STATE-RUN Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) said it approved a new loan program for its out-of-work members to mitigate the impact of the global financial crisis.

HAMBURG, Germany: From Yantian to Hamburg, world trade is in the doldrums and Christian Blauert, who heads the largest container terminal in Germany’s northern port of Hamburg, needs only check the webcams to know things aren’t getting better.

Ask 46-year-old Filipino woman how many children she has. “Ten,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “But I was supposed to have only six,” she added, snapping in a breath.

MANILA, Philippines – Washington has acknowledged that Philippine security forces are making progress in the fight against terrorism.

MANILA, Philippines – The worldwide mobile phone market started 2009 with an expected sequential downturn, exacerbated by the challenges of the worldwide recession.

Malacañang yesterday said the government will do all it can to alleviate the plight of workers despite the limited power of the President to rule on wage adjustments.

The country chalked up another dismal world record yesterday after a United Nations-backed report stated the biggest number of internally displaced people last year was in the country where an estimated 600,000 Filipinos fled fighting between the government and a break-away faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after the aborted signing of the…

VIRAC, Catanduanes: Each day starts early for Aiza, her sister Angeline and their mother Emily.

AFTER a decade of one of the largest social reform movements ever seen, the end of child labor is now within grasp.

THEY are called “Shine Girls” in Davao. Batang tun-og or “children of the evening dew” in General Santos. “Vitamin C” in Cagayan de Oro.

“PROSTITUTION” to pay for school fees is just one of the many guises of children in the Philippine flesh trade.

“The government is committed to reduce and finally eradicate the incidence of child labor,” Labor and Employment Secretary Marianito Roque told The Manila Times. “Most of the country’s child labor arises from poverty in the countryside. That is why we launched last year our four-year project to help indigent parents send their children to school.”

“HOw can CARP be extended “with reforms” but without audit? How will the taxpayers know whether the new extension law will address the real causes of CARP’s failure during the past 20 years?

There is a no need to allow foreigners to own land in the country to encourage more foreign direct investment (FDI), the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) said.

WASHINGTON — Press freedom declined worldwide in 2008 as even once-unfettered nations such as Israel and Italy imposed new limits on media coverage, according to a report by media analysts.

MANILA, Philippines – Sales of publicly listed Filinvest Land Inc. to the expatriate Filipino community remain strong despite the global economic crisis, as FLI caters mainly to the mass housing market, its head said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – After registering a 50-percent drop in investments in the first quarter, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority expects the second quarter to be much better, with demand for the country’s products starting to pick up.

MANILA, Philippines- I wrote recently on the perverse Philippine experience wherein poverty had risen in recent years even as the economy reportedly grew at the fastest rate achieved in 30 years. The fact is, compared to the rest of the world, Asia as a region had actually translated every percentage point of economic growth into…

MANILA, Philippines – The crop of more than 900,000 college graduates of class 2009 are facing the bleak possibility of joblessness or underemployment with the government failing to provide jobs other than those in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, according to a youth party-list lawmaker.

WASHINGTON – A number of emerging democracies including the Philippines  have suffered considerable declines in press freedom over the last five years, Freedom House reported.

MANILA, Philippines- I wrote recently on the perverse Philippine experience wherein poverty had risen in recent years even as the economy reportedly grew at the fastest rate achieved in 30 years. The fact is, compared to the rest of the world, Asia as a region had actually translated every percentage point of economic growth into…

SUMMER is here. Then why is it raining hard in April? Thirty years ago, summer was always humid and dry. We all know the months of March and April are rainless while November to February are chilly months. When rain starts to pour in May, most kids are out in the streets playing and enjoying…

The Customs bureau has asked the Department of Finance for a higher hazard pay and medical benefits for X-ray scanning staff exposed to radiation at the worksite.

Several years ago, this senior legislator from Cagayan led a one-man campaign against the controversial  purchased power adjustment scheme in which end-users were unreasonably  made to shoulder even the cost of excess or unused power supplied by independent power producers.   The scrapping of the scheme to ease the burden on power consumers became his campaign…

Congress has earmarked a supplemental budget of P8 billion for the rehabilitation of communities in Panay and Negros islands that were devastated by typhoon Frank on June 20 last year.

President Arroyo has ordered the Commission on Higher Education to drop the “no-payment, no-periodical examination” policy and adopt instead a “flexible, socially sensitive” tuition payment plan for all state colleges and universities.

PRESIDENT Arroyo unveiled a package of non-wage benefits for over a million state workers yesterday, including shuttle services and more scholarship programs for their children and siblings.

The Philippines ranks as the second most dangerous country for trade unionists, and opposition Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero yesterday said the government’s seeming indifference to killings of trade union leaders could trigger more attacks against them.

Leading data provider Thomson Reuters has announced plans to expand its legal content business and that is has chosen the Philippines to host its facility.

Local economy still unaffected by credit crunch MANILA, Philippines—Big Philippine banks saw a surprise downtrend in loan delinquency in the first quarter, suggesting that the local economy remained resilient so far to credit stresses that have bludgeoned financial institutions in the United States and elsewhere in the world.