BoholAnalysis

The COVID 19 pandemic has significantly changed the way we live.   For more than two months now, most of us, by force of governmental regulation, have stayed at home, avoided public and even social gatherings, set aside various recreation activities, and abstained from going to religious services.   These new  patterns of behaviour, regardless of the involuntariness of its nature , have altered not only how we think and do things; they also significantly altered the way we produce and consume things.   Businesses are severely affected by this pandemic.   Mall sales had gone down, not only because they were closed for a while, but also because many people can no longer go there, including children and the elderly, (and those without quarantine passes) even when lockdown rules were relaxed. When religious celebrations were halted, sales for flowers and candles went low.   When borders were locked, revenues of car rental companies, tour guides, and tourism-r...

Since economic reforms started to be implemented in developing countries in the 1980s, there has been a vigorous debate over the nature of the changes brought by market liberalisation and de-regulation, and over their results. As the debates over ‘getting the prices right’ and ‘appropriate incentives’ subsided by the early 1990s, the discussion moved towards, on one hand, the discussion of the role of globalisation in economic restructuring, and, on the other hand, of issues of institution building and good governance. Generally, the literature has focused on issues either at the international, regional, national or sectoral levels. While these debates have generated key insights, relatively little has been said on commodity-specific dynamics of change and on the possibilities (and the limitations) of economic upgrading for developing countries offered by specific markets. In local economies as Bohol, while there were a lot of discussions and interventions in the sphere of agr...

OFWs at the airport. Courtesy of antipinoy.com I sat beside a good friend of mine, a former student, and a former associate of my consulting firm Step Up Consulting Services, in one of my regular plane rides to Bohol one sunny weekend.   We talked about many things but one thing that stayed on me until now is the realisation that several of my students are already out of the country to permanently live and work elsewhere.   She herself is starting her own process of migrating and even encouraged me to do so.   She said, “I already lost hope in this country”. It’s disturbing to hear these statements from exemplary young people whom we need in order to make that big turn-around in this country. It is already even disappointing to see them leave Bohol and work elsewhere as their competencies are those that we need in several public and private entities within the province.   Our human resources are one of our greatest assets and watching Boholanos leave th...