MANILA, Philippines – Citigroup expects the Philippines to post a budget deficit of P197 billion this year or 2.4 percent of the country’s total economic output.

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – Two men were buried alive while digging for the foundation of a house they were building in Alicia, Isabela Wednesday morning. Authorities said the bodies of Marlon Callawit, 27, and a certain Berlito were retrieved hours after the cave-in. – Charlie Lagasca, Philippine Star

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – Two men were buried alive while digging for the foundation of a house they were building in Alicia, Isabela Wednesday morning.

MANILA, Philippines – The business process outsourcing industry is projecting a 200 percent increase in jobs this year as the world’s biggest companies struggle to cut down on costs by outsourcing some of their operations to countries like the Philippines where labor is cheaper.

Economists call it the underground economy. I think the more descriptive term is guerilla economy. Even after an economic crisis melts into a more normal economy, significant portions of our people remain in underground economy mode. It is as if we are in a perpetual state of war. I guess we are… war on poverty.

MANILA, Philippines – Around a third of the pre-need companies operating in the country are forecast to wind down operations and just focus on servicing existing clients rather than continue to compete for a shrinking base of customers, an industry source said.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States spiraled deeper into recession to start 2009, forcing widespread cutbacks and layoffs among everyone from blue-collar workers that once churned out construction equipment to white-collar professionals like business consultants and accountants.

MANILA, Philippines – With a vision to make the country a world-class tourism capital, the Senate ratified last Thursday the Tourism Act of 2009 before it adjourned its session for a five-week Holy Week break.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine economy, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), may grow between 3.8 percent and 4.3 percent this year, an economist from the University of Asia and the Pacific (UAP) told an economic forum yesterday.

As usual, the government’s plan to set up a stimulus package for pump priming our economy and cushioning the impact of the global financial meltdown has become controversial. Critics once more express fears that it may just be another political gimmick in preparation for the coming 2010 elections. And since the funds for the package…

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo appealed yesterday to the members of the judiciary to swiftly resolve human rights cases in the country.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines slid five notches lower in the 2009 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report, released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The House appropriations committee approved yesterday a P100-million allocation for a new study on the viability of commissioning the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP).

A wannabe-philosopher friend once asked me what would happen if a cockroach fell into a bathtub filled with soapy water. Would the cockroach become clean, or would the water become dirty?

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) decided yesterday to cut its key rates by another 25 basis points, the third reduction in policy rates since December.

MANILA, Philippines – A recent Pulse Asia survey released yesterday revealed that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is perceived by the public as the most corrupt government agency while the Department of Education (DepEd) topped the list of least corrupt agencies.

BALANGA City, Bataan: Provincial Gov. Enrique “Tet” Garcia has openly spoken against the reactivation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) and if he has his way would like the mothballed nuclear structure in the mountain town of Morong dismantled.

TAIPEI: Amid a record-high unemployment rate, Taiwan is resisting pressures to shut out new foreign workers from the island—and laying off more of them—a government official told The Manila Times.

Executives from the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry see further growth in employment opportunities for Filipinos amid the global economic slowdown, results of an industry survey show.

NGOs insist reviving the mothballed BNPP endangers the lives of those who live in Central Luzon   A COALITION of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) on Wednesday divulged the names of 184 legislators endorsing a House Bill that seeks to revive the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP).

The Philippines’ world ranking on competitiveness in the travel and tourism industry fell five notches this year, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) study released on Wednesday.

The global crisis continued to take its toll on Filipinos, as the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) announced on Wednesday that as of this week, 40,191 workers have been laid off.

The Philippine government’s recent efforts to intensify intellectual property (IP) protection in the country should be enough for the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to remove the country from its Special 301 report watch list, an Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IP Philippines) official said.

THE 8,000 workers at the Korean-owned Hanjin Heavy Industries Corp. are overworked, unprotected and not getting overtime, health benefits or holiday pay, an investigation by the Labor Department and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority shows.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve on Tuesday rolled out a much-awaited program aimed at boosting the availability of credit to U.S. consumers and small businesses.

Mobile phone penetration rate in the Philippines hit 75 percent as of end-2008, as the number of subscriber identity module, or SIM cards, sold by the country’s top three operators reached 67.9 million.

New earthquake data Since 1973, many more earthquakes have occurred around and even under Mt. Natib; one on June 24, 1991 with a magnitude of 4.6 occurred directly under Napot Point. Since 1981, six have occurred within 25 kilometers of the BNPP. Note that the largest nuclear complex in the world, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in…

MARIVELES, Bataan: Police rescued three minors and seven others who were allegedly sweet-talked into working at a construction site in Balanga City but ended in Calauag, Quezon Province and reportedly forced to work without proper and just compensation, Mayor Jessie Concepcion of Mariveles announced Tuesday.

Last November 3, Josephine Moulds wrote an article in the UK Daily Telegraph about George Magnus, senior economic adviser to Swiss bank UBS, who is widely acknowledged to have predicted that the US sub-prime mortgage crisis would trigger a global recession.

US-based outsourcing firm Accenture is laying off almost half its workforce in the Philippine because of the effects of the global financial crisis, the Labor department said on Tuesday.