Pick and pay. As a marketing strategy to entice buyers, the owners of this backyard flower garden in Santiago City, Isabela province, allow customers, like this coed, to gather chrysanthemums of their choice. Backyard cut-flower production has been launched and encouraged by the city government as a livelihood project among local women. --LEONARDO PERANTE II

Ecozone tax-data gaps probed

FINANCE Secretary Margarito Teves has apparently had enough of ecozone executives dishing out fiscal-incentives numbers that are different from those reported to the tax authorities.

Single-digit inflation goal dimmed by oil, food costs

DESPITE a decline in the prices of oil in the world market, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) believes that single-digit inflation is no longer likely this year since the prices of food and other commodities continue to increase.

Rollbacks still no guarantee of fair pricing: IBON

THE recent series of petroleum pump- price rollbacks are welcome, but independent think tank IBON Foundation says oil firms should be transparent with their pricing, particularly in the wake of windfall profits they earned due to record-high world crude prices.

Olympics partner uses CSR

BEIJING—The Olympics’ long-term partner Samsung has embarked on its corporate social responsibility (CSR) program to share in the Olympics values and highlight its deep involvement in China.

ADB prods firms on green energy

THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) is offering technical and financial assistance to investors in the renewable-energy field, hoping to swell their numbers and thus help arrest the effects of climate change by significantly lessening dependence on carbon-based fuels. Woochung Um, the ADB’s director for energy, transport and water division in the regional and sustainable development department, said such assistance will come from the bank’s Carbon Market Initiative, which relies on its earnings in the trading of Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits under the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol.

English inside

THE difference between young people and me is that I am English inside. Within. Where intestines live next door to kidneys and liver. Where higher up in a loft beats the heart. That’s where my writing happens. A computer types the words, speeds up editing. The reader smoothly follows my English writing as it snags and bumps, bleeds and clots, as it becomes whole. Writing is a transfer of energy from the writer to the reader. I craft our connection. I write about what is inside me, where my feelings live and throb. Inside is an important place to me and I share it with you.

25 years after, Ninoy death inspires 3 lessons

THE son lamented the political backsliding a quarter of a century since his father’s martyrdom; a family friend distilled for the crowd three important lessons from a martyrdom; and the cancer-stricken widow of the honoree prodded people to look for ways they could help the poor and marginalized, even when governments fail.

Grand Opera Hotel to cater to Chinese tourists and guests

AS the only luxury hotel in Manila’s Santa Cruz district, near Binondo’s Chinatown, Manila Grand Opera Hotel which opens this month expects to meet the needs of an increasing number of visitors from China and Taiwan.

Best weapons: Investing in people

INVESTING in people and retooling the organization are the best weapons to remain formidable in an environment of economic uncertainty and slowdown, according to Carol Dominguez, president and chief executive officer of John Clements Consultants Inc.

CANCER-STRICKEN former President Corazon Aquino talks inside the Church of the Gesu at the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City. In an ambush interview after the Mass, she made a pitch for microfinance programs, saying they provide people a way out of poverty even when governments fail. --AP