At the onset of 2008, President George W. Bush created an advisory council for financial literacy, tasked to craft programs that will educate US citizens with money management, financial services, and the ins and outs of the financial sector.

Although noteworthy, the effort is very much belated—the economic meltdown in the US has been connected to uneducated borrowing, with 40 percent of the credit foreclosures accounted to sudden rise of adjustable interest rates of subprimes.

Somewhere, former Federal Reserve Board governor Edward Gramlich is controlling the urge to say, “I told you so.”

An advocate of financial literacy, Gramlich earlier argued that informed consumers, with the skills and understanding to manage their own finances, are pivotal in keeping an economy competitive and well-oiled.  

This assertion is now echoed by economists and policymakers around the world, bellowing a rising call for more aggressive and effective programs to improve financial literacy.

Scotland takes this argument further. Its Financial Services Authority (FSA) integrates the campaign to improve financial literacy as a means to “bridging the gap” in overcoming poverty. It implements a comprehensive framework, with programs starting as early as one enters elementary school and as late as one’s retirement years. In between, the FSA also targets the workplace and low-income Scots to learn more about personal finance.

The United States, brow-beaten and recuperating from its subprime crisis, is also bolstering its campaign in educating people to be more finance-savvy. Besides an advisory council, the government is supporting a financial-literacy corps, a volunteer organization that advises people in financial difficulties. It has also approved “MoneyMath: Lessons for Life,” a new curriculum for middle-school students.

Indeed, educating the young about financing and cultivating entrepreneurship are crucial aspects in any financial-literacy campaign.

Take for instance our neighbor Singapore. Its civil society focuses on teaching children from low-income families to save and use money wisely. In 2006 it launched “Yes I Can,” a board game on managing money, from investing property to buying insurance.

In the Philippines the Commission on Higher Education, the Philippine Council of Deans and Educators in Business and Industry Partners, as well as the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) have forged ties in revising the Business Administration curriculum and updating it to industry demands and realities.

The PDIC has also distributed teacher’s guides that include personal financing to subjects taught in public high schools, such as Araling Panlipunan IV (Economics) and Values Education.

These initiatives should be improved, encouraged and spread to reach every school in our archipelago.

For our part as a legislative body, the Congressional Commission on Science Technology and Engineering, tasked to review and upgrade school curricula to make the Philippines more competitive, can look into integrating financial literacy to courses and, for instance, produce more technopreneurs and agrientrepreneurs.

The Senate Committee on Banks and Financial Institutions, on the other hand, can integrate financial- education programs to the financial vehicles it is currently legislating, such as the Real Estate Investment Trust, Collective Investment Scheme Law and the Preneed Code.

As such, Filipinos are not only enticed to save and invest, but are informed of the rudiments, and thus, following Gramlich’s reasoning, this will lead to a more efficient and competitive financial market.  

E-mail: edgardo_angara@hotmail.com. Website: www.edangara.com.

IT’S a tale of almost apocalyptic proportions, the kind that brings flashbacks of scenes of the plagues from The Ten Commandments; or of raw footage of food riots in eras past.

Now that Singapore has done it, the big question for the global investment community is whether China will follow suit.

In the United States, the greatest social divide began in the 1930s during severe economic times. That divide was not based on education, race or even economic status.

Mirror on the wall: Cashless society and cashless crops

Cash crops are crops grown for money in developed countries like those in the Americas and Europe.

Omerta: Something cooking at the ERC?

Something is in the air, and it doesn’t smell good. You might get a whiff of what I mean if you happen to be standing downwind from the Pacific Center building on San Miguel Avenue, Ortigas Center, particularly from the 12th to the 18th floors.

Sen. Edgardo J. Angara: Encouraging financial literacy

At the onset of 2008, President George W. Bush created an advisory council for financial literacy, tasked to craft programs that will educate US citizens with money management, financial services, and the ins and outs of the financial sector.

‘Smart crops’ for biofuels protect food, environment

While the global debate rages on whether the biofuel revolution is causing imbalances in food security systems and increasing the emissions of greenhouse gases, the “smart”’ biofuel crops developed, utilized and promoted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) ensure energy and environmental security.