News and Articles
Sage geopolitical advice to the administration
July 19, 2021by Orlando Oxales originally published in The Manila Standard “Malacañang’s response was characteristically crass and insulting.” The 5th Anniversary of the 2016 arbitral ruling was marked with rising indignation spurred by the continuing incursions of Chinese vessels and their unbridled destruction of the marine environment in our Exclusive Economic Zone, a strategic resource of our food supply. […]
LGUs need digital connectivity to boost COVID-19 response and vaccination roll-out
July 15, 2021The fight against COVID-19 is far from over, and nothing short of an all of society synergy and a total victory against the virus will get us back on track to development mode.
SAVE OUR PRIVATE SCHOOLS
July 14, 2021CitizenWatch calls on the government, the business sector, and all other stakeholders to take a stand and join our fight to save our private educational institutions from imminent collapse due to the ongoing pandemic and the proposed implementation of a 150% income tax increase. Private education accounts for 9% enrollment in elementary, 22% in Secondary […]
A vital resource of modern reality
July 12, 2021If our current power problems are not solved soon, then the prospect of recovery and the road to a new prosperity looks dim.
Listen to and engage the private sector
July 5, 2021Innovativeness and nimbleness are natural traits of the business sector in contrast to the regulatory and bureaucratic government culture. The government must empower the private sector to do its thing which is to invest, create jobs, boost the economy, and spread prosperity. Learning from the lessons of the pandemic, we have an opportunity to build a much better world.
Repeal the Onerous Tax Provision on Private Schools
June 26, 2021The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) released last June 11 what many thought would be a rectification of BIR Revenue Regulation No. 5-2021 that imposes an onerous 150% percent increase in tax on private schools instead of the regular 10 percent. Instead, what was released was merely a clarification on corporate tax computation. Despite the […]
A Total Approach to Climate Change
June 22, 2021Everyone is at risk of becoming a victim of natural disasters. Many scientific studies have ranked the Philippines in the top 10 natural disaster-prone countries in the world. Despite this, the country is still largely reactive to the effects of climate change. We are hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and typhoons more often than most […]
Faster Vaccination Rollout: Critical to Economic Recovery
June 20, 2021In a senate hearing conducted last June 15, Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez bared the government’s P88.6 billion budget allocation for its COVID-19 vaccine procurement. According him, that would be enough to purchase 148 million doses in order to fully inoculate 70 million Filipinos or 100 percent of the country’s adult population, the fourth quarter target […]
Fostering Economic Advancement Without Jeopardizing National Security
June 14, 2021The Philippine senate has set to expedite deliberations on Senate Bill No. 2094 or the Amendments to the Public Service Act (PSA) which aims to amend the 85-year-old PSA by differentiating “public services” from “public utilities’’ and as a result, allow 100 percent foreign ownership of public services that are not considered natural monopolies. Such […]
Shield our critical infrastructure from foreign states
June 14, 2021We must shield our critical infrastructure from foreign state control.