BusinessWeek
YOUR LOCAL ONLINE BUSINESS PAPER
www.businessweekmindanao.com Issue No. 18, Volume III •
Market Indicators
AS OF 5:05 P.M., OCT. 12, 2011 (Wednesday)
FOREX
;
US$1 = P43.60
0.13 cents
PHISIX 4,119.71 points
10.44 points
;
Briefly Discover Oro via Zest Air
ZEST Air, Asia’s most refreshing Airline, recently had a successful inaugural flight of its Manila to Cagayan De Oro route. Passengers had a great trip as they were flew in to the City of Golden Friendship through the airline’s modern and cozy Airbus 320 with a 162-180 seating capacity. Experience the ultimate adrenaline rush in Cagayan de Oro as you try its famous white water rafting and zip lining adventures. Embrace the great outdoors as you enjoy various nature-trekking activities in the Mapawa Nature Park, Macahambus Cave and Gorge, or the Malasag Nature Trail and Eco-tourism Village. Zest Air now flies daily to Cagayan De Oro and will soon fly to Zamboanga towards the end of the year.
Bigger market
DAVAO CITY -- Since many foreign buyers and investors are not inclined to visit Mindanao due to island’s poor peace-and-order image, the Mindanao Trade Expo Foundation, Inc. hopes to bring the island’s prospects to them through the Mindanao One to be held at the World Trade Center in Pasay City from Oct. 14-17. “This year, we will be spending P17 million for the event,” foundation chairperson Ann T. Pamintuan said in a recent briefing here, adding that organizers expect 300 exhibitors in the event. She noted that participants earned a total of P66 million in on-site purchases last year, not including “sales under negotiation because those were lost to monitoring.”
October 14-16, 2011
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P72b stimulus program to lift economy
P
RESIDENT Benigno Aquino III unveiled a P72-billion stimulus package to prime the economy, in an apparent government effort to fulfill its promise to make up for the underspending of the past year that had been partly blamed for the lower-than-projected growth data.
“I have authorized additional expenditures of 72 billion pesos between now and the end of the year. This spending will provide added stimulus to our economy,” Aquino said before members of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) on Wednesday. “The stimulus (funds) will be spent on projects that will have a high macro economic impact and help the poor,” the president added. Aquino said included in the P72-billion package is the P6.5-billion support for local government units (LGUs) which he unveiled earlier to mark the 20th anniversary of the Local Government Code; and a P10-billion fund to relocate and resettle communities in identified danger areas that have been repeatedly affected by a string of typhoons and other disasters. Also in the “stimulus” package to be unleashed between now and the end
of the year are: P5.5 billion for various priority projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways; and P4.5 billion and P1.68 billion for improvements for the MRT and LRT lines, respectively. Aquino said the items covered by the stimulus were selected mainly on the basis of their high macroeconomic impact and their impact on poverty alleviation. “No additional money” will be used to finance the package outside of “savings” and those from “our regular borrowing programs” according to the President. In response to a question, he acknowledged that the program is meant to boost efforts to reach the country’s growth targets, over which economists in and out of government have expressed concern in light of the underspending of the past year, which compounded the impact of global risks on the domestic economy. ECONOMY/PAGE 10
WINNING PHOTO. BusinessWeek Mindanao contributor Mio Cade’s winning photo of a child scavenging in piles of rubbish garbage that earns him the grand prize in FIAP Silver Award for Children Of The World 2010/2011. Mr. Cade, the pen name of Malaysian-born Thomas Tham, has worked with various Singapore-based non-government organizations dedicated to advocate the welfare of exploited children in Southeast Asia.
Vast coco areas in Davao prepared for investments By CARMELITO Q FRANCISCO Correspondent
DAVAO City -- The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) plans to spend some P15 million to rehabilitate about 173,000 hectares of coconut areas in the region in the next four years in a bid to lure investors. PCA Regional Manager Lornito U. Orillaneda said in a recent phone interview here that the four-year project aims to revive production, which has declined due to maturing trees and deteriorating soil condition. “We need to rehabilitate the farms to prepare them for new investments,” said Mr. Orillaneda, citing growing foreign interest in coconut-based drink due to their reported health benefits. The project will use coco peat -- waste generated from the production of coco COCO/PAGE 10
Mindanao farmers set long march for ‘land, rights, justice’ ILIGAN City– Thousands of disgruntled farmers will march for three days through Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental provinces to northern Mindanao’s regional capital, Cagayan de Oro City, to demand land, rights and justice. Organizations allied with the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said they expect 10,000 participants in the march dubbed “Lakbayang
Mag-uuma alang sa Yuta, Katungod ug Katilingbanong Hustisya (Peasants Protest March for Land, Rights and Social Justice),” which kicks off October 19. The Lakbayan seeks to highlight the issues of “landlessness and the accompanying exploitative conditions of production” that the farmers continue to experience and “press for genuine agrarian reform,” the KMP said.
The KMP noted that in Northern Mindanao, “three out of every four peasants do not own the land they are tilling.” On the afternoon of October 20, when the march enters Cagayan de Oro, the protesters will be welcomed with a “Concert for Land, Rights and Social Justice.” The next day, they will rally at the city’s Kiosko Kagawasan (Freedom Kiosk). FARMERS/PAGE 10