Monthly Archives: January 2010

MANILA, Philippines—A coalition of environmental groups has called on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to conduct a thorough review of the Copenhagen Accord, a widely criticized agreement crafted on the final day of the climate talks as the meeting faced collapse in December.

MANILA, Philippines— An official from the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) technology partner Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) announced Wednesday the successful field testing of the automation system to be used for the May elections in selected sites nationwide.

The government said the economy is expected to report a growth of between 0.7 percent to one percent for the whole of last year after an expansion in the fourth quarter of between 0.6 percent to 1.6 percent, acting National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) director general Augusto Santos said yesterday.

Consumers across the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions are approaching the next six months with optimism, according to the latest MasterCard Worldwide Index of Consumer Confidence survey.

A youth group has filed a disqualification case against four party-list groups for allegedly using the party-list system to push their own ideological and political agenda.

The town hall of Cainta town in eastern Rizal province is talking about a complaint filed against the municipal health officer by the town’s former tax information officer and consultant. Dr. Olga Alegre Abellanosa, the Cainta municipal health officer, and three other doctors of Cainta’s Health Center, are named in the complaint filed with the…

COTABATO City: A party-list group that was accredited recently by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was denounced as being “organized mainly for the benefit of the Ampatuans.”

The global unemployment is likely to remain high in 2010 as the number of jobless worldwide reached nearly 212 million in 2009 during the peak of the global financial crisis, according to the Global Employment Trends report of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Tuesday.

Take a mul-tivitamin for insurance.” Until recently, that was the usual advice from physicians, scientists, and other experts. Now, it’s under scrutiny: That’s because if you’re looking for hard evidence that a multivitamin will lower your risk of heart disease, cancer, cataracts, or other major disease, you may be disappointed. In 2006, the US National…

Hear ye, all parents! Do your kids wear jewelry? Do you know what kind of jewelry they’re wearing? Now, read this: According to Health Canada, so reports CBC News, cheap children’s jewelry made in China has been found to contain cadmium, a heavy metal that is more toxic than lead.

Tagaytay City (27 January) — A 3-day project implementers’ monitoring and planning workshop on Reproductive Health (RH) and Family Planning was successfully conducted here recently.

MANILA, Philippines – The local property sector can take advantage of the growing demand for offshoring from recovering economies, commercial property and real estate services adviser CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) said.

MANILA, Philippines – The economy is estimated to have expanded from 0.7 percent to one percent last year, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) has set up a hotline for students and their parents to report violators of a Commission on Higher Education (CHED) directive lifting the “no permit, no exam” policy in colleges and universities.

MANILA, Philippines – Caloocan City Mayor Enrico Echiverri said the city government will hold a mega job fair on Feb. 5 to celebrate the city’s 48th year.

MANILA, Philippines – Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman is optimistic that the next Congress would pass the Reproductive Health and Population Development Bill. “This is not the end of the road for the RH bill,” he said.

The economic crisis has had a major impact throughout the world on the level of employment as well as its quality. The ILO’s annual report on “Global Employment Trends 2010” says the share of workers in vulnerable employment worldwide may have increased by more than 100 million in 2009, and with it global poverty. ILO…

Urgent Action Needed on Financial Reform and Jobs Brussels, 26 January 2010 (ITUC OnLine):  Trade union leaders attending the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos this week will use the occasion to maintain pressure on governments to act urgently to tackle the deepening global employment crisis, and to move ahead with reform and restructuring…

Manila (26 January) — The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) vowed to continue its services on Reproductive Health (RH) and Family Planning to all its union members and non-union members at the workplace.

The association of southeast Asian Nations (Asean) raised the signal during its summit in Cebu in 2007: Its member-nations would include nuclear power among the mix of energy to be able to sustain their increasing energy requirements as the countries are fast developing.

There is an urgent need to craft an information communications and technology (ICT)-based curriculum content for Filipino expatriates and future Filipino migrant workers to train them and build their capacities using the Internet and other related technologies, according to the La Salle Institute of Governance (LSIG).

MANILA, Philippines – Internet connection speeds in the Philippines are expected to grow at least tenfold in the next five years as growing demand for broadband services encourage industry players to invest heavily in the sector.

Trade Secretary Peter Favila said Monday he expects the export sector to begin rehiring the workers it laid off last year after ending a 13-month slump in November.

The Transparency and Accountability Network (TAN) is urging the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to strictly enforce campaign finance laws by creating an office or unit within the Comelec whose sole job would be to strictly monitor the campaign spending being done by candidates and to make sure they are following restrictions on campaign materials.

We Filipinos have always believed our country’s so fertile that if you stuck a stick anywhere in its soil it would grow. This is why the most recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) report that involuntary hunger in our country is reaching record levels gives you quite a jolt.

(This article was previously published in Frontiers in Finance December 2009 by KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity, based on an interview with the three authors.)

MANILA, Philippines – The government said that laid off workers in the electronics industry will now be rehired.

MANILA, Philippines – New York-based Moody’s Investors Service kept the stable outlook on the Philippines despite projections that it would post the slowest economic growth in Southeast Asia this year.

MANILA, Philippines – The forthcoming elections and a global recovery from the financial crisis are supporting the growing optimisn among Filipino businessmen of a modest economic rebound this year, a survey conducted by Dun and Bradstreet Philippines Inc. showed.

MANILA, Philippines – A waiter was killed in a fire that destroyed a row of establishments along Sucat Road in Parañaque City yesterday morning.