Despite the global financial crisis, more Filipinos are still hopeful that their personal quality of life will improve within a year, results of a nationwide survey released on Monday revealed.

Q. I’ve been having headaches for the past five days. It’s all over my head. It’s tolerable but irritating. I have high blood pressure and I’ve been taking amlodipine 5 mg. daily for five years now. My BP is controlled at 120/85. Should I worry about my headache? — Alvin, 42, Parañaque

MANILA, Philippines – A Manila court granted yesterday a civil society group’s request for the country’s three largest oil firms – Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., Chevron Corp., and Petron Corp. – to open their books of accounts for examination by the government to determine if they are guilty of monopoly, predatory pricing or cartelization.

There are two commodities that politicians, anxious to improve their popularity ratings, constantly rant about when prices seem to be on the upturn: rice and oil.

EQUALIZER: It is clear from the confusion that followed the Supreme Court decision allowing 32 more Party-List groups to send congressmen to the House of Representatives that the PL system needs revisiting.

MANILA, Philippines – Sen. Joker Arroyo yesterday slammed the Supreme Court (SC) over its ruling that the party-list representatives are entitled to 55 seats in the House of Representatives.

MANILA, Philippines – More adult Filipinos are expecting their personal quality of life to improve in the next 12 months, the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

MANILA, Philippines – Oil companies rolled back their pump prices by P1 per liter yesterday in step with last week’s lower crude costs in the world market.

We already know that an unhealthy lifestyle contributes to skin aging. But sometimes, for us to really believe it, we need to be faced with the cold harsh evidence. What can be more blatant than seeing one identical twin look five years older than the other because he is a smoker and his twin isn’t?

The impact of the move of US President Barack Obama in trying to clamp down on consumers’ credit card abuses can affect the Philippines. After all, we have here billions of pesos in unpaid credit card bills.

Senator Loren Legarda slammed the deceptive practices employed by certain credit card companies, including the collection of exorbitant or unreasonable punitive interest rates and unjustifiable fees from credit card holders.

SENATORS said yesterday the Supreme Court went beyond its constitutional bounds and engaged in “judicial legislation” when it upheld the validity of the election of 32 more party-list representatives.

The Philippines needs $1.6 billion to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 40 percent and contribute to global efforts in arresting climate change, the Asian Development Bank said in a study released yesterday.

WITH rice harvests cut in half and islands disappearing as sea levels rise, Southeast Asia will be hit hard by global warming, the Asian Development Bank warned in a study released yesterday.

THE number of married Filipinas using contraceptives is increasing while the incidence of infant mortality in the Philippines is declining, the National Statistics reported yesterday.

On the eve of the swearing-in of the 32 new congressmen, the House of Representatives tossed to the Supreme Court the question of who among the 32 party-list nominees should be dropped from the roster of Congress members.

Brussels, (ITUC OnLine): The ITUC welcomed the decision of the World Bank to instruct its staff to stop using the “Employing Workers Indicator” (EWI) of its highest-circulation publication, “Doing Business”.  The ITUC has long criticized the EWI because it gives the best ratings to countries with the lowest level of workers’ protection and has been…

I HAVE said it before. If we are to change the 1987 Constitution, if we are to go through with it at all, the best option is through a constitutional convention. The Constituent Assembly is not an option because people don’t trust the politicians in Congress.

Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) said it has kept a negative medium-term outlook for the Philippine peso amid the widening budget deficit.

State subsidies to non-financial government corporations rose in the first quarter, the Department of Finance said.

MANILA–Remittances from Filipinos working and living overseas, a key pillar of the Philippine economy, are unlikely to decline this year, central bank deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo said on Tuesday.

The Philippines has been spared so far from the global crisis, as evidenced by an increase in employment rate of 1.7 percent from January to mid-April, when 500,000 new jobs were created, an official reported Tuesday.

Cuts on ‘non-people-related expenses’ MANILA, Philippines — Local companies are shunning staff cuts as a means of reducing costs and are instead focusing on improving operating efficiencies, according to a survey being conducted by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).

Cheers, boos greet Palparan MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE) Twenty-five of the 32 new partylist representatives took their oath of office before Speaker Prospero Nograles at the House of Representatives session hall on Tuesday.

MANILA, Philippines — Despite the global economic slowdown, the country can expect relatively brighter prospects this year in terms of economic growth and opportunities, according to a senior economist at the University of Asia and the Pacific.

MANILA, Philippines—The government should go slow in its labor export policy amid increasing cases of rights violations, threats, and even deaths of Filipinos working abroad, a member of the House of Representatives said Tuesday.

It is no longer possible to contain the deadly swine flu virus first found in Mexico, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. As a potential pandemic edges closer, governments around the world have been stepping up precautions against its spread.

The government is closely watching the current economic situation and is ready to revise its growth projections again if “hard numbers” come up, the National Economic and Development Authority said.

The Civil Service Commission is being pressed to back the filing of indirect contempt charges against the board of regents of the Technological University of the Philippines sitting on a 90-day suspension order against the school president in a sexual harassment case.

Few of his legislative peers can match his guts and dynamism in fulfilling his duties and delivering results.  He is also in a class of his own in being articulate, accessible and visible to the public. For these sterling qualities, Senator Richard Gordon is widely regarded as an exceptional public servant. But these past several…