A VANTAGE point in the interchange at the Magallanes area in Makati City affords one a commanding view of the metropolis’s skyline. The mood of progress is in serious peril, however, from various factors, with the latest bad news coming from Thursday’s inflation report—a record high of nine years—even as growth in key sectors of the economy is seen to slow down this year. --MANNY GOLOYUGO

THE spikes in food and fuel prices have caused the country’s inflation rate to hit 9.6 percent in May, its highest level in nine years or since January 1999, according to the National Statistics Office (NSO).

NSO data show that while the prices of all commodities posted had increased, inflation of food, beverages and tobacco (FBT)—which posted a 13.7-percent increase—was the biggest cause of the surge in prices in May.

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) raised its policy rates by 25 basis points Thursday in a preemptive strike meant to prevent supply-side bottlenecks from spilling over into demand problems, such as higher wages and more expensive transport costs.

The decision lifted the rate at which the BSP borrows from and lends to banks to 5.25 percent and 7.25 percent, respectively.

THE Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) will expire on June 10, so that President Arroyo certified as urgent House Bill 4077 to extend it for another five years, but her action Tuesday seems to have come too late. 

The House failed to approve the bill the next day, Wednesday, for lack of quorum, leading demonstrating farmers monitoring the House action on the law to proceed to Speaker Prospero Nograles’s office and hold an impromptu protest rally.

SEN. Edgardo Angara gave assurances Thursday that the final version of the Personal Equity Retirement Account (Pera) bill will be ratified by the Senate and the House before Congress goes on a monthlong recess next week.

Appearing at the weekly Kapihan sa Senado media forum, Angara said the Pera bill would complement the expected passage of the proposed Pre-need Code.

PICOP Resources Corp. has been encountering financial difficulties for several years and has accumulated losses of P5.199 billion as of end-2007. As a result, it defaulted on payments of its maturing loans, which, despite restructuring, it still failed to pay.

All this has made the future for Picop and its public stockholders bleak, and even worse if one were to consider the findings of SGV & Co. that “these factors [referring to financial difficulties], among others, indicate the existence of a material uncertainty, which may raise substantial doubt about the ability of the group to continue as a going concern.”

TRADING of the shares of paper manufacturer Picop Resources Inc. was suspended Thursday by the stock exchange following the filing for rehabilitation with the Regional Trial Court in Makati.

Hazel Que, corporate information officer of Picop, said it was Land Bank of the Philippines that initiated the filing of the petition to rehabilitate the company and its subsidiary New Paper Industries Corp. (NPIC).

NEWSPAPER editor Niñez Cacho-Olivares, also known as a feisty columnist, has to pay over P5 million in moral damages to plaintiffs in a libel case after she was found guilty Thursday and sentenced to six months to two years in jail by the Regional Trial Court in Makati.

WITH the sewerage system—whatever there is of it—of Manila being centuries old and only serving a small part of the metropolis, waters of Manila Bay, Laguna Lake and the Pasig River have become the draining ground for liquid waste, causing their degradation to critical levels.

With this in mind, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on Thursday asked the metropolitan water concessionaires— Manila Water and Maynilad—to build a new sewerage system throughout their concession areas.

JOCJOC is coming back. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said this is inevitable after the United States rejected the fugitive former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante’s application for political asylum. Deportation should follow unless he can find other ways of staying the hand of the American immigration office.

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Joint distribution agreement Executives from the BUSINESSMIRROR and the Chinese Commercial News signed a memorandum of agreement on Tuesday to implement joint distribution of the two dailies. Present at the signing were (seated, from left) Kris Lim, marketing manager of the Chinese Commercial News; Solomon Yuyitung, publisher of the Chinese Commercial News; T. Anthony C. Cabangon, publisher of the BUSINESSMIRROR; and Antonette C. Reyes, vice president of the BUSINESSMIRROR, and (standing from left) Ronald Callao and Santiago G. Cabangon, vice president for finance and administration of the BUSINESSMIRROR. --ROMY FLORANTE