The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

By Luis Leoncio  Legislators are racing against time to pass bills in both the Senate and the House of Representatives seeking to increase tax exemptions on the salaries of Filipino workers, as the final legislative sessions under the Aquino administration wind down. 

In the face of the consistent failure of the Aquino administration to address the country’s electric-power problem that has spawned a host of other economic ills, notably the high prices of basic goods, a fierce advocate of the use of nuclear energy has strongly urged the activation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), which was mothballed in the early …

Foreign trade groups in the Philippines, noting that technology has become a major source of economic output in the country, has strongly urged the House of Representatives to pass a bill creating a Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) before the end of the current session of Congress. 

For the eighth consecutive year, property, retail and banking tycoon Henry Sy, whose conglomerate owns the chain of SM Supermalls in the Philippines and China, has remained the country’s richest, with his net worth up $1.7 billion from last year to $14.4 billion. 

The Philippine Stock Exchange’s (PSE) benchmark index (PSEi) continued its recovery after closing the week at 7,098.81, from the previous day’s 7,022.09 finish, marking the fourth straight day that the index closed higher following the sharp drop of the market on Monday, when the PSEi followed the global decline of market prices. 

About 3,000 students from public high schools in Metro Manila are now learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Stem) with the help of brand new equipment received recently from the Caltex Fuel Your School (FYS) program of Chevron Philippines Inc. (CPI), marketer of high-quality brand of Caltex fuels and lubricants. 

By Jerry Maglunog A growing population, booming industries, mining potentials and tourism growth are just some of the reasons Maybank, Southeast Asia’s fourth biggest bank by assets, said the world is coming to Asia, specifically the Philippines. 

The mudslinging that accompanies politics and trails behind politicians like stringy doggy poo started early for the 2016 presidential derby. The official campaign period is months away, but in a country inundated by pungent political partisanships, anytime is a good time for venomous divisiveness. Especially under a presidency characterized by petty vindictiveness, tracking dirt makes sense. 

Anyone who knows this song tells his/her age, hands down. Not among millennials, definitely, unless a hip grandparent belted it out for show during a family reunion. 

It looks like the camp of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas has unloaded a good portion of its kitty on radio and television advertising. Primetime public-affairs programs, particularly on a major media network, is benefitting from the camp’s advertising binge apparently timed for the next round of surveys on presidential aspirants.