PROFESSIONALS were the latest to turn up in the Finance department’s radar as it compared official registry data with the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) list of last year’s biggest individual taxpayers. “Which professionals are top income taxpayers?,” the department asked in its latest Tax Watch ad where it noted that just a few out…

MANILA, Philippines – Despite living in a country that is prone to typhoons, earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions, Filipinos have little awareness of the benefits of insurance, an insurance company in the Philippines said.

One major trend in Philippine economic development is, despite rising income, the proportion contributed by industry to total output is one of relative decline. But at this stage of our development, this should not yet be the case.

The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said that the country’s manufacturing lag from the 1990s to 2000s caused the “boom-bust cycle” of the Philippine economy.

MANILA, Philippines – The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that around 440,000 workers were left jobless, most of them in the fishery sector following the 7.2-magnitude killer earthquake that rocked Central Visayas in the middle of last month.

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino families who said they were poor numbered 10.8 million in September, while a smaller number of 7.9 million families described themselves as poor in terms of food, according to a recent survey by Social Weather Stations (SWS).

MANILA, Philippines – Workers from the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) and 10 other regions are expected to receive salary increases after the regional wage boards completed public consultations on petitions for a pay hike, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The number of Filipino families who consider themselves mahirap or poor increased by 400,000 in the past three months, a recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines and the United States have signed an alliance agreement to educate Filipino workers in the US on their right to fair wages and working conditions.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will soon come out with a new list of jobs considered hazardous for young workers.

MANILA, Philippines – Gabriel Casuga had always wanted to become a doctor. But not just any doctor. After watching on national television the life story of former Senator Juan Flavier – who himself was a doctor serving in the barrios (rural villages) prior to becoming Health Secretary – Casuga resolved to serve the barrios as…

Dozens of local manpower agencies say that their businesses are on the verge of closure because of a shortage of visas for Filipina domestic workers and increasingly strict rules on recruiting those from Indonesia. The agencies complain that recruitment charges for domestic workers have gone up by 40 percent and there are more restrictions on…

The Philippines still has the lowest per capita GDP in the Asean-5 despite outpacing the economic growth of its peers last year and in the first half of 2013, the National Statistical Coordination Board confirmed in a report.

Some children made a bit of money during this yearly interlude of remembering the dead. According to the Inquirer report by Quezon correspondent Delfin Mallari Jr., the “lettering boys” cleaned and repainted tombs and grave markers for amounts ranging from P100 (for sprucing up just the names and dates on tombstones) to P350 (for “the…

The high cost of education only came third on the list of reasons many Filipino children are not attending school, according to the National Statistics Office (NSO).

MANILA, Philippines — Saudi Arabia has issued regulations listing the rights and obligations of migrant household service workers and their employers, the Department of Labor and Employment said Thursday.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines was among 10 economies which made the biggest improvement in business regulation in the past year, according to the World Bank (WB) and International Finance Corp. (IFC).

MANILA, Philippines – A total 427 new cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) had been reported in September, according to the Department of Health Tuesday.

PARIS – Nearly a third of the world’s economic output, some $44 trillion (32 trillion euros), will by 2025 be in countries at the highest risk of climate change effects, said research published Wednesday.

When it comes to recognising the rights of domestic workers, Asia is lagging behind. About 40% of domestic workers globally are employed in Asia, but most of the region lacks legislation to protect them.

MANILA, Philippines—Communist insurgents who have battled government forces for decades turned their fury on hundreds of pigs at a farm in the southern Philippines, a military spokesman said.

THERE are at least one million under-aged domestic workers in Filipino households although the Philippines is the second country to ratify the International Convention on Domestic Workers, which went into effect a year ago in September.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has reviewed the progress made on the situation of domestic workers worldwide.

TUCP appeal letter for Farai Katsande

THE Philippines has advanced in an annual ease of doing business list by the World Bank. According to the just-released joint World Bank and International Finance Corp. Doing Business 2014 report, the Philippines jumped 30 places to 108 out of 189 economies from last year’s 138.

It’s a piece of good news, certainly, but also puzzling, if not at times contradicting reality. I’m talking about recent news that the Philippines has just emerged as “Asia’s best performing country” in closing gender disparity this year, at least according to the 2013 Global Gender Gap Report.

Fiscal, nonfiscal perks eyed to make sector more competitive Reviving the country’s manufacturing industry through new fiscal and nonfiscal policies may be crucial for the Philippines to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the establishment of the Asean Economic Community by 2015.

REFORM PARTNERS As members of the National Industry-Academe Council, university presidents and industry and government representatives map out a three- to five-year higher education reform agenda that aims to curb youth unemployment and produce a globally competitive work force.

New statistics reveal the number of people who have HIV has stabilised in Pacific nations while the rate is rising in Asia.

The Middle East depends heavily on domestic workers but trails other regions in adopting critical reforms to protect their rights, the International Domestic Workers Network (IDWN), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and Human Rights Watch said today. The groups released a report assessing progress since the 2011 adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention, a…