Monthly Archives: January 2010

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has ordered private higher education institutions (HEIs) and state universities and colleges to be “flexible” in implementing the “no permit, no exam” policy on their students.

CONGRESS on Monday approved the rules for granting full tax exemptions to cooperatives to allow them to serve their members and customers better and make more money, an official said.

SO-CALLED F’K buddies (Fubu) mark sexual and romantic relations of call-center workers polled by the University of the Philippines (UP) Population Institute.

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People should be allowed to work beyond the age of 65 and with more flexible hours, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said. In the UK a worker can see their employment end at 65, even if they do not want to retire.

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman has signalled a wish to change the law that would allow people to work beyond the age of 65. In the UK, a worker can see their employment end at the age of 65 without any redundancy payment – even if they do not want to retire.

AS far as the economy is concerned, most of us probably regard 2009 as a year we’re happy to put behind us. By the key yardsticks of “presyo”, “hanapbuhay” and “kita” (prices, jobs and incomes)—the three economic variables that affect the common citizen most directly—we have definitely seen better times.

MANILA, Philippines – Hazardous electronic waste is piling up at the Pier 18 dump in Manila, according to an environmental group.

MANILA, Philippines—Manuel V. Pangilinan’s entry into the port operations business may have been hailed by most industry players, but labor issues are threatening to scuttle the group’s efforts to modernize Manila North Harbor—the country’s busiest but most inefficient port.

THE EMERGENCE OF NEW and emerging information and communication technologies can no longer be ignored by organizations. Whether organizations provide it on their own or not, people are bringing these technologies to the workplace.

Men who bottle up frustrations about unfair treatment at work are twice as likely to have a heart attack, a study published on Tuesday suggests.

MANILA, Philippines – Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has directed the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to submit a new suggested retail price (SRP) for sugar after prices of refined sugar soared to P60 per kilo in several Metro Manila retail outlets.

MANILA, Philippines – The government will continue to spend on vulnerable sectors and monitor developments related to the global financial crisis this year, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said.

MANILA, Philippines – Export industry leaders are bullish the battered sector is going to stage a recovery this year. Speaking before the first national meeting of the 3,000 strong Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport), newly elected president of the umbrella organization of exporters Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis said “the year of the Tiger is the year…

His vision is simple, nothing fancy, nothing really new, and yet it seems doable only under a leadership of change and transformation, one that Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, the only son of two Philippine democratic icons, vows to pursue if elected as the country’s 15th president.

MANILA, Philippines – The automotive industry is pushing for the refleeting of public utility jeeps (PUJs) with the country’s own model of vehicle under the Philippine Brand Vehicle (PBV) program, a ranking government official said.

MANILA, Philippines – The government must act to clear hurdles in the development of renewable energy (RE) in the country to make it more competitive with other sources of power, a leading industry expert said.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will soon allow all banks to provide microfinancing to the agriculture sector as part of efforts to spur lending in the countryside, BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said over the weekend.

The Supreme Court (SC) has resolved the pending case over a bank’s foreclosure of the St. James School. In its decision, the high court, through Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta, denied for lack of merit the petition filed the school’s owner, Jaime Torres, against the China Banking Corpn.

Even in his youth, Danton Remoto knew that he wasn’t allowed to run away from a fight. His father, an honor-bound military man, was against that. And in his small but charming home cramped with books, souvenirs and unfinished manuscripts, this journalist, poet and educator could still recall what his old man used to say—the…

La Salle’s Institute of Governance’s “Patrolling the Internet: Mapping the Policy Terrain” research project also saw that (the next paragraphs are slightly edited paragraphs from the actual research study): There is an amalgam of proposals housed in the Philippine Congress that encourages the use of Internet monitoring and social control mechanisms in preventing crimes allegedly…

The La Salle researchers saw that Republic Act 9775 allows the government to exercise “decentralized monitoring” of the Internet. Here, slightly edited, is the research project’s chapter on that subject:

The Anti-Child Pornography law (Republic Act 9775) was passed on October 13 last year and signed on November 17 by President Gloria Arroyo. The law creates an Inter-Agency Council Against Child Pornography, which is tasked by the law itself with promulgating the implementing rules and regulations of R.A. 9775. The following is the La Salle…

The La Salle researchers praise Republic Act 9775 for its intentions.  But it identifies areas where “sneaking surveillance and filtering” could happen against the moral aims of the law.

La Salle research findings show need to balance morality issues with human rights The newly enacted Republic Act 9775, the Anti-Child Pornography Law, could be misused or even abused to curb Filipinos’ right to use the Internet and deprive them of other civil liberties. This is the carefully weighed warning made by scholars at De…

Our country has gone through many kinds of crises. Crises that are both man made and considered acts of God. Which in my opinion is a very bad term. Why is it that we call a sad natural catastrophe an “act of God” and when times are good and victorious we credit it to ourselves?…

MANILA, Philippines – A Greek court has ordered the auction of the MV Aetea Sierra to pay for the wages of its Filipino crew members, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the other day.

MANILA, Philippines–The rehabilitation of the mothballed 620-megawatt Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) may cost roughly P45 billion, according to a report submitted Friday to the state-owned National Power Corp.

BY the time this column comes out, the commotion stirred by yet another disclosure of a TV-actress/former presidential daughter about her marriage will have died down. The revelation was made on national television on Sunday. The following day, everyone from strangers sharing the same space in the elevator to bank tellers (while efficiently facilitating multiple…

Meaning of human rights MANILA, Philippines – Human rights refer to the “basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled.” Human Rights Include “civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression and a equality before the law as well as social, cultural and economic rights, the…