Monthly Archives: December 2009

The rising number of HIV/AIDS in the Philippines has prompted an advisory from the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Manila to clinics conducting medical exams to Filipino workers bound for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman to intensify its tests and screening for workers to be deployed to the Middle East countries.

In the faint hope that presidential candidates may listen, I will suggest a few goals that they should commit to if they become president. They should do so through a publicly-signed, notarized document, now, so we know they are committed.

HOME Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) warned employers that have yet to register with it, or have failed to collect contributions from their employees or remit the same to the agency, to comply with the law by the end of this month.

THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) said the Philippines is the only Southeast Asian country to have recorded an increase in the absolute number of poor people since 1990.

CONSUMER confidence has flagged since October this year, with the sentiment expected to remain subdued well into the first quarter of 2010, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

On International Human Rights Day December 10, a United Nations official criticized the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for denying the petition of gays and lesbians to accredit a sectoral party and dismissed fears about martial law imposed in Maguindanao.

(Excerpts from the keynote speech of Dr. Felizardo Y. Francisco, Director IV, CHED, Office of Programs and Standards, at the 35th Annual General Assembly Meeting of the Philippine Association of Maritime Institutions [PAMI] held at AMOSUP Hospital Building, Davao City on December 5)

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday that foreign portfolio investments inflow registered in the first 11 months of the year amounted to $431.42 million on the back of sustained remittances, strong international reserves, healthy banking system, robust corporate earnings, and rising price of gold.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday extended the government’s $700 billion financial bailout fund to October next year, saying the economy still faced “significant challenges.”

MANILA, Philippines – Foreign direct investments (FDI) climbed by 6.8 percent in the first nine months of the year amid higher equity infusions and robust reinvested earnings, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

WASHINGTON – The Philippines was thwarted in its bid to get a multimillion-dollar grant from the US Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) for failing to meet performance benchmarks, particularly control of corruption, but was allowed to continue the process of developing a compact grant in 2010.

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MANILA, Philippines – Senator Panfilo Lacson revealed that more than P568 million has been used to fund at least eight non-working call centers for the “Patrol 117” hotline last year.

MANILA, Philippines–The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas will likely keep its policy rates at current record lows until the middle of 2010 to further boost the economy, which is seen to recover only modestly from the impact of the global economic crunch.

MANILA, Philippines—Global food prices are on the rise again, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Thursday, with the agency’s Food Price Index registering four straight months of increases.

MANILA, Philippines—The rising number of HIV and AIDS cases in the country has so worried the Saudi embassy here that it advised medical clinics processing overseas Filipino workers bound for Middle East countries to intensify medical exams and screening for workers to be deployed there, it was learned Thursday.

MANILA, Philippines–Household spending in overseas remittance-rich Philippines as well as around Asia is rebounding in a big way despite the recent global financial turmoil—and the boom appears sustainable, according to British banking giant HSBC.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Budget and Management on Thursday said all national government workers will get an additional P7,000 as Christmas bonus starting next week.  

This is one for Ripley’s. The total number of registered voters for the May 2010 polls has climbed to more than 49 million, or some 54 percent of the total Philippine population and rising.

MANILA, Philippines – Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Manuel Roxas II asked major cellular phone companies yesterday to comply with the “per pulse” billing system required by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

MANILA, Philippines – Is there lead in the paint of your house? A local waste and pollution watchdog yesterday sought the elimination of lead in paints, as it warned the public against the high lead content in household paints being sold in the Philippine market based on a recent worldwide study conducted by the International…

MANILA, Philippines – At least 49.1 million voters have registered for next year’s elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday. Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said the figure does not include voters in 22 municipalities that have not yet submitted their official list of voters.

MANILA, Philippines – The Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) is starting to render wide-ranging benefits to both countries as seen in the 24-percent increase in Philippine banana export to Japan due to tariff reduction and the dispatch of more than 300 Filipino candidates for nurses and caregivers to Japan this year, according to Japanese Ambassador…

LONDON (AFP) – Ratings agency Moody’s warned on Tuesday of a “fiscal crisis” lasting “several years” in Britain, France, Germany and the United States, but saw no immediate threat to their top AAA credit assessments.

President Barack Obama laid out a slate of job-creating ideas in a speech at the Brookings Institution Tuesday – a sort of “stimulus lite” — but carefully avoided saying how much the new plans would cost.

OFFICE space is likely to remain in surplus next year with rents remaining steady as the global credit crisis trims demand and builders boost supply, the multinational real estate services company CB Richard Ellis said Wednesday.

SAYS TUCP MANILA, Philippines — The money sent home by overseas Filipino sailors rose by $108 million or 4.51 percent to a new record of $2.501 billion in the nine months to September this year, from $2.393 billion over the same period in 2008, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said.

MANILA , Philippines – The country’s real estate companies maintained strong sales throughout the year despite the effects of the economic crisis and recent typhoons, according to property consultancy firm CB Richard Ellis (CBRE).

MANILA, Philippines – Global investment bank Goldman Sachs said the Philippines performed better than most of the next 11 emerging economies (N-11) during the global crisis. “Within the N-11, Indonesia and the Philippines have positively surprised,” Goldman Sachs said in its latest Global Economics Paper.

NEW YORK, United States — The Philippines overwhelmingly won another three-year term in the Committee on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW), the Philippine Mission to the United Nations said in a statement Wednesday.