MANILA, Philippines – Rising debt service expense and government payroll have led to the contraction of proposed infrastructure funds for next year, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said yesterday.

Finance ministers from the world’s most powerful economies have agreed a series of measures to try to regulate the global banking system.

BERLIN—Sex happens 125 million times a day, but the subject remains taboo and the issues associated with it—including abortion and contraception—remain a source of division among people with different persuasions, a conference was told here Monday.

MANILA, Philippines — An organization of Asian migrant labor organizations Thursday denounced a Hong Kong government decision to freeze foreign domestic workers’ monthly wages at the current HK$3,580 (about P22,500) level.

A bill pending before the Senate committee on labor and employment that proposes to radically amend Labor Code provisions on contracting and subcontracting will wreak havoc on the economy by forcing out of business independent contractors and service providers.

The severity of the global economic downturn was not anticipated by policymakers.

Sometimes, the best way to uncover the real motives for outwardly inexplicable actions is to let some time pass. In the case of the controversial proposed nationwide ban on aerial spraying of fungicides in banana plantations in Mindanao, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that neither the public’s health nor the protection of the environment are…

First of two parts On August 19, 2009, 14 chairpersons of technical panels for the different clusters of higher education programs met with the technical panel for General Education (GE) for a consultative conference. The purposes were to hear the views of the different technical panels on what they expect from students finishing GE and…

FILINVEST Land Inc. (FLI) said the oversupply in business process outsourcing (BPO) office space in Metro Manila would persist in the next three years.

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines – President Arroyo ordered yesterday the creation of provincial anti-hunger task forces, starting with the six “most food-poor” provinces in Mindanao.

MANILA, Philippines — It’s an order well-meant but lacking in funds. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), in a statement, said that it could not yet accommodate the 300,000 additional families President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered included in a government poverty-reduction program by next year.

“An employment that has been zealously earned, industriously worked for, valued and treasured, should be secured. The protection should extend to remunerations and benefits, with all the enhancements, merited due to years of arduous service.”

MANILA, Philippines — A total of 216,176 new overseas absentee voters (OAV) registered in various posts abroad for the May 2010 presidential election in the six-month registration period that ended August 31, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Wednesday.

US Federal Reserve policymakers are increasingly confident the downturn in the US economy is ending, minutes from their latest meeting show.

Civil socialites who were earlier for Sen. Mar Roxas as presidential bet dumped him for Noynoy Aquino, after they saw the opportunity to ride on the public sympathy shown during the wake and funeral of former President Corazon Aquino, in the belief that the sympathy wave would translate to votes for Noynoy. They certainly had…

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which represents the local communist movement whose followers have been hankering for peace since the 1986 peace talks flopped, yesterday cast doubt on the ability of the Arroyo leadership to pursue peace talks with them.

The PC industry is coming out of the recession, the boss of the world’s biggest chipmaker has told the BBC.

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) — The euro zone jobless rate held unchanged at a three-and-a-half year high in July and producer prices were more subdued than expected in the same month, the European Union statistics office said.

INTERNATIONAL passenger traffic flow in the Philippines dipped in the first six months of the year as airlines reduced capacity amid the Influenza A(H1N1) scare and the global economic downturn, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) said Wednesday.

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – After a lull for several months, summary killings have again surged in this southern metropolis, with 15 cases recorded last month alone.

MANILA, Philippines – The peso hit a nine-month low of 49.01 to the dollar during intra-day trading yesterday on the back of renewed risk aversion, traders said.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines likely improved its ranking in the annual global survey on doing business set to be released next week, the International Finance Corp. (IFC) said.

MANILA, Philippines – Four out of 10 Filipinos disapprove of President Arroyo’s performance and continue to distrust her, according to the latest Pulse Asia survey released yesterday.

WE are unable to read minds, so we can only guess at what was really going through Senator Mar Roxas’ brain when he decided to sacrifice his presidential ambitions in favor of his friend, Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, whose unremarkable record as a lawmaker is an open book.

THE leadership of the politically influential Iglesia Ni Cristo is expected to pass to Eduardo Manalo, 53, with the death of his father, Eraño Manalo, 84, of cardiopulmonary arrest.

THE communists are still hoping to achieve what they call a “strategic stalemate” in the next 10 years in their war against the government, and that with luck, “progressive forces within the ruling system” will negotiate peace with them to achieve national unity.

THE EARLIEST years with my kids as a single parent were characterized by sleepless nights, missed meals, reading by candlelight to save electricity…

Representative government is not a perfect system of government, and one of its salient imperfections is the elected representatives’ inability to accord priority to the needs and concerns of all those who elected them. As a result, some constituents consider themselves marginalized and calls begin to be made for steps to correct this systemic shortcoming.

There are just too many kinks needed to be ironed out if transparent, honest and orderly electronic voting, as being pushed by both the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic-TIM, is to come about.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has again failed to achieve its eyed number of new registrants for the overseas absentee voting (OAV) for the national elections next year, missing its target of 1 million by a huge margin.