Monthly Archives: December 2010

Huddled together in the dark sooty hulls of their ships, often abandoned to their Somali pirate captors by governments and shipowners, as many as 650 seamen await their fate on the edge of the Indian Ocean.

WITH the release of the so-called “Morong 43” the other day, Rep. Rafael Mariano of Anakpawis party-list over the week end said that he smell the end of communist insurgency next year. “It’s highly possible. With the way President [Benigno] Noynoy [Aquino 3rd] is doing, we can see light at the end of the tunnel,”…

NAVAL, Biliran, Philippines – Although it is considered still a priority, the House of Representatives is not rushing up the passage of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill now pending with Congress.

MANILA, Philippines – President Aquino recognized the winners of the 8th Search for the Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations (TAYO) in ceremonies at the Heroes Hall in Malacañang recently.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is developing eight municipalities into climate change resilient communities using a $4.97-million grant from the World Bank.  DENR was provided the grant under the Global Environment Fund of the World Bank to develop communities resilient to the effects of climate change in the agricultural…

MANILA, Philippines – The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said it is ready to draft new rules on the rate structure for nuclear power development once government approves a nuclear energy program.

MANILA, Philippines – A party-list lawmaker warned Friday the country’s multi-billion-peso coconut industry is in danger of collapse unless the government steps in and saves the sector, which has been the source of livelihood for some 24 million Filipinos for decades.

MANILA, Philippines – The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) will seek the removal of the Philippines from the watchlist of the US Trade Representative as a country that sells counterfeit goods.

After the enumeration we had on The Eight Habits of Investment Literate People, I feel obliged to elaborate more on some of the said habits or at least, discuss something closely related. For this post, I would dwell on something related to the 3rd habit: the issue of credit card charges and why we should…

MANILA, Philippines – The $600 million global investments of state-run pension fund manager Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) earned $70 million in almost three years despite the financial crisis in the US as well as the debt crisis in Europe, the agency’s head reported yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Health (DOH) is now reviewing the ban on non-directed organ donation because of the rising number of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) waiting for kidney donors.

MANILA, Philippines – Call centers will post growth again in 2011 albeit at a pace slower than the surge seen this year, an industry group said Friday.

Contact centers will add 70,000 employees in the Philippines next year, the Contact Center Association of the Philippines said Friday.

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines – Negros Occidental had the most number of human rights violations in Western Visayas in the past 11 months of the year, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) reported.

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol — The military command here warned the youth from the lure of communists, as they alleged remnants of the rebel groups are trying to gain back its stronghold in the province.

The Government Service Insurance System has gained about $70 million from its investments in the global markets in nearly three years.

A ROUNDING-off error propelled two ordinary working Filipinos to the top of the taxpayers’ list last year, and way past the country’s richest tycoons who are worth billions.

THE Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) has approved higher toll rates at South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) starting January 1 next year but the operator of the expressway said that it deferred implementation until March as “goodwill” from the government.

THE controversial six pending reproductive health (RH) bills in the House of Representatives have been referred to a technical working group (TWG) for consolidation, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said.

THE call center industry expects  revenues next year to grow by up to  a fifth on the back of sustained strong demand from foreign firms that want to outsource services to the Philippines.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday that its board of governors had approved reforms that will shift more voting power to emerging-market countries like China.

I’ve been an anti-communist ever since I began writing columns and that’s with the blessings of my mentor and friend, the late Sir Max Soliven, publisher of The Philippine STAR, because he told me once that the Communist Party of the Philippines, the National Democratic Front and the New People’s Army (CPP-NDF-NPA) had more friends…

MANILA, Philippines – In a move to beat his self-imposed deadline of filling up all vacant government positions by the end of the year, President Aquino has appointed governors and city mayors belonging to the Liberal Party (LP) as heads of different Regional Development Councils (RDCs) nationwide.

A Philippines lawmaker has called on President Benigno Aquino III to make ending discrimination against GLBT Filipinos a priority for his Government.

DAVAO CITY — Software developers in this city are struggling to find replacements for experienced staff who have quit for higher-paying jobs.

RETIREMENT HAS been romanticized as a person’s reward for long faithful service to an employer, whether public or private.

Deliberations on the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill are still not among the priority agenda of the upper chamber next year, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said yesterday.

Kuwait has bared plans to increase the insurance benefit package for Filipino domestic helpers in the Middle East state, a Philippine Embassy report said yesterday.

THE latest data on overseas Filipino worker (OFW) remittances should dispel concern over a possible economic slowdown in the fourth quarter of this year.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that the country’s foreign portfolio investments or “hot money” hit a new record level of $4.18 billion as of end-November or almost 10 times the net inflow of $431.4 million in the same period last year as capital flows continued to flood emerging market economies…