The poverty, joblessness and lack of fundamental services under neoliberal policies continues to challenge the achievement of Filipinos’ economic, social and cultural rights.
Author Archives: IBON MEDIA
Changing the charters economic provisions to further open up the country to foreign investment and capital will further weaken the Philippine economy. It will worsen joblessness, undermine long-term growth, and strip the country of our natural resources as foreign corporations and local counterparts continue plundering the countrys mineral, forestry and marine resources. Opening up land to foreign ownership will drive land prices up and displace our small peasant farmers. Land inequities, land monopolies and rural unemployment will worsen. Read on
Ibon calls the 2.9 million jobless figures in the latest labor force survey an “underestimation.” It did not include the number of discouraged jobseekers, or those who are willing to take up work from the labor force. Ibon’s higher estimates aims to correct the unwarranted change in the official unemployment definition in April 2005, which conveniently removes discouraged jobseekers and those willing/not available to immediately take up work from the labor force and hence does not count them as officially unemployed even if they do not have jobs.
Ibon estimates that some 2.5 % of the working age population 15 years and over should still be considered part of the labor force, which implies an additional 1.5 million jobless on top of the 2.9 million officially reported– for a total of roughly 4.3 million jobless.
The additional 2.5% is based on the estimated discrepancy in official and actual labor force participation rates in 2008. The number of jobless could be even much higher if, as is likely, labor force participation rates this year become bloated by even greater numbers of discouraged job-seekers.Read on
By SONNY AFRICA | Ibon Features
Addressing the impact of the lowering peso value requires more than the mitigating measures government has so far implemented, including the hedge fund set up by the DBP, and Malacaangs fiscal stimulus program.
COMMENTARY | By Ibon Foundation
Contrary to the Arroyo government’s claims of a social payback in exchange for new tax measures, only 17 centavos out of every peso in revenues are allocated in next year’s budget for health, education and housing services. In the budget, funding for government hospitals was slashed by 12 percent. By contrast, the Department of National Defense will get thrice as much as the health department.
Exports of Philippine-grown bananas and pineapples, most of them from the Davao region and other parts of Mindanao, may increase with the implementation of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), but it will benefit agribusiness transnational corporations and not Filipino growers, according to independent think-tank Ibon Foundation.
Will biofuels lessen foreign firms’ grip on energy sector?
By Sonny Africa IBON Research Head MANILA — No one disputes that the Philippines is mired in economic and political…
