With his first budget statement to Congress President Aquino proposes a nearly 20% increase in the education budget from 175 billion pesos to 207 billion. This coupled with a nearly 20 billion peso increase or near tripling of the 4P’s or the conditional cash transfer program aimed at 2.3 million indigent families to improve school attendance represents a significant investment in the human capital of the nation. For all intents and purposes, we can call this an education budget. Let us now examine why.

As the US and Europe brace for tough times ahead, the economic managers in the Philippines unveiled their expectations for an acceleration of growth from 6-7% for CY’s 2010 and 2011. The means by which they hoped to achieve such a feat which is 2-3 percentage points above the past decade’s trajectory of 4%? Well assuming the rest of the economy maintains its recent rate of expansion (doubtful given the dour state of the world economy), this gap would be achieved through PPP’s or public-private partnerships in infrastructure brought on by an improved investment climate.

Unfortunately, even if the government were able to exceed its targets and spur economic growth of 9% a year up to 2020, the rate needed to double average incomes in a population which is itself growing by close to 2% annually, we would only have attained the same level of income that Thailand had reached in 2006/07.

The Senate will organize technical working groups (TWG) to study the proposal to add two years to the current 10-year basic education system in the country, Senator Edgardo Angara said on Thursday.
Angara said he will …

Luistro: It’s go for 12-yr basic ed plan
By Regina Aguilar, Inquirer Visayas
Philippine Daily Inquirer
CEBU CITY, Philippines—Despite the opposition from various sectors, the Department of Education (DepEd) will soon implement …

The problem of the pilots at Philippine Airlines (PAL) is a signal of things to come, not just among professional occupations but in the broader sections of the labor market as well.

2010 SONA President Benigno S. Aquino III
State of the Nation Address
of His Excellency
Benigno S. Aquino III
President of the Philippines
to the Congress of the Philippines
Session Hall of the House of Representatives
July 26, 2010
[Batasan Pambansa Complex, …

Speech by Senator Benigno S. “Noynoy” Aquino III delivered on January 21, 2010 before the members of the Makati Business Club at the Peninsula Manila Hotel, Makati City
Four-part video of the speech, courtesy of NoyTV …

Transcript of Sen. Benigno S. “Noynoy” Aquino’s answers during the Makati Business Club (MBC) open forum, following his delivery of “A Philippines That Works: Economic Vision and Platform“, January 21, 2010
Four-part video of the open …