Poultry raisers said over the weekend that the subsector will not achieve a 20-percent increase in broiler production this year, because of the El Niño weather phenomenon and the importation and smuggling of cheaper alternatives to local chicken.

TO promote transparency and accountability in public-private partnerships, the Philippine Constructors Association (PCA) Inc. is urging the Aquino administration to revise the joint-venture guidelines created by the Arroyo administration.

MANILA, Philippines – It’s the third time around in the Cabinet for Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, after being part of the official family of former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

MANILA, Philippines – Mention Albay and immediately abaca comes to mind, in addition to the picturesque perfect-cone Mayon Volcano, the iconic tourist attraction in this charming province in the Bicol region.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has been ranked the third cheapest tourist destination in Southeast Asia, a survey made by one of the leading financial publications in Asia showed.

IF anyone needed any more indication that things have not quite gone back to normal in Europe—where some experts warn that any success in blocking new stimulus programs and tougher banking regulations could lead to a double-dip recession, or even a full-blown depression—the best place to look for confirmation is the migrant- worker sector.

THIS SUMMER was unusually hot, with temperatures soaring to record highs. What was even more unusual was the way power bills shot through the roof, particularly in April. For the first time, many customers of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) saw their bill for the month double, even at around the same level of consumption as…

MANILA, Philippines—France has discontinued the issuance of the so-called blue cards which granted highly skilled foreign workers easier entry into the country, French Ambassador to the Philippines Thierry Borja de Mozota said.

COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS are surprised to learn that my family of five pays less than P2,000 a month for electricity.

Malacañang’s new Communications Group has started to hit the ground running on its bid to promote a two-way communication stream between the government and the public through a “feedback mechanism.”

THERE is nothing wrong with an only child. Against the conventional wisdom that an only child can grow up “selfish, spoiled and lonely,” recent studies show that this is not so. As Time magazine put it in its latest report, “the economy is sluggish . . . Expenses are up. And raising kids costs a…

If you don’t know the meaning of the word “inchoate,” you join many readers of The New York Times (NYT) who have looked up the word and many others in the NYT’s website built-in American Heritage dictionary. According to a feature published in The Daily Tribune (source not mentioned) “inchoate,” “profligacy,” “sui generis” and “austerity”…

Next year, the controversial P10-billion PEACe Bonds, or Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates which implicated a nongovernment organization that helped put former President Gloria Arroyo in power are set to mature, requiring the government to repay some P35 billion in obligations. Sold in October 2001, the 10-year bonds benefited the Caucus of NGO Networks (CODE-NGO)…

The civil society leaders behind the PEACe Bonds are stoutly denying any claims of graft, greed and favoritism in their successful implementation of their plan to receive a large commission for selling bonds to groups willing to lend money for the use of the Philippine government. Danilo Songco, Code-NGO’s national coordinator at that time—in the…

Critics ask where did the P10B obtained in 2001 go? The return of Corazon “Dinky” Soliman to public prominence as secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development made the media resurrect a controversy involving an organization that she headed until just before she joined the Cabinet of former President Gloria Arroyo in 2001.

With only five years left into fulfilling the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations, the agency has identified eradication of extreme poverty as an “endangered” goal for the country since most Asian nations “made significant progress in combating [extreme] poverty” except for the Philippines, an official of the United Nations Information…

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines and the International Labor Organization are teaming up anew in a new project that seeks to reduce the worst forms of child labor by as much as 75 percent, Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda D. Baldoz said over the weekend.

MANILA, Philippines – Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras berated yesterday the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) for lack of transparency in reporting the true situation of the country’s power transmission system.

MANILA, Philippines – With a little over a week before his first State of the Nation Address (SONA), the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) sent a letter to President Aquino asking him to stop the practice of large-scale mining in the country.

MANILA, Philippines – A militant party-list lawmaker called on newly appointed Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) chairman Daniel Lacson to immediately scrap the “unjust and illegal” policies of his predecessor and refund P1.7 billion in deductions from teachers’ benefits.

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THE Supreme Court (SC) estimates that by next year, all lower courts in Metro Manila should be using the computerized system in encoding, docketing and raffling of cases.

RETAIL PRICES in Metro Manila rose faster at 3.9 percent year-on-year in May, according to the National Statistics Office. According to the NSO, it was the fastest rate of rise since January.

How do you calculate the almost exact number of employees that an organization needs for business expansion as a result of an improved national economy? — Yellow Submarine.

WASHINGTON — Private recruitment agencies manage much of the flow of the 200,000 Filipino workers who head annually to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is the third largest destination for Filipino migrants after the United States and Saudi Arabia.

2012-2014 target also announced as BSP keeps policy rates unchanged INFLATION FORECASTS for 2010 and 2011 were cut anew yesterday by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which continued to keep policy rates unchanged as expected.

THE GOVERNMENT must increase infrastructure spending and cut red tape instead of beefing up investment incentives to improve the country’s attractiveness, the local partner of a Swiss-based competitiveness ranking body said in a forum on Friday.

THE Aquino administration has to arrest the 14-year deterioration in the Philippines’ competitiveness by aggressively improving the country’s infrastructure, particularly its power sector, according to the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center.

Dear PAO, I just have a concern regarding survivorship claim.  I want to ask if a common law wife of a pensioner has a right to claim the survivorship spouse claim or specifically survivorship pension? Here is the situation, my father was a pensioner. He was married to his first wife and had 4 siblings…

The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) has warned commercial establishments in Metro Manila to comply with the new minimum wage rates for their workers or face sanctions.