The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-Region 7 (Central Visayas) on Wednesday cited a business venture organized by 32 farmers in a conflict-affected area for standing out to learn merchandising amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. In a statement, DSWD-7 regional director Rebecca Geamala said the agency granted a group of village folk in Siation, Negros Oriental with PHP300,000 for its micro-enterprise project selling general merchandise, agricultural, and veterinary supplies to the community. Geamala said the farmers who are members of the Uswag Casala-an Sustainable Livelihood Program Association have been able to manage well after a year since

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) inched up anew Wednesday ahead of the Federal Reserve decision announcement, but the peso depreciated against the US dollar. The local stock barometer gained 0.14 percent, or 9.53 points, to 6,890.73 points. All Shares posted a higher jump of 0.51 percent, or 21.58 points, to 4,286.57 points. Half of the sectoral indexes also gained during the day, with Services rising by 2.94 percent; Mining and Oil, 2.24 percent; and Industrial, 0.94 percent. On the other hand, the Property index fell by 0.87 percent, Financials by 0.68 percent, and Holding Firms by 0.28 percent. Volume

Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organizations (ARBOs) in the province of Antique are encouraged to join ARBO Merkado, an online marketing platform via Facebook, where they can post their products up for sale. Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Antique Marketing Assistance Officer Cherish Sane Tonding, in an interview Wednesday, said seven ARBOs in the province producing food and non-food products have already joined the platform. “In the ARBO Merkado, we have products such as squash canton with malunggay, malunggay powder, ginger brew, turmeric brew, taro chips, camote chips and nito products already posted,” she said. She said that the squash canton with

Cacao growers in the small town of Adams, Ilocos Norte are excited to unveil a new brand of locally-processed cacao food products as a shared service facility for cacao processing is now ready to roll. Worth more than PHP1 million, the cacao processing facility is a dream come true for high value commercial crop farmers of Adams town as the Department of Trade Industry (DTI) granted their request to finance the facility with a counterpart of PHP200,000 from the Adams Cacao Growers and Processors Association Inc., mostly composed of women farmers from the Indigenous Peoples (IPs) community. Among its 18

Producers from various municipalities in Iloilo have found an opportunity to market their products amid this health pandemic through the “Tumandok,” a trade and travel fair organized by the Provincial Culture, Arts, History, and Tourism Office of the province of Iloilo. Tumandok, a Hiligaynon word meaning indigenous, started Sept. 20 and will run until Sept. 26 at Robinsons Place Jaro in this city featuring agricultural produce and arts and crafts from 12 participating exhibitors, said Provincial tourism officer Gilbert Marin in an interview Wednesday. An exhibitor from the municipality of Janiuay demonstrates how to make bags with the use of

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin Diokno is confident that the proportion of non-performing loans (NPLs) of Philippine banks to total loans will remain in single-digit until next year despite the rising soured loans due to the pandemic. In a briefing streamed through the central bank’s Facebook page on Wednesday, Diokno attributed the projected single-digit NPL ratio to “banks prudent credit risk management standards, and the operationalization of the Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer or FIST Act.” “We estimate that the NPL ratio is likely to pick at 8.2 percent in 2022, which is twice the current NPL ratio, but