Monthly Archives: April 2011

MANILA, Philippines – The electronics industry will likely grow by a slower eight percent this year due to the impact of the twin disasters in Japan, the Semiconductors and Electronics Industry of the Philippines Inc. (SEIPI) said.

MANILA, Philippines – Credit card receivables of banks operating in the Philippines increased 4.7 percent last year amid the country’s stronger than expected economic growth, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported over the weekend.

MANILA, Philippines –  The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has gone “techie” to facilitate employment and make workers aware of all the programs and services available to them.

The bad news is that HIV/AIDS cases are rising to epidemic proportions in this country despite the availability of condoms and other contraceptives and the aggressive marketing of their manufacturers promoting their use. This means that more people especially the “machos”, as exemplified by the products’ principal celebrity endorser, are duped into believing that they…

MANILA, Philippines –  The military yesterday branded as “unfair” a US State Department report blaming Philippine security forces for a spate of unlawful killings in 2010.

MANILA, Philippines — The 15th Family Recollection of the Mission Angels of Fr. Jerry Orbos, SVD, will be held on Palm Sunday, April 17 at the Meralco Theatre, courtesy of Amb. Manuel Lopez (Mission Angels president) and his wife Marites, from 8 am to 1 pm.

MANILA, Philippines – Supporters of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill have blamed the country’s ballooning population for the reported rise in hunger incidence in the last three months.

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines needs to “translate into action” its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reversing the spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV-AIDS) by 2015, a United Nations coordinator said.

Lawmakers recently called for a congressional probe on the report of the United States Department of Labor that the Philippines “has the worst forms of child labor.”

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines will import an additional 300,000 metric tons of rice to prevent a shortage in the latter part of the year, National Food Authority Administrator Angelito Banayo said.

MANILA, Philippines – Filipinos availed themselves of more loans to purchase household appliances as well as furniture and fixtures or to pay taxes as well as hospital and educational bills last year to take advantage of low interest rates.

MANILA, Philippines – Nineteen overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) contracted the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) last February, bringing to 159 the number of new cases for the month, a report of the Department of Health (DOH) showed.

As critics of President Aquino spotlight the failure of his administration’s P21.5 billion conditional cash transfer (CCT) program after the recent Social Weather Station (SWS) survey showing an increase in the number of poor and hungry Filipinos, the Palace yesterday went on a publicity overdrive, saying the program is being stepped up and had claimed…

The peso closed at its strongest level in five months Friday, tracking the appreciation of regional currencies against the US dollar, on evidence that foreign capital continued to flow into emerging markets.

Retrenchment rightly applies if individual companies are suffering from financial losses, but not when it becomes pandemic. In which case, the economy is experiencing a recession. Moreover, the term is more of a euphemism than a candid admission that the employee will be terminated from the service, and the valid reason given by the Labor…

ROSALES, Pangasinan—President Benigno Aquino III on Friday said there was no need to increase private employees’ premium payments to the Social Security System, saying its funds were safe.

CONSUMERS may have to brace for another round of oil price increases this week, which could bring the price of gasoline close to P60 a liter in Metro Manila after world oil prices soared above $111 a barrel on Friday.

MANILA, Philippines – More Filipinos experienced “involuntary” hunger and considered themselves poor in the past three months, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey revealed yesterday.

A March 4 to 7 poll conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) on self-rated poverty and hunger found a sharp rise in number under President Aquino’s administration, with 51 percent of the respondents saying they feel poor and 20.5 percent, composed of 4.1 million Filipino familes going hungry

The United Nations yesterday said it has so far registered 600 child soldiers, some as young as eight, fighting for armed groups in the Philippines and expected the final number to be in the thousands.

THE Associated Labor Union-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) is set to file a petition for another round of wage increase in Northern Mindanao before the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB).

10 Frequently Asked Questions 10 Are magnitude and intensity of an earthquake the same? They are not. Magnitude is a measure of the energy that is released during an earthquake, while intensity is a description of the variable shaking that is experienced in different areas.

MANILA, Philippines – Cases of domestic violence against women and their children saw an increase of 91% in 2010 compared to 2009 figures, according to the 2010 Annual Human Rights Report.

MANILA, Philippines – The number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who bring billions worth of remittances to the country every year may dwindle in the years to come because of the increasing threat from AIDS and Human Immunodeficiency Virus or the HIV virus, a lawmaker warned on Saturday.

MANILA, Philippines-About 600,000 fish workers in the Philippines who work in commercial fishing vessels and aquaculture farms are not covered by Manila’s minimum wage. Worse, majority of them get very low wages for an average of 20 hours of work a day.

The government has made public-private partnership a cornerstone of its economic growth platform. And rightly so. After a decade of underspending on infrastructure (an annual spending of between 2 percent and 3 percent of GDP versus the Asian average of 5 percent to 6 percent) the Philippines is way behind everyone else.

The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry boom continued last year as the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) and its partner associations, together with the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), reported a 26 percent growth in the sector last year with new investments of $8.9 billion.

The measures being taken by President Aquino to address rising prices have short-term effects and may even encourage corrupt practices, according to noted economist University of the Philippines (UP) professor Benjamin Diokno.

ABU DHABI // The Philippines government should recognise the economic value of household workers and reject measures that prevent them seeking work overseas, a recruitment specialist and former migrant worker in Saudi Arabia said.

8 April 2011 – The United Nations envoy for children and armed conflict and a political movement in the Philippines today agreed to develop an action plan to ensure that no children are among the ranks of the military group known as the New People’s Army (NPA), or are involved in the armed conflict.