Monthly Archives: September 2010

Diabetes is a serious disease. If you have it, following the treatment plan you and your doctor have agreed on takes round-the-clock commitment. It may not always be easy, but your efforts are worthwhile. That’s because thoughtful or thorough diabetes care can reduce your risk of serious even life-threatening  complications.

Republic of the Philippines HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Quezon City FIFTEENTH CONGRESS First Regular Session Privilege Speech, “In Memory of Romelyn Eroy Ibañez”, REP. RAYMOND DEMOCRITO C. MENDOZA Trade Union Congress Party (TUCP Party-List) September 28, 2010

Last year the Supreme Court limited credit card interest to a percent and penalty to another percent a month. (See http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2009/september2009/175490.htm.) In writing last week about the little known ruling I may have opened a can of worms. Readers are complaining not only against rate overcharging but also other perceived abuses by card companies, and…

MANILA, Philippines – President Aquino is still allowed to appoint and reshuffle officials even with the existing appointment ban during the campaign period leading to the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections on Oct. 25, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Jose Melo said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) will increase premium contributions for new members from P300 to P600 quarterly starting October 1, a circular from the PhilHealth president shows.

MANILA, Philippines—Over 1,000 jobs will be generated and P19.2 billion added to the economy if software piracy will be reduced in the Philippines by 10 percentage points, an independent study revealed on Tuesday.

Country in ‘white’ list of tax standard-compliant states THE PHILIPPINES has been raised to the “white list” of countries complying with an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) tax information sharing standard.

Noting the oversupply of nurses in the country, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Tuesday said the demand for the occupation has been steadily declining over the years.

Three senators on Tuesday supported President Benigno Simeon Aquino III’s stand that the government should educate the public on responsible parenthood and informed choice in family planning.

EARLY this morning, President Aquino returns from his maiden trip abroad as our head of state. The biggest booty he will bring back home from the United States is, of course, the long-delayed grant of $434 million in aid from the Bush-era Millennium Challenge Corporation. This is equivalent to nearly P20 billion, serious money indeed…

THE Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Monday stated that the regional wage boards in Central Luzon (Region III), Calabarzon (Region IV-A), and Mimaropa (Region IV-B) would soon conduct public hearings on wage hike petitions filed before these boards. The Labor department’s National Wage and Productivity Commission (NWPC) is now inviting the public to…

The Philippines’ self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) in rice went up to 85.83 percent while the SSR for corn dropped to 95.88 percent in 2009, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said in a recent report. In its “Food Sufficiency and Security” report, the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), an attached agency of the Agriculture department, said that…

Govt to give free contraceptives The Philippine government will provide contraceptives to poor couples who request them despite strong opposition from the dominant Roman Catholic Church, President Benigno Aquino 3rd said on Monday. Speaking during a satellite television interview from the United States where he is on a seven-day visit, President Aquino stressed that the…

MANILA, Philippines – Workers from Central Luzon, Calabarzon and Mimaropa are unlikely to get the much-awaited salary increase this year.

Twenty expert doctors, led by anticancer advocate Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, have issued a warning regarding the possible dangers of prolonged cell phone use. The group says that preliminary evidence from the Interphone study and other studies shows a possible link between cell phone use and brain tumor occurrence.

MANILA, Philippines – The government will provide contraceptives to poor couples that request it despite strong opposition from the Church, President Aquino said yesterday.

IT was only a matter of time, but the Philippines is now boldly staking its claim as a leading country-of-choice for contact-center services and a key global hub for the rapidly growing business-process outsourcing (BPO) industry. This issue will be further validated and discussed by the industry’s specialists and top players at the 2010 International…

Five years from now, President Noynoy will have to make the trip back to New York to give that final historic report of how his country fared on commitments to the Millennium Development Goals as agreed upon in 2001by all members of the United Nations and at least 23 international organizations.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will be meeting with United States Congressmen and Senators this week in a final bid to pass the Save the Industries Bill before the end of this session.

Readers continue to swamp Gotcha with e-mails about interest and penalty overcharging by credit card companies. For advice and concerted action they can link up with crusader Eduardo Olaguer, founder-president of Advocates for Truth in Lending: land line (02) 9136382, fax (02) 9136385; e-mail cxap@yahoo.com.C

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino skilled workers can partake of 40,000 jobs in Guam when construction work for a large military base starts in the US territory, according to technical-vocational educators in Davao City.

When the ILO adopted the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006), in February 2006, Director-General Juan Somavia said the Organization had made “labour history” for the world’s more than 1.2 million seafarers. Four years on, the Convention is expected to come into force in 2011 or early 2012. ILO Online spoke with Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, Director…

TACLOBAN CITY – A meeting was held yesterday at the DOH-8 compound by the Regional Aids Assistance Team to formally tackle the topic regarding the ascending number of STD/HIV/AIDS victims, and to find immediate solutions for this.

PEOPLE WITH HIV TELL TALE OF WOE They are living with a still incurable virus in their blood. But the discrimination they continue to experience from society is even more painful to bear than having the disease.

Eighty-year-old Richard Ow is scrapping by, earning less than $24,000 annually from his pension as a former post office worker since he retired two decades ago. By federal government standards, Ow isn’t impoverished. But by San Francisco calculations, the Chinatown resident is living in poverty.

ABU DHABI // Immigration authorities plan to look into the issue of troubled domestic workers from the Philippines in an attempt to plug loopholes in a recruitment system that allows them to be exploited, the Philippine ambassador to the UAE said yesterday.

THE PHILIPPINES, along with other countries in the East Asian region, needs to reinvent itself and move up the value chain to achieve rapid growth, the World Bank states in a new book.

In their first joint meeting on American soil, the leaders of the United States and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) took fresh steps to cement their growing engagement and pledged to cooperate more closely in key areas such as education and trade.

NEW YORK—Prosperous city-state Singapore recognizes the many opportunities for trade and investment in the Philippines, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said here on Friday after the bilateral meeting between President Benigno Aquino and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.