Monthly Archives: November 2010

MANILA, Philippines – After sailing through the House of Representatives almost untouched, the country’s proposed budget of P1.645 trillion for 2011 faces possibly major changes when it reaches the next stage: the Senate.

WASHINGTON DC, United States—Migrants are continuing to send sizeable sums of money to their home countries despite the economic downturn, with 2010 remittances totaling some 325 billion dollars, a World Bank report said Monday.

Manila—The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority called on students seeking technical training to first check the schools for accreditation before enrollment.

MANILA, Philippines—The government’s key shelter agencies have committed to double production of housing units to narrow the housing gap nationwide, according to Vice President Jejomar C. Binay, who also heads the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).

MANILA, Philippines—A “gaping disconnect” between government claims and reality on the ground is putting disaster preparedness in the Philippines on the brink of disaster, a multinational risk consultancy firm said in a recent report.

DAVAO CITY—A local migrants’ center has called the attention of authorities over what it called a big number of families abandoned by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and whose plight has been largely overlooked by government and nongovernment welfare organizations.

THE POOR may need microinsurance, but they will not buy just any product that’s presented to them. They need to clearly understand what they are paying for and what they are getting, said Craig Churchill, team leader of the International Labour Office’s (ILO) Microinsurance Innovation Facility.

G20 MEMBERS have continued to implement protectionist measures, affecting countries such as the Philippines, despite promises to keep markets open amid weak economic recovery, a London-based think tank said.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines earned a spot among the world’s 10 most-improved economies in easing trade across borders in 2009 and 2010 by improving its electronic customs systems, IFC and the World Bank announced.

The government should take prompt and decisive steps in codifying a legally binding set of standards on corporate social responsibility (CSR) tailorfit for the local mining industry, as a way to rebuild public confidence and ease strident protests against certain mining operations resulting from domestic environmental disasters such as the 1996 Marcopper toxic spill, a…

Vice President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) chairman Jejomar Binay yesterday said key shelter agencies have committed to double the production of housing units annually to narrow the country’s current housing gap.

The proposed law effectively clipping President Aquino’s authority in granting excessive bonuses and allowances to government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCC) executives is seen to be approved by the Senate soon.

THE Philippine government has been offering fiscal incentives to investors, which have become redundant since these incentives are provided under different laws with differing provisions, Rep. Gloria Arroyo of Pampanga second district said Monday.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The 11 displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have sought shelter in Los Angeles to escape harsh working conditions in far away Mississippi in the US East Coast have denounced the inaction by Philippine labor officials on their request for assistance.

MANILA, Philippines – Local businessmen are worried that the Philippines will be left behind by its ASEAN neighbors as the government continues to drag its feet on the negotiations for a possible bilateral agreement with the European Union.

MANILA, Philippines – After a decade of fast growth, the information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry is undergoing a paradigm shift that is redefining the business model for many of the industry’s leading services providers.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers Association (PIRA) is advocating for major amendments to the country’s 36-year-old Insurance Code, which could not only update and improve the performance of insurance industry.

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is asking the City Council of Manila to revoke an executive order that declared total commitment and support to only natural family planning methods.

Big Banker is watching you—more closely than ever. With lenders still skittish about making new loans, credit bureaus and others are hawking services that help banks probe deeply into your financial closet. The new offerings include ways to look at your rent and utility payments, figure out your income, gauge your home’s value and even…

The controversy over the peace bonds is obscuring the bigger picture of the challenges of Philippine development and of the need for innovative ideas from both government and citizen organizations (my preferred term for civil society which I have always understood from my study of Marx and Hegel as a negative concept) to lift our…

MANILA, Philippines—The increase in minimum wages in five regions outside Metro Manila and the strong inflow of foreign capital are expected to exert upward pressure in consumer prices in the coming months, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano W. Paderanga Jr. said.

LEGAZPI CITY—(UPDATE) Masbate police clarified that two people died and one was seriously wounded (not three fatalities as earlier reported by the Bicol police) when an explosive device they were making blew up Sunday in Barangay (village) Panique, Aroroy, a mining town in Masbate.

MANILA, Philippines – Motor vehicle assemblers were caught by surprise of a plan of the Board of Investments (BoI) to reissue the Automotive Exports Program (AEP) or Executive Order 244 to continue granting a special incentives package for exporters of completely built up (CBU) packs even as the agency is still having a hard time…

CEBU/DAVAO — Restless over prospects of more “hot money” weighing on the foreign exchange rate and forex-sensitive sectors of the economy, businessmen and exporters in the Visayas and Mindanao have resumed pressing policymakers to drop their wait-and-see stance and adopt active measures to shield the peso.

Part I “We discovered that you can spend for the education. But if a child is abused at home, she cannot learn. There is money being put in education, but if 30% of children in each classroom are being abused, how will they learn? We must educate them to protect themselves and help those who…

More than 25,000 Filipino student nurses now in the United Kingdom have benefited from a study and work program under the UK Borders and Immigration rules and many of these nurses have found opportunities which have allowed them to become permanent residents.

REGULATORS want to introduce a “three-in-one” product to the fledgling microinsurance market, capitalizing on the Filipinos’ penchant for cheap, convenient products and to boost protection for the poor.

MANILA, Philippines—Nobody ends up in the slammer for opposing the reproductive health (RH) bill. House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman Sunday twitted Catholic Church leaders for claiming that bishops, priests and laity would risk jail time if only to stop the controversial measure.

CHICAGO – Slight differences in five amino acids in a protein called HLA-B may explain why certain people resist the human immunodeficiency virus, US researchers said on Thursday in a study that lends new clues about how to make a vaccine to prevent AIDS.