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…

More than 100 Filipinos, mostly in the Middle East and China, are facing death for committing various crimes, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday said.

The Department of Justice has issued a memorandum laying down the “standard operating procedure for prosecutors nationwide with respect to their disposition” of cases involving political and media killings.

BATANGAS , Philippines  – Two laborers were killed while seven others were injured when a steel scaffolding collapsed at a construction site in San Pablo City, Laguna yesterday morning, police said.

MANILA, Philippines – Investor sentiment in the Philippines rose for the fourth consecutive quarter to reach an all-time high in the April to May period, making the country the second strongest driver in the Asia Pacific region, a survey by Dutch financial giant ING showed.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said yesterday net inflow of foreign portfolio investments surged 245 percent in the first half of the year as investors gobbled up more government securities and pumped in more money into the local equities markets.

The Philippines will participate in the upcoming ministerial meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vietnam where it will seek support from, and work together with ASEAN, in addressing national challenges under a new leadership.

WITH THE COMING OF THE rainy season, and images of the disaster caused by last year’s Tropical Storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng still fresh on the minds of many, the government agencies tasked with relief operations are on their toes.

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – At least 700 workers here will lose their jobs after a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer announced the closure of one of its largest divisions in this free port.

IT IS not unusual to see, read or hear about environmental problems these days. Pollution has become so common that we appear resigned to the fact that this is part of modernization.

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UNITED NATIONS — The Obama administration and 14 members of the U.S. Congress are urging the U.N. Economic and Social Council to accredit the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission so it can work at the United Nations.

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines – The 30-minute blackout that hit the islands of Negros and Panay on Friday morning was triggered by the electrocution of an engineer employed by a subcontractor of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

Reducing the worst forms of child labor in the country is the goal of a new project of the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) and the International Labor Organization-International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC).

A tense situation is brewing at the port of Dumaguete where workers are raising some issues against the arrastre operator.

Sometime last year, the Supreme Court come out with a ruling penned by Associate Justice Presbiterio Velasco that banks and lending institutions, including those issuing credit cards, cannot and should not charge more than 2 percent monthly, or 24 percent annually, for interest.

Investor confidence in the second quarter reached levels unseen in two years based on the quarterly ING Investor Dashboard Sentiment Index which showed 157 points for the country in the second quarter, second only in the region to India which got a score of 172 in the survey.

BIG time drug companies led by Mercury Drug are depriving persons with disabilities (PWD) the 20-percent discount for their medicine purchase as mandated by law, a number of PWDs revealed Thursday.

Senator cites loss of P100B in last 2 years The exemption of senior citizens from the 12-percent value-added tax (VAT) was “idiotic,” Sen. Sergio Osmeña 3rd said on Thursday. According to Osmeña, the government lost about P100 billion in the last two years “from all those idiotic tax exemptions that Congress has passed.”

The Aquino administration has filed its first tax evasion case against a pawnshop owner. In a briefing, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares said the agency is suing William Villarica for paying only an income tax of P25,607 from 1998 to 2009, even though he can afford to buy and maintain sports luxury…

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Thursday announced it would shift to a medium-term inflation target, as it kept policy rates steady for the ninth time on the back of manageable price increases. In a press briefing, BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said the Monetary Board decided to keep the overnight borrowing or reverse…

Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB) spokesperson Dolores Balladares told GMANews.TV in a phone interview that Hong Kong’s Legislative Council shot down an amendment to the proposed Statutory Minimum Wage (SMW) that would have included foreign domestic workers.

THE BANKING industry’s bad debts remained below 4 percent of their total loan portfolio for the 20th month in a row, easing by 0.03 point to 3.37 percent in May from the April level.

FOREIGN ELECTRONICS and technology experts are confident that even if the world has not yet fully recovered from the recession, consumers would go on buying gadgets and investing in technology.

MANILA, Philippines – Sen. Sergio Osmeña III is supporting the call of the Department of Finance to review the numerous tax breaks granted by Congress over the past two years.

MANILA, Philippines – National organizations of persons with disabilities warned yesterday they are planning to file class suits against some government institutions as well as private corporations for their alleged discrimination and failure to comply with laws upholding the rights of PWDs.

The new Health Department Secretary Enrique Ona obviously has so many other pressing matters needing attention of his department. Undoubtedly so many people are getting sick and are dying because of poor health services and inadequate facilities, not to mention the unavailability of basic medicines to prevent the spread of communicable diseases for a healthier…

MANILA, Philippines – Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman said she is happy to return to work in “one of the most committed bureaucracies” and vowed to further improve the government’s existing poverty alleviation programs.

DALY CITY, California – New nursing graduates are advised to be more patient and flexible in order to find jobs in the US. Jaeann Milan graduated in 2008 with a nursing degree from the Philippines. She was expecting to find work right away when she went back to the US. Instead, she found herself applying…

MANILA, Philippines—The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Oxford University on Wednesday launched a new index to measure poverty levels which they said give a “multidimensional” picture of people living in hardship, and could help target development resources more effectively.