Alex Magno

The past few weeks, our diplomatic relations with China appear to have deteriorated into a war of angry press releases, spiced with travel bans.

Scrutinize. Scrutinize. Scrutinize. The Marcos administration is proposing a staggering P7.2-trillion national budget for 2027.

On top of it all, our politics has become irredeemably polarized. The atmosphere is poisoned. The air is thick with hate.

First things first. What happened was not an upgrade by any measure. The World Bank (WB) has merely reclassified us into an “upper-middle

There is a sense that our political sphere will heat up rapidly the next few days. If this were a musical piece, we are approaching a crescendo.

When fuel prices spiked after Iran was attacked, we heard the usual suspects air the worn-out populist demand that government withdraw revenue measures imposed on energy products.

Adecade after, there seems to be less enthusiasm about our “winning” at the arbitral tribunal to settle our maritime claims.

For several days now, US military forces have been bombing targets all along the southern Iranian coast.

We have not been optimizing whatever advantages we have sitting as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year.

Buckle up. Donald Trump appears bent on dealing the global economy the same shock we experienced last March.