The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

By Luis Leoncio With the public hearings in Congress on the proposed 2017 national budget to start this week, a budget watchdog has urged the Duterte administration to release the money already appropriated to provinces devastated by Supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013.

THE new administration’s economic chiefs, acknowledging that the poor continue to be left behind in the country’s march to progress, have pledged to implement policies that would finally enable the masses to benefit from the country’s growth.

By Riza Lozada The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has penalized six brokers for failure to comply with the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Securities Regulation Code.

The high cost of network and difficult deployment are the real industry barriers which will not likely be solved by adding more players in the telecommunications industry, Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu said.

ATN Holdings (ATNH), through unit ATN Philippines Solar Energy Group Inc., has secured regulatory approvals for its planned 120 megawatts (MW) solar energy project with an initial approved project cost of P5.6 billion for a 30 MW solar facility.

Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI) has approved the terms for the P3-billion Homestarter Bonds and the P7-billion third tranche of the fixed rate bond series, both of which will be issued under the corporation’s P50-billion Debt Securities Program as approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last March.

Projecting bigger growth in the backoffice business with the strong talent pool and market demand in the Philippines, data quality governance firm BackOffice Associates (BA) in partnership with local information technology firm Third Pillar Business Applications Inc. has opened a Global Delivery Center.

Recently the Department of Energy (DOE), alarmed at what seems to be creeping up slowly at a time when the regulatory hierarchy may at be its most vulnerable, its newly appointed officials experiencing honeymoon period pangs, implored its strongest regulatory arm to investigate possible market abuse and cartelized criminality.

Overheard at lunch, from behind us in a restaurant on Amsterdam in New York. Turning my head—I guessed right, apparently visiting moms of Filipino nurses working in a hospital close by. Their conversation pitched as each grabbed the floor from the other, throwing in cinder to burn this alleged virtual criminal at a stake, in their minds, that is.

Will neophyte Sen. Leila de Lima eventually emerge as the figurehead of a token opposition to the administration of President Duterte?