The challenge we face

The last of the legendary Kennedy brothers is dying. The 76-year-old Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy was found to have a malignant brain tumor, sending a shock wave across the political terrain of America.

His peers in the US Senate paid tribute to Kennedy’s idealism and called him a “giant” of the Democratic Party and the last “lion” who remains “the single most effective member of the Senate.”

Sen. Barack Obama said he is in the Senate because of Ted Kennedy, who earlier fought for voting and civil rights.

President Bush said Kennedy is “a man of tremendous courage, remarkable strength and powerful spirit.”

We, too, pray for Ted Kennedy and wish for God’s compassion. 

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As I stated earlier, I believe the government has no intention of taking over the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco). What the government wants at this time is for Meralco to explain why it has been charging what everybody feels are unreasonable charges and rates on consumers.

This question has opened a whole can of worms, mostly embarrassing to Meralco, which has gone ballistic against its critics for daring to question its math.

As a semipublic utility firm, Meralco can expect to remain vulnerable and must open its books to the questioning public, and sorry na lang if it has skeletons to hide. And this is what is happening now. Meralco has to explain and account for the money it is keeping in trust for millions of Filipino households. 

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The sterling reputation of the Filipino worker has preceded the overseas Filipino workers’ (OFWs) arrival in foreign lands, and now, Canadian employers are in town to personally conduct their interviews of preselected applicants who will be exempted from paying placement fees through licensed manpower agencies and with the cooperation of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.

Similarly, the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba have signed their respective memoranda of understanding with the Department of Labor for the hiring of Filipino workers, together with the province of Saskatchewan, from where the Canadian employers came.

The good news is these Canadian provinces are not only looking at the hiring of local workers for work in Canada, but also for the establishment of long-term business partnerships in view of the country’s expanding economy and strategic strength in the global market. 

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William Esposo’s column of May 22, 2008, in the Philippine Star, “As I Wreck This Chair,” had done me a great injustice. He took a portion of what I said and presented it as the whole of my statement, which resulted in an entirely different meaning altogether.

I did not say that I favor shoot-to-kill orders for the Cabuyao bank-massacre suspects, per se. What I said during that interview was that when the suspects in the Cabuyao massacre are cornered and they put up a fight, it will result in a shoot-to-kill scenario as these robbers are armed and dangerous, and they kill with murderous intent.

This is exactly what happened when one of the suspects resisted arrest and was gunned down by policemen. Because the policemen were defending themselves, as I am sure the relatives of the victims who were mercilessly killed in cold blood will agree.

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Oil prices are soaring and showing no signs of stopping. Already the price of oil has hit more than $135 a barrel, and the energy secretary has predicted that prices may average $200 by 2010.

This is one item that will, without doubt, influence world economy and politics for years to come. Oil is the key factor in almost all sectors, including transportation, food, manufacturing, power and a host of other industries, with downstream effects on transport fares, people and goods movement, prices of consumer goods, wages and governance.

Let’s stop blaming the government for our present predicament, but rather let’s do something concrete to ensure that our democratic system will continue to function despite the challenges it faces. We can only succeed if we work together to succeed.

Tomorrow, at the end of the annual stockholders’ meeting of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), we will know if the Lopez family will still manage the country’s largest power- distribution utility, or if the big block of government shares, led by Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), will prevail.

This one doesn’t have veteran boardroom lawyer Popoy Ricalde in it. That alone indicates it won’t be fought on the merits of performance or anything that pretends to legitimate equity interests. But its pretensions worm deeper where the cistern lies and torpid methane accumulates.

If you are a financial-services practitioner, you will probably agree that this job is not easy. More than a half of the people you will talk to would give you a negative reply, and only a tenth of those you get to talk to will probably buy something that you are offering.

Coast-to-Coast: Open access, SMS and Lozada’s ‘fund’

Word is that the Lopez-led Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) management has enough proxies on top of its 33-percent holdings to thwart any effort of its archcritic, Meralco director and GSIS president Winston Garcia, to engineer any kind of significant overhaul.

The Entrepreneur: Why the property sector remains strong

UNDERSTANDABLY, recent reports about global oil and food crises, as well as the subprime-led slowdown in the United States, have dampened growth forecasts for the Philippines.

Reflections from the Mirror: The challenge we face

The last of the legendary Kennedy brothers is dying. The 76-year-old Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy was found to have a malignant brain tumor, sending a shock wave across the political terrain of America.

William Pesek: China’s ‘tofu buildings’ raise inflation risks

‘Tofu buildings.” That’s what rural Chinese have long called structures thrown up with remarkable speed. They look fine on the outside, but aren’t much sturdier than the bean curd on last night’s dinner table.