The best come in 3s for ‘BM’. Rudy Salalima (left), SVP for corporate and regulatory affairs of Globe Telecom, and Oscar Lopez, chairman and chief executive officer of Benpres, flank BUSINESSMIRROR’s Companies section editor Armin Amio as she received the paper’s award for Best Reporting in Trade and Industry, one of three it won at Friday’s Ejap-Globe Excellence in Business Journalism awards. Lopez keynoted the ceremony, where BM was adjudged best in three of the seven major categories. Besides Max de Leon, BM’s Trade reporter, the two others cited for excellent reportage were Jun Vallecera for Banking, and Cai Ordinario for Finance/Neda. It was Vallecera’s second consecutive year to get the Banking prize, tying once more with Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Doris Dumlao. --NONIE REYES

Poll: Costs dim pay hikes

THE rise in world crude prices—that even at current lower levels is still much higher than several years back—has led to higher operating costs, making Philippine companies hesitant to raise wages, revealed a survey by global consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

Only 17 percent of the 102 companies, categorized mostly as medium-sized firms, that participated in the study had adjusted their workers’ salaries; the increases averaged only 2.57 percent.

BIR shuffles key field personnel

WITH the clock ticking for them to meet the government’s stiff revenue targets and the attrition law hanging over their heads, key field personnel of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) have been shuffled, and must assume their new positions on Tuesday, September 16.

Lopezes ready for anything from government, says FPHC patriarch

REGARDLESS of the Government Service Insurance System’s (GSIS) counteraffidavit to the allegations by the Lopez-owned First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC) of a government-instigated takeover campaign, the Lopezes are serving notice they are ready to face the challenges involving their continued control of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

$3-M cacao grant from USDA eyed

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is seeking $3 million from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food for Progress initiative for fiscal year 2009 to fund a component of the Philippine government’s 10-year cacao road map.

IPU members pitch bigger role in trade issues

THE days when trade negotiations were an exclusive province of the Executive branch are over, parliamentarians from all over the world are asserting. And in the Philippines, the unresolved issues on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa), which has not yet obtained Senate ratification, may be an instructive example.

Bad construction or bad ‘feng shui’?

NINOY Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (Naia 3) authorities apparently believe the series of mishaps at the airport, such as the collapse of ceilings, is more bad luck than bad construction, and are thus contemplating if they should have a feng shui (geomancher) expert to divine what could be wrong with
the building’s design.

Planet English: Words that strike us

LINGUISTS believe that civilizations evolved their simplest words for the most basic objects and concepts. In English, for instance, man for you or me or him, sun for the bright thing up there, dark when it’s gone, and so on. The point was to easily, quickly understand each other. No doubt they got it when he said, “Me Tarzan, you Jane.” The longer words emerged later.

Bakers defer price hike but prod flour millers

THE good news is, with millers announcing a P13 rollback in flour prices, bread makers have decided to suspend their planned P1.50 hike for 600-gram loaves.

The bad news, however, is the bakers will implement a P1 hike after one week if the millers will not agree to give them back the P27 to P37 discounts that they are still losing as bulk buyers of flour despite the P13 rollback.

Acting PCGG chief lines up policy changes

A FORMER Sandiganbayan justice named by Malacañang as acting chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government said he would introduce some policy changes to efficiently and effectively run the agency. He assumes his new post probably on September 29, when the embattled PCGG chairman, Camilo Sabio, officially takes his “leave of absence.”

Asean HR body ‘will be credible’

MEMBERS of the high-level panel formulating the terms of reference (TOR) for the Asean human-rights body committed to raise the credibility of the regional bloc by advancing the concept of human-rights architecture in the region described as progressive, liberal and democratic.

CHRYSLER South East Asia managing director, Peter MacKenzie, says the newly-launched Journey is the carmaker’s first step to carve a niche in the growing fuel-efficient engine market. --NONIE REYES