The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

The government is cracking down on “informal money lenders” or the so-called loan sharks including those engaged in the 5-6 scheme who usually charge exorbitant interest rates or victimize borrowers through fraud, falsification and harassment.

Inflation for October is expected to remain within target despite the country being hit by two successive typhoons, BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said.

The European Central Bank’s (ECB) decision to maintain interest rates will buoy the region’s economy, which in turn will benefit the Philippines, a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) official said.

National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) Secretary Liza Maza denounced as “hypocritical” the appeal made by real-estate developers and big business groups citing the homeless poor as reason to block a two-year ban on the conversion of agricultural lands.

The government seeks opinions of all stakeholders in its effort to revise the existing National Building Code of the Philippines (NBCP) and its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).

Residential real estate price index (RREPI) accelerates by 11.3 percent year-on-year.

Engineers at the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD) demonstrate in a new study that windows made of transparent wood could provide more even and consistent natural lighting and better energy efficiency than glass.

The issues and challenges affecting the United States in its presidential derby that the country and the rest of the relatively lesser Free World has somewhat adopted as the model of the ideal democracy and whose society many have subconsciously held as the model to emulate, at least in its perfect, upstanding, squeaky clean and antiseptic Hollywood Donna Reed Show …

As we write this column, the media have just reported that the Sandiganbayan has ordered the 90-day suspension of incumbent Muntinlupa Rep. Rufino “Ruffy” Biazon over graft charges in connection with the multibillion-peso pork-barrel scam.

When the cold creeps in not quite imperceptibly, nay, in a dramatic way—with leaves turning red and gold, then fall, as in a storm from furious gusts—you would imagine us, belting out Nat King Cole’s haunting, “Autumn Leaves.” Or like new arrivals, you might find us scooping fallen leaves unabashed—some would even send these home glued in albums; an aunt, …