Monthly Archives: July 2010

MANILA, Philippines – The government must remove focus on the grant of incentives as investors are more interested on the ease of doing business in the country, an Asian Institute of Management (AIM) official said.

MANILA, Philippines – The number of Filipino nurses seeking employment in the United States continues to drop dramatically, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) reported yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) yesterday called on the new chairman of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to fully disclose the condition of the fund’s Global Investment Program (GIP).

MANILA, Philippines – Business executives in the Philippines are most insecure that their operations might move to other countries.

MANILA, Philippines – No stranger to the tourism industry, Secretary Alberto Lim vows to provide more tourism-driven jobs in the countryside to contribute to the government’s efforts to eradicate poverty.

Have you ever experienced bullying in the office, avoiding a coworker because of a discourteous behavior or worse a boss who chews you or a co-worker out on a regular basis? Then perhaps we could relegate this to desk rage?

As we write today, the business of doing business continues to change at head-snapping speed. In many parts of the world, employer-employee relationships are continually influenced by the dictates of the market. Where we sit, employer-employee relationship continues to be governed by rules that were set almost 40 years ago.

Provocative new research shows that treating people with the AIDS virus can provide a powerful bonus: It cuts the risk that they will infect others.

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—While the world’s leaders are scratching their heads and expensive think tanks wrack their brains trying to find answers to global warming and food security, a nongovernment organization here is propagating a solution that hit these two problems at one go, but has not talked much about its successes.

Here’s one which the Office of the President and the soon-to-be-organized Truth Commission and even the fact-finding unit of the Ombudsman may want to look into soonest.

Poultry raisers said over the weekend that the subsector will not achieve a 20-percent increase in broiler production this year, because of the El Niño weather phenomenon and the importation and smuggling of cheaper alternatives to local chicken.

TO promote transparency and accountability in public-private partnerships, the Philippine Constructors Association (PCA) Inc. is urging the Aquino administration to revise the joint-venture guidelines created by the Arroyo administration.

MANILA, Philippines – It’s the third time around in the Cabinet for Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, after being part of the official family of former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

MANILA, Philippines – Mention Albay and immediately abaca comes to mind, in addition to the picturesque perfect-cone Mayon Volcano, the iconic tourist attraction in this charming province in the Bicol region.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has been ranked the third cheapest tourist destination in Southeast Asia, a survey made by one of the leading financial publications in Asia showed.

IF anyone needed any more indication that things have not quite gone back to normal in Europe—where some experts warn that any success in blocking new stimulus programs and tougher banking regulations could lead to a double-dip recession, or even a full-blown depression—the best place to look for confirmation is the migrant- worker sector.

THIS SUMMER was unusually hot, with temperatures soaring to record highs. What was even more unusual was the way power bills shot through the roof, particularly in April. For the first time, many customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) saw their bill for the month double, even at around the same level of consumption as…

MANILA, Philippines—France has discontinued the issuance of the so-called blue cards which granted highly skilled foreign workers easier entry into the country, French Ambassador to the Philippines Thierry Borja de Mozota said.

COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS are surprised to learn that my family of five pays less than P2,000 a month for electricity.

Malacañang’s new Communications Group has started to hit the ground running on its bid to promote a two-way communication stream between the government and the public through a “feedback mechanism.”

THERE is nothing wrong with an only child. Against the conventional wisdom that an only child can grow up “selfish, spoiled and lonely,” recent studies show that this is not so. As Time magazine put it in its latest report, “the economy is sluggish . . . Expenses are up. And raising kids costs a…

If you don’t know the meaning of the word “inchoate,” you join many readers of The New York Times (NYT) who have looked up the word and many others in the NYT’s website built-in American Heritage dictionary. According to a feature published in The Daily Tribune (source not mentioned) “inchoate,” “profligacy,” “sui generis” and “austerity”…

Next year, the controversial P10-billion PEACe Bonds, or Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates which implicated a nongovernment organization that helped put former President Gloria Arroyo in power are set to mature, requiring the government to repay some P35 billion in obligations. Sold in October 2001, the 10-year bonds benefited the Caucus of NGO Networks (CODE-NGO)…

The civil society leaders behind the PEACe Bonds are stoutly denying any claims of graft, greed and favoritism in their successful implementation of their plan to receive a large commission for selling bonds to groups willing to lend money for the use of the Philippine government. Danilo Songco, Code-NGO’s national coordinator at that time—in the…

Critics ask where did the P10B obtained in 2001 go? The return of Corazon “Dinky” Soliman to public prominence as secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development made the media resurrect a controversy involving an organization that she headed until just before she joined the Cabinet of former President Gloria Arroyo in 2001.

With only five years left into fulfilling the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations, the agency has identified eradication of extreme poverty as an “endangered” goal for the country since most Asian nations “made significant progress in combating [extreme] poverty” except for the Philippines, an official of the United Nations Information…

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines and the International Labor Organization are teaming up anew in a new project that seeks to reduce the worst forms of child labor by as much as 75 percent, Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda D. Baldoz said over the weekend.

MANILA, Philippines – Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras berated yesterday the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) for lack of transparency in reporting the true situation of the country’s power transmission system.

MANILA, Philippines – With a little over a week before his first State of the Nation Address (SONA), the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) sent a letter to President Aquino asking him to stop the practice of large-scale mining in the country.

MANILA, Philippines – A militant party-list lawmaker called on newly appointed Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) chairman Daniel Lacson to immediately scrap the “unjust and illegal” policies of his predecessor and refund P1.7 billion in deductions from teachers’ benefits.