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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.

Puerto Princesa, Philippines—China is pressing ahead with the construction of artificial islands on at least two reefs that are also claimed by the Philippines in an increasingly tense territorial dispute, Filipino officials said.

By Katy Daigle / The Associated Press New Delhi—Global resolve to rescue impoverished children from lives of squalor, disease and hunger has fallen short, with economic development in many countries still leaving millions of the most vulnerable behind, according to a just-released report of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef, now simply translated as United Nations Children’s Fund).

By Riza Lozada President Aquino’s allies are prodding him to set aside his obsession with the controversial Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) and attend to measures considered urgent by the business sector, such as the Freedom of Information Act and the Philippine Competition Act, which are merely awaiting his signature to become a law. Senate President Franklin M. Drilon said signing …

By Luis Leoncio Export receipts have declined heightening fears the country would not be able to achieve its target growth rate of between 7 percent and 8 percent this year. The government reported that exports remained weak, with the April figures showing that export receipts shrank 4.1 percent following a modest rebound of 2.1 percent the month before.

Hundreds of business leaders and investors gathered in Manila in a recent public consultation on Mindanao and urged President Aquino to be “pragmatic” and stop insisting on the approval of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in its present form.

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), the country’s state-gaming operator and regulator, has won the prestigious Excellence Award at the 2015 International Gold Quill competition.

By Lito U. Gagni The Philippines risks becoming an Asian pariah insofar as foreign direct investments (FDI) are concerned because of frequent changes in its investment rules that have bedeviled the entry of foreign investors.