Monthly Archives: October 2009

MANILA, Philippines – Foreign businessmen said they will remain cautious in deciding to invest in the country next year.

MANILA, Philippines – Powerful storms that claimed nearly 1,000 lives in the Philippines have also taken a heavy toll on the nation’s economy, which is expected to take years to recover.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines is facing the worst of times, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said yesterday as he announced that the country’s budget deficit has widened to P237.5 billion during the first nine months of this year, a sharp 345 percent increase from the P53.4 billion deficit incurred in the same period last year…

SURVEILLANCE: Some media friends and I got to talking last week about the high-tech RFID (radio frequency identification) tags that must be installed on motor vehicles upon registration starting January 2010.

MANILA, Philippines – Asian countries, including the Philippines, are touted to dominate the global outsourcing industry, forecasted to reach a $1.3 trillion by 2020, according to an Indian executive.

A year ago, at the height of the financial panic, the world yearned for a profitable and confident financial sector. It now has what it wants, but hates it. As joblessness soars and the hopes of hundreds of millions of people are blighted, the financial sector’s survivors are thriving. Even bonuses are back. Policymakers have…

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines business process outsourcing industry (BPO) can raise revenues of up to $100 billion by 2020 by properly developing the talent pool and increasing the value chain of services, Indian outsourcing officials said on Monday.

PRICES of construction materials in Metro Manila rose for the second consecutive month in September, hurting government and households who will undertake rehabilitation following the damage caused by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. The National Statistics Office (NSO) said the retail prices of selected construction materials in Metro Manila went up at a slower pace of…

With many dying from leptospirosis in flood-hit areas in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) on Monday announced that it would pay for confinements arising from the animal feces-borne disease.

MANILA, Philippines – The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) will start suspending the monthly benefits of the spouses of its deceased pensioners who are found to be gainfully employed or have other sources of income.

MANILA, Philippines – The country’s business process outsourcing (BPO) sector is expected to grow 23 percent this year in terms of revenues and number of people employed, officials of the industry’s leading association said.

I write this during breaks in the sessions of the 5th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights in Beijing. The conference draws together respected experts and advocates and some 1,000 participants as they discuss and listen to views on issues that are too important to relegate to the back burner. These…

THE United Nations raised concern that the series of catastrophes that hit the Philippines in the last two months will make it difficult for the nation to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that seek to address the global poverty and hunger situation.

The Korean Electric Power Corp. has recommended the revival of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant after it found the nuclear reactor and steam engine turbines “intact and in good state.”

Power plants are extremely important to Americans nationwide. Facilities are run by employees working constantly to ensure a constant supply of electricity.

Secretary Ronnie Puno of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is calling on local chief executives to undertake “greater responsibility” in implementing intervention programs that would promote the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders or children in conflict with the law (CICL) in their respective communities.

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said it would continue to temper the volatility of the peso, which recently broke into the 46-to-a-dollar level, raising concerns on how it would affect households totally dependent on remittances.

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Justice has created a task force of 41 prosecutors that would look into complaints of typhoon victims whose insurance claims on damaged homes and motor vehicles are being held off by their respective insurers.

MANILA, Philippines—A moderate labor organization on Sunday joined calls for the scrapping of the documentary stamp tax (DST) charged on remittances of overseas Filipino workers using the banking system.

PARIS – A standard treatment for keeping inflammatory bowel disease in check increases the risk of infection-related cancers, but not enough to preclude its use, according to a study published Monday.

Beginning March next year, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) said it will strictly conform to provisions of the law that defines the eligibility for survivorship pension – a benefit extended to qualified dependents of deceased GSIS pensioners or members.

Officials of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) received flak for ignoring the invitation of civil society organizations for them to attend the opening plenary of the 2nd Asean Peoples’ Forum (APF)/5th Asean Civil Society Conference (ACSC) in Cha-am, Thailand on Sunday.

THE Philippines will also appeal for the exemption of chicken products from the zero-tariff regime under the Asean Free Trade Area-Common Effective Preferential Tariff (AFTA-CEPT) scheme. The AFTA-CEPT schedule to bring down tariffs to between 0 percent and 5 percent on most products will take effect next year.

BANGKOK: Closer economic ties and ways of coping better with devastating natural disasters in the region will be on the agenda as Asian leaders gather in Thailand this week, analysts and diplomats said. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meets Friday in the resort town of Hua Hin for its annual summit, followed by…

Some 48,000 locals will be hired by the Smartmatic and Total Information Management (TIM) for a couple of weeks to assist in the country’s first automated elections in 2010, a company executive said. Smartmatic-TIM would hire 42,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) technicians, 4,000 supervisors, 2,000 canvassing and consolidation technicians and 600 call center agents,…

MANILA – Business taxpayers whose enterprises have been damaged by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng may file for income tax deduction for the losses they incurred, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said during the weekend.

MANILA, Philippines – The government was urged yesterday to stop collecting taxes on remittances from overseas Filipino workers.

Over the weekend, one of our friends, Pastor Manny Carlos shared a statement that his hair stylist made about flood victims.

MANILA, Philippines – The government needs over P30 billion and at least 10 more years to completely relocate over half a million families of informal settlers near and around waterways in Metro Manila.

MANILA, Philippines – For a few weeks recently, Facebook and Twitter momentarily ceased to be just social networking sites. As Ondoy and later Pepeng rendered streets impassable, downed telephone lines and cut off electricity, people turned to mobile Internet to reach out to family and friends.