Ben Kritz

Manila

Writer and Columnist at Freelance

Columnist at The Manila Times

to be loved is to be changed

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Articles

The EDSA nightmare is about to begin

1 week ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

BEGINNING in the next two weeks, the government will undertake what will almost certainly be the most memorable construction project of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s term, the badly needed rehabilitation of EDSA.
The unasked questions about SMRs

1 week ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

ABOUT 10 years ago, the concept of "small modular reactors," or SMRs, began to appear in excited press releases from the tech-bro universe (Bill Gates was one of the early movers), and in equally excited news stories that were, for the most part, merely copies of what the press releases said. That excitement steadily built up, and has hardly been dented by a couple of significant reality checks along the way involving bankruptcies and canceled projects.
Keeping innovation in perspective

1 week ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

LAST month, in the European Investment Bank's (EIB) regular newsletter, there was an interesting article about a potential technological breakthrough in the elusive quest to make the concept of carbon capture — physically removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air — an even remotely practical idea (spoiler alert: it's mostly not.). As the EIB is not generally in the habit of spreading foolishness in public, I thought the article was probably worth taking a closer look at.
Reviving the Makati Subway

2 weeks ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

THE recent topic of the failure of the Makati Subway project received a surprisingly strong response from readers, a few of whom took the time to ask some thoughtful and detailed questions about the case and what might happen next. Every message, otherwise detailed or not, included some version of, "Why are these local governments (mostly referring to the city of Makati) like this?
Fixing co-ops may just mean changing 'may' to 'must'

2 weeks ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

IT is Monday morning, and I have spent most of my free hours over the weekend whipping the hell out of my keyboard in pursuit of a draft of a novel I've been trying to start for a couple of years. It wasn't what I had planned on doing this weekend, but as other writers would agree, when that logjam that's been holding back a good idea finally breaks, jumping in and riding the flood is a compulsion.
Powerless in PH

2 weeks ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

YESTERDAY'S editorial in The Manila Times addressed yet another Big Idea to attract more foreign investment to the country, in this case a call from the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCII) for a law allowing 99-year leases on land, such as is done in other, more economically successful countries like Singapore and Malaysia.
Endless misery for electric co-op customers

3 weeks ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

ONE of the fears that was stoked by certain groups just before and during the midterm elections this past Monday was that the all-too-frequently unreliable supply of electricity in many parts of the country would fail and put the process at risk, causing delays, uncertain accuracy in vote counts, or even preventing people in affected areas from voting at all.
Makati to pay for its insolence over dead subway project

1 month ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

Last of two partsTHE city administrator of Makati City is lawyer Claro Certeza, a partner in the high-caliber Subido Pagente Certeza Mendoza and Binay (SPCMB) law firm and, among other things, a member of the faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law and the College of Law of the Lyceum University, where he lectures on civil law, labor law and franchise law. Register to read this story and more for free. Signing up for an account helps us improve your browsing experience.
Makati to pay for its insolence over dead subway project

1 month ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

First of two partsIN a tersely worded disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on May 1, Philippine InfraDev Holdings Inc. announced that the stalled Makati City Subway Project was officially dead, and that the company, which had been the project's developer, had initiated arbitration proceedings "to enable an impartial resolution of the JVA [joint venture agreement] with Makati City." Register to read this story and more for free.
An increasingly irrelevant holiday

1 month ago | manilatimes.net | Ben Kritz

TODAY is Labor Day here in the Philippines and many other countries, and while for the vast majority of people it is simply another excuse to have a long weekend, there are a few who will try to mark the occasion by celebrating "labor." This usually involves staging some kind of street demonstration and shouting about how the government ought to raise the minimum wage, among other things, that may not even be in context, such as "US out of the Philippines," or justice for some activist or...