MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has the inherent attractiveness and ability to seize upcoming business opportunities as it steps up as the next favored destination in ASEAN.

THE head of state-run Philippine Health Insurance Corp. on Tuesday said the government had neutralized a syndicate that had been siphoning off as much as P100 million in premium payments.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines will have to remove two to three sections of the “cut and sew” portion of the Save the Industries Act to reduce the waived duties of the United States to $200 million, a ranking government official said.

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III approved a four-year good governance and anti-corruption plan during a Cabinet cluster meeting Tuesday, which will focus on transparency, accountability and citizen engagement, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is targeting to create more export-related employment in the next five years despite the global economic uncertainties.

MANILA, Philippines – The military yesterday belied a report by a New York-based human rights watchdog which claimed that the Philippines has made little progress in addressing human rights violations.

THE PHILIPPINE National Police has announced yesterday that the crime rates dropped by 23 percent compared to last year’s record.

THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had delisted 165,651 non-compliant, undeserving and unqualified beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program, the Philippines’ conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, as of December 15 last year.

A lawmaker from Eastern Samar yesterday warned that a House bill filed in the United States Congress could affect some 400,000 call center employees here.

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s ship crewing sector has called for the immediate ratification of the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC) of 2006 in which the ILO introduces a number of major amendments to existing international regulations involving ships crews’ welfare.

MANILA, Jan 4 (PIA)– The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Philippine National Police (PNP), and the labor sector recently signed a Manifesto of Commitment, which outlines future actions for the promotion of the fundamental freedoms of association and collective bargaining.

AS 2011 closed, I completed my usual review of my family’s finances, especially our spending patterns given our income sources. What struck me was the increasing size of my credit card bills compared to those of previous years.

The remittances of overseas Filipino workers in October rose 6.2 percent to $1.77 billion, the highest attained in any month, according to the most recent figures released by the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

THE administration of President Benigno Aquino 3rd has lined up almost P142-billion worth of infrastructure projects that are scheduled for implementation beginning this month, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad revealed on Monday.

MANILA, Philippines – The New York-based Human Rights Watch said yesterday that the Aquino administration has made little progress in addressing impunity for serious human rights violations despite promises of reform.

Women have stronger money management skills than men in areas such as everyday financing and planning but struggle around more complex financial concepts, according to results of the latest MasterCard survey on Consumer Purchasing Priorities-Money Management.

The Board of Investments (BoI) registered P368.9 billion in investments for 2011, up by 22 percent from the P302 billion the previous year. According to the BoI, the figure was also 35 percent higher in terms of number of projects approved.

Hans Leo Cacdac, Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) undersecretary for labor relations, formally assumed office on Monday, as the new administrator of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), replacing former administrator Carlos Cao, Jr.

THE Department of Education has released P115 million financial assistance to 153 secondary schools that offer special education. Education Secretary Armin Luistro said DepEd earlier released funds to around 278 elementary SPED centers.

REMITTANCES, the economy’s saving grace last year as a result of the government’s lackluster spending, will grow more slowly this year because of the economic crisis abroad, the World Bank says.

Filipinos spent an average of 8.7 hours visiting social networking sites in October 2011, landing the Philippines on the sixth spot in the list of social networking countries as reported by research firm comScore.

MANILA, Philippines – When President Aquino was elected into office, the nation wrapped itself in euphoria. Filipinos were filled with hope as Aquino promised that he would finally be that leader the country needed.

GLOBAL executives are considering investing in Southeast Asia, except in the Philippines, according to a consulting firm’s international survey.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine economy is likely to expand by at least six percent this year as government spending improves, an economist said in a report.

MANILA, Philippines – Two lawmakers are proposing to institute reforms in the water industry to address what they described as the “perplexed and fragmented approach” in water resource and industry management.

TO reduce poverty incidence to 16.6 percent and to meet key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, President Benigno Aquino 3rd provided the biggest funding support to poverty reduction and other social services under the 2012 national budget.

MANILA, Philippines – The country’s population is projected to increase from 95.8 million to 97.6 million this year, the government said yesterday. In a telephone interview, Commission on Population (PopCom) executive director Tomas Osias, citing data from the National Statistics Coordinating Board, said the adjustment will be brought about by the 1.7 million Filipino babies…

The number of new HIV cases in the country jumped by nearly 90 percent in November compared to the same period in 2010, a Department of Health (DOH) report said.

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) Sunday reported a surge in the number of companies and contractors implementing their own occupational safety and health (OSH) programs last year.

In my parents’ house, the cooks and nannies, the drivers, houseboys and gardeners, the handymen and carpenters made easy friends among themselves–and then some It must be in the water, my father would mutter to himself, each time another domestic affair broke out in the open in my parents’ house. The servants seemed given to…