Monthly Archives: August 2021

NO DISPUTE OVER RISK ALLOWANCE By HANA BORDEY, GMA News, 20 Aug 2021 St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) Employees Association leader Jao Clumia corrected Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Friday after the latter accused him of issuing a false statement on the release of the special risk allowances for the hospital’s healthcare workers.

by Edu Punay – The Philippine Star, 20 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — Two House leaders have objected to a bill allowing absolute divorce in the country.

by Doris Dumlao-Abadilla INQ There are more and more companies that talk about gender diversity, equality and inclusion these days, but not enough are warming up to nontraditional relationships and family structures when it comes to the provision of benefits to their workers.

By JAMIL SANTOS, GMA News, 19 Aug 2021 The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) on Thursday reported that a total of 654,546 overseas Filipino workers have already returned home amid the global threat of the Delta coronavirus variant.

By CNN Philippines Staff, 18 Aug 2021 Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 18) — The public should use surgical mask for the time being due to the rising COVID-19 cases, the Department of Health said on Wednesday.

by Danessa Rivera – The Philippine Star, 19 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has issued guidelines for the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP) to allow electricity end-users to contribute to the country’s push to grow renewable energy (RE) capacity and usage.

by Janvic Mateo – The Philippine Star, 19 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — One in every two adult Filipinos believes that the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in the Philippines is slow, a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

by ABS-CBN News, 19 Aug 2021 MANILA – The Philippines’ largest business group appealed to the country’s pandemic management task force to stop resorting to lockdowns to check the spread of COVID-19.

by Marc Jayson Cayabyab, The Philippine Star, 18 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — A security guard died in a fire that hit a warehouse and reached third alarm in Valenzuela before dawn yesterday.

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President Duterte’s economic managers have lowered the country’s economic growth targets, taking into account the impact of the mobility restrictions imposed in different parts of the country meant to prevent the spread of COVID19.

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by Kristine Joy Patag – Philstar.com, 17 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — Human rights advocates and groups across the globe are pressing the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Human Rights Council to prosecute President Rodrigo Duterte, as they mark August as “a month of killings” for the government.

by Alexis Romero – Philstar.com, 17 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered agencies to ignore the reports of the Commission on Audit and has asked state auditors to stop publishing their initial findings that “condemn” departments and officials and create impressions that they are corrupt.

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By David Tristan Yumol, Kristel Limpot, and Bamba Galang, CNN Philippines, 17 Aug 2021 Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 17) — President Rodrigo Duterte blasted the Commission on Audit for its recent audit report on the Department of Health, which uncovered some ₱67.3-billion worth of “deficiencies” in the management of COVID-19 funds.

by Rey Gamboa (The Philippine Star), 17 Aug 2021 For years now, environmental activists have been pressuring the finance sector to withhold their banking services on fossil fuel-based power generating projects as a way of slowing down the construction of multi-million dollar projects. Generally, this call had failed; for banks, the opportunity to make big…

by Lawrence Agcaoili (The Philippine Star), 17 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — Remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) continue to climb, hitting the highest level in six months in June amid further global economic reopening, although at a slower pace than the double-digit growth recorded in April and May, according to the Bangko Sentral ng…

by Louella Desiderio (The Philippine Star), 17 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) said it would be difficult for most businesses, particularly micro enterprises, to advance the 13th month pay of employees amid challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic.

By Maricar Cinco, and Dona Z. Pazzibugan, 17 Aug 2021 Low salary and sheer physical exhaustion from a prolonged pandemic have pushed a big number of nurses to give up and leave hospitals, straining further a health-care system that many feared could soon be on the brink of collapse.

by Cesar V. Campos, 17 Aug 2021 Last July 8, Peter Wallace wrote in his column about nuclear power plants being safe and that there are many countries operating their nuclear power plants safely over the last 50 years: the United States, Germany, Taiwan, Japan. etc.

by Cielito F. Habito, 17 Aug 2021 There was misplaced jubilation over the 11.8 percent second quarter increase in our GDP that the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) recently announced, as it gave the wrong impression that the Philippine economy is now out of recession. Unfortunately, it is not. As others have already pointed out, including…

By Daxim L. Lucas, 17 Aug 2021 Dollars sent home by expatriate Filipinos continued to rise in June resulting in a similar increase for the first semester of the year, defying the ill economic effects of the raging pandemic around the world, data from the central bank showed.

By Doris Dumlao-Abadilla, 17 Aug 2021 The prolonged pandemic is driving more Filipinos into entrepreneurship to support their households, even those who are still keen on keeping their day jobs.

By DJ Yap, 16 Aug 2021 Whatever happened to the promised subsidies for jeepney and bus drivers? Sen. Nancy Binay on Sunday assailed the Department of Tranportation (DOTr) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) for their abysmal implementation of the service contracting program to subsidize public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers whose livelihoods…

By Doris Dumlao-Abadilla, 16 Aug 2021 Despite exiting five straight quarters of economic contraction, the Philippines is not yet out of the woods as rising COVID-19 cases may prompt the government to extend the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila beyond Aug. 20, according to economists.

by Louella Desiderio (The Philippine Star), 16 Aug 2021 MANILA, Philippines — The government is extending the work-from-home authorization given to information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) firms in ecozones beyond September this year.