(Part II) Two “devilish” sayings come to mind when I think of the current state of our party list system. First, “the road to hell is sometimes paved with good intentions” and second, “the devil is in the details.”

TWO laborers were hurt when the roof and ceiling of a 90-year-old warehouse along M.C. Briones St. in front of the new Cebu City Hall building collapsed yesterday.

PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo’s support for a sales-tax exemption for the elderly may reverse the fiscal improvements she made in office, Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said Friday.

SURVEYS are like photographs; they capture only moments in time. But then pictures can express a thousand things, and when placed one after another, they can tell stories.

WITH THE ENACTMENT OF THE Credit Information System Act, or Republic Act No. 9510, a comprehensive and centralized credit database will soon be in place in the country.

SLOWLY RECOVERING FROM LAST YEAR’S slump, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority has approved almost P13.6 billion worth of new investments in January, 60.9 percent higher than the P8.4 billion reported in the same month last year.

LEGAZPI CITY—The Philippine National AIDS Council (PNAC) has noted a steady increase in the number of infections involving the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the deadly AIDS, with at least one case reported every three days.

MANILA, Philippines – The provincial health office in Negros Occidental on Friday reported an increased number of HIV/AIDS cases recorded in 2009.

The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) yesterday said it is willing to work with fellow poll watchdog, National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) for the May 10 elections on the condition that they will agree to the former’s set “terms.”

Some of you are old enough to remember the eight-to-12-hour daily blackouts as Cory Aquino’s term ended. Blackouts caused because no new power plants had been built for years. Economists estimated that the blackouts cost the country around P3 to 5 billion daily in lost business and contracted the 1992 Gross National Product by three…

Hongkong-based workers are keen in joining the home development mutual fund under its expanded coverage, according to Vice President Noli de Castro citing a report from Pag-Ibig Fund officials.

SENATORS Manuel Roxas II and Manuel Villar Jr. are seeking an inquiry into the two-year ban on tuna fishing and its impact on the industry, specifically on Mindanao.

CONSUMERS should brace for higher power rates due to an impending shortage of electricity and the onset of a hot and dry summer, industry representatives said Thursday.

LAHUG, Cebu—President Gloria Arroyo said here Thursday the Philippines’ business process outsourcing industry could match India’s $9-billion market this year, with employment in the sector projected to reach 550,000 by December.

The Department of Energy (DOE) and power sector players have agreed to tap oil-fed and other costlier generating facilities to ensure the country’s supply of electricity.

Once more with feeling, who is ever going to put some discipline (just some) on bus drivers careering down our main thoroughfares i.e. EDSA, NLEX, SLEX, Taft Avenue, Quezon Avenue, Commonwealth Avenue and everywhere else?

OMBUDSMAN Maria Merceditas Navarro Gutierrez stays as chief graftbuster and finish her term up to November 30, 2012.

CEBU, Philippines – Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said he is not at all alarmed over reports of increasing Human Immunodeficiency Virus cases among employees in the Business Process Outsourcing industry because he said that it is normal for those who can afford a cozy lifestyle to become reckless and encounter such problems.

I am seriously concerned for Noynoy Aquino more than for his Presidential bid. I am worried that he may soon find himself in a pit of regrets the way things are going.

Trust the machine, Chairman Jose Melo of the Commission on Elections told me last year. Yesterday I looked at a Precinct Count Optical Scan or PCOS machine, now attached to a model of the new-generation ballot box, as it was used in a simulated voting exercise to kick off the voter education campaign of the…

MANILA, Philippines – Six major provinces have no telecommunication link to transmit election results from polling precincts to canvassing centers, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – Even as the Department of Tourism (DOT) continues to promote faith or spiritual healing as part of its medical tourism program, Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral said yesterday that these forms of healing are not recognized in the professional medical community.

News dispatches concerning runaway Toyota cars with unintended acceleration problems are getting to be pretty scary for a Toyota car owner like myself. Sudden unexplained acceleration of Toyota cars have been linked to 19 deaths in the last decade, according to Henry Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee of the US House of…

If only Noynoy had more fire in his belly than smoke in his lungs, he wouldn’t have lost his hefty lead over Manny Villar in the presidential race. The problem with Noynoy is that he seems to exude a sense of entitlement to the position… he seems detached which explains what looks like a lack…

Manila Water Company Inc. on Wednesday said it is being fined for alleged failure to meet regulations on wastewater management.

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo has yet to act on the recommendation of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to ban the deployment of Filipino seafarers to vessels sailing dangerous waters.

Congress passed into law last Tuesday the Financial Rehabilitation and Insolvency Act (FRIA), which will provide for the rehabilitation or liquidation of financially distressed companies and individuals to replace the more than century-old Insolvency Law of 1909 or Act No. 1956.

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has warned erring contractors of local utility companies they will be arrested if they are found unnecessarily causing traffic jams along Edsa and other major thoroughfares due to their unscheduled road repairs and digging works.

SMOKE belching vehicles on the highways and byways of Metro Manila may soon be a thing of the past as the World Bank teams up with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA). The two entities have signed an Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA) for a project designed to help address traffic congestion on Epifanio De…

THE National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Wednesday admitted that signal jammer devices could derail the transmission of election results on May 10 and there is no way to prevent that from happening. “It [jammer] has the capacity to prevent the transmission of the signal that will be used by Comelec [Commission on Election] to implement…