MANILA, Philippines – The total net earnings of companies listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) fell 29.4 percent last year to P198.91 billion, from P281.54 billion, in 2007, due to the ill effects of the global financial turmoil.

A worker was sent by his employer to a special school in Makati for a three-day certificate course to enhance his skills.

MANILA, Philippines – The government is re-opening its door for the hiring of new workers despite the planned rationalization program, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – An alliance of organizations against torture appealed yesterday to the government to declare a policy of “total elimination” of acts of torture in the country in the wake of the concluding observations of the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT), which pressed for the enactment of the Anti-Torture Bill.

The government is offering strings of incentives to investors in the garments and textile sector who would put up their own business process outsourcing (BPO) operations.

Career officers and personnel from the Civil Avation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) have asked the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to look into the rampant hiring of consultants in the agency at the expense of more senior insiders.

Microsoft Philippines stepped up its campaign against child pornography in the country by holding an IE8 8-Mile Run on Sunday at the Global City The Fort in Taguig.

LEGAZPI CITY: The provincial government of Albay has infused P16 million to finance the education of poor but deserving college students this school year. The free education to poor but deserving students provided by the province is part of the priority programs which was presented by Gov. Joey Salceda before the national competitiveness council road…

South Korea, in a memorandum of understanding that iT signed with the Philippines on Sunday, guaranteed the hiring of 8,000 Filipinos to work in South Korea every year for the next three years.

MANILA, Philippines—Just in time for the opening of classes next week, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has announced that the distribution of grants to beneficiaries in provinces included in the so-called expansion areas of the government’s conditional cash transfer program will start in June.

MANILA, Philippines—The global economic downturn, which recently pulled the Philippines down to its slowest growth in a decade, will result in the country’s failure to meet its poverty-reduction goal by 2010 and is expected to increase the number of poor Filipinos.

The European Union joined other international organizations that have recognized the legal personality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is trying to build a regional economic community.

MANILA, Philippines – Some members of the Davao police are actually “involved” in the death squad behind the vigilante killings in the city, Commission on Human Rights chairperson Leila de Lima said yesterday, citing “confirmed information.”

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) batted yesterday for a monthly starting salary of P24,000 or Salary Grade 15 for new nurses as stipulated in the Nursing Act of 2002.

MANILA, Philippines – Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral will sign tomorrow the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of a law that hastens the adoption process of abandoned or neglected children, including infants.

The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority Joel Maureal was a computer technician profiting from the high-caliber training he received from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda). The man is productive despite the fact that he lost an arm in a jeepney accident 20-years ago.

THE Department of Labor and Employment will be holding a three-day job and livelihood fair in 19 cities nationwide starting on Independence Day, expecting some 1,000 employers to participate in the event, including some from the overseas recruitment industry.

THE Philippines could gain $13 million in official development assistance from Korea to put up modern rice-processing systems in Pangasinan, Iloilo, Bohol and Davao del Sur, officials said yesterday.

Beth was a docile and submissive child. She lived in fear of her dominating father and he was addicted to buying the dirt cheap child pornography CDs that are widely available in the Philippines. It was perhaps inevitable that he would rape her and he did several times over two years ago in the province…

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The George Dewey Medical and Wellness Center is a tertiary private hospital located in Amorosa.

BEFORE the end of 2009, St. Luke’s Medical Center will open the P9-billion 600-bed St. Luke’s Medical Center hospital at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

Special Report: Medical Tourism Medical tourism is proving to be a super-bright region in our country’s darkening economic landscape. The country’s chief statistician warns that we are on the brink of a recession.

BAGUIO CITY—The government has virtually acknowledged helplessness in stopping the flight of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to countries where deployment is banned because of conflicts or wars.

Consolidated_Product_APYN_Discussion__1_Youth_Enterprise_and_the_Effects_of_the_Global_Financial_Crisis

MANILA, Philippines–With the global recession deepening at an unprecedented pace, the International Labor Organization has predicted that the number of unemployed in Asia will grow between 9 million and 26 million this year.

CEBU, Philippines – Challenges for every sector to help improve the situation of women with the use of strategies in putting the Millennium Development Goals to work for gender equality, and linking it to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, were discussed in yesterday’s Cebu City Women’s Summit 2009…

MANILA, Philippines – Corn farmers welcomed yesterday the increase in the crop’s support price to P13 per kilo as they said this will encourage them to increase production and allow the sector to attain its production target for the whole year, following a two-percent decline in the first quarter.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines will not go into recession despite the slow growth registered in the first quarter of the year, Malacañang said yesterday.

ENVIRONMENT and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza on Friday stressed the need to shift to low carbon economy to address the climate change.