Monthly Archives: March 2011

FILIPINO homes are generally safe from earthquakes as long as they follow the prescribed guidelines of the National Building Code, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said Thursday.

PHILIPPINE CORPORATE salaries are expected to increase by an estimated 7% this year on the back of a slow but steady economic growth, an international human capital consulting firm said.

FIRST Metro Investment Corp. (FMIC) and University of Asia and the Pacific (FMIC-UA&P) said remittances will pick up in the near term, before slowing down toward the second half in view of the conflict in the Middle East-North Africa area.

THE SECOND HALF of the year is seen to be a better period for investors of the emerging markets as geopolitical risks are expected to abate by then, ING Bank officials yesterday said.

MANILA, Philippines – Among the female workers who comprise 60% of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), the majority are household service workers or domestic workers. Unfortunately, however, domestic work is hardly recognized even in the laws and standards of international labor organizations. As anthropologist Dr. Nanette Dungo wrote in a recent paper for a workshop on…

A US-based intellectual property alliance is pushing for inclusion of the Philippines in the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) priority watch list of piracy dens.

CEBU, Philippines – Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma clarified that the Church is not “insensitive to the needs of the poor and the plight of women” as allegedly shown in their strong opposition to the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill in congress as implied by some pro-Reproductive Health Bill advocates.

Four Filipinos made it to the latest Forbes billionaire list, which has ballooned to a record 1,210 personalities in the wake of the global economic recovery.

MANILA, Philippines –  Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows surged by 156 percent in December last year as more and more investors find the Philippines attractive due to its solid macroeconomic fundamentals and brighter economic growth prospects, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines –  The Board of Investments (BOI) is looking at attracting $1.5 billion worth of foreign direct investments (FDI) from the Middle East and Europe this year.

MANILA, Philippines –  The country’s merchandise exports rose 11.8 percent to $4 billion in January from $3.579 billion in the same period last year, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported yesterday.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Thursday said it is lifting the country’s deployment ban in Bahrain where people have been staging anti-government protests since mid-February.

MANILA, Philippines –  The Northern Mindanao wage board has issued a supplemental wage order raising the minimum wage rates of sugar workers in the region by at least P4 to as high as P500, the Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said yesterday.

Media practitioners especially from the press have the main responsibility of according the people their inherent right to know the unvarnished truth. Discharging this responsibility is actually rendering them justice because it is nothing but granting their rights or giving what is due them. Hence, this column will keep on presenting the various views that…

MANILA, Philippines –  Vice President Jejomar Binay has announced that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are members of the Pag-Ibig Fund and among those repatriated from the Middle East will be given three to four months leeway not to pay their dues.

MANILA, Philippines –  Taiwan welcomed President Aquino’s appointment of a new Immigration chief and announced a relaxation of visa requirements for Filipino workers.

MANILA, Philippines –  Records of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and the LPG Industry Association (LPGIA) showed that five out of 10 tanks of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in the market are defective and substandard.

THE National Wages and Productivity Commission meets next week to review a petition for a 75-peso increase in the minimum daily wage in Metro Manila amid the rising prices of fuel, electricity, and basic goods and services, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said Wednesday.

The India Asean FTA was signed in Bangkok on Aug 13, 2009, came into effect from Jan 1, 2010 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, in association with industry body Ficci, has released a white paper on India-Asean Free Trade Agreement. Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) is a grouping of 10 countries including Singapore and Indonesia.…

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Eight members of the Board of Trustees of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) might find themselves in the hot seat after the Commission on Audit (CoA) revealed they have received in excess of P11.018 million each in 2009.

A foreign trade group warned yesterday against plans to impose price control on basic commodities amid rising prices, saying such a move would be detrimental to the country.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has moved to next year the mandatory filing of a new requirement called Annual Information Return (AIR) that would list all income that should be subject to withholding tax of an individual earning at least P38,000 a month and which would accompany annual income tax returns (ITR).

THE Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. said the higher-than-expected February inflation points to a higher overall curve that may peak toward the end of the year.

The public’s interest in the health of shift workers has been continually engaged recently, particularly concerning workers in the call center industry. The state of health of this workforce, or occupational health, has been the subject of discussion in various reports that surfaced regarding the alleged health-related consequences of call center work and how factors…

IN November last year, marathon info sessions were held in key cities around the country to talk to manufacturers about the benefits they can derive from the free trade agreements inked with other countries. This was conducted in an effort to increase the level of utilization of these FTAs. After all, of what good are…

MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will allow the optional filing of the annual information return (AIR) for the 2010 taxable year, BIR Commissioner Kim Henares said.

THERE are no jobs available for more than 160,000 registered nurses in the country, a Department of Health official said on Wednesday.

MANILA, Philippines – Mayors and top level local government officials, school administrators, and other education advocates who attended Synergeia Foundation’s 8th National Education Summit have committed to hammer down to zero the dropout rates in public schools in their localities.

MANILA, Philippines – Some 198,000 teachers and other employees of the Department of Education (DepEd) are in danger of losing credits in their contributions with the Government Service and Insurance System (GSIS) after officials admitted they failed to comply with some requirements of the pension fund, a House leader said yesterday.