MANILA, Philippines – The telecommunication sector is up for a difficult year if IDC’s latest Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker report is any indication.

THE Securities and Exchange Commission has given ailing pre-need firms four to five years to build up their impaired capital and trust funds as a result of the economic slowdown, its top official said yesterday.

Last week, I warned that government intervention in business was a major deterrent to business. We have a government that professes its wish to attract investors and its desire to do everything necessary to make the Philippines a desirable place to invest, yet its actions too often do the very reverse.

LIMOUSINES roll up to the plate glass storefront in Makati, unloading heirloom jewelry, paintings, and recently even a chamber for divers with the Bends.

JAPANESE company Toshiba will invest P110 million and employ more than 600 workers in Laguna to expand its operation beyond the production of hard disk drives.

THE rent in buildings devoted to business process outsourcing will drop by 15 to 20 percent this year because of too much space for lease and the economic crisis, an analyst said yesterday.

PHOENIX — President Barack Obama marshaled $75 billion on Wednesday to tackle the foreclosure crisis in an effort to prevent up to 9 million Americans from losing their homes.

FIRMS in Asia Pacific are expected to cut their travel expenses this year, resulting in the decline in hotel bookings in the country, according to Amadeus Philippines.

Filipinos are known worldwide for their strong family ties and filial love and respect for elders and as staunch defenders and protectors of their women and children. Their respect and care for mothers, wives and children are relatively much more intense and intimate than that of people in any other country.

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo yesterday appealed to private colleges and universities to defer any increase in tuition and other school fees due to the economic difficulties.

MANILA, Philippines – The renewed effort of President Arroyo’s House allies for Charter change (Cha-cha) via a constituent assembly (con ass) is very much alive, Rep. Joel Villanueva of the party-list group Citizens Battle Against Corruption said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director-General Ralph Recto urged yesterday the Social Security System (SSS) and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to also hike benefits to its members similar to the move of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

MANILA, Philippines – Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza said yesterday the DENR is budgeting P2.5 billion to create 111,536 “green collar” jobs as its contribution to President Arroyo’s Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program or CLEEP.

MANILA, Philippines – A glut of office supply is forcing landlords to compete for limited tenants by lowering rent, according to a leading global property services company.

MANILA, Philippines – Toshiba Information Equipment Philippines Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Digital Media Co., is investing an additional P110 million to expand its operations in the country.

A former economic manager said Thursday that he sees no need for a stimulus fund in the Philippines.

Electricity rates across the country are poised to go up after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved a petition from state-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) for an increase in its basic generation rates.

https://ntucphl.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ra9520-cooperative-law.pdf

In a joint position paper addressed to the Bicam Committee, several women’s groups urged the adoption of the House version on the definition of gender, quoting the 2007 State of the World’s Children by UNICEF that focused on gender equality “precisely because empirical studies have shown that women are key in the qualitative improvement in…

Impact of job losses, wage cuts, says Citi Citigroup said it was expecting foreign exchange remittances to the Philippines to grow by only 3.0 percent this year because of the adverse impact of job losses and wage cuts overseas.

THE internet is in this day and age such an integral part of our lives that, like it or not, we are all netizens now. But being part of this brave new world where technology has gobbled up distance does pose its own advantages—and disadvantages—in equal abundance.

Is there a possibility for a man to go to prison if he fails to support his children?

The number of South Korean tourists who would troop to the Philippines could slow down this year, the envoy of South Korea to the Philippines said in a roundtable with The Manila Times on Tuesday.

Recovery from the current global financial crisis could even take longer than the 1997 Asian financial crisis, various international organization officials said Wednesday.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries like the Philippines have been hit hard by the global financial crisis because of their smaller capitalization and limited access to credit, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).

THE Philippines is likely to incur a bigger budget deficit for this year than what the government has programmed due to weak revenue collection and high expenditures, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Wednesday.

MANILA, Philippines—Six out of 10 Manila residents think the Catholic Church is interfering with government policies on reproductive health and family planning, a recent survey by the private polling firm Social Weather Stations (SWS) said.

The Philippine economy as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) will grow 4.3 percent this year even if the global financial crisis worsens, a government development think-tank said.

MANILA, Philippines – A recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed that 86 percent of Manila residents support a law on reproductive health (RH).

(First of a series) Introduction The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) that President Ferdinand Marcos had built on Napot Point at the seacoast in the Bataan town of Morong has an unacceptably high risk of serious damage from earthquakes, volcanism, or both, should it be activated in accordance with a bill currently being considered by…