Business

Huge Market for Veggies in Mindanao

By Prix Banzon
Philippine Information Agency

DAVAO CITY — There?s a huge market for vegetables in Mindanao and yet farmers produce the product for the Luzon area.

This was the observation made by Dante Sarraga, Jr., executive vice president of the Philippine Vegetable Industry Development Board during the Club 888 Forum at The Marco Polo Hotel yesterday.

Sarraga said if the vegetable produce are marketed within Mindanao, farmers will earn more instead of the products shipped to Manila where the transport time run up to 52 hours and have to l wait for 70 days to get paid.

?If transaction is done here mas madali kasi kaliwaan lang yan, you deliver the product and get paid immediately,? he said.

(more…)

Continue ReadingHuge Market for Veggies in Mindanao

In Siocon, Subanens Continue Struggle Vs Canadian Mining Firm

Related story
Subanen supporters of TVI ask critics to ?leave us alone?; company says mining brought benefits to community

Contributed photo
Bishop Jose Manguiran of Dipolog leads the re-consecration of Mt. Canatuan

SIOCON, Zamboanga del Norte — For two years, timuay (tribal chief) Jose Anoy has not been able to set foot in his home. Home is Mt. Canatuan, the most sacred place for the 2,000 Subanen people, which has been encroached into by the mining firm Canada?s Toronto Ventures Inc (TVI) since 1994.

Anoy said that the TVI has prevented him from returning home because he refused to give consent for the company to mine 508 hectares located in the Subanen?s sacred land.

?The company offered me money before, and shares in their profits,? he recalled. ?Accepting this could have been easy, but being a timuay, I remained firm for the sake of the Subanen.?

His stand forced the company to lay it hard on Anoy — driving him away from his own home. Since then, TVI has taken over Mt. Canatuan, barricading the area with three checkpoints.

(more…)

Continue ReadingIn Siocon, Subanens Continue Struggle Vs Canadian Mining Firm

Billions of OFW Remittance Destroy RP?s Basic Industries

By Isagani dela Paz
OFW Journalism Consortium

MANILA ? The sparkle of billions of dollars of money sent by Filipinos temporarily or permanently earning abroad is blinding government and the overseas labor deployment industry, a lawmaker warned recently.

?The immediate windfall from the foreign currency remittances of our countrymen overseas makes it so easy to gloss over the reality that the diaspora of our skilled labor exacts a painful toll on the basic industries that should form the building block of a strong Philippine economy,? Congressman Roseller Barinaga said in a privilege speech recently.

Representative Barinaga of Zamboanga del Norte spoke at the Lower House seeking measures to check what he said was the unregulated outflow of critical skills and talents affecting the country?s strategic industries: aviation, electronics, shipping, steel, petrochemical, and telecommunications.

(more…)

Continue ReadingBillions of OFW Remittance Destroy RP?s Basic Industries

Deadline for Tax Filing Is April 17

By Rose B. Palacio
Philippine Information Agency

DAVAO CITY — Bureau of Internal Revenuer (BIR) regional director Atty. Marcelinda Omila-Yap announced that the deadline for the filing of income tax returns has been moved to April 17, 2006 (Monday) since April 15 falls on Saturday which is a holiday.

Omila-Yap urged the taxpaying public to file their income tax returns early to avoid the rush.

(more…)

Continue ReadingDeadline for Tax Filing Is April 17