Monthly Archives: February 2010

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—People behind the world’s top universities in Europe will apply a uniform training and grading standard for higher education this year, which is expected to contribute to an improved global economy.

MANILA, Philippines – The powerful Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines on Monday urged the Department of Health to call for a national summit of various stakeholders to discuss the rising number of HIV-AIDS cases in the country.

The true unemployment gap in the Philippines is about 15 million able-bodied Filipinos that include the totally jobless, those who are holding part-time jobs during some periods of the year and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) whose work contract have expired, Dr. Fernando Aldaba, former dean of the Ateneo School of Economics, said.

Workers blocking the takeover of the Manila North Harbor failed to convince the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 25 to stop the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) from turning over cargo handling operations to the new operator.

Hundreds of Filipino student nurses taking short-term courses in the United Kingdom will be affected by the UK’s more stringent policy of cutting down the work load and training hours of foreign students.

A US Congress bill that would benefit the Philippine garments industry gained supporters in the US Senate, raising chances a counterpart measure would be filed before the Upper Chamber soon, a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) official said. Trade Assistant Secretary Fe Agoncillo Reyes told reporters that the Save Our Industries Act has gained…

Developing countries, including those in East Asia and the Pacific, are expected to bear 75 to 80 percent of the costs of damage caused by changing climate YOU many not have heard the term before but being “climate smart” is the way forward for the Philippines and other countries in the Asean and Pacific Region,…

Many Filipinos lack adequate knowledge about the transmission and acquisition of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, Ferchito Avelino, the executive director of the Philippine National AIDS Council (PNAC), said on Sunday. “Filipinos have many misconceptions about the disease [AIDS], some even think that it can be acquired through mosquito bites, which is completely untrue,”…

AMADEO, Cavite: After watching its neighbors become global coffee heavyweights, the Philippines is taking tentative steps toward regaining its status as a formidable grower of the bean. That era, however, is a long way back for the Philippines, among the top five coffee exporters in the world in the 1880s after Spanish friars brought beans…

In a study published last year that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for about a dozen years, researchers found people who sat more had a higher death risk, independently of whether or not they exercised.

MANILA, Feb. 13 (PNA) – The Social Security System (SSS) has announced a six-month condonation program that would allow companies to settle the unpaid contributions of workers without paying penalties.

So far I have buried two friends, and from the looks of it, I will soon be burying friend number 3. I don’t especially enjoy funerals, but what makes them worse is watching someone die a slow death. It’s that kind of death that resembles watching once famous buildings slowly decay, crumble and finally fall…

Congress once more did not enact the RH bill into law but its advocates are still bent on pushing for its passage sometime in the future. Apparently the foreign groups out to impose its agenda of controlling the world population have not yet given up on this idea despite so many years of frustrations. In…

Please allow me to indulge on the tragedy that struck our family last week. My nephew Miguel D. Ramos, a medical intern at St. Luke’s Medical College survived the blazing fire that hit the Cabiao Community Center in Nueva Ecija last Tuesday. Unfortunately, his three female group mates did not make it. They were all…

MANILA, Philippines – The local ICT industry is getting out of the doldrums this year, according to market research firm IDC, which is quoting huge numbers — $3.14 billion and $3.81 billion — for total IT and telecommunication market spendings, respectively, by the end of 2010.

MANILA, Philippines – Private sector economists see inflation accelerating to 4.8 percent this year from 3.2 percent as the sustained rally in global commodity prices would continue to exert inflationary pressures.

MANILA, Philippines – The local automotive industry slammed the government for not laying down concrete measures as to how the government will encourage car makers to continue to manufacture in the country.

MANILA, Philippines – More than 3,500 rural, thrift, and cooperative banks were given the green light by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to sell microinsurance products as part of efforts to eliminate informal insurance schemes and at the same time put an end to the unauthorized provision of insurance products.

MANILA, Philippines – After a brutal decline since the fourth quarter of 2008, the country’s top export, electronics is seen by its leaders to bounce back to a modest growth this year.

Camp Vicente Lim, Laguna, Philippines – A 50-year-old president of a transport group in Bacoor, Cavite was shot dead near his home last Saturday morning, authorities said.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has rejected a proposal to ban the deployment of Filipino seafarers to foreign vessels that ply the pirate-infested waters of Somalia.

With another damning report published on asbestos in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, a group of prominent Canadian physicians have accused Premier Jean Charest of lying to the public about the mineral, rebutting his contention asbestos has benign uses.

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After a year and two months of implementation, the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) has ushered an increase in the bilateral trade between Japan and the Philippines by 218 percent, records show. Based on the 2009 year-end data provided by Japan’s Information and Culture Center Director Tomoko Dodo, the trade between Tokyo and Manila involving…

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine government on Sunday defended its policy of distributing free condoms to mark Valentine’s Day after influential senior church officials labeled it “vulgar”.

The amended Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 will hurt more the seafarers than it helps, the Mariners Association for Regional and International Networking Organization (MARINO) said Saturday.

Today being Valentine’s Day and all it would seem like a great disservice if I did not write about love. So. Expected and unsurprising though it may be, let me roll out for you a list of the very things you can do right after you fall in love truly, madly, deeply — Keeping. It.…

(Second of a series) CNN’s unthinkable sins against the Filipino people MANILA, Philippines – The CNN’s propensity to employ terrorism and violence to achieve its ends is draining its pond of supporters and constituency. The CNN was declared a terrorist organization by the US Department of State in 2002 and by the European Union in…