MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) has issued a circular suspending the accreditation of erring hospitals and clinics facing administrative charges for defrauding the government agency.

MANILA, Philippines – The impact of typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” doused consumer confidence in the country as revealed by the grim economic outlook in the fourth quarter of the year and the first quarter of next year, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo said.

MANILA, Philippines – The number of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) cases in the Philippines has continued to increase over the past two years, alarming the Department of Health (DOH).

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—With the repercussions of Dubai’s worst financial crisis still hanging thick in the air like lost secrets, life for most Filipinos working in this Middle Eastern cosmopolitan enclave goes on, their resilience hanging tough against yet another litmus test.

MANILA, Philippines – The Asian Development Bank (ADB), in a new study on poverty, warned that unless the Philippine economy is able to shift to higher growth trajectory, the country might be “stuck in a poverty trap.”

MANILA, Philippines – The policy making body of the Bangko Sentral ang Pilipinas (BSP) is dangling an incentive for rural banks to merge and consolidate.

The relatively warmer air temperature felt the past few days in Luzon is only temporary, meteorologists of the state-run Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said Sunday.

THE Supreme Court has ordered state-run National Power Corp.’s top officials to explain why they should not be held in contempt for ignoring its order to compensate 5,648 of its employees who were dismissed in 2003.

DATA showing that the profits of listed firms surged by at least 60 percent in the first nine months of the year don’t lend much confidence in near-term prospects. According to the Philippine Stock Exchange, asset sales and cost-cuts were largely responsible for the positive margins.

GreenGrowth_Web

AS the Philippines strives to attain higher growth to cut poverty and increase incomes of Filipinos, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) published study showed that the cycle of poverty will likely continue in the Philippines and prevent the country from attaining its desired economic growth in the future.

WASHINGTON – Parents who let their kids romp in the mud and eat food that has fallen on the floor could be helping to protect them against maladies like heart disease later in life, a US study showed Wednesday.

COPENHAGEN – Developing nations at the UN climate conference rejected as “insignificant” on Friday an EU pledge of 7.2 billion euros (10.6 billion dollars) to help them tackle global warming.

COMMENTARY MANILA, Philippines – What shalle we do with gold? The highly vulnerable countries like the small-island states and the Philippines are now suffering irreversible damage and irreparable injury as a result of climate change.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) yesterday urged the labor and management sectors to adjust work standards to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change not only on workers but also on business and economy.

GOVERNMENT financial institutions (GFIs) have released as much as P170.3 billion in loans for nearly 150,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) under the SULONG Program since 2004, according to SB Corp., the program’s lead convenor.

Taiwan proposes two international cooperation schemes on combating and mitigating climate change. Climate change caused by human activity-induced global warming is one of the toughest challenges the world is facing. Through more than two decades of international cooperation, Taiwan has been successfully introducing advanced policies and technologies into its environmental protection infrastructure.

FIRST, it looked like the division of the house in the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was clearly between the rich, developed nations and the poor, economically and industrially developing nations together with the poor, rather economically and industrially underdeveloped nations. To simplify the dichotomy:

Dear PAO, I am an employee of a private company for three years now. I would like to know if I am still entitled to a full 13th-month pay even if I will be on maternity leave for two months. Our human resource department said my benefit would be pro-rated. It is my understanding that…

The Philippines has graduated from a low-income country category to the lower middle-income country category, making it eligible for a multimillion-dollar grant from the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC), the Department of Foreign Affairs reported Thursday.

The Department of Health (DOH) on Friday warned anew about the dangers of unprotected sex and intravenous use of illegal drug amid the alarming increase of HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines.

MANILA, Philippines – To further uphold the rights of consumers, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is proposing changes in some provisions in the Magna Carta for Residential Electricity Consumers.

The rising number of HIV/AIDS in the Philippines has prompted an advisory from the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Manila to clinics conducting medical exams to Filipino workers bound for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman to intensify its tests and screening for workers to be deployed to the Middle East countries.

In the faint hope that presidential candidates may listen, I will suggest a few goals that they should commit to if they become president. They should do so through a publicly-signed, notarized document, now, so we know they are committed.

HOME Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) warned employers that have yet to register with it, or have failed to collect contributions from their employees or remit the same to the agency, to comply with the law by the end of this month.

THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) said the Philippines is the only Southeast Asian country to have recorded an increase in the absolute number of poor people since 1990.

CONSUMER confidence has flagged since October this year, with the sentiment expected to remain subdued well into the first quarter of 2010, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

On International Human Rights Day December 10, a United Nations official criticized the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for denying the petition of gays and lesbians to accredit a sectoral party and dismissed fears about martial law imposed in Maguindanao.

(Excerpts from the keynote speech of Dr. Felizardo Y. Francisco, Director IV, CHED, Office of Programs and Standards, at the 35th Annual General Assembly Meeting of the Philippine Association of Maritime Institutions [PAMI] held at AMOSUP Hospital Building, Davao City on December 5)