Informal Sector

THE authors of a bill seeking to tap volunteer groups to build housing for the poor are reconsidering the imposition of an extra 1-percent realty tax that some lawmakers have described as “forced volunteerism.”

LAWMAKERS on Monday said the Gawad Kalinga bill was forced volunteerism and patriotism because of the proposed mandatory 1-percent real property tax to subsidize housing for the poor.

URBAN poor protested the government’s program of relocating informal settlers or squatters to sites in the provinces.

MANILA, Philippines – The Aquino administration has officially adopted the One Town, One Program (Otop), which was initiated by the previous administration of former President now Pampanga second District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to spur the growth of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the countryside.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will extend its One Town One Product Program (OTOP) due to the success of the project in attracting new investments.

JAKARTA—President Benigno Aquino III said late Saturday more than half a million squatter families in Metro Manila will be relocated and receive two hectares of farm land each under his administration’s program on illegal settlers.

MANILA, Philippines – President Aquino bared Saturday night a government plan to offer informal settlers to go back to the provinces and develop at least two hectares of land and provide for the country’s agricultural needs rather than remain squatters in Metro Manila.

THE Aquino administration wants to collect more taxes by cracking the whip on sari-sari store owners, market vendors, and the estimated 40 percent of Filipinos who work in the underground economy.

HOMES FOR HOMELESS THE METRO MANILA INTER-Agency Committee on informal settlers (MMIAC) has approved its implementing rules and regulations (IRR) to be able to carry out a uniform shelter program for squatter families in the metropolis.

Repayment rates are falling at the world’s most famous microfinance institution, Grameen Bank. David Roodman is worried:

MANILA, Philippines – The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is pushing for the development of the rural sector through a new Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP).

The economic crisis has had a major impact throughout the world on the level of employment as well as its quality. The ILO’s annual report on “Global Employment Trends 2010” says the share of workers in vulnerable employment worldwide may have increased by more than 100 million in 2009, and with it global poverty. ILO…

The national network for micro-finance institutions (MFIs) is seeking the passage of a bill that would allow to the government to collect gross revenues tax in lieu of all other national and local taxes to boost microlending in the country. In a briefing, Ruben de Lara, Microfinance Council of the Philippines Inc. (MCPI) president, said…

If you see yourself as prosperous, you will be. If you see yourself as continually hard up, that is exactly what you will be. — Robert Collier Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control…

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to push through with the demolition of illegal structures that contribute to the deterioration of Manila Bay. In a resolution, the court said that its order to clean up Manila Bay was not a license to evict any individual without observing the law.

Squatter families who will benefit from the P50-million Presidential Special Fund (PSF) as housing assistance will now undergo high tech biometrics listing which was started by the Metro Manila Inter-Agency Committee on Informal Settlers (MMIAC).

Through the years, the advocacy to enact a Magna Carta for informal sector workers has gained ground and strength. PATAMABA’s Josephine Parilla says “Broad based policy advocacy for a rights-based legislation for informal workers . . . took a significant leap with the formation of MAGCAISA [Magna Carta for the Informal Sector Alliance] in October…

According to a presentation by Josephine Parilla, one of our country’s staunchest advocates of the rights, dignity and equitable treatment of workers in the informal sector and a moving spirit of PATAMABA (the Pambansang Kalipunan ng mga Manggagawang Impormal sa Pilipinas),these are what House Bill 1955 can offer to workers in the informal economy:

IF luring the informal sector entrepreneurs and workers to join the formal economy will add up to P100 billion to government revenues annually, why doesn’t the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) do something about it?

Dr. Victor Abola of the economics department of the University of Asia & the Pacific (UA&P), which has done an indepth study on the informal sector, has told The Manila Times that every year the government loses up to P100 billion in revenues from the informal sector.

The informal sector expands as more Filipinos become jobless and companies close down or downsize and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) sees more of this happening.

Pundits are sounding the alarm of a likely rise in the ranks of the informal sector amid the economic crisis, as the slowdown leads to job cuts. The informal sector is a catch-all term for people who contribute to a country’s economic output, but whose contribution are not captured by official data.

THE number of Filipinos in the informal sector will rise as more workers are laid off because of the economic crisis, according to pundits.

MANILA, Philippines – The Quezon City government has declared several parcels of land occupied by informal settlers as socialized housing areas.

Given the present global economic and political climate, we put in mind that there are those who are underprivileged in terms of employment opportunities and basic necessities to sustain a decent way of life. Within the glamour of these earthly blessings we are endowed with as entrepreneurs and employers, corporate social responsibility, especially for the…

You may have a good idea and you may want to turn it into your business, so go for it … after you make your business plan. Business plans are written declarations of your business goals: what you aim to achieve, why you think you can reach these goals and how you plan to reach…

MANILA, Philippines – Two government agencies and a business group – the Philippine Council of Students in Intrapreneurship (PCSI) – signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that aims to boost community projects that would provide livelihood opportunities dubbed “Youth Entrepreneurship Support Project (YES).”

Some 1.4 million Filipinos are now involved in the e-load business, or the sale of pre-paid mobile phone credits to subscribers.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is losing roughly 35 percent in potential revenues because of the existence of the so-called underground economy and other tax evaders, a ranking Department of Finance official said over the weekend.

NEARLY all registered businesses in the country are classified as small and medium enterprises. They account for half of employment and represent around 60 percent of the country’s export firms.