Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada is now pushing for two measures aimed at providing a broader, disaster-ready blueprint for the country: the creation of the Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR) and the establishment of a Food Bank and Stockpile Act. Estrada filed both measures ahead of the...
More Filipino workers are expected to build up their retirement funds under the Personal Equity and Retirement Account (PERA), following the enactment of the Capital Markets Efficiency Promotion Act (CMEPA). The Securities and Exchange Commission noted that, among the salient provisions of the...
Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson has refiled his proposed "Parents Welfare Act of 2025," as a way to ensure that elderly parents are not abandoned by their children during times of need. The bill seeks to penalize those who fail to provide the necessary support to their "aging, sick, and...
The Department of Agriculture (DA) will hold on-the-ground consultations with farmers and lawmakers to prepare for the deliberations on the proposed RICE Act, which aims to reinstate the regulatory powers of the National Food Authority (NFA). Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel said he has...
A couple of months before the much-anticipated Capital Markets Efficiency Promotion Act (CMEPA) took effect, my friend Carmen got in touch about a five-year-plus-one placement offered by a publicly listed universal bank, promising a pretty good yield. Considering and understanding that transaction...
While the recent reduction in the cost of trading stocks in the Philippines is expected to boost market activity at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), more needs to be done to develop the local capital market, particularly in investor education. During the bell-ringing ceremony at the PSE marking...
The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday, June 25, expressed full support for the Governance Commission for GOCCs’ (GCG) approval of the long-anticipated reorganization of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth). In a statement, DOH Secretary Teodoro J. Herbosa said the move...
The local unit of Singapore-based e-commerce giant Shopee is rolling out proactive measures to ensure full compliance by sellers on its platform with the law cracking down on illegal activity in online shopping. In a statement to Manila Bulletin, Shopee Philippines said it will maintain its...
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Friday, June 20 said the government should be ready to provide subsidy if the Dubai crude oil breaches the US$80 per barrel threshold. Gatchalian made the call as he expressed alarm over the increasing tension between Israel and Iran and which has pushed a global oil...
A teachers’ group has sounded the alarm over what it calls a deepening education crisis, marked by chronic shortages in classrooms, teachers, and learning resources, as School Year (SY) 2025–2026 officially opens on Monday, June 16. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) blamed what it...
The country’s leading mining groups welcomed the bicameral conference committee’s decision to remove the highly contentious ore export ban from the reconciled version of the bill seeking to reform the mining fiscal regime. In separate statements on Wednesday, June 11, the Chamber of Mines of...
Consumer complaints filed with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) surged by 62.3 percent in 2024 to around 70,000 cases, according to officials of the central bank. Of the total number of consumer complaints, 13 percent were categorized as unauthorized transactions, Charina B. De Vera-Yap,...
