By DAISY C. ILAGAN Trade Secretary Cristina Roque, who made a name in business selling T-shirts and other garment lines, created quite a ruckus recently when she claimed that for 500 pesos, a regular Filipino family can partake of decent food during the coming Noche Buena. Noche Buena, that long-running tradition of Filipino families sharing the Christmas eve meal together, …

Megaworld Hotels & Resorts (MHR) continues to make remarkable strides in the Philippine  hospitality industry as it takes home two of the country’s most prestigious award-giving bodies — the 11th Virtus Awards and the 28th Mabuhay Awards.  These awards highlight not only MHR’s creativity and talent pool, but also its unwavering commitment to purpose-driven leadership, inclusivity, and Filipino hospitality. “These …

Philippine trade deficit decreased in October as exports surged and imports contracted, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Friday. The $3.83-billion deficit was markedly lower than the year-earlier $5.81 billion, plunging by 34.2 percent, and also fell from $4.67 billion in September. China and Hong Kong, with a total of $1.832 billion goods bought, are the biggest …

Inflation in November is likely to settle within the range of 1.1 to 1.9 percent, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Friday.  This would be lower than the target range of 2 to 4 percent set by economic managers.  From January to October, the inflation rate averaged 1.7 percent, remaining flat below this range, as food prices largely …

BEYOND ELLIPTICALBy Rose Marie de la Cruz ALL those decades I have spent covering the agriculture beat, including the National Irrigation Administration, the nearest to transparency that I can remember in my coverage is ocular inspection and briefings of the projects.  We were told by NIA heads– then and now—the cost of the projects, the size of farmlands that would …

FARM damage caused by typhoons “Tino” and “Uwan” hit P5.16 billion affecting 135,616 farmers who lost over 200,000 metric tons of crops planted in 117,458 hectares. The agriculture department said further damage and losses are expected in affected regions as assessment and validation are yet ongoing. The bulk of damage was from Uwan, which accounted for 76 percent of losses …

DUE to limited funding and stocks of rice to expand the target beneficiaries of the P20 per kg. rice program, the Department of Agriculture would institute stricter controls by requiring registry of beneficiaries with a QR code where they can buy the staple wherever they are. The move is intended to prevent repeat and multiple purchases of rice, as had …

FISH unloading managed to rise in the third quarter 7.6 percent, year on year (YOY),  notwithstanding the successive typhoons and earthquakes that struck the country. The Philippine Fisheries Development Authority noted that regional fish ports (RFPs) delivered in the third quarter reached 139,057.66 metric tons (MT) from July to September, up from 129,227.5 MT for the same period in 2024. …

DESPITE its past failure to implement effectively the suggested retail prices for pork and beef, the Department of Agriculture is eyeing adopting SRP for three basic items in Filipino foods– carrots, pork and onions, whose prices have stayed above P200 per kilo since three months ago.  And with the Yuletide season just around the bend, it is more difficult to …

BDO Unibank Inc., the country’s largest bank, raised $500 million from the sale of five-year fixed-rate senior notes to global investors as demand for the offering soared. A disclosure at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) showed that the transaction, under BDO’s Medium Term Note (MTN) program, was more than 3.2 times oversubscribed, with orders totaling around $1.6 billion. The senior …