May, 2015

• 4 May

  Looking like you mean business

  

  By Ma. Cristina C. Arayata / Philippines News Agency Have you ever asked yourself if you are underdressed or overdressed for corporate events and business meetings? We all know that we have to look good to feel good. But we must not forget to mean business, too, especially if we’re going to a corporate gathering.

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April, 2015

• 27 April

  Tax cuts before 2016 polls eyed

  

  By Luis Leoncio The Senate hopes to lower individual tax payments before the end of President Aquino’s term amid criticisms that services rendered by the government were not commensurate with the increase in tax collections.

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• 27 April

  BuB feared to become a budget fixture

  Alarm bells are being sounded over the efforts of the Aquino administration to institutionalize in the 2016 budget the Bottom-up Budgeting (BuB) scheme, which administration critics call a clone of the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) that was alloted P20.8 billion in this year’s budget.

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• 27 April

  S&P issues downgrade warning

  

  The Philippines, although still enjoying investment-grade status, may face a downgrade contingent on the results of the last elections. Standard & Poor’s (S&P) issued the warning due to inherent defects in the country, such as the lack of infrastructure support and deficient energy outlook and low export volumes.

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• 27 April

  BOC role in Asean integration cited

  Malacañang said on Saturday it is confident the Bureau of Customs (BOC) would do its part effectively as the country becomes part of a more integrated Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

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• 27 April

  Revenue push fueled lobby versus Sevilla

  By Riza Lozada The resignation of former Bureau of Customs (BOC) Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla was both controversial and an eye-opener for the business sector, as his departure was considered the result of industry groups resenting the aggressive BOC thrust to hike revenues lobbying against him.

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• 27 April

  Asean needs to do more to hit MDG goals–Neda

  Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) members need to go beyond commerce and financial assistance to address factors that impede the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as post-2015 development priorities, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

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• 27 April

  Hope, despair and Grace Poe

  

  It would have been an ominous anagram had it not been for a missing letter. The letters P, O and E that spell Poe, perhaps the most significant in Grace Poe’s name, have the same as HOPE, save for one that is usually silent, anyway. As anagrams go, it does not require brains to rearrange P, O and E into …

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• 27 April

  A disdain for the sun

  

  Parents often gloss over some children’s preferences or even think it idiosyncratic, especially in my time. Take mine. As a child, I searched for shadows. Like an elf, I ducked under bushes where my playmates would thrust out their faces and breasts to the sun. Under trees at high noon, when the crown of an acacia tree from across our …

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• 27 April

  Fundraising at Customs

  

  In what appears to be a stinging rebuke to daang matuwid, Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla left the Bureau of Customs, decrying political pressure and linking it to sinister efforts to raise campaign funds for next year’s presidential elections.

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