (Is it time to reform labor market policies?)
The protection of labor and the regulation of labor-capital relations are fundamental elements of Philippine labor policy. This protective posture is enshrined in the Constitution (Art. XIII), and reaffirmed in the Labor Code of the Philippines which provides the legal basis for all existing labor market policies and regulations.
In recent years these policies and regulations...
