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Announcement

Climate Justice Conference
12-14 July 2008
Bangkok, Thailand

Focus on the Global South is co-organizing a conference on climate justice from July 12-14 2008 in Bangkok. The conference aims to bring together civil society organizations, networks and movements from across Asia to collectively discuss and learn about climate change issues and bring new perspectives and analyses to the climate debates from local/national movements and organisations.

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The Development Rountable Series (DRTS) Thematic Working Groups on Trade and Industrial Policy and Agrarian Reform and Rural Development invite you to:

Trabaho, Saka, Pangisdaan, Negosyo: Ramdam mo ba ang asenso?
on Thursday, July 10, 9 am - 5 pm UP SOLAIR Auditorium

To view full details click here

Internship Announcement

The Development Roundtable Series (DRTS), a project that aims to provide space for building alternative policy options and instruments on various developmental issues, opens its 2008 Summer Volunteer/Internship Program. The internship is designed to provide exciting opportunities and exposure to highly-motivated college students, graduate students and fresh university graduates.
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DRTS Invitation: Trabaho, Saka, Pangisdaan, Negosyo: Ramdam mo ba ang asenso?


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DRTS Foreign Policy : Change You Can Believe in?

The Implications of Post-Bush United States Foreign Policy on the Philippines

with

DR. JIM GLASSMAN
Department of Geography
University of British Columbia

5 to 7 pm, 3 July 2008, Thursday at the new Focus conference room
19 Maginhawa St., UP Village, Diliman, QC

Hypocritical response to rising prices

By Nepomuceno Malaluan*

(The article first appears in the Yellow Pad column of the BusinessWorld, Vol. XXI, No. 234 on Monday, June 30, 2008. It is based on the author's comments delivered during the DRTS Forum on Oil and Power.)

We consumers are all feeling the pinch of rising prices. For May 2008, the inflation rate year- on-year shot up to 9.6%, compared to 2.4% last year. Such drastic increase has been due in large part, directly and indirectly, to the rise in petroleum prices and the high cost of electricity.

Directly, as a commodity group, inflation for fuel, light, and water was 8.2% in May 2008, compared to 4.0% last year. Indirectly, rising energy prices have driven the prices of major commodities upward. Inflation for services was 7.8% for the same period, compared to 1.9% last year. More severely, inflation for food, beverages, and tobacco shot up to 13.7% for May this year, from 2.6% last year.

The poor among us must be feeling the pinch more intensely. For the 4.6 million families (representing 28% of total families) earning under P60,000 per year or under P5,000 per month in 2003, between 6.5 and 7.5% of their expenditures went to fuel, light, and water, compared to 6.0% for the 2.3 million families (14% of total families) earning over P250,000 per year.