WITH the recent signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, the possibility of the Philippines joining the 12 nations that are currently part of the pact has again become a mildly popular topic of conversation. Opinions are mixed – as they are in the countries that must now individually ratify the agreement – as…

CAMP JUAN, Laoag City, Ilocos Norte – Isang karpintero ang namatay pagkatapos umanong masaksak ng isang electric hand drill sa Barangay Caraitan, Badoc, Ilocos Norte noong Biyernes.

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Call centres have created millions of good jobs in the emerging world. Technology threatens to take those jobs away again WHETHER in Nairobi or Albuquerque, a shopping centre is not really a shopping centre unless it has at least two anchor tenants. These can be department stores, cinemas or bookshops—anything that will fill a large…

MANILA – Globally, new HIV infections have been falling in recent years, but in the Philippines, HIV infection rates have consistently risen at alarming rates.

EXPERT TELLS GOV’T TO EASE FOREIGN RESTRICTIONS The Philippines has the potential to become a global investment destination and the next big information technology hub by liberalizing foreign restrictions on property ownership, said an executive from the Indian unit of international property consulting firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

MANILA, Philippines – Responding to numerous complaints of credit card holders on hidden charges, excessive fees and harassment by collection agents, a law to regulate the credit card industry will soon be enacted.

ALL OVER the country, we hear cries of patients who could die because of insufferable hospital and doctors’ fees sooner than from their ailments. There is this joke which has passed on to reality of people surviving their hospitalization but dying after a heart attack upon seeing the bill.

Last Jan. 13, the Department of Education (DepEd) issued a clarification on the Senior High School (SHS) Voucher Program. Among the important instructions in DepEd Order No. 1, series of 2016, is yet another reminder to students, parents, and (yes!) DepEd officials that the program “will empower students with the choice to pursue their desired…

This article is published in collaboration with Project Syndicate. January is usually expected to be a good month for stock markets, with new money gushing into investment funds, while tax-related selling abates at the end of the year. Although the data on investment returns in the United States actually show that January profits have historically…

Learning to Earn, the 3rd pillar of UNESCO’s 21st Century Education has been part of the educational pattern of upper secondary education of Europe, USA and Australia. With licensed expert instructors and fully equipped work areas provided in these continents, professional occupational training has enabled senior high school graduates – as well as unemployed adults…

Almost all Filipinos want their president to succeed. Only politics makes it difficult to see through this basic fact. Significant success of the president momentously moves the nation forward.

There’s been little change in the number of teenage pregnancies in the Philippines, says a UN agency MANILA, Philippines – Young, sexually active, and clueless. That is how some unwanted pregnancies start out in the Philippines and elsewhere.

MANILA, Feb. 3 — The government’s fight against child labor, particularly its worst forms, has leveled up with the signing of the Joint Memorandum Circular on the Guidelines in the implementation of the H.E.L.P. M.E. Convergence Program to Address Child Labor.

The Philippines ranked 70th out of a total of 186 countries in the 2016 Index of Economic Freedom published annually by The Wall Street Journal and Washington-based think tank, The Heritage Foundation.

FILIPINO households must prepare for weaker remittance flows as the number of deployed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) has started to plateau. In a briefing on Tuesday, Ateneo de Manila University’s EagleWatch Senior Fellow Alvin Ang said remittances are only expected to grow 2.7 percent this year.

Cheap oil should be a good thing for a country like the Philippines that imports almost all of its fuel, but there are 10 million reasons why that may not be the case.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) vowed to ensure that monetary policy would remain consistent with the economy’s momentum for sustained non-inflationary growth.

MANILA, Philippines – Government representatives are going to Qatar to help some 12,000 Filipino engineers and architects who may be affected by Qatar’s new employment requirements for foreign workers, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said yesterday.

SAN ANTONIO, Quezon – Isang project engineer at isang construction worker ang namatay matapos na masagasaan ng isang transit cement mixer sa Barangay Callejon, this town.

Former Representative Edcel Lagman and Health Secretary Janette Garin’s efforts to promote family planning earn them international recognition BALI, Indonesia – Former Representative Edcel Lagman and Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Janette Garin were among the winners of the 2016 Excellence in Leadership for Family Planning Awards for their role in aiding the passage of…

Are Grade 10 private school completers who do not receive any kind of financial support from the government entitled to vouchers? The short answer is: it depends. Here is a really long answer:

THE EUROPEAN Commission has adopted its first monitoring report on the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) that included an assessment of the Philippines’ implementation of 27 international conventions.

MANILA, Philippines – The European Commission said on Thursday that the Philippines is making good progress on implementing 27 international conventions on human rights, labor rights, environment and governance.

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Three leading economists and academics at Davos agree: GDP is a poor way of assessing the health of our economies and we urgently need to find a new measure.

As it turns out reforming social security is a well studied topic. A Google search reveals studies and articles by PIDS, the government economic think tank. There is also a ten year old study by the World Bank.

PRESS STATEMENT (for immediate release) RUBEN D. TORRES 22 January 2016 President, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines CP No. 0908.851.3320 LEONIE Q. MONTEMAYOR President, Federation of Free Farmers CP No. 0908.240.9772 TUCP, ALLIED GROUPS SEEK EARLY ENACTMENT OF CREDIT SURETY FUND BILL The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) and allied farmers groups…

The Philippines ranked 56th out of 109 economies in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) 2015-2016 released yesterday by the Adecco Group and the Human Capital Leadership Institute of Singapore, which measured a country’s ability to compete for talent.