Yellow Pad By Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III THE rationalization of fiscal incentives is a long-overdue reform. It is a necessary reform for several reasons. The current regime of incentives has resulted in the loss of huge potential revenues every year. In 2016 alone, the foregone revenues amounted to P178.56 billion. The Philippines has […]
Yellow Pad By Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III Rodrigo Duterte’s 2018 State of the Nation Address (SONA) addressed a lot of issues. And depending on your values, beliefs and advocacy, one would either slam Duterte or begrudgingly recognize parts of his reform agenda. But it is not merely a question of counting what is […]
Yellow Pad By Roberto Verzola A previous piece identified one serious flaw in the DoE’s Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) 2016-2040: the DoE still assumes that baseload plants will retain their 70% share in the electricity mix until 2040. This will not happen. Steadily dropping solar prices will make market-driven solar penetration inevitable. The rising solar […]
Yellow Pad By Roberto Verzola Over the past four decades, solar photovoltaic (PV) prices have been dropping by an average of 9% per year. As a result, rooftop solar is the cheapest daytime source of electricity today in many countries. In the Philippines, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from solar rooftops has gone below […]
Yellow Pad By Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III The World Bank has come out with a Philippine poverty assessment report titled Making Growth Work for the Poor (2018). It works on the assumption, now an adage, that growth is a necessary but insufficient condition to reduce poverty. The publication has loads of information, drawn […]
Yellow Pad By Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III Some quarters led by politicians (it doesn’t matter whether the politicians are pro-administration or anti-administration) have called for the suspension of the increase in the fuel excise tax brought about by the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN). Senator Bam Aquino is the most outspoken […]