Brace for beauty Bracelets for sale with indigenous designs, presented at the “Pinay in Action” Expo featuring more than a hundred booths focusing on women’s needs and issues, give expo visitors a rare visual treat. The expo is at The Fort in Taguig City. --RHOY COBILLA

HIGH oil prices may force the national government to revise its economic targets for the year, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).

Neda Acting Director General Augusto Santos noted oil prices have recently breached the psychological per-barrel mark in the world market at $105 per barrel. Santos said that while the country uses the cheaper Dubai crude, its price—at a range of $80 to $90 per barrel today—is not far from world market prices.

THE government has heeded the call of local flour millers for help amid the rising cost of wheat in the world market, and asked Beijing to allocate wheat for the Philippines.

Trade Secretary Peter Favila said he has sent an official communication to his Chinese counterpart requesting for an allocation of wheat products for shipment to the Philippines.

Bringing down the price of rice will be a tall order this year for the government because of the surge in oil prices and the tightness of supply of other grains in the world market, according to Jessup Navarro, administrator of the National Food Authority.

AMID plans for a congressional inquiry into allegations of a possible constitutional breach in a tripartite review of resources in the South China Sea, former energy secretary Vincent S. Perez and energy undersecretary Eduardo V. Mañalac stressed the commercial nature of the agreement covering that review—meaning, it is not a treaty subject to Senate ratification.

CONGRESS leaders voiced concern that Malacañang may be “up to something” as they asked the Palace to explain why the P1.127-trillion national budget for fiscal year 2008 has not been signed into law by President Arroyo, resulting in continued reliance on the reenacted 2007 national budget to finance government operations.

TAIPEI’S wonder boy and founder of the world’s third-largest computer maker says Asian countries can outlast the United States, host of some computer companies being overtaken by Acer Group, which Stan Shih founded three decades ago.

“Taiwan and other Asian countries are not going to fight American companies; they can’t with limited resources. They should look at the longer gain. We are looking at who can last longer,” Shih, now considered a national hero in Taiwan, told reporters.

United States-based conglomerate Mars Inc. has put up a multimillion-peso “cacao development center” in Davao in its bid to obtain more of the quality beans for its operations by helping local planters develop better beans.

Edward David, president of the Philippine Cocoa Foundation (PCF), said the development center will open on March 31. “The center will make available all the best technologies that local farmers can use in growing high-quality cacao beans.”

A LABOR agency ordered a business school to reinstate and pay back wages to two professors suspended last year for demanding salary hikes for employees worth nearly a billion pesos.

In a ruling issued February 26, 2008, the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) said that the Asian Institute of Management’s (AIM) decision to suspend Professors Victor S. Limlingan and Emmanuel A. Leyco for one year, owing to their “dysfunctional behavior,” was “illegal.”

BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. has refused to be intimidated by calls for the withdrawal of the banks’ special deposit accounts (SDAs) and declared Friday these will continue to be available until further notice.

MORE STORIES ...

SEN. Edgardo Angara receives a token of appreciation from Ambassador Alfredo Yao (right), Chamber of Thrift Banks president, after he delivered a keynote address at the Chamber’s recent national convention in Makati City. --ROY DOMINGO