United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the ten member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) early this month to stand up to China in their territorial disputes in the South China Sea and they can bank on US support. ASEAN response was expectedly cool to the...
The Vatican announced last weekend that Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, tested positive for COVID-19 on his arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in the Philippines on the evening of September 10. The Holy See press...
The nation’s teachers have been among the many sectors of the population that have suffered most from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. When the lockdowns began in March, with the strictest Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECW) in Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon, schools...
The agricultural sector in the country contributes around 10 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but its share of funds in the national budget in the last 10 years has been a measly 3 to 5 percent, Secretary of Agriculture William Dar said in recent virtual hearings...
The 15 months given to Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano in the 15-21 agreement he had with Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco are fast coming to a close. Under that agreement, Cayetano was to serve 15 months and Velasco 21 months. Cayetano’s 15 months end next month, October....
Manila Bay is in the news again. It is being provided with a patch of white sand along 500 meters of the baywalk, actually not sand but crushed dolomite boulders, a variant of limestone, that is coming all the way from Cebu , according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)....
Six months after Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon went under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), the Philippines’ harshest level of restriction in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we appear now to be on the downward trend in the number of infections. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, chairman...
When it begins its projected ₱95.5-billion Pasig River Expessway project, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) plans to also clean up and improve the flow of water along the Pasig River. It will be embarking on a project – cleanup of the Pasig – that has frustrated so many administrations and agencies of...
Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso of Manila has come up with an idea which he believes will help reduce the COVID-19 cases in the city – an incentive of P100,000 for any barangay which will record zero new cases for two months starting last Tuesday, September 1. The national...
The problem of disputed billings of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) came up last May when customers, under lockdown since March, received their bills for the previous months. The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) had issued a directive that distribution services like Meralco may use the rule on...
The government has been assisting our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) who have decided to come home after many years of work in many countries. It is only fair that the government help our OFWs who have long been responsible for a major portion of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)....
The Philippines is involved in a number of disputes over territories in lands around the South China Sea (SCS). At the center of our dispute with China is its claim that it owns the entire territory covered by a nine-dash line looping down rom China, around the South China Sea, up the western...
