Monthly Archives: February 2011

MANILA, Philippines – House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. is urging banana growers to work closely with Congress in drawing up new laws for the banana industry.

Proposals for constitutional change are many as they are proposed by various sectors for different reasons. The major proposals are reviewed below including the underlying motives behind them.

MANILA, Philippines – Backers of the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill expressed dismay yesterday that President Aquino has decided against giving priority to the bill in Congress this year.

MANILA, Philippines – Only two out of 1,000 Filipino families were lifted out of poverty between 2006 and 2009, according to a National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) survey released yesterday.

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III on Monday backpedaled on his promise to push legislation on responsible parenthood and freedom of information, leaving them out of his administration’s list of priority bills that will be presented to lawmakers on Feb. 28.

MANILA, Philippines—Six foreign companies from Korea, China and Japan have begun conducting due diligence before they fully commit to coal and hydropower projects in the Philippines.

An expanded list of priority bills to be discussed in the first Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) meeting scheduled on Feb. 28 was finally presented by Malacañang to the media yesterday but it did not include the controversial Responsible Parent-hood (RP) bill, Freedom of Information (FoI) bill as well the Whistleblowers Act which President…

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Health (DOH) has issued a resolution directing operators of spa and massage clinics to have their massage therapists undergo training and pass licensure examinations by December 2014. After the three-year window period of January 2011 to December 2014, no one will be allowed to practice massage therapy professionally in…

MANILA, Philippines – To flush out corruption in the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), a tripartite body was formed by Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz to identify and investigate anomalies in the agency.

MANILA, Philippines – Prices of electricity, gasoline and bread are going up. The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will raise its generation charge for this month by 11.84 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) due to lower dispatch level from its power suppliers.

NEW YORK (AP) – World sugar supplies will probably fall short of demand, said Rabobank Groep, after a cyclone with winds stronger than Hurricane Katrina destroyed homes and smashed crops in Australia, driving prices to 30-year highs.

MANILA, Philippines – The global economic and social impacts of counterfeiting and piracy will reach $1.7 trillion by 2015 and put 2.5 million legitimate jobs at risk each year, according to a new report released recently by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

MANILA, Philippines – Metrobank’s First Metro Investments Corp. (FMIC) as well as the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) said the inflation scare is overblown and that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is likely to keep interest rates at record lows in the first half of the year.

Dear PAO, I hired a contractor to finish my vacation house in Tagaytay. The house was turned-over to me on 2005. My caretaker told me last November 2010 that the ceiling at the kitchen suddenly collapsed.

THE poem describes two young lovers aching with desire. The obsession is mutual, carnal, complete. The man lingers over his lover’s eyes and hair, on her teeth, lips, temples, neck and breasts, until he arrives at “the mount of myrrh.” He rhapsodizes. “All of you is beautiful, my love,” he says. “There is no flaw…

SAN JOSE, Saipan – Time is ticking at a frantic pace toward November for most of Filipino workers here whose umbrella permits will expire by that time, unless they secure regular jobs or the US government grants them improved immigration status.

MANILA, Philippines – Mining investments for the whole of 2010 amounted to only $955.85 million, way below the adjusted full-year target of $1.2 billion.

MANILA, Philippines –  Visit a Health Express store and you will find six herbal products there with labels that Filipinos from remote provincial areas might readily understand.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has gained a new record, that of having the most expensive electricity in the whole of Asia.

MANILA, Philippines – Dutch-owned financial giant ING BV said it expects the growth in the amount of money sent home by Filipinos abroad to their loved ones in the Philippines to ease to five percent this year before improving to six percent next year, but would continue to cover the country’s trade deficit.

The Department of Health (DOH) has registered 174 cases of HIV I December 2010, the highest number of cases reported in a month since the agency opened the Philippine HIV and AIDS registry in 1984.

MANILA, Philippines – The bills that will promote reproductive health and the protection of whistle-blowers are among 17 measures the Aquino administration wants prioritized, an official said yesterday.

In last Friday’s column (Reaching another crossroad), the CBCP has clearly shown in its pastoral letter that contrary to what its advocates are claiming, the RH bill does not really promote reproductive health, does not reduce but increases the rate of abortion, does not really prevent HIV/AIDS, empowers women with ownership of their own bodies…

MANILA, Philippines – A recent decision of the Court of Appeals said only the president, not the Department of Trade and Industry, can impose price ceiling on basic commodities.

A proposal by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago for a Senate inquiry into antimicrobial chemical ingredients used in soaps and a wide range of consumer products has won the backing of a non-governmental toxic watchdog.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) said yesterday the scheduled Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Metro Rail Transit (MRT) fare increases would be put off indefinitely after steadfast opposition by various sectors during a two-day public consultation.

A 28-year-old overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who arrived in Cebu last month has tested positive of the dreaded human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the first confirmed HIV case this year.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

But damage to ecology and human communities boost pressure for passage of new mining law THE election of President Benigno Aquino 3rd in May last year immediately buoyed up hopes for and in the mining industry. When he visited the US, he said in speeches there that the mining industry would be a top priority…

ALYANSA Tigil Mina (ATM), a staunch critic of mining operations in the Philippines, said former President Gloria Arroyo’s Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) failed to meet expectations.