THE Department of Education (DepEd) is strengthening its drive for universal kindergarten schooling and is targeting 2.5 million children in the coming school year.

Two new government agencies joined the roster of the investments promotion agencies (IPAs) through a recent supplemental memorandum of agreement (MoA). The Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza) and Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFaB) are now included in the entire network of IPAs in the implementation of the the country’s marketing…

THE electronics industry performed better than expected in 2010, with the full-year exports believed to have exceeded $30 billion from only $22.2 billion in 2009, or a 35.1-percent growth that exceeded forecasts.

The country’s attention in the last few days has been riveted on the casualties from the New Year revelry. Cameras focused on the grimacing faces of the victims while medical professionals ran around trying to do what they could given the dire situation; and I refer not only to the seemingly endless stream of victims…

CEBU, Philippines – The ongoing labor dispute between the management and labor union of the Visayan Electric Company (Veco) has yet to be resolved as the union questioned the National Labor Relations Commission-7th Division for allegedly violating the assumption order of the labor secretary.

ANGELES CITY, Philippines  – City health authorities yesterday reported 10 new suspected cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) here.

MANILA, Philippines –  Business process outsourcing (BPO) industry players will implement various initiatives, including aggressive marketing of the country’s outsourcing services to more customers in key markets to achieve a revenue growth of 20 percent in 2011.

Nearly one-fourth of the nation’s labor force of 58.8 million workers (the estimate of the National Statistics Office, 2008) suffers the fate of the unemployed and underemployed. Those who are caught in this condition are found in the urban slums and in the poor provinces. These people live in uncertainty about what to feed the…

MANILA, Philippines –  Malacañang has extended the suspension of all allowances, bonuses, incentives and other perks enjoyed by directors and trustees of government-owned and controlled corporations and government financial institutions until Jan. 31.

MANILA, Philippines – Call center agents are expected to be the most in demand workers in the country this year.

MANILA, Philippines – President Aquino’s triumph in the May 2010 presidential elections ended almost eight years at the helm of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) by retired police chief Leandro Mendoza and marked the entry of corporate executive Jose de Jesus.

MANILA, Philippines – Sen. Joker Arroyo has retained his title of “Scrooge of Congress” or “Kuripot King” for the ninth straight year for being the thriftiest lawmaker, as reflected in the Commission on Audit (COA) expenses report for 2009.

The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) on Wednesday said it needs P63 billion in the run-up to 2013 to attain the country’s rice sufficiency status by then.

THE Metro Manila Development Authority said Monday it will lay off 1,800 contractual employees after Malacañang cut its budget by half and it struggles with over P500 million in garbage bills that have been piling up since July 2010.

MANILA, Philippines – Information Technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries such as call centers, as well as the tourism sector, are seen, in a projection by the National Economic and Development Authority, as continuing to offer bright financial prospects to the national economy in the year 2011, especially in job generation and in…

Manila (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) – On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the most alarming, the HIV-AIDS problem in the Philippines is now pegged at five.

MANILA, Philippines—It’s not just about airplane etiquette anymore. The government should conduct country-specific pre-departure orientation seminars (PDOS) for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to avoid “embarrassing incidents” like the one where an OFW was caught with 150 pounds of copper in his luggage while leaving Saudi Arabia, a recruitment industry leader said.

MANILA, Philippines—Sophisticated transnational drug-trafficking syndicates—including a West African group using overseas Filipino workers as couriers—remain the biggest challenge to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and other agencies involved in the campaign against illegal drugs, according to a report from the US State Department.

MANILA, Philippines—They keep the economy afloat and so deserve a medical facility of their own.

MANILA, Philippines—Following a string of road accidents over the holidays, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) has offered to provide technical training and safety reorientation to some 50,000 public utility vehicle drivers nationwide in the next two years.

TACLOBAN CITY — The labor and management sectors in Eastern Visayas were lauded for the absence of labor strikes in the past seven years.

… but more needs to be done, says US pharmaceutical group A WASHINGTON-based group of drug firms has retracted its earlier petition to the United States government that the Philippines be placed on the priority watch list of countries notorious for intellectual property (IP) violations.

The year 2010 faced the Bureau of Immigration (BI) with reforms and challenges left behind by the previous administration and pursued relentlessly by a career official who was appointed as acting commissioner by Justice Secretary Leila De Lima.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) conducted a series of advocacy orientations on child labor based on Republic Acts (RA) 9231 or the law on the elimination of the worst forms of child labor, and RA 9208 or the law on anti-trafficking in persons, to help improve the plight of children engaged in hazardous…

THE perks for firms hit hard by the global recession would be scrapped from this year’s list of projects that are entitled to incentives, the Board of Investments (BOI) said. Efren Leaño, BOI executive director, said the 2011 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) would be leaner than the last year’s list.

At least 70 Filipino workers in Madagascar are currently stranded and awaiting repatriation to the Philippines after staging a strike against their employer for nonpayment of wages and other contract violations.

The Department of Labor and Employment should immediately crack down on employers who failed to give their workers the mandatory 13th-month pay.

THE Aquino administration is bracing itself for revenue-eroding measures that are set to take effect this year.

It’s bad enough that many Filipinos don’t know their real history. It’s worse when idiots (people who do not know the truth) and deceivers (people who know the truth but want to hide it) are distorting the truth. Idiots unwittingly distort the truth by spreading fiction. Deceivers wittingly distort the truth for personal gain or…

MANILA, Philippines – Many workers nationwide seemed not to have benefited from the long weekends that marked the Christmas holidays.