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With oil prices climbing past US$114 a barrel amid escalating conflict in Iran — and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz at a standstill — here are some measures Asian governments are rolling out to shield their economies from volatility at the fuel pump and rising costs for consumers. #iranwar #oilprices

♬ original sound – CNA – CNA

What did I say last year? Trump will lead the world into recession in 18 months? I hate it when I’m right like this. 🤦🏻‍♀️

The last time oil spiked this high was in 2008, when it hit USD 147 bbl. That brought Philippine Airlines down to its knees because it hedged its jet fuel and lost a lot of money. It filed for bankruptcy later. It took a decade for the flag carrier to emerge from that bankruptcy and… here we are again. 👀

At that time rice prices also spiked and I interviewed Jollibee what it planned to do to keep prices from blowing up. You see, Jollibee is the biggest importer of rice next to the government. We also use the company as bellweather for consumer spending since it caters to a wide market segment. I remember I spent a laborious afternoon computing and comparing Jollibee’s profit margins across several quarters after they released their numbers when inflation hit 9-10.5% for an article on the crisis.

It was a good thing I was driving a Japanese kei car (I miss my Suzuki) that sips gas so I could still afford to drive to work at that time despite my meager salary. It is underpowered but that 800cc engine was a lifesaver during those lean days.

We’re so cooked right now. USD 200 bbl is unthinkable. Net importers like the Philippines should suspend VAT on oil. The Dept of Finance in 2008-2009 had a sliding excise tax mechanism to ease the pain. I’m not confident with the DOF now. 💀

After that inflation crisis, we hit the Great Financial Crisis, a decade after the Asian Financial Crisis.

Are we ripe for another financial crisis? Yep. We will call this the Trump fucking crisis.

I moved furniture around for better Netflix/Youtube bingeing. Twin A suddenly had an urge to do anime marathon yesterday and today we watched some cycling travel Youtube series because I’m still sick. It made our living/dining area feel extra cramped but this way we get to use our TV more.

I told Twin A we could change the dining table into a circular one for better flow but she said she liked thia better. Well, it’s true that a circular table won’t allow you to spread when working on projects.

Donald Trump doesn’t know how to end this war. He was counting that Iran is not going to retaliate so he thought this will end in a few days.

Iran had always threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz but it hasn’t really closed it off in a literal sense. Missiles and mines were just enough to spook tankers, hence, the “tanker war” in the 1980s during the Iran x Iraq war. The US needed to escort tankers that wanted to cross the Strait of Hormuz because the Oil Crisis of the 1970s was not yet a far-off memory that time.

Now Iran is doing the same with drones. Insurance companies do not want to underwrite these tankers that needed to cross the Strait so the shippers decided that it’s not worth the hassle and financial risk. And a little fact check: the US hasn’t escorted any tanker despite claims by Trump administration that the US Navy did.

Such liars, these bastards.

And financially, there’s a reason insurers balked at covering ships through the strait. “Even if you were to offer a subsidized price,” Henagan says, “it’s a war zone. Certain boats are going to sink, and DFC is going to have to pay out the insurance.”

The agency has a finite budget. It can’t feasibly insure “all maritime trade” in the area, he says. Approving applications will also take time, Henagan notes.

And, of course, even if they can get insurance coverage, many companies still won’t want to risk losing their ships. — NPR

Diesel at PHP 100/liter by next week? This is insane!

We only have 30 days of fuel left.

This. This.

A Hiligaynon lullaby sung in an American hospital drama, finally recognizing that Filipinos exist in US healthcare system. My aunts and uncles who migrated to the US were all in healthcare. Isa Briones (who plays Dr. Santos in The Pitt in this video) is the daughter of Jon Jon Briones, The Engineer in Ms Saigon when Lea Salonga was still playing Kim.

The Pitt also have two Pinoy nurses — Perlah and Princess — who gossiped in Tagalog about their colleagues right before their faces. They were even doubting whether the resident doctor, Dr. Santos, was even Pinoy because she’s so white. They just had a hunch that Dr. Santos could understand their chatter.

But this Hiligaynon lullaby cemented that Dr. Santos, indeed, was Pinoy.

The Pitt just recently won an Emmy.

The criticism that ER received years ago was that everyone was white. Where were the Indian doctors? The Pinoy nurses? About a third of foreign-born nurses in the US are Pinoy and 18% of all the nurses in California alone are Filipinos. We keep losing Filipino RNs to US, Europe, and the Middle East. There is also a growing population of healthcare workers in Australia. My cousin-in-law is a nurse in Ireland so my cousin, who had a very good job here, had to quit and follow her husband in Cork, Ireland. A Harvard Medical-graduate cousin of mine is a pediatrician and is still practicing there in Boston together with her Indian physician husband, who also graduated from Harvard.

Finally, a medical drama with some POC.

I’m sick.

The very cold forum venue yesterday did me in. Driving home was an ordeal because I just wanted to go to bed and sleep. My throat hurts.

I need to work. I have published one story and I have one in editing hell. I need to push out two more. 🫠

I wasted gas and toll for this yesterday. Some journo friends and I were trying our best to angle a story from yesterday’s briefing but we really couldn’t force ourselves to produce anything. We didn’t get anything of substance.

However, the more important coverage is today so I decided to book a room at Red Planet so I won’t have to leave home at 4 am the following day just to be here by 7 am.

I don’t want to be stressed by traffic and anxiety over getting to the forum on time.

Because there were no distractions in my sparse hotel room, I was able to write two stories that had been stewing in my to-do list since last week. So in a way booking a hotel room was worth it because I was able to get these things out of the way and not have these nagging at the back of my mind.

After I finished writing, I walked around to see what else was there besides the coffee shop and snack bars at my budget hotel. Uptown Mall and Mitsukoshi are just walking distance. I chose to go to the former to check out which restaurant would interest me.

None.

After a small purchase from an Issy stall, I decided to go back to probably munch on a burger or something. I ended up eating a hotdog sandwich from 7-Eleven because I was just too sleepy to bother with a full meal.

My sis-in-law joined me later at the hotel after an afternoon of “malling” at BGC. She’s still there, comfortable under the covers, making the most of my hotel booking. I left my car at the hotel and just took Grab to the venue so I won’t have to stress over parking problems.

Hoping for better story yield today.

I was getting hits from North America, Europe, and different parts of Asia so I had to go offline for a bit. I don’t like it when I attract a lot of readers.

But I had to blog again because of this madness that Trump x Netanyahu have created. They dragged the entire world into this ego trip. We in the third world countries — just barely hanging on — are now suffering from high cost of fuel prices. Of everything.

The Philippine government even has to implement a 4-day work week to save on electricity and fuel.

This is reminiscent of my grade school days when the first Bush administration started the first Iraq war (a.k.a. Gulf War) of 1990-1991. We had an oil crisis then. We had rotating brownouts then plus fares in public transport suddenly shot up. We had to implement daylight savings time.

And I clearly remember this novelty/pop song hitting the airwaves, which mirrored the sentiment of the Filipino masses at that time.

It’s like history is repeating. It’s always the US that drags us through the dirt, to hell and back.

I’ve been attending fora/conferences and talking to people to feel the pulse, to get the market sentiment. All my stories would have to be guided by how quicker inflation will drive companies’/executives’ decision-making. We are all holding our breaths because we know at the back of our minds this is not going to be over by the end of this week. We know how delulu Trump is.

I hate the Republicans for unleashing Trump to the world.

If I still had my Isuzu Crosswind, I would be paying PHP 80 per liter by the end of this week. Since now I drive a Toyota Avanza, which uses gas, I will be forking around PHP 61 per liter by Friday, which is still pretty hefty as I drive 120 km++ whenever I have work in Metro Manila. I need to be judicious about my drives to Makati or BGC (or anywhere) because we don’t know how long this war will last.

This is just a view from a petty bourgeoise like me.

But if we look at the grand scheme of things, this is like a rock tied on the necks of the daily wage earners whose earnings won’t get a bump anytime soon. I always give tips whenever I can because life is already hard. The waiters, the Grab drivers/delivery guys, and the grocery baggers don’t have much — any help goes a long way.

I remember when I was working only two years after graduating from college, I was only receiving a pitiful salary so every peso counted. If my daily budget goes askew (like the MRT breaks down and I would have to take the bus or an extra jeepney ride), it meant that I had to sacrifice something, like I won’t be able to order this meal because I would be short by 2 pesos. Or I have to buy a no-name shampoo brand because it was cheaper than Pantene or even Palmolive. I lived cheaply because I could not afford anything.

This is why any extra like tips (which would go to their fares or hopefully savings) would really mean a lot to minimum wage earners.

Let’s all be kind to one another during hard times like this.

Because we are on the brink of another world war.