CEBU, Philippines – Summer is definitely here and has brought with it intense heat which is expected to peak this April, the season’s soaring temperatures aggravated by the onslaught of El Niño.

CEBU, Philippines – Department of Health-7 (DOH-7) yesterday started its recruitment of 60 college students, who are at least on their second year, especially those who took up medical courses such as Nursing and Physical Therapy and with good communication skills.

It’s very difficult to do business in this country, with a lot of tedious procedures needed in securing all sorts of permits and licenses that take so long to accomplish. By the time the process is done, almost half the investor’s capital has been spent for tiresome paperwork made worse by red tape – plus…

MANILA, Philippines – The government should maintain the fiscal and monetary stimulus program implemented since last year until private sector investments are strong enough to support economic growth, the World Bank (WB) said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – With the “budgetary crumbs” that the country’s state colleges and universities (SCUs) are allocated, it’s no wonder that many of them are performing lacklusterly.

HELP NEEDED?: If the Commission on Elections is starting to feel overwhelmed by the Herculean job of managing the national elections that are just a month away (!), it better say so this early so non-partisan citizens groups can help out in good faith in a systematic way.

MANILA, Philippines – Malls and industries in Mindanao may have to temporarily shut down or at least slow down operations so that enough power could be harnessed and saved to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply during the election period.

PRESS RELEASE HON. RAYMOND DEMOCRITO C. MENDOZA        April 6, 2010 Trade Union Congress Party-List (TUCP) TUCP-PGEA Compound, Maharlika cor. Masaya Streets, Diliman, Quezon City Tel/Fax: (632) 351-3757/924-7551 Government double-speak on wage hikes – TUCP TUCP party-list representative Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza charged NEDA with “double-speak” on the economy and wages.

A Davaoeño has been declared the second nominee of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) party-list in its 2010 congressional bid.

CEBU CITY, Philippines–Five construction workers died while five others were badly injured when the wall of a building undergoing construction in Barangay (village) Tisa collapsed early Wednesday.

MANILA, Philippines – Five construction workers were killed and 6 others were injured after parts of a new mall in Cebu City collapsed before dawn Wednesday.

MANILA, Philippines – More than a month before the May 10 elections, Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III continued to dominate the presidential race, leading by 12 percentage points over his closest rival, Nacionalista Party (NP) bet Sen. Manny Villar, according to the latest survey by Pulse Asia.

LUBAO, Pampanga, Philippines – The Philippines is under fire from the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) for not having mandatory kindergarten in public schools, according to former education secretary Jesli Lapus.

MANILA, Philippines – The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) expects the impact of the long dry spell caused by El Niño to be minimal, taking away just 0.57 percentage points from the growth rate as measured by gross domestic product (GDP).

MANILA, Philippines – Manila North Harbour Port Inc. (MNHPI) has committed to absorb more than 1,000 workers at the Manila North Harbor as part of its agreement with major labor groups operating in the area, paving the way for a smooth transition towards privatizing the country’s busiest port.

Companies based in the Philippines took out more than $5 billion in 2009 to repay their debt or lend to other companies abroad.

The current to-do about what constitutes a genuine party-list group or representative is another instance of the law of unintended consequences operating, which seems to take its toll disproportionately on human beings armed only with good intentions and nothing but.

Factories kick-started the US economy from its worst recession in seven decades. Now they’re taking the lead in reviving the labor market.

WORKERS in Metro Manila will have to wait for more time before the proposed P75 across-the-board wage hike can be decided on by the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC).

WHILE agricultural growth can be achieved by the expansion of agricultural area and input intensification, growth through the improvement in productivity is a promising option, according to a discussion paper released by a senior research fellow of the government think tank Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS)

HONOLULU, Hawaii – The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ordered K-Mart to pay a 73-year-old former Pinay employee US$120,000 in damages.

MANY CHILDREN enrolled in private schools and their parents are overburdened by school work. The students have very little time after class hours to indulge in recreational activities and enjoy their youth. Their parents, right from work, have to spend the rest of the day and into the evening helping their children accomplish homework and…

I’d like to share a letter e-mailed to me over the weekend which somewhat illustrates that, in our country where pirated DVDs abound and where few have moral or legal qualms about buying them, sometimes theatre owners are hardly helping the cause of the movie industry against piracy.

CHICAGO – The lives of nearly 900 babies would be saved each year, along with billions of dollars, if 90 percent of U.S. women fed their babies breast milk only for the first six months of life, a cost analysis says.

THE peso hit a 20-month high against the US dollar on the first trading day of the second quarter mainly because of improving risk appetite, currency traders said.

MANILA, Philippines – Amid criticism that President Arroyo has made numerous political appoint-ments in the past nine years, officials claimed that her administration has the highest ratio of career service executives since 1986.

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said there were “some signs of hope” in May’s employment report, but cautioned that the U.S. economy is far from a full recovery.

MANILA, Philippines – The government will meet with the diplomatic community tomorrow to explain its side on the alleged human rights abuses committed against the so-called Morong 43.