Department of Trade and Industry Secretary Jesli Lapus on Monday revealed that the Arroyo administration has entered into a duty-free trade agreement with the United States to boost the Philippines’ textile industry.

CEBU, Philippines – Members of the Eversley Child Sanitaruim Employees Union are asking the regional director of the Department of Health -7 to place under preventive suspension their Chief of Hospital and their Chief of Clinics following charges filed against them for alleged administrative offenses.

UNEMPLOYMENT in the Philippines is a “time bomb” with about 52 million Filipinos expected to seek jobs by 2030, according to a study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The only time I ever had anything close to a “birds and the bees” discussion with my dad was just before I got married. Self-control, he advised, was the best approach to sex and family planning. I remember trying to suppress a smile since I am the eighth child in our family and was born…

MANILA, Philippines – The business sector will ask President Arroyo to amend the labor code in order to accommodate changes in the global economy and make the country more attractive as an investment destination for companies.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday that the country’s balance of payments (BOP) posted a surplus of $255 million in March, a complete reversal of the $472-million deficit registered in the same month last year.

This is another case of resignation amounting to constructive dismissal. The test applied here is whether a reasonable person in the employee’s position would have felt compelled to give up his position under the circumstances. This is the case of Magno.

MANILA, Philippines – The trust ratings of Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and running mate Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II have surged in the homestretch of the campaign for the May 10 polls, according to a recent survey by independent pollster Pulse Asia Inc.

(Last of two parts) THE Philippines has assured the International Labor Organization (ILO) that cases concerning alleged harassment and assassination of labor leaders and trade union activists will be rapidly investigated and resolved.

I’m bemused by the recent uproar created by the latest round of rate hikes from Meralco. Coming as it does in the midst of continuing brownouts, some people are complaining that the situation is just unfair.

PHILIPPINE Airlines announced Monday a wider outsourcing plan that would eliminate 3,500 non-core jobs as a condition precedent to the capital-short flag carrier taking in an unidentified airline-related company as partner.

Like previous generations, today’s teens seem to be constantly on the phone. But now they’re doing a lot more texting than talking. One third of teens in the U.S. text more than 100 times a day, according to a study released Tuesday by Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Employers’ group says flexibility needed in times of economic difficulty THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST employer group is poised to issue a resolution today calling for amendments to the Labor Code, including a provision that bars the reduction of benefits for workers.

THE BEST near-term answer to the current power shortage is for the government to invest less than $1 billion in reviving the “still-brand new” Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, according to outgoing Pangasinan Representative Mark O. Cojuangco.

FORMER labor undersecretary and now Nacionalista Party senatorial candidate Susan “Toots” Ople is pushing for the recall of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Memorandum Circular 268, which allows banks to freely subcontract out in bulk jobs normally performed by their regular employees.

FROM just a handful of lenders and several thousand borrowers in the 1970s, the business of microlending and microfinance has ballooned into a P12-billion industry serving an estimated 7 million poor Filipinos, most of them women.

THE GROWING information technology and business process outsourcing industries have urged the government to stabilize the country’s power situation, stressing that erratic supply will affect the image of the Philippines as a prospective investment site.

MANILA, Philippines – Locally made vehicles continued to lose market share in the first quarter as tariffs on competing Southeast Asian imports were dropped and work on an incentive program for car assemblers stalled.

Are we really simply a bunch of oversensitive humorless bleeding hearts who take offense at the most innocuous comments, or on the contrary, the problem is precisely that we do not assert ourselves enough, that we have gotten used to being ridiculed, embarrassed, humiliated in the global stage that the bullies in this world have…

After some of his listeners had rudely—to my mind— posted in some Web site parallels between Manuel V. Pangilinan’s commencement address and excerpts from the addresses and remarks of some notables, Obama and Oprah, among them, he tendered his resignation as chairman of Ateneo de Manila University’s board of trustees, and returned the honorary doctorate…

EMERGENCY measures invoked by the military and police in the name of national security should not prevent trade unions from exercising legitimate rights and activities, including strikes.

DESPITE improving official export figures, the small and medium enterprise (SME) sub-sector is bucking a plan to cancel the release of money meant to help them tide over the global financial crisis and realign this amount to the government’s El Niño Calamity Fund. The Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) said its Cebu chapter submitted a…

BUSINESSES remain opposed to a wage hike this year, citing a fragile economic recovery, preferring non-wage benefits for workers instead.

MANILA, Philippines—Philippine Airlines (PAL) employees on Monday held a motorcade on Monday in protest at a massive retrenchment to be implemented on May 31.

Early last week, I had the privilege to cover the first of three briefings this year by the joint foreign chambers of commerce in the Philippines on the country’s foreign investment climate.

MALOLOS, Bulacan: Nacionalista Party senatorial candidate Susan “Toots” Ople is pushing for the recall of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Memorandum Circular 268, which allows banks to freely subcontract out in bulk jobs normally performed by their regular employees. Former Labor Undersecretary Ople said that labor unions have been strongly opposed to circular, which has…

MANILA, Philippines – To prevent the company from bleeding further, Philippine Airlines (PAL) will implement the next phase of its restructuring program, starting with the spin-off of three non-core units, effective at the close of business hours on May 31, 2010.

MANILA, Philippines – North Harbor operator Manila North Harbour Port Inc. (MNHPI) has advanced payments of more than P100 million to port and transport workers for their past services as part of its commitment to comply with the terms of its contract with the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA).

Bangko Sentral Officials may want to look into the practice of banks who are either too lazy or intentionally not loading the necessary bills for their cash dispensing machines.

MANILA, Philippines – Fewer students are opting to take up nursing apparently due to the continuing slump in the hiring of health workers in the United States, the country’s largest labor group reported yesterday.