Mass gatherings require the approval of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) whether at a public or private venue even if a local chief executive has endorsed it, a key Capitol official said Tuesday. Negros Oriental public information officer Bimbo Miraflor, in an interview, said the gathering of a fraternity at the Perdices Memorial Coliseum here did not pass through the provincial IATF even though it had sought the endorsement of Gov. Roel Degamo. Miraflor said the group wrote a letter to the governor asking permission to use the coliseum grounds for its anniversary

Malacañang on Tuesday welcomed the country’s exit from recession in the second quarter, hopeful that this gain would be sustained until the end of the year. This, after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) announced that the country grew 11.8 percent year-on-year during the April-June period, a reversal from the 17 percent contraction registered in the same period last year. This figure is also the country’s strongest performance in more than three decades and marked the end of five consecutive quarters of negative growth. Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque expressed optimism that the country’s economy would continue to recover despite the two-week

Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go lauded 17 former New People’s Army (NPA) combatants’ decision to turn away from the communist movement to start new lives. Go sent a video message during the turnover of housing financial assistance to the 17 former rebels (FRs) from Agusan del Norte in a ceremony held here on Monday. “The assistance will help them build their homes and start a new life with their families,” he said. He also applauded the efforts of the different agencies of the government in extending help to the FRs. Each of them received a PHP450,000 cash aid which is

Diversified engineering conglomerate DMCI Holdings Inc. has benefited from a lower income tax with the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) law. In a statement, DMCI Holdings said deferred tax liabilities dropped by 2 percent in the first half of the year mainly due to remeasurement following the passage of CREATE law. “(The) impact of CREATE (law) for (the) second quarter alone is net gain of PHP808 million. For the first half, it’s net gain of PHP981 million,” it said. President Rodrigo Duterte last March 26 signed into law the CREATE Act that aims to attract more investments

Red tide phenomenon has recurred in Cancabato Bay in this city while toxins remain in five other bays in the region this week, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) reported on Tuesday. BFAR Regional Director Juan Albaladejo said runoff of pollutants to waterways has contributed to the recurrence of red tide in Cancabato Bay, a rich source of cockle clams being shipped to Taiwan and Hong Kong. “Pollutants that are fed to river systems to siltation of inner bay make it prone to red tide events as the cyst of the microorganism just hibernate in Cancabato with previous