OFFBEAT MAIL

Who would ever think that Philippines' President-elect Rody Duterte would behave in a manner that appeared to be presidential the day he took his oath as the 16th president of the Republic of the Philippines on June 30 in Malacanang Palace? Oath-taking of President-elect Rody Duterte in the presidential palace in Manila on June 30. Photo: ABS-CBN With his trademark as a foul-mouthed and fond of incendiary statements that could be misinterpreted as out of civility and at times, demeaning to one's rationality, President Duterte just did what he promised a couple of weeks back that he'd change for the better when he sets foot in the presidential palace. Wearing a simple long-sleeve barong tagalog , which was made and designed by local designers in Davao City, and a brown corduroy pair of pants that was matched with a ordinary black pair of shoes, Duterte calmly and confidently walked the red carpeted aisles leading to where the outgoing President Benigno Aquino III wa...

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Bond yields in most emerging East Asian markets continued to track lower from 1 March to 15 May 2016 as investors factored in forecasts of continued slow growth for the global economy, Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) latest Asia Bond Monitor said. At the same time, the US Federal Reserve’s cautious approach to keep interest rates steady in its first three meetings in 2016 led to positive inflows in a number of emerging East Asian local currency government bond markets between January and April. Domestic equity markets and emerging East Asian currencies were mostly stronger over the review period, while credit default swap spreads fell, reflecting reduced perceptions of default risk in the region. “The outlook for emerging East Asian bonds remains mostly benign given still strong fundamentals and interest in the region, however, there are downside risks, including the possibility that quicker than expected US Federal Reserve interest rate hikes trigger a foreign...

President-elect Atty. Rodrigo Duterte. Courtesy: Ryan Lim, Malacanang Photo Bureau On June 30, 2016, incoming President Rodrigo "Duterte Harry" Duterte will be sworn in as the  16 th president of the Republic of the Philippines, replacing former President Benigno Aquino III, who will step down after serving for six years of his term; leaving a legacy of reviving the country's anemic economic growth into what's considered by economic pundits as one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, if not the world. Latest data showed the Philippines have notched a 6.9% in GDP, against China's only 6.7% last year. And many foreign investors have set their eyes on pouring in their investments into the country, even as the newly-elected President Duterte's  announcement recently that he wouldn't allow factories to be set up in the National Capital Region, otherwise known as Metro Manila, anymore. Understandably, the newly-elected leader has expressed c...

What will OPEC do if it runs out of revenues from the huge sales of petroleum products in the open markets? OPEC headquarters in Vienna, Austria If this happens, the likely scenario is that OPEC, which is the second biggest supplier of petroleum products to the United States, will feel the harsh impacts of declining revenues from oil exports. Alone, the United States imports about 3.24 million barrels of oil per day from OPEC, which accounts to 35 percent of the total gross imports in 2014, reveals by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The EIA adds that this volume is slight lower than what the United States buys from Canada, which is estimated at 3.39 million barrels of oil per day, or 37 percent of the gross total imports. However, this scenario is slowly changing after the United States Congress enacted the 2007 Energy Independence and SecurityAct, which was intended to reduce the U.S. energy dependence from the Middle East after 9/11, says Bloomberg Businesswee...

Engr. Aisa Mijeno meets with President Obama and Jack Ma of  Alibaba.com. at the APEC CEO Summit in Manila. Photo: philnews.ph Engr. Aisa Mijeno didn't have time to figure it out until she paid a visit to a remote village in Mt. Province in the Philippines. At the touch of dusk, she had noticed that all the homes in that upland community were engulfed in total darkness. Then, she promised to herself that she would invent a lamp that wouldn't use kerosene, a common fuel for unsafe traditional lamps in the hinterland areas in the country. But kerosene lamps can burn down houses made of light and native materials that are readily available in the uplands. When she went back home, Mijeno tried to polish her new invention. Voila, she made it. She thought her problem would end there. Instead, she was faced with the lack  of money to finance her new project, which is to mass-produce the saltwater-fed lamp intended for the homes in upland communities in the Philippines. It t...

A CCTV catches footage of a killing in Paris. The discovery by French police of a foreign passport reportedly belonging to a Syrian reinforces notions that the suspects in Friday's killing of at least 120 people, including a CSU student, may have planned it prior to the mass exodus of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Libya. What's my perception on this prior to the killing spree that took place the second time around in France is that the killings were properly planned. After the botched attempt by a lone gunman using an AK47 rifle aboard a train, which led to the suspect being toppled down by three American servicemen, the killing in Paris graced newspaper headlines, thus shocking the international communities. According to an Los Angeles Times report (Nov. 15): "The document raised the possibility that Islamic State militants have made good on their threat to enter and attack Europe from within the wave of Syrian refugees." If they (suspects) indeed had infil...

PH Pres. Benigno Aquino III inspects APEC venue. Photo: Malacanang In one of its front page trivia, the Philippines News Agency came out with a news dispatch which states that the 21 world leaders who are set to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Manila on November 17, 2015, would be using fixed chairs, instead of the normal swivel chairs that allow the leader to have the freedom to turn around whenever he wants to do so during formal sessions. Admittedly, this news story is new. And this is the first time that a host country like the Philippines has used this new strategy to perhaps, curtail the bad mannerism of a particular world leader. To some, this might be misconstrued as an unacceptable imposition of something beyond human rational behavior. If it is, I simply don't agree with this view. What is really the essence why the host country decides to deviate from using the usual swivel chair? In his words, Philippines' Communication Secretar...