‘₧100-wage hike should have been approved yesterday’ By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario
R THANKS FROM ETERNAL GARDENS Department of Agrarian Reform Undersecretary Atty. Napoleon U. Galit (fourth from left) receives the glass-encased image of The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ from Eternal Gardens Chairman and CEO D. Edgard A. Cabangon (third from left) as a token of appreciation for gracing the Grand Annual Awards of Eternal Gardens as Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker. With them are (from left) VP for Finance Marvin C. Timbol, Operations Executive Dannica Nicole A. Cabangon, Vice Chairman Benjamin V. Ramos, President and COO Numeriano B. Rodrin, and VP for Sales and Marketing Jose Antonio V. Rivera. Full story and more photos in B1 Companies.
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AISING wages in the Philippines should have been done “yesterday” to allow worker’s benefits to catch up with the net profits of businesses they work for, according to a former chief of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda). Former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Dante Canlas told BusinessMirror that the P100 across-the-board wage increase should have already been passed by Congress. This would be of significant help to Filipinos who have identified high inflation as well as the abil-
ity of their incomes to continue covering for their basic needs as their top concerns, according to a recent survey by Publicus Asia. (See: https://businessmirror. com.ph /2024/04/03/pr icesinadequate-incomes-top-phlhousehold-concerns/). “The P100 wage increase being proposed in Congress should have been passed by Congress ‘yesterday.’ That’s just to allow labor to catch up, given the rise in labor productivity, with the rise in net profits of owners of capital and the compensation and bonuses of their top management,” Canlas told this newspaper. However, De La Salle University economist Maria Ella Oplas told BusinessMirror that rais-
ing wages could also be inflationary and can never be a solution against high inflation caused by, for example, higher oil prices. Several bills lodged in both houses of Congress are proposing an across-the-board wage increase of anywhere from P100 to as much as P750. Oplas said such proposa ls would benefit the interest of workers but economic policies should still balance the interests not just of workers, but also businesses. After all, higher wages could lead to job cuts. “It is not only labor that we have to protect. We also need to balance it with the industry that will [be] burden[ed by] the [high] cost of labor,” Oplas said.
“It’s nice to be altruistic, but in order to sustain the industry, we also need to allow industry to gain profit.” Oplas said government must work double t ime in ter ms of r u r a l d e v e l o p m e nt , a s t h i s w i l l sig nif icant ly increase employ ment oppor tunities in the prov inces. With this, Filipinos in rural areas will not be forced to flock to congested areas like Metro Manila just to earn a living. Recent efforts to extend support for farmers, Oplas said, are a step toward the right direction. This will help farmers and discourage them from leaving their fields in exchange for city living.
BusinessMirror Monday, April 22, 2024 Vol. 19 No. 188
See “P100-wage,” A2
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BOI OKS P607-B PROJECTS, n
P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 20 pages |
15% MORE, IN JAN-APRIL T By Andrea E. San Juan @andreasanjuan
HE Board of Investments (BOI) said it approved P607.22 billion of investments—bulk of which is in renewable energy—from January to April 2024, up 15 percent from the investment approvals recorded in the same period last year.
Ivisan Windkraft Corporation’s 450 MW Frontera Bay wind power project, with a P83.70-billion project cost and will be located offshore of Cavite. The Ivisan wind power project is 25-percent Filipino-owned, 75percent Singaporean-owned. Of the P607.22-billion investments approved in the JanuaryApril 2024 period, Recolizado said P494.37 billion, or 81.42 percent, came from domestic investors. She also noted that the BOI invest ment approva ls in t he four-month period are 15 percent up from the P527.24 billion recorded in the same period a year ago. For his part, Trade and Industry Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual, who cochairs the BOI, underscored the importance of drawing investments from domestic investors. See “BOI,” A2
PHL FIRST TO SIGN WB’S RAPID RESPONSE OPTION AGREEMENT By Reine Juvierre S. Alberto
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HE Philippines, which ranks the third most disaster-prone country in the world, can now immediately liquidate funds to address emergency needs when a crisis occurs. In a social media post on Sunday, the Department of Finance (DOF) said Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto signed the Rapid Response Option (RRO) with the World Bank Group (WBG) on April 20. The Philippines is the first state to sign the agreement, which positioned the country at the forefront of crisis and disaster response, according to the DOF. The agreement was signed between Recto and WBG Man-
aging Director Anna Bjerde at the sidelines of the World Bank Group-International Monetary Fund (WBG-IMF) Spring Meetings from April 15 to 21, 2024, in Washington, DC. The RRO is part of the WBG’s Expanded Crisis Preparedness and Response Toolkit, which allows countries to quickly repurpose a portion of their unused World Bank financing across their existing portfolio to deliver timely responses when crises occur. “The flexible resource reallocation will provide the Philippine government with immediate liquidity to rapidly deliver critical services—such as healthcare, shelter, food—in times of emergency,” the DOF said. Continued on A4
HAPPY EARTH DAY! Philippine Eagle Nariha Kabugao shows off its large talons with an aluminum tag on its leg to help researchers from the Philippine Eagle Foundation track the bird with its unique ID number. This image of the majestic bird, surviving human folly after being injured with three air gun pellets and rehabilitated and released in Apayao recently, is a fitting reminder of what’s at stake on Earth Day, where humans are challenged to, among others, “preserve genetic diversity, or the flora and fauna surrounding it,” as one official put it. Story of Kabugao’s saga below. ERWIN MASCARIÑAS
Apayao governor calls for PHL Eagle shooting probe By Erwin M. Mascariñas
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UNA, Apayao—After nearly a month of rehabilitation, a female Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) rescued with three air gun pellets lodged underneath its skin was released back into its forest home on April 12, 2024, but the chief executive of the province of Apayao is seeking answers as to how the critically endangered raptor was shot. Named after the area where it was rescued, Philippine eagle Nariha Kabugao was rescued last March 19 from a farmer in Barangay Bulu in Kabugao by a team from the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF), representatives of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Local Government Unit of Apayao Province and Kabugao, and concerned citizens. During the physical examina-
tion conducted by veterinarians and PEF biologist, the rescued raptor was later found to have three air gun pellets embedded within its skin, indicating the bird was shot several times in the past which might be the reason it got weak and was tempted to find an easy meal, resulting in getting itself trapped. “We’ve been protecting our forest here and the conservation efforts have been there for more than a decade now, it’s sad to know that while our eagle was rescued and saved, we can’t deny and look the other way, we need to know at the situation as to the incident that our eagle was shot before it was rescued,” said Governor Elias Cayaba Bulut Jr. of the Province of Apayao. “I am calling for an investigation and for the concerned government agencies to take an active role. See “Apayao,” A2
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CLIMATE ACTIVISTS AREN’T JUST YOUNG PEOPLE:
DISPELLING 3 BIG MYTHS FOR EARTH DAY
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 57.0950 n JAPAN 0.3693 n UK 71.0262 n HK 7.2906 n CHINA 7.8880 n SINGAPORE 41.9261 n AUSTRALIA 36.6550 n EU 60.7833 n KOREA 0.0415 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.2208 Source: BSP (April 19, 2024)
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BOI Director Sandy Recolizado told reporters at a briefing on Friday that investment approvals in the four-month period came from 117 projects, mostly from domestic investors. “Majority of the projects that we have approved came from Renewable Energy [RE] projects,” Recolizado said. The BOI official noted that the biggest project that the investment promotion agency has approved is the RE project of Ahunan Power, Inc. which has a project cost of P296.98 billion. The Ahunan power project is a 1,400-megawatt (MW) pumped storage hydroelectric power project located in Pakil, Laguna. Recolizado said this project is 100-percent Filipino-owned. Recolizado said the second largest project the BOI approved is also a renewable energy project, the