This paper investigates the coping strategies employed by sample micro, small, or medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Laguna using the SME Competitiveness Grid framework developed by the International Trade Centre (ITC). The paper finds that sample MSMEs in Laguna did not find it easy to access MSME assistance programs, and that many are not even aware that such assistance programs exist. However, most MSMEs were found to be flexible and innovative when it comes to their coping strategies; the most common are through using online platforms and customizing or making new products. The paper also finds that assistance on reduction of fixed and operating costs, improvements in credit access, and greater ease in doing business are the most desired forms of government intervention, consistent with the findings of earlier surveys.

The ASEAN member countries can be grouped into three sub-groups, each of which exhibits a distinct pattern with respect to food security issues. The first group is made up of the relatively food-secure countries of Singapore and Brunei. The second group consists of Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. In these countries, except for Vietnam, agriculture has contributed a declining share in GDP, employment, and international trade. In addition, food habits in these countries have changed dramatically in recent decades. The third group is composed of Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar—economies in transition that require special attention. A simple exercise shows that the area can collectively achieve food security via trade in rice and maize. Trade facilitation measures and the harmonization/equivalency of food regulation and control standards will reduce the cost of trade in food products. While specialization and revealed comparative and competitive indices point to complementarities between trade patterns among the ASEAN member countries, intra-ASEAN trade in agriculture is quite small. However, integration could address this problem. Further, if integration is to be used as a venue for ensuring food security, the member countries must agree on what food security collectively means to them, and what food items are important to each of them and the region, in general, so that regional integration and cooperation under the auspices of ASEAN can be promoted.

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The article wanted to find out if elections in the Philippines are economically motivated. Using 2019 gubernatorial election results, a logit model with inflation rate, unemployment rate, provincial revenue, and poverty incidence for the economic variables and party affiliation with the President and membership in a political family as the political variables was tested to explain the probability of an incumbent governor to be re-elected. The marginal effects tell us that a change in the unemployment rate decreases the predicted probability of a governor being reelected but interestingly, a change in the poverty incidence rates has the opposite effect.