ON February, the PSA reported a national inflation rate for the month of January 2018 was at 4 percent, the highest after 39 months. Inflation may be described as phenomenon where the average prices of consumer goods and services in the economy are increasing.
The initial implementation of TRAIN may have caused this spike in the average prices, according to BSP Gov. Espenilla, but he adds that this may only be temporary and more likely to be stabilized soon.
The rule of the thumb for inflation rate is somewhere between 2.5 to 4 percent. The above-reported national inflation rate is on the upper limit, but still acceptable. The inflation rate at NCR is on the high-side at 5.4 percent; other areas outside the capital are at 3.5 percent levels.
*****
Amendments are proposed by the Finance Department on the Tax Incentives Management and Transparency Act (TIMTA). These proposals seek allow more benefits data including those from investments, employment, export sales, and corporate research and development. This move may be considered as a supply-side policy affecting the firms’ productivity or output.
Finance undersecretary Karl Chua disclosed that in 2015, the government lost P300 billion in revenues from a wide array of tax benefits (like income tax holidays, special rates and exemptions) and perks enjoyed by big corporations. A review board will be tasked to perform cost-benefit analysis on the incentives enjoyed by firms; essentially standardizing the benefits or perks enjoyed by the firms.
This will basically make the collection of corporate income taxes more fairly. This move is more likely to result to the decrease of fiscal benefits enjoyed by firms, consequently increasing the firms’ taxable income, which is the basis for computing the corporate income tax. The lower rates provided by the TRAIN law will somehow be neutralized by these proposed amendments or the net effect will be very minimal.
*****
Last weekend, there were two words that I posted on my Facebook wall that caused quite a stir among my friends, both virtual or otherwise, or at least those who cared enough to be concerned or be curious about it. It read, “FRIENDSHIP OVER!”
There were those who asked who was the person I was pertaining to on that post. At least two friends asked me, “Sino ang kaaway ko?” and if translated to English loosely, “Who was my enemy?”
Fortunately (or unfortunately), living in the age of social media would drive you to use a terminologies that you would have never imagined using it when you were much young (pertaining of course to the people of my generation). Ordinary English words have evolved to become social media jargons that do not necessarily conform to the words’ original definition. You find yourself using nouns like Grab, wall, Tinder, Viber, etc. and verbs like instagrammed, regrammed, tweet, retweet, snapchat, etc. There are also new words created and included in the dictionary of social media jargons, namely: emoji, Skype, bitmoji, Uber, etc.
And there’s the term, commonly used as a transitive verb, UNFRIEND.
During the time when the virtual world was virtually nonexistent, this term was not used. I don’t believe it is even a formal English word. Nowadays, this term is used very often that it has become a normal, common word used in everyday conversations. It even has a past tense, unfriended. Using this premise, I can justify the use of the word’s noun form, UNFRIENDSHIP.
Unfriendship is not the opposite of friendship. The opposite of friendship is enmity, as the opposite of a friend is an enemy. In social media, when one unfriends a friend, they are now not connected in say Facebook, but in the real world, they can still be friends, or they can lose the friendship altogether, both in the virtual and in the real world, and this is called UNFRIENSHIPS.
They are not enemies because they did not actually have a fight, virtual or real. There were actually very little or no use of emotions, and more so for intellect, when when making this decision. No brainer to be blunt about it.
What drives people to create UNFRIENDSHIPS? Are there possible incentives and disincentives when creating this group? What are the criteria to consider one an unfriend?
Unfriendships and the reasons why they are created can be explained by using the same reasons why friendships are also created, the Rational Choice Theory. This theory basically assumes that economic agents as rational individuals who make prudent and logical decisions by most likely first calculating and analyzing their benefits against the costs for all the sets of choices that are given them.
The choosing behavior of humans is primarily shaped by the rewards and punishments that they encounter. People generally do things that will most likely lead them to more rewards or positive results, and avoid the things that would result to punishment or negative results.
Tagging, identifying and classifying friends (and unfriends) on Facebook can be explained by analyzing the choosing behavior of Facebook users. There are some people who have thousands of friends of Facebook, but only a handful are known to them personally. There are also some who seem to have a restricted number of friends on Facebook, and justifying their choice of keeping only a few friends restricted to those whom they know personally, in reality and/or virtually. Again, emphasizing each one’s motivation towards achieving a positive outcome, and avoiding a negative effect.
And it is that choosing behavior avoiding negative effects that leads a Facebook user to create unfriendships or to unfriend. This may actually mean that when one chooses to unfriend someone of Facebook, it may actually be for the reason of saving their friendship in real life, because keeping them as Facebook friends further may result to their relationship to sour further. Keeping a virtual friendship, seeing each others’ posts that you do not agree with day in and day out, may cause unnecessary stress, anger and frustration on both their parts.
The bottomline is, when one is rational and takes into consideration all that was mentioned above, the choice made can actually prove to be one that is the best. The choice of creating unfriendships can actually be the best option at that point in time, resulting to the least opportunity cost, and yielding the highest utility or satisfaction.
The good thing with Facebook and other social media is that there is always an option to be friends again with those that was unfriended in the past, by just clicking on a single button, “Add Friend”.
Therefore, unfriendship is not synonymous to enmity, and never will it be. Unfriends are not and never will be the same as enemies. Enmity just creates division, hurt, pride and brokenness, while in unfrienships, there is reinforcement, redirection, redemption and restoration. I guess that is the most real thing in that virtual society.