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By Jerry Maglunog The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has imposed stricter capital requirements on 10 of the country’s biggest universal and commercial banks, called domestic systemically important banks (DSIB) or those deemed too big to fail, requiring them to increase their capital adequacy ratio (CAR) to between 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent.

By Luis Leoncio The Department of Energy (DOE) has stopped DM Consunji Inc. (DMCI) group’s Semirara Mining and Power Corp.’s operations in Semirara, Antique, after a wall in the vast coalpit collapsed early Friday morning, killing five miners.

By Luis Leoncio Sen. Ralph Recto has warned the country of a possible “made-in-China food shortage,” as colleague Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. chided the government for limiting its options on the territorial dispute with China by closing the door to bilateral negotiations.

President Aquino’s economic managers have put a positive spin on an otherwise damning report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the administration’s budgeting innovations that cited the lack of transparency in the use of public funds. A top official even went to the extent of saying the IMF report was an “indicator” of fiscal transparency under the Aquino administration.

By Riza Lozada The International Air Transport Association (Iata), the global regulator of the international airline industry, has urged the Philippines to promote the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Pampanga as “temporary support” and “interim solution” to relieve the growing demands of international travelers coming to the country.

Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina, former Customs Commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr. and former Customs Deputy Commissioner Primo Aguas are facing plunder and graft charges before the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with an “unceremoniously cancelled” P650-million contract for a modern integrated customs processing system at the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), the United Kingdom and other industrialized nations were among the 50 countries that signed last Monday the Articles of Agreement of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

The budgetary innovations of the Aquino administration, which had already earned a rebuke from the Supreme Court (SC), are the subject of a probing article by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

By Luis Leoncio The sudden termination last Tuesday of negotiations for what had promised to be a blockbuster deal between GMA Network Inc. (GMA) and San Miguel Corp. President and Vice Chairman Ramon S. Ang has sparked a bitter word war between the two camps over who’s to blame for the turn of events.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that at least P19 billion of this year’s P62.3-billion budget for the Aquino administration’s key anti-poverty program, called conditional cash transfer (CCT), did not go to intended beneficiaries—the poorest of the poor among the country’s 100 million population.