MANILA, Philippines – The country’s external debt went up by 5.6 percent as of the first quarter of the year due to higher borrowings by private enterprises and the National Government, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo has ordered state-run National Power Corp. to provide cheaper electricity to Samsung Electronics as an incentive for its multi-billion-dollar investment in Clark, Pampanga.

MANILA, Philippines (1st UPDATE) – President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III on Tuesday named the members of his Cabinet. He also announced he would establish a “truth commission” headed by former Chief Justice Hilario Davide.

Mythology depicts a cast of fearful nasties – such as Cyclops’, Hydras, and Chimeras – that have served as the boogeymen of ancient times. As is teh case however with all things that go bump in the night, a rational perspective and a little courage is all that is needed to slay these beasts.

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATE) – Here is a list of the members of the Cabinet of President-elect Benigno Aquino III, announced on June 29, 2010.

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines and Vietnam on Monday signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) on bilateral cooperation on fisheries in Hanoi, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a news release Tuesday.

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MANILA, Philippines—One in every four Filipino adults suffers from hypertension or high blood pressure—the biggest risk factor for heart and kidney diseases, as well as diabetes.

A GROUP claiming to represent 1,400 workers in broadcast giant ABS-CBN Corp.’s job pool said yesterday more than two dozen members have been terminated for their refusal to accept regular employment status.

THE PHILIPPINE Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) yesterday appealed the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DoLE) decision allowing Lucio C. Tan-led Philippine Airlines (PAL) to proceed with an outsourcing scheme that will lay off ground staff.

THE COMMISSION on Elections (Comelec) has proclaimed 33 party-list representatives that will represent 26 organizations in the 15th Congress except presidential son Juan Miguel M. Arroyo who is still facing a disqualification case.

Metro Manila consumption activities are back to normal after being severely hit by the twin typhoons that hit late last year, leading global market intelligence company Synovate Inc. revealed in a study.

At first glance, it seems that the left suffered something of a setback in the recent elections. For example, not only did Bayan Muna slip in the rankings (as did most the left groups), but it lost votes. However, such a conclusion would be incorrect. Any overall decline was not absolute but relative and, as…

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal is pushing for the overhaul of the apparently flawed party-list system, saying it needs to be more attuned to the spirit by which it had been enshrined in the Constitution.

Cooperative Development Authority (CDA)-registered electric cooperatives are egging other utilities to follow their lead in shunning government control to bring down electricity rates.

Comelec insists on buying PCOS machines, despite AES likely death Systematic cheating marked the 2010 automated polls, the chairman of the House of Rerpesentatives committee on suffrage and electoral reforms yesterday said in a TV interview, stressing that he will be proposing for Congress to junk the automated elections in 2013, given the many instances…

WHAT President-elect Benigno Aquino 3rd should make priorities are reducing poverty and improving maternal health since the Philippines has been overtaken by some African countries in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Subesident-elect urged to widen cash transfers THE National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) will propose higher taxes, rice sufficiency, expansion of conditional cash transfer and bigger infrastructure spending to be included in the country’s economic blueprint. Augusto Santos, acting Socioeconomic Planning secretary, on Monday told reporters that Neda will submit a strategic Medium Term Philippine…

MANILA, Philippines – Corporate and individual borrowers continued to enjoy lower interest rates in May although slightly higher compared with the rates in April as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (SBP) continued to disengage from crisis intervention measures.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) sold P7.185 billion worth of Treasury bills (T-bills) in an auction yesterday, the last debt sale under the Arroyo administration.

Can an employee be dismissed for offenses committed during her employment in a government owned or controlled corporation which were subsequently discovered by same corporation after it was privatized and after it rehired her? This is one of the questions answered in this case of Lucy.

The Board of Investments approved P169.68 billion worth of investment pledges in the first six months of the year, up 318 percent from P40.63 billion year-on-year, Trade Undersecretary and BoI managing head Elmer Hernandez told reporters over the weekend.

MANILA, Philippines—Former Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) president Jose Anselmo Cadiz, who is reportedly being considered by President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to head the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), yesterday defended his record as being “pro-people” and dismissed allegations that he was pro-management for having lawyered for two major banks.

TORONTO – The leaders of the world’s most powerful economies pledged to slash back spiraling debts on Sunday as they sought to rebalance a global economy knocked off its axis by a financial crisis.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas believes that the economy has what it takes to avoid a so-called “boom-and-bust cycle,” shrugging off speculations that the rare and robust growth in the first quarter may not be sustained due to financial risks abroad.

PARIS, France—Dreams of braking global warming by storing carbon emissions from power plants could be undermined by the risk of leakage, according to a study published on Sunday.

MANILA, Philippines – The chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms on Monday opposed a plan to automate the May 2013 mid-term elections after proving that there was systematic cheating in the local polls last May 10.

AFRICAN countries are making better progress than the Philippines in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a report recently released by the Overseas Development Institute and the United Nations Millennium Campaign.

THE Philippines’ biggest dollar-earning industry has jacked up its growth projection for the year as the sector enjoys continuous investment inflows. Arthur Young, Semiconductor and Electronics Industry in the Philippines Inc. (SEIPI) chairman, said the group’s board on Friday raised its growth forecast for this year to between 25 percent and 30 percent.

THE Philippine central bank warned on Friday that money sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) has peaked and may soon plateau. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said remittances have breached a very large base, leading to a situation wherein the growth of inflows wa stabilizing at the mid-single digit levels…