Is there hope for FDI?

A former journalist friend and I were trying to analyze why the masa seem to still be infatuated with Duterte.

- BOO CHANCO

He said he had been asking taxi drivers and waiters the same question and all of them said they felt safer during Duterte's time.

They explained that in their neighborhoods, drug addicts harass them for money to buy more shabu. Those rascals vanished during Duterte's reign of terror but have returned to the streets now.

The new PNP Chief has work to do.

Eric Jurado, a Filipino investment analyst working abroad sent me this message about a new study that has rated countries as to traveler safety. Not surprisingly, it found that, among Asian countries, Singapore is the safest destination to travel to this year.

Also not surprisingly, at the opposite end of the scale is the Philippines, which the study says is not only the least safe country for travelers in Asia for 2025 but also for the rest of the world. Malaysia was rated safe, Vietnam and Thailand were rated not very safe and Indonesia and the Philippines were considered dangerous.

As if to confirm that dismal safety image of the Philippines, Eric sent me the following message a few days later:

"I just read a disturbing passage from a $200 million Singapore-based investment fund's May 2025 letter to its global investors:

'We've added three investments to the fund in May 2025... The Philippines is a relatively new market for us, and we now own shares in two listed companies there. Both have net cash balance sheets; one is ultra cheap with less than 4x earnings and the other is a leader in retail.

'The Philippines is a country and market we know less about and if you were taking a top-down view, based on the politics and the governance, it's a place you'd avoid at all costs.