Liberalization and Regional Integration: The Philippines’ Strategy for Global Competitiveness

The paper examines the policies pursued by the Philippines in response to the increasing economic integration and interdependence of nations and regions around the world, focusing in particular on the country’s multitrack approach to trade and investment liberalization. The country’s experience points to the importance of domestic policies that foster domestic efficiency and competitiveness before one can participate in regional integration and face global competition. The country first pursued trade and liberalization policies in the 1980s and 1990s to eliminate the inefficiency of domestic industries arising from its past protectionist policies. The unilateral liberation efforts resulted in a better allocation of resources and improvement in the overall competitiveness of domestic industries. The improved competitiveness enabled the country to participate in the 1990s in regional trading arrangements--AFTA and APEC--and in the much bigger WTO. The challenge facing the country now is how to deepen and expand its participation in regional integration as the proliferation of regional trading agreements has brought forth many new competitors for the country, both for its export markets and its sources of foreign direct investment. Areas requiring further reforms are identified to enable the country to realize the full gains from economic integration.competition, competition policy, liberalization, competitiveness

Competitiveness of the Philippine IT Industry: What Lies Ahead

This paper examines the competitiveness of the Philippine information technology (IT) industry vis-à-vis its emerging competitors and neighboring countries in the region. While the industry boasts of being the largest foreign exchange earner for the country, it suffers from structural weaknesses that, unless addressed, render its long-term competitiveness at risk, especially as the competitors are increasing their stake in the world IT market faster than the Philippines. This paper discusses what constraints the industry’s long-term growth and identifies some crosscutting strategies to lessen or overcome such difficulties and keep the industry’s present edge.globalization, information technology (IT)

Liberalization and Deregulation in the Domestic Shipping Industry: Effects on Competition and Market Structure

The author, at the outset of her study on shipping transport, rightly states the importance of this industry in an archipelagic country. However, the industry remains inefficient, despite policy reforms enacted in the 1990s which aimed at liberalizing and deregulating the industry. Though these reforms did improve services through increased competition and the entry of new service providers, this occurs on only a fraction of routes and the largest handful of companies effectively dominate the bigger part of the market, and, in the process, show indications of cartel behavior. The author stresses that the next steps for reform include preparing local shipping firms for the global competition that full liberalization will bring, and which stands to yield hoped-for efficiencies and improvements.competition, liberalization, shipping industry, deregulation, interisland liner shipping industry

Forgery in Cyberspace: The Spoof Could Be on You!

Spoofing is one of the newest forms of cyber-attack, a technological methodology adapted to mask the identity of spammers who have faced hostile reaction in response to bulk, unsolicited, electronic mail messages.[1] Sending Spam, however, is no longer the only reason for deception, as crackers have taken pleasure in the challenge of manipulating computer systems and, additionally, find recreational enjoyment in doing so. In this legal Note, the author’s intent is to show that criminal, rather than civil liability is the best way to effectively deter and punish the spoofer. The injury that results when a computer system’s technological safety measures fail to adequately safeguard the system affects not only the owner of the hijacked e-mail address, but also the Internet Service Provider, and the Network as a whole. Current Anti-Spam Legislation is arguably ineffective at targeting these particular types of malicious attacks, and a different legal approach is suggested

Liberalization and Deregulation in the Domestic Shipping Industry: Effects on Competition and Market Structure

The author, at the outset of her study on shipping transport, rightly states the importance of this industry in an archipelagic country. However, the industry remains inefficient, despite policy reforms enacted in the 1990s which aimed at liberalizing and deregulating the industry. Though these reforms did improve services through increased competition and the entry of new service providers, this occurs on only a fraction of routes and the largest handful of companies effectively dominate the bigger part of the market, and, in the process, show indications of cartel behavior. The author stresses that the next steps for reform include preparing local shipping firms for the global competition that full liberalization will bring, and which stands to yield hoped-for efficiencies and improvements.competition, liberalization, shipping industry, deregulation, interisland liner shipping industry

The context, influences and challenges for undergraduate nurse clinical education: Continuing the dialogue

Introduction – Approaches to clinical education are highly diverse and becoming increasingly complex to sustain in complex milieu Objective – To identify the influences and challenges of providing nurse clinical education in the undergraduate setting and to illustrate emerging solutions. Method: A discursive exploration into the broad and varied body of evidence including peer reviewed and grey literature. Discussion - Internationally, enabling undergraduate clinical learning opportunities faces a range of challenges. These can be illustrated under two broad themes: (1) Legacies from the past and the inherent features of nurse education and (2) Challenges of the present, including, population changes, workforce changes, and the disconnection between the health and education sectors. Responses to these challenges are triggering the emergence of novel approaches, such as collaborative models. Conclusion(s) – Ongoing challenges in providing accessible, effective and quality clinical learning experiences are apparent

Bounds for axially symmetric linear perturbations for the extreme Kerr black hole

We obtain remarkably simple integral bounds for axially symmetric linear perturbations for the extreme Kerr black hole in terms of conserved energies. From these estimates we deduce pointwise bounds for the perturbations outside the horizon.Comment: 15 page

Austria in the COVID-19 Pandemic - Citizens' Satisfaction with Crisis Measures and Communication

Background: We assess satisfaction about various aspects of the 2020 COVID-19 crisis for a representative sample of 1798 respondents living in Austria. Survey questions were added to a previously planned data collection, based on concrete questions discussed at a BKA Clearing Board meeting (Tuesday, 14.04.2020: Subarbeitsgruppe Psycho-Soziale-Effekte im Rahmen von "COVID-19 / Future Operations"). Findings: Overall, people living in Austria are satisfied with the various crisis management elements of the COVID-19 pandemic, as answers are mainly at the positive side of the response scale that ranges from -3 (Very unsatisfied) to +3 (Very satisfied). Citizens are most satisfied with how well they implement the measures of the federal government themselves (and/or their employer) to overcome the Corona crisis, and about how they are able to comply with these measures. In contrast, they are least satisfied with how national media report on the measures (Newspapers, TV, etc.). Splitting-up satisfaction evaluations for gender, age, region, level of education, occupation, or sector of employment does show no or some small (but no substantial) differences for particular subgroups. We can observe an age effect for satisfaction on how others deal with the government's COVID-19 measures. This means: the older people are, the more satisfied they are about how others comply with the COVID-19 measures. Self-employed respondents are least satisfied with how the government is dealing with the crisis and communicating the measures. Students are most satisfied about that. However, it has to be noted that this data is from 17 April to 29 April (2020), which is just before loosening, in a second round, many of the restrictions on small businesses