It’s 100 years old! The premier state university UP opened its centennial celebrations on Tuesday with a motorcade starting from UP Manila, site of the UP-PGH where UP originated, to UP Diliman. Colorful celebrations in other UP campuses are also scheduled. --ROY DOMINGO

PRESIDENT Arroyo on Tuesday approved the reduction of oil tariffs, which may lower diesel prices by as much as P1 per liter, to temper the inflationary impact of high oil prices on consumers.

TYPHOONS, drought and Christmas spending failed to push inflation up over the government’s 2007 annual targets—3 percent to 4 percent—settling at 2.8 percent despite higher inflation in the last half of the year.

ALTHOUGH oil prices have punched through the roof and everyone is excited about cutting down the oil tariff as a mitigating measure, the matter of inflation is one area the government need not explain to the public.

THE World Bank practically pegged Philippine economic growth at under 7 percent until 2009 due to the impending slowdown in its main markets, of which the leading one is the United States.

THE World Bank (WB) Office in Manila formally announced Tuesday the assumption of Bert Hofman as the bank’s country director in the Philippines.

THE PESO climbed to the highest since 2000 and government bonds rose on signs the central bank will allow currency gains to slow price increases as the economy expands at the fastest in at least three decades.

THE abrupt reduction of the Bureau of Customs’ (BOC) P254-billion collection target for fiscal year 2008 is bound to adversely affect the integrity of the P1.23-trillion national budget bill submitted to Congress by Malacañang, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. warned Tuesday.

THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) will soon test whether Philippine banks can accept cash and noncash payments for importers’ transactions as part of a plan to cut clearing time for goods to just 30 minutes.

A Customs official said Monday that the bureau, the government’s second-largest revenue source, will soon examine the electronic payment systems of the member-institutions of the Bankers’ Association of the Philippines (BAP).

AMID the government’s move to reduce tariff rates on imported oil, several oil companies urged consumers Tuesday to brace for upcoming increases in local pump prices with world oil prices continuing to skyrocket.

“After January 15, we will have to increase our prices,” said Flying V chairman Ramon F. Villavicencio, adding their hope as well that prices will remain at current levels.

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RENE D. SORIANO, president of the PNCC Skyway Traffic Management and Security Division Workers Organization; and Jose Apollo Ado, president of the PNCC Skyway Corp. Employees’ Union, show the memorandum of agreement forged between Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp., the Philippine National Construction Corp., and PNCC Skyway Corp.. They said this MOA caused the retrenchment of their members early this year. --NONIE REYES