FRENCH LIVING IN THE PHILIPPINES

IN PLACE OF SAOUDI ? When Saudi Arabia begins turning away migrant laborers, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) can turn to Australia and Canada for employment, the Philippine labor chief said Thursday. In an interview with GMA News Online, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the government is now exploring to take advantage of the “labor shortage" in Australia and Canada. The Philippine labor attachés in those countries are currently in talks with some officials there to “match the labor demand with labor supply," she said.   The labor chief cited the pressing labor demand for mining- and construction-related jobs in Australia, whose economy has been partly buoyed by minerals and energy in the forms of liquefied natural gas and coal. Moreover, Canada’s economic growth being reliant on its abundance of natural resources will usher in employment related to oil drilling and exploration, Baldoz added. Filipino workers who want to work in those two countries may ...

Risks are growing that incidents at sea involving China could lead to war in Asia, an Australian policy think tank warned on Tuesday. Concentrated on the South and East China seas, the risk-taking behaviour of the Chinese military, resource needs, and greater assertiveness, raised the possibility of armed conflict that could draw in the United States and other powers, the Lowy Institute said in a report. "The sea lanes of Indo-Pacific Asia are becoming more crowded, contested and vulnerable to armed strife. Naval and air forces are being strengthened amid shifting balances of economic strategic weight," report authors Rory Medcalf and Raoul Heinrichs wrote. "China's frictions with the United States, Japan and India are likely to persist and intensify. As the number and tempo of incidents increases, so does the likelihood that an episode will escalate to armed confrontation, diplomatic crisis or possibly even conflict," the report said. The study on maj...

Cotabato City and the neighboring municipalities are under a state of calamity. Flooded rivers brought downstream tons of water hyacinth or water lilies that clogged the Rio Grande de Mindanao. Tens of kilometers of water hyacinths blocked the Cotabato Delta  River spilling the flooded water on both banks submerging almost 36 barangays of Cotabato City and some areas in the municipality of Sultan Kudarat. For almost a week now, the people are practically living in a ‘water world’ wading through a waist deep of water. Classes are suspended and people scamper to higher grounds. The flooding in Central Mindanao has given rise to urgent calls to revisit and change policies and behavior that directly impact the fragile eco-system.   First, by its very name, Maguindanao, the place tells a story of water inundation every time the Rio Grande de Mindanao is swollen. This is an annual occurrence as far back as memory remembers. Second is the fact that Cotabato Delta and al...

DE PLUS EN PLUS RICHES Despite a slowdown in the Philippine economy, the 40 richest Filipinos got richer this year on the back of a booming stock market, the business magazine Forbes Asia said on Thursday. In “The Philippines’ 40 Richest" published in the magazine’s July issue, Forbes Asia said the wealth of the country’s richest personalities collectively rose to an all-time high of $34 billion, up from $22.8 billion in 2010. “The Philippines’   economy grew only 4.9 percen t in the first quarter of the year in part because of a drop in trade and lower infrastructure spending by government, off from 8.4 percent in 2010, but the country’s stock market is booming," Forbes Asia explained.   “The stock exchange’s composite index is up 27 percent since last year, surpassing its 2007 benchmark," the magazine added. Forbes Asia also said the number of Philippine billionaires grew to an all-time high as it more than doubled to 11 compared with last year’s five. The ma...

INDULGENCES FOR MANAOAG VISITORS Our Lady of Manaoag   (formally:   Nuestra Señora del Santissimo Rosario de Manaoag,   literal translation:   Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Manaoag ) is a title given to the   Blessed Virgin Mary , associated with a statue in  Manaoag,  Pangasinan   said to be from the 16th century. She is the patroness of the sick, the helpless and the needy. The church is one of the   Philippines ' most widely visited   Roman Catholic   Pilgrimage   sites. Many people from across the   Philippine archipelago come and visit the town of Manaoag, where the statue of the   Blessed Virgin Mary   is enshrined in a church dedicated to this name. The church is administered by the   Dominican Order   in the   Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan , located in   Manaoag ,   Pangasinan , about 200 kilometers north of Manila. The original image of the Our Lady of Manaoag was bro...

WHAT, WHEN  ...  WHY  (WWW)  ? One Malacañang aide accepts Noynoy Aquino’s slip in ratings. Low output in 11 months in office is how Presidential Communication Sec. Herminio Coloma sees it. The admin has been weakest in roads, bridges, seaports and airports,  he told   The STAR   last week. “We still have lots to do in terms of infrastructure.” They sure do. Aquino has put PPP — Public-Private Partnership — at the center of his economic chart. PPPs consist mostly of highways and transport facilities to be built by private firms under special tax breaks. First two, then four such projects were announced for bidding in 2010. Six more were lined up for the first quarter of 2011, totaling P113 billion.  Not one has materialized. As his State of the Nation nears, Aquino is hard-pressed to report at least one running PPP. A “high official” was quoted Monday saying the first PPP bidding — for an P11-billion tollway to the Manila International Ai...