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As a show of commitment to the administration of President Duterte, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) offered last Friday an unprecedented $1 billion or P47 billion in sovereign loans to the country. 

Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon said President Duterte’s marching order to him is to eliminate corruption in the Bureau of Customs (BOC) within six months, which he committed to meet through “tough” reform measures. Faeldon, a former captain in the Philippine Marines, said in a statement that under his wing, trade facilitation, rather than revenue collection, would be the top priority …

Now it can be told: Not too many people know that in the last two years of his administration, former President Aquino sat on or just plain ignored proposed solutions to Metro Manila’s traffic problems submitted to him and his advisers by the Japan Internatiional Cooperation Agency (Jica), which conducted a study on the problem in 2014. 

By Luis Leoncio  The Senate is proposing the establishment of an “urban traffic management authority,” the sole function of which would be to streamline the management of traffic in urban areas. 

By Riza Lozada  The country’s business leaders appear to have been totally won over by the pithy 15-minute speech of President Duterte last Thursday that directly addressed red tape and the sanctity of contracts —the two greatest concerns of  the business sector during the past administration.

As a fitting prelude to the flag carrier’s 75th year, Philippine Airlines Inc. (PAL) achieved its most impressive financial performance yet with a P6.3-billion profit for last year or a six-fold increase over the previous year.

A Commission on Audit (CoA) report on the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) last year said that, despite incidents of train faults and failures, no penalties were ever imposed on the maintenance contractor, hence, the train faults and failures continued unabated. 

By Luis Leoncio  The Department of Finance (DOF) will review the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and the Personal Equity and Retirement Account (PERA) as part of the agency’s effort to connect with the people, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said. 

By Luis Leoncio  Incoming Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno is confident of finally completing his “unfinished business” of making the annual national budget as an anti-poverty tool, which he started during the short-lived presidency of Joseph Estrada. 

By Riza Lozada  There appears to be no immediate end in sight to the standoff between the country’s telecommunications giants and the newly formed regulator, the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC), over a P70-billion telecommunications megadeal.