Monthly Archives: October 2010

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas deputy governor Juan de Zuñiga Jr., also its general counsel, sent a lengthy rejoinder to my series on credit card overcharges. I had stated that he treats as case-to-case the many Supreme Court rulings to limit interest to only one percent and penalty to another percent a month. Too, that credit…

The recent proposal of DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro to add two more years to basic education has split households. Even in a recent survey conducted at the UST, results show that students surveyed are split on the idea.

Nordic countries Iceland (1), Norway (2), Finland (3) and Sweden (4) continue to demonstrate the greatest equality between men and women according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2010.

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) has urged establishments covered by new wage orders to quickly adjust their wage structures to correct any wage distortions.

A six month ban ‘is not’ something that ILO promotes, because migrant workers may be exposed to certain unfair conditions, Tim De Meyer said. A senior specialist for the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said that the six month ban established by Macau’s new imported labour law could be “a case of discrimination” for migrant…

MANILA, Philippines—Goldman Sachs is keeping a bullish outlook on the Philippines, expecting remittances and the overall economy to grow faster than most expectations.

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—An international aid agency estimated that at least 250,000 people in Mindanao, driven from their homes by war and disasters, are starving and would need up to $26 million in food and other forms of help.

KUALA LUMPUR—One in three cases of tuberculosis in Asia-Pacific go undiagnosed, the WHO said Tuesday, as it approved a new machine that can identify multi-drug-resistant strains in just 90 minutes.

MANILA, Philippines—Putting the right people in the country’s barangay councils would chart how basic community problems—from petty disputes among neighbors to ensuring that a village is crime- and garbage-free—would be solved.

BAGUIO CITY—Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman declared full support for efforts to carry out population programs that have put her boss, President Benigno Aquino III, into trouble with leaders of the Catholic Church.

BERLIN, Germany—Health issues facing so-called “megacities” like Tokyo, Mumbai, or New York are poised to become a huge challenge for global policy as the cities grow, experts at the World Health Summit said.

MANILA, Philippines — The city of Manila will not spend a single centavo on the distribution of contraceptives to poor families, Mayor Alfredo Lim said over the weekend in reaction to the simmering public debate on the reproductive health bill.

WASHINGTON—Too much light at night appears to lead to weight gain, according to a report released Monday, based on studies of mice that provide fresh clues on obesity.

WASHINGTON DC, United States—Poverty, conflict, and political instability caused some billion people to go hungry this year, many of them children in Africa and Asia, according to the Global Hunger Index report released Monday.

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras has ordered utilities that bought government assets to fast track the rehabilitation of power plants to mitigate the worsening power crisis in the country.

THE lucrative telecommunications industry will continue to experience a rise in traffic volume in 2011, although yields will decline, as network operators offer bucket pricing and unlimited pricing schemes, the president of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) said last week.

IF the National Income Accounts (NIA) only included unpaid household work, particularly those done by housewives, the country’s economic growth would have been higher by more than 90 percent.

THE government needs to do better in informing the private sector on how they will utilize the free-trade agreements (FTAs) the Philippines has entered into after a study of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) showed that the country is lagging behind its trading partners in taking advantage of these FTAs, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce…

DAVAO CITY — This city’s information technology group is having a hard time meeting the requirement of a Chinese company that is looking for 50 gaming developers here.

MANILA, Philippines – Going to entertainment clubs and bars could be hazardous to health, a new study by the Department of Health (DOH) warned.

A ruling by the Supreme Court (SC) has upheld the power of local government units (LGUs) to grant additional compensation to their officials and employees even without prior approval from Malacañang.

AMID the generous tax and other incentives given mass housing projects since 2003, only less than a fifth of them have been completed and sold as of March this year, according to data from the Board of Investments (BOI). The data shows that 147,728 housing units were registered with the BOI from 2003 until July…

PHILIPPINE Airlines (PAL) on Monday said it won a lawsuit against its former pilot for violating his contractual obligations and training agreement with the country’s flag carrier.

CEBU, Philippines – A former top official of the Department of Labor and Employment yesterday encouraged workers and employers to go into voluntary arbitration to settle their labor disputes.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has been ranked second best worldwide in the microfinance business, and the leader in the Asia Pacific region.

MANILA, Philippines – Weight loss and weight maintenance are really two sides of the same coin in reality, the habits that help you drop pounds are the same ones that will help you maintain your weight loss.   After all, losing weight isn’t really considered a success unless you manage to keep it off.

MANILA, Philippines – A recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed that almost half of Filipinos believe that President Aquino is serving the interests of the poor.

Companies in growing markets like China and India are adding more jobs in North America and Europe, a shift from the usual hiring patterns, says a new study from IBM.

WASHINGTON DC, United States—Hiding the TV remote and games console controller is a good thing to do to kids if it’s the only way to limit the time they spend in front of a screen, according to a study published Monday.

“The world wants ASEAN to succeed,” says Dr Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary General of ASEAN “The world wants ASEAN to succeed.” This buoyant statement put forth by Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary-General of the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), presented a much cheerier prognosis of the regional bloc’s ability to survive and thrive than most…