Equity

We were one with the two most established telecommunications company, Globe and Smart, when they cried predator pricing against Sun Cellular’s unlimited call and unlimited text promo about two years ago.

I find it unacceptable for banks to make so much profit when the economy is in bad shape. It implies that their fees are excessive. They charge 9 ½ percent today for commercial loans while they pay only 3.75 percent for a time deposit. The banks’ spread is too big.

OUR FOREFATHERS who wrote our first Constitution already foresaw the abuse of the people’s money such as that done by the board of trustees of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) and other government-owned or controlled corporations. These trustees (who cannot be trusted) find it hard to resist the temptation to take advantage of…

MANILA, Philippines – Power utility giant Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) yesterday said its net income surged 50 percent to P4.8 billion in the first half of 2010 from P3.2 billion in the same period last year on higher revenues from electricity sales.

MANILA, Philippines – The aggregate net earnings of listed firms in the first quarter this year surged 113.9 percent on improved performances across all sectors, data released by the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) showed.

PHILIPPINE policymakers and other developing-country planners must rewrite their economic plans into what the Asian Development Bank (ADB) calls “inclusive growth,” or the scaling down of the gap between the rich and the poor. This, the bank further said, is usually masked by economic advances even in countries like the United States and even more…

MANILA, Philippines—Who are the rich? Are they the ones who go to Belo for specialized services? Driving a Lexus, BMW and the like? How rich is rich? Do they also eat galunggong (round scad) and NFA rice like most of us? And do they pay taxes? How much?

THE number of rich Filipinos shrank over the last 10 years mostly because of rising expenses, the National Statistical Coordination (NSCB) said on Wednesday.

PHILIPPINE banks spent an increasingly large amount of their earnings in 2009 for executive pay, the package having grown by more than 10 percent during the year to P74.4 billion, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Friday.

COMBINED profits of listed companies ballooned by more than three-fourths to P357.84 billion last year due mainly to one-time gains and some improvements in performance, the stock exchange said yesterday.

While the country debated health care reform in the first quarter of 2010, the nation’s five biggest insurance companies saw their profits soar, raised consumers’ premiums, offered fewer benefits and lost 2.8 million customers, mostly because consumers could no longer afford their plans, according to a new report from Health Care for America Now (HCAN).

Companies based in the Philippines took out more than $5 billion in 2009 to repay their debt or lend to other companies abroad.

The screeching opposition came out crowing the other week over an observation by the President’s economic adviser, the redoubtable Governor Joey Salceda, that hunger has gone up from 11.4 percent in 2002—the year before President Arroyo took office—to 20.3 percent by 2009.

MANILA, Philippines – Wealthy Filipinos spend more than rich Singapore and Hong Kong residents do, especially every month on groceries, travel and utilities payment, a survey by payments technology firm Visa International Inc. revealed.

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang admitted yesterday that hunger incidence has increased since President Arroyo assumed power in 2001, but said this could be the “only major sore spot in a sea of good news about the President’s economic legacy.”

Salceda: Rich also became richer MANILA, Philippines—The rich have gotten richer, but the ranks of the poor have expanded amid the economic growth since 2001, an economic adviser of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Sunday.

MANILA, Philippines – Lakas-Kampi-CMD standard bearer Gilbert Teodoro Jr. vowed to make economic growth trickle down to the grassroots level if he gets elected as the next president of the Philippines.

PARIS—Humans may have a selfish gene but we also experience satisfaction in sharing out the goodies, even if this means giving away some of our own, according to an unusual study released on Wednesday.

MANILA, Philippines – Total savings in the Philippines retreated by more than three percent during the height of the global financial and economic downturn as well as soaring commodity prices in 2008.

They get the most of what there is to get Our elite of power and wealth are extremely diverse. Their members range from the genteel remnants of the colonial hacendero families to the grossest political-warlord clans such as the Ampatuans of Maguindanao, who are accused of slaughtering 57 people in just one morning.

DATA showing that the profits of listed firms surged by at least 60 percent in the first nine months of the year don’t lend much confidence in near-term prospects. According to the Philippine Stock Exchange, asset sales and cost-cuts were largely responsible for the positive margins.

While most economies and peoples worldwide are going through hard times, there’s no stopping Manila’s rich and famous from enjoying the good life, a new survey shows. “Affluent consumers in Manila continued to spend despite the recession in the past year,” according to the findings of the 2009 PAX survey conducted by market intelligence firm…

MANILA – While everyone else was cutting expenses and beefing up savings amid the economic downturn, affluent consumers in Manila were on a spending binge, according to a survey by global market intelligence company Synovate.

People nowadays expect the state to guarantee a measure of social equity—to help the needy and to prevent undue discrepancies of wealth. Social progress has come to be measured by the spread of distributive justice. And this a society achieves when no individual in it lacks the critical minimum of material means that the society…

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. — Henry David Thoreau The real source of wealth and capital in this new era is not material things… it is the human mind, the human spirit, the human imagination, and our faith in the future.— Steve Forbes

Henry Sy is once again the country’s richest person. MANILA, Philippines – Many of the country’s tycoons have gotten richer. In the Forbes magazine edition released Aug. 26, retail magnate Henry Sy, once again the country’s richest person, was the biggest gainer.

According to the 2009 Forbes Asia Philippines Rich List that ranked 40 of the wealthiest in the Philippines, mall mogul Henry Sy remained to be the country’s wealthiest with a net worth of $3.8 billion. Sy is the chairman and founder of the SM Group of Companies.

A million pesos spent on a single dinner sounds obscene, I know. The thought is probably incomprehensible to some people who scrimp on everything or live very simple lives; appalling to those who don’t even know where their next meal is coming from. How can someone—or even a group of 25—spend all that much money…

The recent outcry against the $20,000 dinner of the Arroyos’ at Le Cirque reminds me of a dinner that was given in honor of Jesus Christ:

Profits of listed companies declined at a slower pace during the first three months of the year, according to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).