Medical experts led by researchers from the University of the Philippines-College of Public Health (UP-CPH), the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Tropical Medicine and Public Health Regional Centre for Public Health, Hospital Administration, Environmental and Occupational Health, called for a review of the 10-year-old pneumonia vaccine strategy in order to protect children against one of…
There has been a sharp contrast between evidence and policies during the pandemic, but these actions will encourage evidence-informed policymaking as we move forward. Months into the pandemic, many governments continued to use the same approaches as they did at the beginning. Many did not adopt new evidence or applied lessons learned. There has been…
MANILA, Philippines — The government aims to attract more tourists in destinations that promote “regenerative tourism,” its tourism chief said, describing that thrust as an endeavor “to leave a destination in a better state than it was before.” Speaking at the 21st World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit which ended on Friday, Tourism…
MANILA, Philippines—The pre-need industry’s net income rose 36.7 percent to P2.1 billion in 2021, as both sales value and volume increased. The latest Insurance Commission (IC) data showed that the total bottom line of the country’s 12 pre-need players last year climbed by over a third from P1.5 billion in 2020. Their combined premium income…
In previous columns, I highlighted how the pandemic affected the Philippine property sector. At the height of this crisis, we saw negative office take up, correction of condominium rents and prices, and decline in mall space rents due to substantial drop in consumer traffic. In the past quarter however, property developers and investors are aggressively…
Filipinos living or working abroad never faltered in their commitment to send more money back home despite the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, jacking up cash remittances to the Philippines to a fresh high of $31.4 billion in 2021. In a statement on Tuesday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said cash remittances coursed through banks rose…
The inflow of US dollars from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) is shoring up the Philippines’ external position, with personal remittances growing 5.3 percent year-on-year in the 11 months ending Nov. 30 last year. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said January to November remittances reached in 2021 from $29.99 billion in the same period of…
The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. (Campi) is expecting to end the year with a growth of around 20 percent, which they hope to raise even further in 2022. “By year-end, [we] expect around a 20-percent [growth],” said Campi president Rommel Gutierrez in a Viber message when asked for the group’s year-end…
Yuchengco-led construction firm EEI Corp. has returned to the local stock market for the first time in 14 years, raising P6 billion from a warmly received offering of preferred shares. EEI’s offering of series A and series B preferred shares, which ended on Dec. 15, had been oversubscribed by 4.85 times the base offer of…
The country’s largest conglomerate, SM Investments Corp. (SMIC), has filed a registration statement to raise as much as P15 billion from the offering of long-term peso-denominated bonds by February next year. These fixed-rate bonds will form the second tranche of its P30-billion debt securities shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Based on…