MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Education (DepEd) leadership and public school teachers are headed on a collision course over a move to add two years to the basic education curriculum.

MANILA, Philippines – He may be a neophyte in government, but this spokesman is definite and proud of one thing – that he will not “do a Bunye” and defend a public lie.

Today, more than 85 percent of corporations are engaging in some type of wellness programming. Can work be good for you? An increasing number of employers recognize that promoting their employees’ health has great benefits for them, including decreased absenteeism and lower employee health care costs.

Communist rebels have set on fire to five container vans of a banana plantation in Compostela Valley province, the military said yesterday.

The petitioners of the controversial sex education program of the Department of Education (DepEd) withdrew their suit against its inclusion in the local education system to allow Education Secretary Armin Luistro evaluate the program and take appropriate actions.

Flag-carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) yesterday said it had to cancel several domestic and international flights after some of its pilots quit without giving enough notice.

[Since last Sunday, the column of Dr. Felizardo Francisco, Director, CHED, has come out on Sunday instead of Friday.] [This is the last, the fourth, installment of the speech I delivered on “the Role of CHED in Setting Global Standards for Higher Education in the Philippines” during the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT)…

BUILDING on the best-practice results of several recent cooperation programs, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the European Union (EU), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and German Association for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) have got together to prepare a primer on how to strengthen cooperation among local government units in delivering essential services,…

The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) together with the Science City of Muñoz in Nueva Ecija had committed to intensify rice conservation over the weekend. The commitment was made as a survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology shows that each Filipino wastes three tablespoons of…

THE Manila Times has long advocated the abolition of the National Food Authority (NFA). We just could not see how the dual mandate of the agency—to be tasked with aiding farmers to be paid well for the palay (unhusked rice) they produce while at the same time be required to make sure the market price…

FOOD Security in staple cereals in times and places of natural or man-made calamity/emergency.

THE former head of the Arroyo Administration’s Presidential Management staff, Secretary Elena Bautista-Horn, has defended the regime she served from Aquino administration claims that the National Food Authority (NFA) allowed rice to rot in its warehouses. She said most of the rotting rice was received as donations from the United Nations World Food Programme.

Long berated in our editorials for profligate and questionable spending, the National Food Authority (NFA) suddenly grabbed the headlines when President Benigno Aquino 3rd, in his first State of the Nation Address last week, condemned the previous administration’s practice of importing rice in excessive amounts, resulting in a glut of the staple.

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MANILA, Philippines – The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) has expressed its support for a new policy that makes Pag-IBIG membership a requisite for departing OFWs.

Iח tһе year 2011, tһеrе wіƖƖ bе more contact center jobs Philippines аחԁ іח India tһаח tһеrе аrе surgeons іח those respective countries. Tһіѕ іѕ according tο recent reports οf аח independent study. It саח bе very frustrating tο hear such news. If уου аrе living іח India, tһе Philippines, China, South America, οr аחу…

GET YOUR priorities straight. Ateneo de Manila University president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres SJ has criticized the Aquino administration’s plan to add two more years to basic education, saying government should focus first on cutting the number of “illiterates” the country produces annually.

PERIODICALLY, POLLSTERS have the pleasure of announcing good news, which offsets the pain, roughly as periodic, of announcing news not so good. One of the good days was Wednesday (July 28), when Social Weather Stations reported high acclaim for the country’s first use of the automated election system (AES), based on its June 2010 national…

For some time now, the media have always had a field day every time news or images of Filipino nationals living in seemingly harsh conditions under a bridge in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, are published or seen on television screens.  Invariably, the message that such news or images deliver is that our Filipino “workers”…

“A MAN will fight over three things,” the late US Sen. Barry Goldwater once mused. “Water, women and gold, usually in that order.” Goldwater’s remark resonates in recent threats of riots over water shortages in 177 barangays of Metro Manila. Dry taps signal a hair-trigger threat. We ignore the threat at our children’s peril.

MANILA, Philippines—The leaders of the group of farm workers claiming ownership of the 6,500-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac—owned by the Cojuangco family of President Benigno Aquino III—are perplexed over why the Supreme Court has given priority to a labor question that had been settled four years ago.

LOW-LEVEL OFFICIALS, PRIVATE EXECS COVERED While focused on the nine-year Arroyo administration, the so-called Truth Commission created yesterday through Executive Order No. 1 will include in its broad scope public officials of at least third-level, such as department heads of government agencies and even private individuals suspected of being involved in graft and corruption cases.

When our friend and fellow reproductive health advocate, Carlos Celdran calls us to get together, you can bet that the usual suspects are all going to show up, ready to spend another evening of ranting and whining about the issues that Reproductive Health (RH) advocates obsess about: SexEd bill, the stand of president on RH…

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang yesterday decided to allow non-career service officials working in various government offices to continue until Oct. 31, 2010.

MANILA, Philippines – President Aquino yesterday admitted an “inevitable” increase in fares of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT), citing the inability of the government to sustain the subsidy due to the high cost of its operations.

MANILA, Philippines – After some delays, the socioeconomic planning portfolio was finally turned over to economist Cayetano Paderanga Jr. in a simple ceremony last Monday.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) is planning to increase the benefits granted to members who need to undergo kidney transplantation.

The Department of Finance (DoF) said that it is abandoning its predecessor’s privatization strategy by favoring long-term lease on prime real assets over outright sale.

MANILA, July 30 – Army authorities condemned the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army’s (CPP-NPA) use of human shields in a clash with government forces in Lupi town in Camarines Sur on Thursday afternoon.

The BPO sector has changed its face considerably over the last couple of years. There have been major upheavals and changes. Many new call center destinations have come up. Some of them are competing hard with the traditionally known BPO service countries like India. Among them, Philippines shine like the dazzling North Star. It has…