MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday said the annual report of the secretary-general to the United Nations Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict regarding isolated incidents committed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have been investigated and were found to be false.

MANILA, Philippines—As wage boards deliberate on a pay increase for Metro Manila workers, the research group Ibon on Tuesday called on the government to approximate the wage hike to the estimated family living wage, saying the value of the P382 minimum wage in the metropolis was now worth only P235.

About 11 million Filipino households remain without access to the banking system, Bangko Sentral Gov. Amando Tetangco Jr. said Monday.

THE Elections Commission has declared the first 34 congressmen who will represent 27 organizations that won under the Party-list system in the May 10 elections.

DESPITE calls from economists for the incoming administration to increase the country’s value-added tax (VAT) rate to 15 percent, the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) and Code: Reforms for Economic Development (CODE: RED) warned on Monday that this could cut consumption, increase poverty and endanger the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

PRESIDENT-APPARENT Sen. Benigno Aquino III is keeping his options open to the possibility of tapping nuclear energy to address a worsening power-supply shortage.

First-quarter GDP grew by 7.3% to the surprise of many analysts, including myself. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the first-quarter growth is not the type that you want to build on. It’s unsustainable, largely debt-driven, and non-inclusive.

A think tank backed by the state-owned University of the Philippines said proposals to again increase the sales tax or the value added tax (VAT) to 15 percent from the current 12 percent to resolve the back-to-back budget blowouts last year and this year of around P300 billion a year may further increase the number…

The government’s own statistics office confirmed what the Palace has been trying to dispute which was election spending as the main driver of the relatively high 7.3 percent growth in the first quarter.

AQUINO TOLD MANILA, Philippines—A labor group has urged apparent President-apparent Benigno Aquino III to persuade American lawmakers to pass a bill that seeks to revive the textile and apparel trade between the United States and the Philippines, and create thousands of new jobs in both countries.

Neither the many congressmen who went to the Smartmatic plant in Sta. Rosa, Cabuyao, for a testing of the precint count optical scan (PCOS) machines under controlled surroundings, nor the camp of former President Joseph Estrada were impressed or convinced that the automated election system, as programmed by Smartmatic, has yielded accurate results, and was…

Millions of Filipino children and youth are in one or more ways suffering the ill effects of poverty. Malnutrition, lack of access to good quality education and health care, parental neglect, exposure to domestic violence and drug abuse, sexual abuse and other forms of exploitation, are more common than most of us would like to…

CABUYAO, Laguna , Philippines  – There may have been no “hocus-PCOS” after all. A staunch ally of deposed President Joseph Estrada said Smartmatic had successfully demonstrated that it was “not possible” to tinker with the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to manipulate the results of the country’s first automated elections.

MANILA, Philippines – Monetary authorities are expected to review the country’s latest inflation forecast during the meeting of the central bank’s Monetary Board on June 3 in light of the stronger-than-expected gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first quarter of the year.

MANILA, Philippines – Nine of the country’s strongest brands received the prestigious Superbrands status during the 2nd Superbrands Certificate Cocktail Presentation for Volume VI held last March at Zuni’s Restaurant in Greenbelt V, Makati.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday proclaimed the 28 winning party-list organizations in the 2010 automated polls. Comelec chairman Jose Melo, reading an en banc resolution, announced on Monday afternoon that the following party-list organizations will be awarded seats in the 15th House of Representatives:

Saying it is almost a month since Labor Day, a moderate labor group questioned Malacañang Monday over the delay in granting a wage hike for laborers in Metro Manila.

MANILA, Philippines—The New People’s Army (NPA) does not recruit child warriors or brutalize children caught up in its struggle with government forces, a leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on self-exile in the Netherlands said yesterday.

REDISTRIBUTING property rights through agrarian reform is a key policy direction that should be taken by the new administration of President-apparent Benigno Aquino III to help the country adapt to climate change, experts on land and asset reform said at a recent conference.

MORONG, Bataan—The incoming administration of President-apparent Benigno Aquino III should seriously consider the use of nuclear energy, including the opening of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), nuclear power experts said at the weekend. They also think the government should make available the needed power supply amid the increasing energy shortage that has been causing…

The Philippines saved the landmark nuclear review conference from collapse by putting forward a last-minute compromise formula after countries failed to reach an agreement on a number of issues in four weeks of intense, and sometimes heated negotiations in the United Nations.

The new president’s incoming administration must enact policies to enable the Philippines to have a knowledge-based economy, a step ahead from the service-based economy it is now developing into, according to XMG Global, a Canadian think-tank with an Asia Pacific office in Makati City. The new administration must also craft policies to strengthen the foundations…

The country’s economic expansion during the first quarter—the highest in 30 years—is unsustainable because it depended solely on election spending, a former Cabinet secretary said. Benjamin Diokno, the former Budget secretary during the Estrada administration, said the better-than-expected growth the Philippines experienced during the first three months was not sustainable because it was mainly driven…

Domestic work employs millions of workers, mostly women, around the world. The June 2010 session of the International Labour Conference will hold a first discussion on a new international labour standard for a domestic workforce that is growing worldwide. ILO Online spoke with Manuela Tomei, Director of the ILO’s Conditions of Work and Employment Programme,…

Even as the dusts of the last electoral battle have not yet fully settled down, the advocates of the RH bill are already making lots of noises. They are beating their breasts and bragging that most of the politicians who are staunch supporters of the bill were reelected thereby showing that the Church campaign against…

MANILA, Philippines – Workers in Metro Manila are likely to get the much-awaited increase in their daily take-home pay within the week.

The Anti-Violence Act Against Women and their Children Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children, defines abuse against women as the following: 1. Physical violence refers to bodily harm.

Speak Out Against Domestic Violence Depression, anxiety, isolation, bruises, broken bones and even death. No one should ever have to endure the brutality of domestic violence but it happens and sadly more frequently. Everyday there are 29 women who become victims and so many more are unaccounted for. Breaking the cycle of violence is possible…

Dr. Giovanni Tapang, chairman of the well-respected organization AGHAM, the Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan, which was founded in 1999, wrote extensively in his The Manila Times column the serious vulnerabilities of the Commission on Elections-Smartmatic Automated Election System. Below is his assessment of how the AES fared.

Chairman Jose Melo of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and his fellow commissioners are satisfied that the first Automated Election System (AES) experience of the Philippines has been a success—they are now deciding whether top purchase the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines or just lease them from Smartmatic- Total Information Management (TIM) in the…