SEWERS are seen in a local garments factory in Navotas City. According to a survey, many minimum-wage earners, especially in the garments sector, are forced to do multiple jobs—doing eight-hour duty in the factory, then bringing home small subcontracted work—just to make ends meet. --NONIE REYES

Markets rattled by US woes

THE stock market’s first day of trading this week went bloody, as most investors were on a selling spree for fear of further losses due to the lingering uncertainties in the US financial markets.

The 30-company PSE Index plunged 109.96, or 4.1555 percent, to 2,536.16, while the all-share index dropped 52.29 points, or 3.1742 percent, to 1,595.05.

Asian, European markets down on Wall St. quake

LONDON—Asian and European stock markets were down sharply Monday amid growing alarm over the world’s financial system after a seismic shake-up on Wall Street, with Lehman Brothers saying it would file bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch being sold to Bank of America.

Filipinos take multiple jobs to make ends meet

UNLESS the government approves a substantial wage hike, Filipinos are more likely to take on multiple jobs to offset low income and high prices to make both ends meet, the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (Eiler) Inc. said on Monday.

P106-B ‘overall savings’ fuels doubt

AFTER the so-called double insertions in the 2008 budget for the construction of the C-5 road project, an opposition legislator bared an “innocent-looking” item of “overall savings” amounting to P106.108 billion, which he feared could be used for the 2010 elections.

In a news conference on Monday, Nacionalista Party-United Rep. Teofisto Guingona III of Bukidnon said he was going over the National Expenditure Program for 2009 when he noticed the item in the 823-page volume titled “Overall Savings” on pages 730 to 738 of the document.

Yap orders probe of farm-inputs ‘scam’

HERE we go again. Although still just about a fourth as large as the scandalous P719-million fertilizer scam widely believed to have been engineered by former agriculture undersecretary Joc-joc Bolante, a P219-million farm inputs scandal is rocking the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Senate to probe self on budget insertions

THE Senate leadership, moving to allay allegations of anomaly in the 2008 budget, tasked the finance, public works and blue-ribbon committees on Monday to conduct an inquiry into so-called senatorial insertions in the annual money measure, including the reported double appropriation of P200 million for the C-5 road extension project in Parañaque City.

BCDA still stumped by Shimao’s Boni offer

THE $2-billion question still hangs: Will the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) accept the unsolicited offer of Chinese developer Shimao Group or just dispose of the 8-hectare North Bonifacio lots through public bidding?

First Pacific: No plan to sell PLDT stake

FIRST Pacific Co. Ltd. is not disposing of any part of its stake in Philippine phone giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), the Hong Kong-based conglomerate said on Monday.

RP bags 4 bronzes at International Earth Science tilt

FILIPINO students continue to reap international accolade. The country’s participants to the recent Second International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO) made the country proud by winning four bronze medals.

Receiving a third of the 12 bronze medals at the IESO are Paul Christian Yang-ed from Philippine Science High School-Ilocos campus; Manuel Poncian of Cordillera Regional National High School; Charissa Celeste de la Cruz of Lepanto National High School; and Sharmaine Cabaltera of University of Northern Philippines High School.

Solon castigates ‘unprepared’ Mendoza

BEFORE a jam-packed conference room, an opposition legislator castigated officials of the transportation and communications department, led by Secretary Leandro Mendoza, for “coming unprepared” for the presentation of its 2009 budget.

AGRICULTURE Secretary Arthur Yap calls a news conference on allegations of a new rice scam. The department continues to be weighed down by reports of shenanigans, including the still-unresolved fertilizer scam that happened before Yap’s tenure. --NONOY LACZA