JUST A LITTLE OVER HALF of a stimulus package has been disbursed by the government, which has just two weeks left in the year to spur the economy through public spending.

The Aquino administration submitted to Congress a budget for 2011 that is based on a GDP growth prospect of 5%, and an aspirational target growth of 7 to 8%. A year later, for 2012, it submitted a budget that is based on a slightly faster growth prospect of 5.5 to 6.5%, and with the same…

Recent food price shocks threaten some 1 billion people with hunger. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that climate change, along with rampant commodity speculation and lack of social protection are contributing to widespread food insecurity, resulting in hunger, poverty and even increased child labour. ILO On-line talked to Marva Corley-Coulibaly and Uma Rani Amara, senior…

Case #4: Temporary restraining order (TRO) on the travel ban on ex-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Eight Arroyo Supreme Court justices voted within a day for the issuance of the temporary restraining order (TRO) on the travel ban. They are: Corona, Velasco, Brion, Peralta, Bersamin, Abad, Villarama, and Perez. Dissenters were Carpio, Mendoza, Reyes, Bernabe, and Sereno.

MANILA, Philippines – Seeing continued strong demand for pilots worldwide, leading global aviation training services company Alpha Aviation has beefed up the capacity of their Clark-based Philippine unit to train more pilots with another Airbus A320 simulator.

President Benigno Aquino III said the government will spend P10.55 billion for the resettlement of squatters during his watch.

IN SECURING the P1.4-billion reward for helping to depose former President Joseph Estrada, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman’s Code-NGO was able to release P100 million a year for its poor members, the Freedom from Debt Coalition disclosed at a House hearing on Friday.

WEAK government spending and political uncertainty are just some of the reasons why the Philippines has been outperformed by most of its Asian neighbors, a study sponsored by the International Monetary Fund showed.

A CATHOLIC bishop on Friday said that the culture of impunity in the country still remains as numerous cases of extra-judicial killings are yet to be resolved.

Six major business organizations have supported moves by a House body calling for the withdrawal of the controversial Revenue Memorandum Circular 40-2011 issued last September 5 by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), requiring the disclosure of additional detailed income information of taxpayers.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz yesterday announced that the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board (RTWPB) in Region XI (Davao region) in Mindanao has granted a P15 wage hike in the daily minimum wage of workers in the private sector.

The military yesterday blamed the communist New People’s Army (NPA) for at least 212 human rights violations in Southern Luzon and Northern Mindanao regions, directed not only against government targets but also civilians and private business establishments.

MANILA, Philippines – A draft impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Renato Corona is awaiting signatures of members of the House of Representatives. The draft complaint obtained by abs-cbnNEWS.com  cites eight grounds for impeaching the chief justice, including betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.

THE season will be less than bright for the 2,600 former regular employees of Philippine Airlines (PAL) who found themselves jobless when the Lucio Tan-owned carrier adopted its so-called outsourcing program last October.

The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) held a symposium last December 7 on Department Order No. 18-A on the new regulations governing contracting and subcontracting arrangements. The symposium had Bureau of Labor Relations (BLR) Director Rebecca Chato as resource person who noted that the issuance strikes a balance between the need of business for…

Here’s the paradox of growth in this country. From 2003 to 2009, the economy grew by an average of 4.8 percent. And yet, instead of decreasing with economic growth, the number of poor Filipinos actually burgeoned from 19.8 million to 23.1 million.

So how is the Aquino administration addressing poverty? The National Anti-Poverty Commission presents its strategy here.) Synergy as strategy The depth of poverty in the Philippines will require efforts on a massive scale. A multidimensional approach grounded in economic growth and its distribution will therefore be needed to effectively reduce poverty.

MANILA, Philippines – Our gathering today is called a Summit on Poverty, Inequality and Social Reform. This is not the first time that we have met for such a purpose. One might therefore ask, why another summit?

“Male Involvement” has long been a buzz-word (or “buzz-term”) in family planning circles. Often it is paired with the word “increasing,” that is, assuming that male involvement in family planning – either by encouraging their wives or partners to use contraception, paying for the methods, or even assuming responsibility themselves – is deficient if not…

MANILA, Philippines – President Aquino has called on local government officials to immediately act to solve the problem of informal settlers in the country, saying their number is increasing based on current government figures.

First of two parts You only respect an institution if it deserves respect, you do not respect it of itself. An institution is made up of men and women so is only as good as those men and women are. As this report shows the Philippine court system is severely dysfunctional. It’s quite simply, a…

As Christmas draws near, the question that is in the mind of most fixed income or wage earners is whether they will receive a 13th month pay or Christmas bonus. According to reports, government employees will receive a P10,000 productivity enhancement incentive starting December 8.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

SPOKESMAN: ‘WHAT IS LEGAL IS NOT ALWAYS NECESSARILY RIGHT’ President Aquino is completely justified in disobeying the law, because he knows what are the right laws and the wrong laws, even if already decided by the highest court in the land, despite the fact that it is the Supreme Court (SC) that is mandated by…

With the right approach, you can significantly improve your credit card situation. But to get the best deals, you’ll have to ask. It’s not that your credit card company deliberately wants to keep you in the dark. OK, maybe some do. But most major banks are pretty good about disclosing their terms and conditions on…

THE Asian Development Bank on Tuesday cut its growth forecast for the Philippines’ gross domestic product to 3.7 percent this year from 4.7 percent earlier as a result of the global economic downturn.

When a friend groaned last year about how the movable holidays that produced long weekends—which, by the way was yet another one of the long and growing list of “sins” of the Arroyo administration—have become a thing of the past given the Aquino administration’s supposed adherence to stronger work ethics, I told my friend not…

If senatorial elections were held today, Francis “Chiz” Escudero and Loren Legarda would be ahead of the pac, according to the latest Pulse Asia survey.

House leaders on Wednesday expressed alarm over the rising cases of Filipinos landing in jail abroad, with their number exceeding 7, 200.

MANILA, Philippines – The Coalition for Responsible Mining in Mindanao (COREMin2), an alliance of key mining companies in Mindanao, is urging President Aquino to step in and resolve the growing dispute over local ordinances banning open pit mining.