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Warren Buffet is the last person to whom I ever thought I’d retort “Okay, boomer” to. After all, he’s the kindly grandpa of capitalism who pledged to donate 85% (about $37.4 billion) of his wealth to charity. However, he’s also the gentleman who has adamantly opposed two proposals for annual reports on climate change and diversity initiatives , despite the push of some of his top investors. These include BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) , the world’s biggest asset manager; the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which is the largest U.S. public pension fund; and Federated Hermes Inc (FHI.N) , an investment manager with $625 billion under management. He recently spoke to the Financial Times about “why corporations cannot be moral arbiters” saying “If they asked [the fund investors], ‘Do you want the board of directors and the managers of your companies to spend time and energy on environmental, social, and governance issues or do you want them to spend all of their time and energy on increasing the value of your shares?’ I’m rather sure that an overwhelming number of them would choose the latter.”

Prior to the pandemic, the Philippines was the world’s 2nd fastest growing economy after China. But it was also the 2nd poorest country in ASEAN.

Today we celebrate World Oceans Day 2021. It’s a UN holiday that celebrates the major role the oceans have in everyday life. The UN hopes that the celebration can help inform everyone of the impact of human actions on the ocean and unite the world in its efforts for sustainable management of our important resources. This year’s theme is “The Ocean: Life and Livelihoods”.

As a companion piece to Maoi’s blog article on the Philippine startup ecosystem , we want to take a closer look at the Innovative Startup bill which we spent a lot of time working on. The bill *should* have been passed into law as of this writing. Maoi speculates on possible delays towards the end of this post.