OFFBEAT MAIL

In six weeks time, the US Congress is expected to deliberate on a serious problem that now haunts at least 48 millions Americans without health insurance. Already, President Obama personally wrote a letter addressed to Sen. Ted Kennedy to fix the problem, the MSNBC's Ed Show revealed today. President Obama's appeal to the healthcare committee in Congress came in the wake of reports that 62 percent of Americans had filed bankruptcy protection in various courts because of high medical expenses that they incurred during and after confinement in various hospitals across the country. This joint research study was undertaken by the Harvard Law School and the Harvard Medical School in February 2005, which involved some 1,771 individuals who filed for bankruptcy. According to Prof. Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School, "both doctors and lawyers care about how healthcare is financed, but it was only when we put our heads together that we could probe further. She went to say that...

It's unfortunate that the Secruties and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been transferred under the supervision of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Malacanang must have toying the idea of initiating this move until lately when SEC appeared to have absconded in its regulatlory powers to carefully check on the performance of pre-need companies where millions of policyholders had been duped. SEC used to be under the supervision of the Department of Finance (DoF) a line departmental agency that oversees the activities of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BoC), both tax collecting agencies of the government that are under close scrutiny by the people. The move initiated by the president was timely even to the extent of defeating the real objective of regulating the capital markets in the Philippines. However, many observers have doubts in their minds as to the real motive of the SEC going into the folds of the DTI. Besides, putting the regulatory po...

President Barack Obama today announced the final move the government could do to help General Motors and Chrysler, two of the long established icons in the United States automobile industry for a long time now. The government's intervention to keep them back on their feet again was enlivened by the president's pronouncement over the federal government's plan to avail at least 60 percent in bailout money to help GM undergo complete restructuring , after filing the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. However, the government's assurance of billions in bailout money doesn't mean that their operations will be the same again. That's the beauty of it all. But the ugly part is when GM and Chrysler would be cutting thousands of employees if only to keep their operations going. A test case scenario was already felt by a large number of auto dealers when they got notices for them to close down their outlets owing to the on-going financial turbulence that affected its opera...

The Human Rights Council of the United Nations had released a report which reflected the growing vigilante-style of executions in Davao City, one of the largest cities that is located in the heart of Mindanao. Philip Alston, a UN special rapporteur, claimed in a report published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer that this style of killings has significantly worsened since 2007. Indeed, it is alarming to note that Davao City is the only city in the Philippines whose local government led by Mayor Rod Duterte , a lawyer by profession, is steadfast in its campaign to get rid of bad elements in his local premises. One of the reasons could be that city government wanted to attract investors and the only means to do this is to maintain real peace and order. He always believed that when peace and order is well-maintained, there is no question that the trust of the people is restored. It also means that ordinary citizens can stroll along the streets in the dead of night without being mugged, r...

Unless one has experienced something horrific, he or she wouldn't learn a good lesson. This was what happened to my wife a week after she and my 17-year-old daughter went on a shopping spree at the new SM Shopping Mall in Marikina City. We have resided in Marikina City for more than 25 years now. It's here where all my children were born, raised and educated. All those years, I had learned to like Marikina City, the shoe capital of the Philippines, because the local government is doing its role in so far as the delivery of basic services are concerned. This is not to mention the peace and order situation in the city. On weekends, I'd find myself jogging along its pristine and well-paved lanes along the river that stretches between Calumpang district down to the big Riverbank Shopping Mall in Barangka . Then, the unexpected came like a bolt of lightning. My wife was fitting a pair of shoes at one of the stores inside the shopping mall when she decided to put down her han...

Next week, General Motors is expected to file bankruptcy protection, a move that appeared to be inevitable but has to be done after it has failed to come up with the appropriate solutions to the on-going problems that beset the company. Of course, it was not a welcome news for the United Auto Workers union whose thousands of members are expected to be out of job for a long while. Until the sad fate of the auto companies are resolved in due course, a large number of auto workers and their families will be like floating in the clouds of doubts. In fact, those auto dealers who were unexpectedly closed due to these unfolding events could only heave in disgust considering that thousands of workers would be out of work, adding to the already double digit unemployment rate in the country's labor markets. What happened to GM and Chrysler was unexpected. This only goes to show that American automakers are really in a quandary as to what to do in order to break the spell that now hounds th...

At least, some 48 million United States residents do not have health insurance. This is not to include others who are insured but do not have sufficient health coverage to free them from the exorbitant medical expenses incurred when they are admitted to private hospitals for emergency purposes. The problem will get even much worse once the U.S. Congress deliberates and approves the huge budget cuts on Medicaid that the federal government had envisioned for the period covering this year until 2012, says a think-tank policy report. It is expected that it will take a serious toll on millions of patients whose only option is to avail of free medical benefits from the government.The new proposal, now being deliberated in the U.S. Congress, will allow the transfer of Medicaid funds totalling $24.7 billion over the next five years and $60.9 billion in the next ten years from the federal budget to the state coffers, says the Center on Policy and Budget Priorities. The Center is one of the nat...