President Duterte last Friday signed Republic Act 11524 creating the “Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund,” using some P75 billion known as “coco levy funds” generated from taxes collected from coconut farmers, millers, refiners, exporters, and other sectors of the coconut industry...
There is one common thread that runs through most of the news reports we read in our newspapers these days – the COVID-19 pandemic. This weekend, we read that: President Duterte had signed the COVID vaccine law, providing a P500-million indemnity fund as compensation for those who may suffer any...
The drug problem in the country was in the news again last week. This time, however, the news was not about so many killed in police raids or the huge amounts of drugs seized. It was about a ”misencounter” between the men of two government agencies – the Philippine Drug Enforcement...
Everyone is looking forward to the start of the vaccination program in the Philippines. Until it happens, President Duterte said, the further easing of restrictions in Metro Manila to Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ) will not take place despite the consensus of Metro Manila’s mayors...
Despite widespread opposition to any move to amend the Constitution at this time when the country is mired in problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the House of Representatives planned to resume debates on the issue this week. The House Committee on Constitutional Amendments had earlier ...
Ten international experts – epidemiologists, animal and human disease experts, medical doctors and virologists – from ten countries, joined five World Health Organization (WHO) experts, two representatives of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and two from the World Health...
This is one price we have to pay for the return of our economy to normal – high prices for gasoline and diesel which drive our industries as well as our cars. This week, the price of gasoline is expected to rise from ₱1.25 to ₱1.30 per liter, and diesel from ₱0.90 to ₱0.95 per liter....
President Duterte has agreed to boost the confidence of the people in the efficacy of authorized vaccines to provide immunity and protection against COVID-19 by having himself vaccinated in public, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Monday. The President had earlier said the first available...
After a year of restrictions on business operations and social activities all over the country because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are now beginning to talk of economic recovery. In the last 12 months, the country has been placed under various levels of restrictions, starting with the most...
The Marcos-Robredo election protest case was finally decided last Tuesday, February 16. It has taken four years and eight months for the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), consisting of all members of the Supreme Court, to decide the case which was filed on June 29, 2016, but it is the...
Two decades after the Supreme Court ordered 13 government agencies led by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to clean up Manila Bay, its waters remain unfit for human contact, filled with viruses and bacteria coming from the rivers and sewage outlets flowing into it from the...
The good news is that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has allowed, starting Monday, the raising of the limits on church attendance in General Community Quarantine (GCQ) areas like Metro Manila from 30 to 50 percent, and the ...
