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By Luis Leoncio Congress must approve the tax-reform pro­gram as a package— the popular compo­nent, which is the income-tax reduction, and the reve­nue-enhancement measures, which are considered the “bit­ter pill”—in order to achieve the desired balance, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said in a statement.

The decision of the Depart­ment of Agriculture (DA) to cancel all government import permits on farm products, except for rice, and to issue new permits only through the office of the Agriculture secretary will do a lot to curb the smuggling of agricultur­al commodities that has cost the government close to P80 billion in lost revenues in the last five …

By Riza Lozada The peso recovered somewhat on Friday closing at 49.84/$1 from Thursday’s close of 49.98 after touching P50 per dollar on the same day, the weakest since Nov. 20, 2008, when it traded at 49.99/$1.

Filipinos generally expressed optimism in two survey results released during the weekend, but confidence among busi­nessmen went down substantially in the third quarter.

Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) has disputed the rec­ommendation of the Anti-Mon­ey Laundering Council (AMLC) to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to file criminal proceed­ings against six RCBC officials accused of failing to stop the laundering of $81 million stolen by cyber-criminals from Bangla­desh’s central bank last Febru­ary.

With the Freedom of Information (FOI) executive order taking ef­fect Friday, the public will now have free access to all informa­tion held by the government except for sensitive informa­tion and matters affecting na­tional security.

The state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) is on track to meet its full-year income target of P13.5 billion, on the back of steady growth for the first nine months of 2016.

The Australian-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce Philip­pines (ANZCHAM) expressed optimism on the capability of the Duterte administration to imple­ment programs that would fur­ther boost domestic growth.

Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said the government plans to im­port liquefied natural gas (LNG) as he presented the country’s liq­uefied natural gas roadmap during the LNG Producer-Consumer Conference in Tokyo, Japan, Thursday.

The credit-card industry proj­ects a double-digit growth rate this year in line with the continued strong growth of the economy but the govern­ment should strengthen infor­mation services on card us­ers, RCBC Bankard Services Corp. (RBSC) President and CEO Simon Calasanz said.