on samuelson and mankiw

Economics was introduced to me during my junior year at Colegio de San Juan de Letran. Ms Rowena "Owie" Santos, our Economics teacher and a very unorthodox one at that, facilitated our class with the aide of a book written by Mr Bernardo Villegas.


I was thirteen then going on fourteen. Two years remove from the EDSA Revolution of 1986.


The texts and the principles came to life. Helped by a very unusual and unpredictable way to have a graded class recitation. I can still remember and hear how Ms. Santos randomly say, "Let us start with you!", a signal that recitation has begun. That call was fearfully etched in my mind. Made me really read the books and the newspaper regularly.


Looking back, now that I am also a learning facilitator, I think Ms Santos had an easier time than usual teaching Economics during my junior year. For one, all the news validated what was written in the book. The Philippines was opening up its industry to foreign investors. The dictator was long gone. The GDP that slumped was growing again. Somehow I understood and could form an educated opinion about the business pages. I felt more sure.


The second time Economics was formally "shown" to me was in 1998. It was in my Macroeconomics class. My first term in graduate school. A year removed from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Here I met Samuelson and read his take of Meynard Keynes' take on the Great Depression of 1920s.

Once more, the text and the principles were alive. Speaking in fact. Helped me understood what happened and why did the Thai Baht lost most its value and understood why Prime Minister Mahatir was in a gray area of being courageous and proud when he decided that way about the Malaysian currency. Ms Winnie Monsod's talk during a CEO-COO Convention, an annual event in a former employer's calendar, explaining why the Philippines will not be hit as hard as its Asian neighbours made more sense. Again, Economics made me understand the deeper meaning of the news.

And during my years in graduate school, I have had front row seats as Senator Mar Roxas, then a DTI Secretary, and former President Fidel V. Ramos explained why the Philippines became a tiger cub in 1990s.

Economics, it seems, always divinely pops up in my life when it is "easier" to understand its spirit = )

Now that I am given the privilege to manage a boutique talent agency and to facilitate both undergraduate and graduate classes, it seems only appropriate that I will also had the blessing that my former teachers had in explaining Economics. This time though, we talk about the current recession and I am being helped by a text written by Mankiw.