Phl banks among group with high risk factors

 Economy
Jun 152013
 
Phl banks among group with high risk factors

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has been grouped among countries whose banking systems have higher risk factors. The country is among Group 7 nations, with Group 1 as those with lowest risk levels while Group 10 has the highest risk levels. Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services’ recently released its Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA), which assessed 86 banking systems worldwide. “We also present economic and industry risk trends that we are introducing this year for those banking systems,” S&P said. The Philippine banking system’s credit risk to its economy was ranked “very high” by the rating agency. Among the countries with “low risks” are Switzerland and Germany, while nations with “extremely high risk” include Belarus, Jamaica, Greece, Egypt, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Philippines is lumped with Latvia, Uruguay, Bulgaria, Iceland, Jordan, Morocco, Portugal, Indonesia, Ireland, Russia and El Salvador in Group 7. These countries banking systems have strong or high-risk impact on their respective economies. BICRA is scored on a scale of 1 to 10, ranging from what S&P’s view as the lowest-risk banking systems (Group 1) to the highest-risk (Group 10). The BICRA methodology has two main analytical components: economic risk and industry risk. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 The rating agency’s industry risk ranking of the Philippine banking system is a 6 with the highest industry risk level at 10 (Belarus). Some of the 1 ranking, or the lowest risk level, are Hong Kong, Canada, Germany, France and Singapore. The country’s banking Read More …

OVERSEAS VOTING TURNOUT VERY LOW

 News
Jun 022013
 
OVERSEAS VOTING TURNOUT VERY LOW

Overseas absentee voting (OAV) turnout in the last May 13 mid-term elections was way below the Commission on Elections’ hoped-for 60 percent in major precincts around the globe. Based on available reports, the overseas vote may be even less than the 26 percent achieved in 2010 despite the stepped-up OAV campaign, with some major areas logging only five to eight percent voter turnout. The troubling development prompted Senator Franklin Drilon to demand an explanation from the Comelec and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). Drilon, tipped as the incoming Senate president, wanted to know how the poll body and the DFA spent the additional funds they received to ensure that the overseas voting turnout in the last elections would surpass that in the 2010 presidential polls. Through Drilon’s efforts as chairman of the Senate finance committee, Comelec received P105-M from the 2013 national budget, while the DFA was granted P43-M to implement the absentee voting law and “influence the result of the election by electing qualified leaders,” Drilon said. But the turnout of only 113,209 overseas Filipinos means each absentee vote costs P1,310 per vote. “This is outrageous. I wonder how the Comelec and the DFA can justify these numbers,” said Drilon, one of the principal sponsors of Republic Act No 9189, or the Overseas Absentee Voting Act enacted in February 2003. “I hate to sound like a broken record, but I again deplore the dismal implementation of the absentee voting law in the just-concluded midterm elections,” Drilon said in Read More …

HK turns back pregnant Chinese posing as Filipina

 News
May 302013
 
HK turns back pregnant Chinese posing as Filipina

By Philip C. TubezaPhilippine Daily Inquirer 3:35 am | Friday, May 31st, 2013 Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines—Philippine immigration authorities arrested a couple from China after one of them tried to slip into Hong Kong by pretending to be a Filipino, Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. said Thursday. David said Fong Waiyan and his wife, Fan Yueying, were arrested at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) on May 11 after Hong Kong immigration sent them back to Manila after discovering that Fan was using a fake Philippine passport. He said Fan wanted to give birth to their second child in Hong Kong to avoid penalties under the mainland’s “one-child” policy. “The couple left Manila using their Chinese passports. But upon arriving at the Hong Kong airport, Fan pretended to be a Filipino by presenting a fraudulent Philippine passport to the immigration officer,” David said. “The woman was denied entry due to a dubious immigration departure stamp on her passport and Fong decided to go back with her to Manila,” he added. David said the couple would be deported to China and blacklisted as soon as the Bureau of Immigration’s (BI) board of commissioners issues the order for their summary deportation. Fan will be deported for knowingly using a spurious travel document with the aid of her husband, who will also be kicked out for harboring and giving comfort to an illegal alien. Uso Dan Salasim, Naia-BI intelligence unit head, said Fan readily confessed to using Read More …

Seair mounts int’l flights from Cebu, Kalibo

 Economy
May 262013
 
Seair mounts int’l flights from Cebu, Kalibo

MANILA, Philippines – Low-cost carrier Southeast Asian Airlines (Seair), a unit of Tiger Airways Holdings Ltd. of Singapore, is set to mount flights to Singapore and Hong Kong from Cebu and Kalibo in Aklan. Seair has filed a petition with the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to impose a fuel surcharge of P500 for flights from Kalibo to Singapore and Hong Kong as well as flights between Cebu and Singapore. Last February, the budget airline started imposing a fuel surcharge of P500 for all its international passengers and P300 for all its domestic passengers flying within the Philippines except Davao. The budget airline also started imposing a P400 fuel surcharge for Manila to Davao passengers. The CAB allows airlines to impose fuel surcharge on international and domestic passengers as a temporary relief to help them recover losses arising from the increase in jet fuel prices in the world market. Latest results of the jet fuel price monitor of the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) showed that average price of jet fuel rose 4.7 percent to $118.1 per barrel from a month ago level. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Seair flies from Manila to Cebu, Davao, Tacloban, Iloilo, Puerto Princesa, Bacolod, and Boracay via the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). Its international destinations include Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, and Kota Kinabalu via the Clark International Airport in Pampanga. In August last year, Tiger Airways through wholly-owned subsidiary Roar Aviation II Pte Ltd. acquired a 40-percent stake in Seair Read More …

MVP Group eyes Davao farm

 Economy
May 212013
 
MVP Group eyes Davao farm

MANILA, Philippines – The group of businessmen Manuel V. Pangilinan is eyeing 30,000 hectares of land in Davao Oriental for palm oil production. Pangilinan, the managing director and chief executive officer of Hong Kong based First Pacific Co. Ltd. said the conglomerate’s agribusiness unit PT Indofood has sent a team to Davao Oriental to assess available areas  suitable for palm oil production.   “We’re still waiting for the assessment of Indofood with regards to a potential palm oil plantation,” he told reporters yesterday. “So far only palm oil has been assessed,” he added. The total hectarage is only 10 percent of what Indofood has secured in Indonesia. Indofood’s palm oil cultivation area in Indonesia is placed at around 240,000 hectares, making it the third largest palm oil producer in the world. “It is large in Philippine standards but not in global standards,” said Pangilinan. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Pangilinan’s group is planning to put up an integrated palm oil production chain starting from palm cultivation to producing crude palm oil from palm branches. Crude palm oil could be processed further into cooking oil and other applications. “We will build not only a plantation but also factories,” said Pangilinan. He said the finished products could be used for domestic consumption or for export. Pangilinan earlier said that his group is looking at sizeable agricultural areas that could be leased for cultivation of  palm oil, sugar, rubber, coffee and cacao. He said the conglomerate is more interested Read More …

2 recruitment agencies lose licenses over collection of placement fees

 News
Apr 252013
 
2 recruitment agencies lose licenses over collection of placement fees

By Tina G. Santos Philippine Daily Inquirer 8:25 am | Friday, April 26th, 2013 MANILA, Philippines—For allegedly violating the rule on placement fee, two recruitment agencies engaged in the recruitment and placement of household service workers to Hong Kong have been stripped of their licenses to operate by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). According to the Society of Hong Kong Accredited Recruiters of the Philippines (SHARP), an association of Hong Kong deploying agencies, the POEA issued the orders of cancellation against All Pro Staffing & Constructing Services and ABC Manpower Agency Inc. with offices, respectively, at Cubao, Quezon City and San Isidro, Makati. The two agencies belong to the top 10 agencies deploying household service workers to Hong Kong, said SHARP. The cancellation came on the heels of the moratorium on deployment of household workers to Hong Kong staged by SHARP member associations. SHARP initiated the moratorium on Feb. 27 to convince the Hong Kong employers and its counterpart Hong Kong employment agencies to pay the costs of recruitment instead of passing them on to the household service workers in the form of excessive placement fee.  It was lifted after a month as a substantial number of Hong Kong employment agencies agreed to the new terms of recruitment based on no placement fee. “The cancellation, I believe, is part of the pro-active position undertaken by the POEA with respect to the pronounced goal of the moratorium, which is to attain a hiring system of absolutely no placement fee for Read More …

Over 25,000 pass teacher licensure exams — PRC

 News
Apr 182013
 
Over 25,000 pass teacher licensure exams — PRC

The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) on Thursday announced that 10,310 elementary teachers out of 37,117 examinees (27.78 percent) and 15,223 secondary teachers out of 38,433 examinees (39.61 percent) passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers (L.E.T.) given last March 10 all over the Philippines and Hong Kong. [Click here for list of L.E.T. – Elementary passers] [Click here for list of L.E.T. – Secondary passers] The results of examination with respect to 33 examinees, however, were withheld pending final determination of their liabilities under the rules and regulations governing licensure examination.    Registration for the issuance of Professional Identification Card and Certificate of Registration will start on April 29, 2013, the PRC said. The dates and venues for the oathtaking ceremonies of the new successful examinees in the said examination will be announced later, the commission added. — KBK, GMA News

PH maids in HK seek direct hiring as recruitment agencies demand placement fees

 News
Feb 262013
 

By Tina G. Santos Philippine Daily Inquirer 6:45 pm | Tuesday, February 26th, 2013 MANILA, Philippines—Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong want the Philippine government to lift the ban on the direct hiring of Filipino domestic workers abroad. According to a statement from the United Filipinos in Hong Kong (Unifil), Filipino household service workers in the territory will troop Wednesday, to the Philippine Consulate General to express their demand. The United Filipinos in Hong Kong (Unifil-Migrante-HK), the organization leading the picket protest, stated that returning the direct hiring as an option to remove a threat to the livelihood of Filipino domestic workers, especially those processing their papers now. This demand by Filipino domestic workers comes at a time when recruitment agencies from Hong Kong and the Philippines are fighting over the placement fees being charged to the Filipino domestic workers. According to Unifil, the Philippines-based recruitment agencies want the Philippine government to allow them to charge the workers placement fees while letting the Hong Kong-based agencies to determine fees on their own. “In the middle of this still-unresolved ‘brawl,’ Filipino domestic workers are being wrongfully blamed and used as scapegoats by agencies, especially those based in HK. Such baseless accusations are only fodder for the anti-migrant sentiments being fanned by many entities in Hong Kong,” it added. Recently, the Society of Hong Kong Accredited Recruiters of the Philippines (SHARP), the Philippines-based agencies, imposed a moratorium on sending domestic workers to Hong Kong as it complained of the overly strict and Read More …

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