BM Broader Look

ONE and zero.

These two binary digits have been, and still are, the building blocks of a new way of doing business after the nation’s leaders ordered the lockdown of territorial borders and forced people to close doors to neighbors and friends. The economy went into entropy.

June is Pride month, and as emphasized in my previous article, there are many important things to protest; Pride is a protest before anything, after all. Still, Pride is also a celebration. We celebrate not only our existence, but also our progress—a reminder that our protests work, even one step at a time.

TWO years ago, then central bank Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. set out to put the country shoulder to shoulder with 14 nations in the world. It was a noble ambition.

The impetus came along with the release of the World Bank’s comprehensive database on global financial inclusion. The 2017 Global Findex database, a data set that is published every three years, showed that the Philippines has one of the weakest financial inclusion coverages in the region, as reflected by the low account-penetration in its adult population.

United States foreign policy has been a bit schizophrenic since its founding. In his Farewell Address—published in 1796—George Washington warned against “foreign entanglements.” Washington argued to avoid long-term friendly relations or rivalries with any nation, and that alliances were likely to draw the US into wars that have no justification.

Welcome to Breaktime Musings with BM, a segment of the BusinessMirror BM Broader Look podcast, which features stories from the fringes of business and economy.

Today’s podcast celebrates World Bicycle Day by putting a spotlight on two riders of folding bikes: Coi Castillo and Herbert Nacion.

THEY saw Maria Clara.

And a marketing agency said she’s no longer the woman Jose Rizal embodied in his opus “Noli Me Tangere.”

Owing to those whose bood drenched the road to freedom, today’s women now have a choice: go to school or not; vote or boycott; bear children or not; and, run for office or against officials.

“Maria Clara used to simply accept her fate. Today, the Filipina’s actions are driven by her own motivations. She takes charge of her life and she feels proud to be herself, a study by the local operations of Wunderman Thompson LLC said in a recent study published on “The Modern Filipina.”

IF you studied history, humanity has always been on the brink of “doomsday.” Maybe there is something in the human psyche, like the fear of being eaten by a saber-tooth tiger, which keeps us on edge.

Maybe reinforcing potential doom is a survival mechanism that keeps us on guard. Other mammals have developed acute senses like hearing or sight that automatically kick in to recognize and react against danger.