Monthly Archives: August 2012

Senators will ask the stakeholders in the tobacco industry on the government proposal to restructure excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol despite the admission made by Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima that the tax incrase did not lead to a reduction in the number of smokers.

More Filipino workers are expected to land jobs in New Zealand following the successful holding of the 1st Philippines-New Zealand Senior Labor Officials Meeting in Manila recently.

MANILA, Philippines – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it supports an increase in the contribution rate in the Social Security System (SSS) and its merger with the Government Service and Insurance System (GSIS).

Jesuit university affirms stand as professors face heresy charges Faculty members who are facing possible charges of heresy for supporting a population control bill aren’t getting any sympathy from Ateneo de Manila University.

In three years, the Aquino government hopes to slash poverty incidence to 16.6 percent or half the 1991 poverty rate of 33.1 percent. According to economic planning secretary Arsenio Balisacan, the government can hack this considering that growth is high and that prices are not going up fast. To be poor means earning less than…

Banks are required by law to lend a certain percentage of their funds to agricultural ventures. A lack of borrowers from these ventures, however, forces banks to park their funds for regulatory compliance.

The Philippines has officially become the 30th member-state of the International Labor Organization (ILO) to ratify the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC) of 2006, dubbed the international seafarers’ bill of rights.

THE Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) will require call centers to post cash bonds equivalent to one-month salary and benefits of the total number of its employees. Speaking before the 888 News Forum, Director Edmund Mirasol, of the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB), said the bonds requirement was an offshoot of the closure…

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Miners roll out sacks of boulders out of a tunnel, after a 24-hour shift at one of the hundreds of small mines on the rugged slopes of Mount Diwata in southern Philippines.

RELAXING the country’s foreign ownership limits is critical as competition for investments will be fierce given the global economic downturn, a public advocacy organization said. Amendments to the 1987 Constitution have been pushed over the last two decades and the urgency has not changed, the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) said in a preliminary policy…

President Aquino has signed a law creating a P1-billion (about $24 million) The People’s Survival Fund (PSF) to combat the effects of climate change, Climate Change Commission deputy head Mary Anne Lucille Sering said yesterday. The law is meant to fund climate-adaptation projects in a country battered by about 20 typhoons a year that cause…

Internships can provide valuable work experience to young people. But as they become more common, so does the risk of abuse, especially during economic downturns. ILO News looks at the benefits and drawbacks of this practice.

ISABELA CITY, Basilan, Aug 22 (PIA) — Fifteen child laborers in this city recently exchanged their work implements with educational package as part of the Department of Labor’s (DOLE) campaign for a child-labor free barangay.

MANILA, Philippines – The Ateneo de Manila University served notice on Monday it joins Catholic leaders in withholding support for the RH bill, noting serious concern over some provisions seen as infringing on constitutional rights, while respecting the individual views of 192 faculty members who signed a position paper endorsing the measure.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines is predicted to be one of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world in the next 40 years, according to Knight Frank and Citi Private Wealth’s 2012 Wealth Report. The Philippines is seen to be the 6th fastest growing economy in the world between 2010-2050, with gross domestic…

Real-interest rates across the region are falling, and this development is seen to spur countries in Southeast Asia, the Philippines included, to boost spending on assets and infrastructure, a globally recognized accounting body based in London said.

A STUDY on the merits of amending the Constitution has yet to be finished, a Cabinet official said, as economic managers continue talks with the private sector and multilateral agencies, particularly on the issue of foreign ownership limits.

MANILA, Philippines – With exporters hurting from the strong peso, economists and consumer groups are pushing for the gradual depreciation of the peso to around P50 to the US dollar.

It’s not exactly an inquisition but 159 members of the Ateneo de Manila University faculty may face investigation for heresy, and sacked—not excommunicated—if found guilty. Bishop Leandro Medroso, in an interview over Church-run Radio Veritas Monday, called for an investigation of the Ateneo faculty members who signed a statement declaring support for the controversial reproductive…

Rates of cancer in the lung membrane among Israelis have multiplied by 6.7 percent between 1980 and 2007. Asbestos is the term used to define a group of fibrous minerals that were used for industrial and construction purposes for many decades. In 1977 and again in 1987, the International Agency for Research on Cancer determined…

(Financial Times) — When Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, announced this year’s annual growth target of 7.5 per cent in March, most analysts assumed he was being unduly modest and that the world’s second-largest economy would actually expand much faster.

The ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention has now been ratified by 30 countries, meaning it will go into effect in a year’s time. The charter sets out the labour rights of the world’s 1.2 million seafarers.

“The single biggest promoter of increased abortions in the Philippines is the anti-RH movement,” says a coalition of reproductive health groups. The groups were reacting to statements made by “anti-RH” senator Tito Sotto, who, “based on evidence copied from Facebook, blogs and other similar sources … accuses several organizations and civil society leaders of promoting…

Changing the economic provisions in the 1987 Constitution will make inevitable a review of the political structure in the Charter, Sen. Edgardo Angara said yesterday.

Bantay OCW (Ang Boses ng OFW) Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz has issued an order banning the deployment of domestic workers to employers overseas whose workers have run away due to abuse. If there are reports that an employer is abusive, he or she should not be able to hire Filipino workers again, the labor chief…

Senate investigation in aid of legislation on the anomalies, crimes and excesses (ACES) and human rights violations of postmaster general Maria Josefina Mendoza Dela Cruz against the employees of the Philippine Postal Corporation is urgently requested by PhilPost employees organizations’ leaders.