TOKYO, Japan – Three foreign nurses on Friday passed the Japanese nursing exam, the first to do so under Japan’s drive to attract Asians to help ease the nation’s severe shortage of nurses.

CEBU, Philippines – The Department of Health announced yesterday that they have recorded 74 new cases of individuals infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome in Cebu City just in the first three months of this year.

More than 50 men from the Department of Social Welfare and Development -7 have pledged to fight violence against women and children after they were installed as members of Men Oppose to Violence Against Women Everywhere or MOVE-7. Their installation was made during the culminating program of the Women’s Month held at SM City-Cebu. Violence…

MANILA, Philippines – Consumer confidence for the next 12 months finally turned positive after being in negative territory over the past seven quarters as the global economic recovery gains more foothold, a survey conducted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.

More families of migrant Filipino workers have recently acquired houses, supporting the growth of the remittance-driven real estate industry.

The country’s furniture and furnishings sector is expected to recover at least two more years should the present global economic activity continue to improve.

Finding a job in the city of Donguan in southern China is not hard at the moment. There is said to be a shortage of two million workers in this part of China.

For almost 100 years since the birth of the Philippine Republic on June 12, 1898, people didn’t have the benefit of having to vote for a party-list group that nominated sector representatives to Congress. Nonetheless the republic survived, although it did not necessarily progress, nor improve, nor prosper, politically.

Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairman Dr. Emmanuel Angeles assured that there will be no tuition increase in the Polytechnic University (PUP) of the Philippines and in other state universities and colleges (SUC) across the country.

The workplace is the fertile ground for tubercolosis, or TB,  the sixth  leading cause of death and illness in the Philippines, a Labor official said Thursday.

MANILA, Philippines – The government remains optimistic that the domestic economy in 2010 will improve in line with a global rebound as early signs indicate, a top economic manager said.

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna , Philippines  – Genetically modified (GM) corn production in the Philippines has become a multi-billion-peso venture.

MANILA, Philippines – Output of the country’s manufacturing sector went up by a double-digit growth in January compared to the year-ago level, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported yesterday.

During the period of Mrs. Gloria Arroyo’s presidency, the state of Human Development in the Philippines has remained relatively stagnant as reflected by the country’s Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI is a figure calculated by research teams of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help determine a particular nation’s quality of life for…

THE Philippine economy could grow by 4.2 percent this year—beyond the official government forecast of 2.6 percent to 3.6 percent—with election spending directly triggering a 0.5-percent growth, economist Dr. Victor Abola said.

Filipino women are becoming a major force in the economy with the proportion of women to men in terms of labor force participation rate increasing from 62.08 percent in 2009 to 62.16 percent this year, based on the findings from the latest MasterCard Worldwide Index of Women’s Advancement.

BAGUIO CITY—Drought equals brownouts equals bad economy equals migration.

MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Elections has issued the rules on the qualification of candidates for party-list representatives, mandating that nominees prove they “belong” to the marginalized sector they seek to represent.

MANILA, Philippines—The absence of a law defining a “marginalized” sector is putting the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in a legal and procedural dilemma.

COTABATO CITY—Some 40,000 voters have been removed from the Maguindanao voter’s list for failure to validate their records through the biometrics system or due to their failure to vote during the two previous elections, officials said yesterday.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

PHILIPPINE economic growth likely picked up in the first quarter of the year despite the El Niño phenomenon and an electricity shortfall, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said.

Despite strong opposition from the Catholic Church, newly appointed Education Secretary Mona Valisno on Wednesday said she is committed to integrate sex education in the country’s basic education curriculum.

Italy is in need of Filipino nurses sooner than later, a former envoy said. Philippe Lhuiller, who served as Philippine ambassador to Italy from 1999 until January 2010, said, “They really need nurses. There are hospitals, at least five of them near our embassy, have closed shop because of the shortage of nurses.”

Former Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro is now among the top three candidates for president in the May 10 elections, according to a series of preference surveys.

Filipino workers in United Kingdom could soon return to the Philippines to be with their loved ones without jeopardizing their application for British citizenship, a UK official said.

Amnesty International has hit Malaysia for the Muslim country’s severe and excessive criminal penalties on migrants, saying that foreign workers are being punished even if errors are committed by the employer.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Record-low interest rates are still needed to energize the economic recovery, a Federal Reserve official said Tuesday.

IDENTIFY YOURSELVES: By tomorrow, we should know which of the Party-lists running in the May 10 elections are just being used as Trojan horses of politicians and operators who cannot win a congressional seat on their own.