Breast milk is cheaper. A man who works as a parking attendant in Paco, Manila, seems lost in thought as he takes a pause outside a store selling milk products and medicine. Government reports say that milk products will remain stable until May 5, 2008—meaning its prices will hold out only for just three weeks more as those of rice, bread and meat, among others, have been rising already. --NONIE REYES

THE government has changed its mind and decided to continue granting full incentives to the mining and auto industries, albeit on tough conditions, under the 2008 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) that was approved by Malacañang.

Mining and auto assembly were late additions to the new IPP, as they were originally not included by the Board of Investments (BOI) in the initial list of sectors that will qualify for income-tax holidays (ITH)—considered as the most important perk of all.

THE pay and perks which Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) paid Manuel V. Pangilinan, chairman of the board, and 22 other top executives and directors surged to P878 million in 2007, according to a filing posted Thursday on the web site of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).

The filing showed the compensation of Pangilinan and company is 3.338 times the amount they got in 2006 when  PLDT paid the group P263 million, which, in turn, was 22.89-percent up from P214 million in 2005.

WITH food riots occurring in some parts of the world because of soaring food prices, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) appealed to donors and international financing institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to rechannel their aid to initiatives that enable countries to increase food production.

The FAO made the appeal in light of its latest projection that the bill of countries importing cereal will go up by 56 percent this year—and amid its increasing concern over reported food riots in Egypt, Cameroon, Cote d’ Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Indonesia,  Madagascar and Haiti in the past month.

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) vowed Friday not to surrender the least bit of ground to inflation even with the price of certain food and oil-related items already wreaking havoc on price stability.

But even with the firm resolve, the policymaking Monetary Board has already signaled for inflation to push past the 5-percent ceiling targeted for this year.

WASHINGTON—The Philippines may delay plans to sell government assets, including a stake in food-and-beverage company San Miguel Corp., as the global economic slowdown and credit squeeze sap investor appetite, Finance Secretary Gary Teves said.

The government will instead increase tax collection to fund its deficit, Teves said. Revenue from asset sales will drop to about P30 billion ($722 million) this year, compared with more than P90 billion in 2007, Teves said in an interview Saturday in Washington, where he was attending the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

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RESIDENTS line up outside the Caritas Manna center at San Roque parish in Manila on the first day of the pilot test for the rice-distribution program. The social-service arm of the Archdiocese of Manila was chosen as a strategic distributor because of its years or experience in engaging the poor and its well-organized book leting system for targeted beneficiaries.