Day: September 17, 2024

Manila: President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has approved the allotment of PHP7.9 billion for the Department of Health’s (DOH) national immunization program, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa announced on Tuesday. Marcos gave the approval during a sectoral meeting with DOH officials led by Herbosa at Malacañan Palace in Manila on Tuesday morning. In a Palace press briefing after the sectoral meeting, Herbosa said the approved budget was higher than the previous PHP6.4 billion budget allotted for the DOH’s immunization program. ‘Naibigay ni Presidente ‘yung aking ni-request na full budget. First time po ito. Lagi pong 60 to 70 percent lang nang

Manila: The PHP30-billion upfront payment from San Miguel Corporation-led New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC) for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) public-private partnership (PPP) project will boost the government’s non-tax revenue stream, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said Tuesday. In March, San Miguel released the PHP30 billion upfront payment for the NAIA project. Recto said the remittance was cleared with the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) on Monday, following the official turnover of the NAIA’s operations and maintenance (O and M) to New NAIA Infra Corp. on Sept. 14. ‘We are hitting two birds with one stone on this project. This

Manila: The Land Bank of the Philippines’ (LandBank) new lending program “AgriSenso” is expected to benefit hundreds of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs), including the whole agriculture value chain in the country, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said Tuesday. In a news release, DAR said a PHP10 billion fund was allotted for the program to bolster food security and sufficiency nationwide. ‘LandBank eyes at least 5,000 AgriSenso borrowers with an initial total amount of PHP500 million under LandBank’s new lending program,’ LandBank Executive Vice President Alex Lorayes said. The lending program, with an interest of 7 percent annually, aims to

Manila: Mayor Liseldo Calugay of Sual, Pangasinan on Tuesday denied a partnership of any kind with former Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo during the continuing Senate hearing on illegal Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) Tuesday. They’re just friends, Calugay insisted, despite the pieces of evidence presented by Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, including photos of them together in each other’s campaign caravans, wearing so-called couple or identical shirts, and having the same supplier of campaign giveaways. “Wala naman po talaga kaming relasyon (We aren’t really in a relationship),” Calugay said when asked by senators what his relationship with Guo

The battle over whether to ban TikTok in the US and remove the Chinese social media and video-sharing platform from app stores nationwide got underway Monday in a federal appeals court. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argued before a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit that the ban violates their Constitutional right of the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and expression. The ban was originally instated after Congressional concerns about the China-based company compiling and disseminating user data, especially since the Beijing government is considered an adversary to the United States. US