Monthly Archives: March 2013

IN HIS speech at the Euromoney Philippine Investment Forum on Monday, President Aquino unveiled three priorities of his administration: agriculture, tourism, and infrastructure. I agree with the priorities, but why is manufacturing not mentioned? Manufacturing, whose share to total economic output is almost twice that of agriculture, is and could be a major contributor to…

THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) has cited several reforms implemented by the Aquino administration, saying these could boost investments which are key to sustaining the growth momentum of the economy.

THE PHILIPPINES is poised to be the standout in Southeast Asia yet again, leading the pack in terms of economic growth and investor confidence, Standard Chartered Bank has projected.

(Updated 4:35 p.m.) Pro-reproductive health (RH) groups on Wednesday questioned the independence of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), which is accredited by Comelec as its citizens’ arm, due to its close links with the Catholic Church.

English professors love to catch the errors students make in their term papers, and they love nothing better than to catch mixed metaphors. The “friends and survivors” of Calvin College English department collected this list of mixed metaphors and posted them on their web site:

MANILA, Philippines – The country needs to attract more domestic and foreign investments if it wants to sustain its better-than-expected 6.6% growth last year, economists and analysts said on Tuesday.

MANILA, Philippines – Foreign direct investments (FDI) breached the $2-billion mark last year, the first time it did so in the past five years, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – Fifteen of the 33 senatorial candidates have statistical chances of winning in the May elections, a majority of them from the administration-led coalition Team PNoy, according to results of the latest survey by Pulse Asia. Re-electionist senators Loren Legarda, Francis Escudero and Alan Peter Cayetano topped the pre-election survey anew, which was…

AN estimated 233 million women in their fertile years will lack access to modern contraception by 2015, up from 221 million in 2010, according to a UN funded study.

Countries expecting increases in foreign fund inflows, particularly the Philipines, should allow some appreciation in their local currencies, the International Monetary Fund believes.

MANILA, Philippines – The two million domestic helpers or kasambahay nationwide will receive a minimum wage and enjoy other rights starting May.

IN 2011, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said that the Department of Education (DepEd) lacks 66,800 classrooms. He and our nation’s leaders promised that the classrooms shortage in the Philippines would be solved by 2014. At the rate, the present administration is moving, I have a nagging feeling that the school infrastructure crisis won’t be solved…

MORE Filipinos each year are being robbed of cash through otherwise legitimate transactions such as automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawals, credit-card purchases and online banking, as fraud has increased alongside the country’s growing prosperity.

The Philippines surpassed Malaysia and Singapore in a 2012 Japanese survey of most profitable firms in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), President Aquino disclosed on Tuesday.

MARKET PLAYERS yesterday called on the government to ensure that the country’s growth momentum is sustained by focusing not just on achieving a faster pace but also on “growing better.”

A trans-Atlantic spat between Europe’s fiscal enforcer Olli Rehn and feted U.S. economist Paul Krugman is beginning to turn ugly, inflamed by recent dire forecasts for eurozone growth and unemployment.

THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said the government’s Conditional Cash-Transfer (CCT) Program will continue but no money will be released for the duration of a ban on disbursement of public funds during the campaign period for the May midterm elections. It added that the move would shield the CCT Program from politics.…

President Barack Obama pledged during his January 2013 State of the Union address that the United States would join with its allies to “eradicate” extreme poverty over the “next two decades” by connecting more people to the global economy and empowering women.

MAJORITY, if not all, of the 800,000 Filipinos based in Sabah may be sent back to the Philippines on the premise that they had acquired their Malaysian citizenship illegally over the past 20 years under a controversial systematic granting of citizenship to foreigners dubbed Project IC (identity cards). Project IC, which is blamed on former…

ENTERTAINMENT Gateway Group Inc. (EGG), a subsidiary of Globe Telecom, together with the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) has come up with text-based 1343 Action Line Against Human Trafficking to combat the growing number of the said criminal activities in the country.

It is not correct to say that the 40 richest Filipino families own 76 percent of our nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). I have recently been widely misquoted as having said so. What I did say, and had first explained in this space nine months ago (“Economic growth for all,” 6/26/12), was that the growth…

Philippine consumer prices is seen to climb slightly in 2013 as the inflation rate is expected to average at 3.8 percent, according to the latest report of the state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).

THE CENTRAL BANK must put more teeth in its foreign exchange policy, economists yesterday urged, before an overvalued peso causes the collapse of local industry.

(Financial Times) — Stagnation and political turmoil erode region’s global relevance Although it may not feel like it if you are living in Europe or the US or Japan, it is quite possible that the global economy will expand at a faster rate this decade than in any of the previous three.

FOREIGN DIRECT investments (FDI) surprised on the upside in 2012, breaching the full-year forecast, as strong economic growth and low inflation attracted capital to the Philippines.

MANILA, Philippines – It was a fitting way to celebrate Women’s Day. A group of more than 500 people from various sectors of government and NGOs gathered together, most of them dressed in purple, for a public consultation regarding the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the Reproductive Health (RH) Law.

MANILA, Philippines – More than 140 million girls will become child brides between 2011 and 2020, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said yesterday.

THE government has dashed all hopes of private-sector participation in the proposed expansion and modernization program of Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT 3).

“ANGEL of Little Children” ART BY GCF (1998) How could you not learn! You just open your eyes and your ears—all the material is in front of you. Even the songs are dripping with sex info. No longer is it necessary to experience it in a movie house in the KKK (kataas-taasang, kasulok-sulukang, kadilim-dilimang) seat.…

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines–The exposure of students to the Internet and their perceptions about careers and an unstable job market may shape how those among them of eligible age would vote in the May 2010 elections.