Oil. Liquid gold. The lifeblood of the economy. Oil, perhaps, is one of the most prized of all the natural resources available to us. It is said that he who controls the oil, controls the world. In a way this is true because without the continuous flow of oil into one country the development of that country would cease. Our dependence on this very limited slowly depleting natural resource is not only scary but should also be a source of concern. What would happen if one day this precious liquid suddenly runs dry? What would become of our industry? What would become of our economy? Production, development, progress, everything would be as if it's all for naught. It would be like we're back in the stone age.
Even now that we have it in abundance, we can feel how dependent we are on it. Oil prices direct our every move. When the price of oil in the global market rises, the prices of all other products and services increase. If you watch the news, almost everyday you would hear the words "oil price hike." Those three dreaded words can set me to the edge of my seat, three seemingly innocent words send my blood to a boil.
What is absurd about this is the fact that the price of oil on the market is not directed by the basic concepts in economics, like the law of supply and demand. No. It's controlled by some great super powers who are above the mere mortals still directed by laws. Our dependence on oil is what gives them this power. Our only hope for salvation from these petty (but global) crooks is to find an efficient and effective substitute for energy source but for now, "he who controls the oil..."
Source:
GMA News TV Saksi: Oil Price Hike
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
here is our pictures and our video (:
our pics from practice to the drama presentation (:
here is our video presentation (:
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
group 1 drama synthesis (:
Our first idea for the play was to show the relationship between buyers and sellers. But with some thought, we have decided that this may be too broad for a couple-of-minute play, so we limited our topics to:
1. How elasticity affects the sale of a particular market;
2. The behavior of sellers, especially when trying to get customers to buy from them;
3. The factors which affect buyers’ decision (e.g. price, price of the related good, quality of product, budget, taste, and expectation); and
4. A monopolistically competitive market.
Because we want to make it as realistic as possible but at the same time simple to understand, fun, and a bit musical, we decided to do it in a simple way, setting the play in a “tiyangge” and putting two stalls for blouses and another two for pants which represents the market for blouses and pants. We placed two for each to represent the many sellers for both markets, which, at first look, might sell the same products but has slight difference/s when looked closely (monopolistically competitive markets).. To make it more fun and more realistic, we all decided that sellers should do exaggerated things to sway the buyers to buy their products, just like what we experience in “tiyangges”. And to show that the buyers consider factors when buying, the dialogues between the buyers, and between the buyers and sellers showed that their budget, the price of the items they were eying, the price of the related product from the other stall, and other factors have effects on their decision as to what to buy and where to buy. On our play we have, hopefully, also showed that the more elastic a product, the less the sellers would earn if they raise the prices. That is why “tawad” in “tiyangges” are very much visible in our play, emphasizing that because the products sold are elastic -- substitutes are readily available -- a slight change in the price or in other factors would greatly affect the buyers’ decision in buying that particular product.
Here are some additional points we hope we made clear in our play:
1. Market is a Place for Decision Making
As we all know by now, market is a group of buyers and sellers of a particular good or service. And in a market, decision-making is inevitable not only for the part of the buyers, but also for the sellers. In our play we showed this by portraying buyers arguing with their selves, with each other, or with the sellers to help them decide what to buy, and factors such as those already mentioned above playing in their minds which also helped decide what kind of pants or blouse to buy and what stall to buy from. In the sellers’ part, we showed that they too are deciding by portraying that sellers make moves such as serenading their possible customers (which doesn’t happen much in the real world, but you get our point) and lowering the prices of their goods, which requires decision-making, to attract those possible customers to buy their product instead of their competitor’s.
2. Sellers are Risk takers
As you can see, in our play sellers would do pretty much anything to persuade the buyers to buy their product – serenading them in public and embarrassing themselves, giving the customers discounts, and, sometimes, even lie to the buyers about their products just so they can sell them. They are risk takers because they need to sell their products to earn money.
3. Learning is an Earning.
This line stresses the importance of learning economics and the application of it in the real life. We may not learn it from the inside of a classroom or in a proper place, but learning it from the street or just the principles of it is a great learning for all of us.
1. How elasticity affects the sale of a particular market;
2. The behavior of sellers, especially when trying to get customers to buy from them;
3. The factors which affect buyers’ decision (e.g. price, price of the related good, quality of product, budget, taste, and expectation); and
4. A monopolistically competitive market.
Because we want to make it as realistic as possible but at the same time simple to understand, fun, and a bit musical, we decided to do it in a simple way, setting the play in a “tiyangge” and putting two stalls for blouses and another two for pants which represents the market for blouses and pants. We placed two for each to represent the many sellers for both markets, which, at first look, might sell the same products but has slight difference/s when looked closely (monopolistically competitive markets).. To make it more fun and more realistic, we all decided that sellers should do exaggerated things to sway the buyers to buy their products, just like what we experience in “tiyangges”. And to show that the buyers consider factors when buying, the dialogues between the buyers, and between the buyers and sellers showed that their budget, the price of the items they were eying, the price of the related product from the other stall, and other factors have effects on their decision as to what to buy and where to buy. On our play we have, hopefully, also showed that the more elastic a product, the less the sellers would earn if they raise the prices. That is why “tawad” in “tiyangges” are very much visible in our play, emphasizing that because the products sold are elastic -- substitutes are readily available -- a slight change in the price or in other factors would greatly affect the buyers’ decision in buying that particular product.
Here are some additional points we hope we made clear in our play:
1. Market is a Place for Decision Making
As we all know by now, market is a group of buyers and sellers of a particular good or service. And in a market, decision-making is inevitable not only for the part of the buyers, but also for the sellers. In our play we showed this by portraying buyers arguing with their selves, with each other, or with the sellers to help them decide what to buy, and factors such as those already mentioned above playing in their minds which also helped decide what kind of pants or blouse to buy and what stall to buy from. In the sellers’ part, we showed that they too are deciding by portraying that sellers make moves such as serenading their possible customers (which doesn’t happen much in the real world, but you get our point) and lowering the prices of their goods, which requires decision-making, to attract those possible customers to buy their product instead of their competitor’s.
2. Sellers are Risk takers
As you can see, in our play sellers would do pretty much anything to persuade the buyers to buy their product – serenading them in public and embarrassing themselves, giving the customers discounts, and, sometimes, even lie to the buyers about their products just so they can sell them. They are risk takers because they need to sell their products to earn money.
3. Learning is an Earning.
This line stresses the importance of learning economics and the application of it in the real life. We may not learn it from the inside of a classroom or in a proper place, but learning it from the street or just the principles of it is a great learning for all of us.
 |
| Group 1 cutie economists :) |
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Why does poverty persist in the Philippines?
The Philippines have been suffering from poverty problem and it continues to exist until today. There have been a lot of alleviation programs introduced by the government but the dilemma keeps on emerging.
The economic problem of Philippine government persists to surface in the society and it is sometime very tiresome to imagine. It gives too much headache not just to the Philippine government but also to the whole Filipino people.
The problem on poverty has been blame to lack of political will of those officials running the government office in uplifting the people's lives from financial scarcity. Some have pinpointed it to lack of business investors from both local and foreign capitalists. While other says that it is due to rampant criminality that happened everyday in the different parts of the country. Many utters that Filipinos are lazy and lacks the required education and if educated the course being taken are not appropriate to jobs available in the market.
People's ideas and opinion are proportionally divided. But what is really the real issue why poverty continues to devastate the majority of the Filipinos?
Here are some of the many reasons which I believe contributes a lot to poverty situation of the Philippines.
Economic debt - the swelling amount of debts of the Philippine government from both local and foreign lenders makes the poverty situation getting worst. Every year the Philippine government has paying billion of pesos on the interest and on the principal amount of obligations. In the debts record of the Bureau of Treasury of the Philippines for the calendar year 2009, the external or foreign debt reached P 1,926,599,000,000.00 (1.93 trillion pesos). On the other hand, the internal or domestic debt reached to P2,470,040,000,000.00 (2.47 trillion pesos). In total, the Philippines have a combined debt of P4,396,639,000,000.00 (4.40 trillion pesos). The "National Government Debt Service" for the same year reached about P622,287,000,000.00 (622.30 billion pesos).
Corruption is also in the top list that makes poverty one of great social predicaments of the Philippines. The practice of corruption contributes immensely in dragging the Filipinos into poverty. Because of the greedy ambition of some leaders in the government many have suffer from too much financial insufficiency.
There are still a lot of reasons that makes poverty persist in the Philippines. The above example is just a few of the many explanation why the economic shortage always ahead of the Filipinos. But no matter how the Philippine' people is devastated by this social predicaments. There is still hope that Filipinos can hurdle the present social dilemma that strongly blocks the economic prosperity of the Philippines.
Cesar E. Gealogo, RC, Police Officer 3, Published Author |
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5892409
Poverty exist in the Philippines because of some factors. It is a big problem here in the Philippines, I strongly believe that fighting poverty is not enough, however. Poverty is not something that exists solely in the material world. It is also a concept that persists in the minds of the people, therefore a renewing of the mind is needed to change the culture of poverty here in the Philippines.
Poverty is a mindset that we have to cast away. Once we remove the delineation that exist in our society then we can move on and achieved what is truly essential,the knowledge that we are the shapers of our lives, we are the captains of our future.
Poverty is a mindset that we have to cast away. Once we remove the delineation that exist in our society then we can move on and achieved what is truly essential,the knowledge that we are the shapers of our lives, we are the captains of our future.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Land Redistribution in the Philippines
The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)
By Neil Jerome C. Morales
The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was a land reform law mandated by Republic Act No. 6657, signed by President Corazon Aquino on June 10, 1988. It was the fifth land reform law in fifty years, following the land reform laws of Presidents Manuel Quezon, Ramon Magsaysay, Diosdado Macapagal and Ferdinand Marcos.
According to RA 6657, CARP aims “for a more equitable distribution and ownership of land.” It meant to distribute lands to farmers in a span of 10 years, but was extended by the 11th Congress due to delays in land distribution and lack of budget allocation.
Section 3 of RA 6657 defined agrarian reform as the “redistribution of lands, regardless of crops or fruits produced, to farmers and regular farm workers who are landless” and “all other arrangements alternative to the physical redistribution of lands, such as production or profit-sharing, labor administration and the distribution of shares of stock which will allow beneficiaries to receive a just share of the fruits of the lands they work.”
Vast agricultural lands are distributed to the farmers tilling the land, whereas only a maximum of five hectares can be retained by the landlords, and three hectares for each of their children.
However, a common CARP loophole was that landlords escaped relinquishing their lands through land reclassifications. Lands classified by local zoning ordinances as residential, commercial and industrial lands are excluded from CARP.
SOURCE:
Department of Agrarian Reform website, http://www.dar.gov.ph
The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program is an excellent and a wise act because it gives the farmers their right to cultivate their own land. It is their right to have their equal share, so that no person can oppress them. But unfortunately many Filipinos didn't obey this act some of them are voracious they don't give what the farmers should have. In some countries CARP is progressive they give what the farmers should have it is sad to know that here in our country this simple act cannot be done by our fellow Filipino residents. They are afraid that there property will be shared, they want their property for their own good.
They don't realized how the farmers need this property, they need it to sustain their economic problem. So that they can help their family and so they can send their children to school. As what I have observed children of farmers just graduated in High School they did not enter college because of financial problem. So many of them as early as 17 years old entered married life, they don't have dreams to pursue because of this problem. Even if they have personal dreams they cannot proceed because of financial problem.
If they obey these kind of act many Filipino can leave there old boring life to new ones because of the opportunity given to these people, they will have their own properties and live the life they wanted to be.
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