Monthly Archives: November 2011

THE GAP between the highest and lowest wages within the same occupation group was widest among professionals and narrowest among service workers last year, the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) reported.

TUBA, Benguet—Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza, of the Trade Union of the Philippines Partylist, said the mineral sector not only gives jobs to the corporate social advocacies of mining companies.

MANILA, Philippines – The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) is looking at reviving its global investment program next year, its top official said.

“GUARDED optimism” was the reply of Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory Domingo when asked by reporters about his sentiment on Asean integration by 2015. And this is how it is proceeding despite the euro experience. In a recent article by Esther Samboh of The Jakarta Post, the World Bank (WB) says that Asean should learn…

GOVERNMENT Service Insurance System (GSIS) has earmarked a credit facility to Home Development Mutual Fund or Pag-IBIG to finance the housing requirements of state workers and pensioners.

Businessmen and politicians with vested interests have been blamed for the widespread poverty in the Philippines, which has been left behind by its Asian neighbors in the race to development.

A LAWMAKER allied with President Benigno Aquino III has urged the Palace to dump the P39.8-billion conditional cash transfer program, saying the increase in poverty and hunger only proved that the dole to the poor was a failure.

The Aquino administration has already disbursed nearly 90 percent of its budget for this year amid efforts to catch up on spending.

A college professor of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) is facing charges of sexual harassment before the Manila Prosecutor’s Office after one of her female students lodged a complaint at the Manila Police District Station 8 Women’s and Children’s Concern Division (WCCD) in Sta. Mesa, Manila.

THE reproductive health bill could lose in the plenary if it were put to a vote now, so House leaders set the voting on the bill next year, Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said Tuesday as the plenary debates on the measure resumed.

MANILA, Philippines – The amount of money sent home by Filipinos working overseas grew 7.1 percent in the first nine months of the year on the back of sustained demand for skilled Filipino workers abroad, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

Mama, watch this with me. It’s so inspiring,” my 12-year-old daughter, Sophi, said, laptop in hand. We settled in bed and logged on to www.ted.com, a website devoted to “ideas worth spreading,” as their tagline says. Ted.com is an online cache of “riveting talks by remarkable people.”

The labor department has deferred for three months the barring of Filipinos from working in 41 countries. But it has not dropped the idea of blacklisting the 41 work destinations. That is, unless something drastic happens during the 90-day reprieve.

The Philippines is nearly a decade behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of reducing poverty incidence by half in 2015, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has absolved the three commissioners of the National Labor Relation Commission (NLRC) of their involvement in the P.2-million extortion complaint in relation to alleged “illegal dismissal.”

AT the summit of leaders of states and territories that straddle the Pacific Ocean, the most important topics that should have been discussed are countries that do not belong to the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) bloc—Iran and eurozone nations, particularly Italy and Greece.

AN environmental health group on Monday renewed its call for the Philippine government to stop paying for a 15-year old medical waste incineration project that costs the Filipino people close to $2 million a year in debt service.

Majority of Filipinos considered themselves poor, according to the latest Social Weather Stations survey. The survey results, which were first published in a national business newspaper, showed that 52 percent of respondents (estimated 10.4 million households) considered themselves poor, three percent higher than the 49 percent recorded in the June survey.

With scores of anti-union actions happening all over the world, particularly assaults on security of tenure and collective bargaining, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) and Workers Development Foundation Inc, (WDFI), with assistance from the international labour movement, the International Trade Union Confederation-Asia Pacific (ITUC-AP), takes on the challenge of preparing young trade…

Cagayan de Oro City, Mindanao, October 2011 – Not letting momentum pass without renewed action, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) and Workers Development Foundation Inc. (WDFI),with support from the Japanese unions led by the Japan International Labour Foundation (JILAF), together with 25 young trade union leaders from 17 local affiliated unions in…

A third quarter survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) on self-rated poverty and hunger found an increase in number despite the Aquino administation’s flagship anti-poverty program — the conditional cash transfer (CCT), or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

More Filipinos are looking for work, but the number of jobs available to them has not grown. This was one of the findings of the Department of Agriculture’s Labor and Population Force Survey released last week and which mapped out the country’s working population within and outside the agriculture sector.

SOME bus operators and drivers are questioning the move of the Department of Labor and Employment to revamp the compensation system for bus drivers in an effort to boost public transport safety.

People are our only remaining source of competitive advantage; most of our other resources are gone or are fast going but what we do have in large quantities are people. It stands to reason, therefore, that we should be spending more in terms of investments in human capital. I know I have written about this…

Members of the state-run health care system may look forward to increased benefits without having to pay higher premium contributions than the prevailing rates.

MANILA, Philippines – Mobile Internet usage in the Philippines is growing rapidly on the back of the rising popularity of smartphones, tablets and other non-computer Web-enabled devices.

MANILA, Philippines – Despite the continued dive in the overseas sale of electronics products for the fifth straight month this year, most Philippine export products continued to grow.

THE quality of loans of the country’s largest banks edged up at end-September as their total loan portfolio declined past their non-performing loans, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said.

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Audit (COA) is calling for the closure of one of two workers’ inns built by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), saying the government has lost more than P21 million since the inns started operating three years ago.