Veggie prices watched. While helping his father harvest vegetables at a farm in La Trinidad, Benguet, this young man smiles as he uproots green lettuce, seemingly unfazed by the worries now bearing down on the farming sector. Northern Luzon farmers are waiting for rain to help water the farms this month; and vegetable prices are seen to increase by P5 a kilo, according to dealers. --MAURICIO VICTA

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) finally had to acknowledge Thursday what most analysts and others in the government have suspected: that inflation would range beyond the 5-percent ceiling targeted for the year.

“Depending on the movements in oil and nonoil commodity prices, inflation could settle above the 2008 inflation-target range,” BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said at a briefing in which he also announced the decision to keep the monetary-policy settings intact.

QUITE a lot is expected of the economy this year in terms of growth, but the national government managed its expectations by aiming at lower than the officially acknowledged 6.3-percent to 7-percent range for the year.

According to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, local output measured as the gross domestic product (GDP) was seen to expand by only around 6.1 percent, or lower than even the low end of the target.

THE government needs to spend an additional P18 billion to import an estimated 1.4 million metric tons of rice to stabilize its price, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said on Thursday.

But the issue has to be fleshed out first because there is disagreement on whether the cost should be borne by the national government itself or by the broader public sector.

THE Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) reported that intermittent operation and high demand for power supply from coal-fired power plants have pushed up prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).

The PEMC said the WESM’s final prices for the period covering February 26 to March 25 showed an average market price or effective settlement price (ESP) of P6.72/kilowatt-hour (kWh), higher than the previous month’s ESP of P5.73/kWh.

SINGAPORE—While there is a growing momentum for companies worldwide to tackle climate change, more businesses are also asking for sound government leadership in addressing this issue in their respective countries, the United Nations said Thursday.

“Time has run out for deliberations on how to deal with climate change, and we urge the business sector in quite dramatic terms that the time for action is now,” said Georg Kell, executive director of the United Nations Global Compact.

TWO senators want the Arroyo administration to buy back the 40-percent Petron shares that Saudi Aramco is selling to the Ashmore Group, a London-based investment firm, in order to regain the government’s leverage in the local oil industry amid skyrocketing prices of petroleum products.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, who chairs the Senate energy committee, suggested at a public hearing Thursday that if the administration could raise $550 million (P22.5 billion), it would be better to buy back the 40-percent Petron shares rather than sell these to another foreign company.

HAGATNA—Guam is expected to be further flooded with workers from the Philippines in the next few years once the US work-visa cap for Guam and the Commonwealth the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) is temporarily lifted, according to David Cohen, former deputy assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior.

S. 2739, passed by the US Senate on April 10 and awaiting President Bush’s signature, contains a provision that exempts Guam and the CNMI from the nationwide quota on all H visas through the end of 2014.

THE International Labor Organization (ILO) said Thursday work-related deaths “appear on the rise,” with some 6,000 workers dying daily as a result of accidents or illness suffered while working.

It estimated that 2.2 million people die annually worldwide from work-related accidents and diseases, and 270 million are unable to come to work in nonfatal cases with their absence averaging three days.

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ASSISTANT US Attorney Peter Jarosz stands in front of the Robert W. Kastenmeier United States Courthouse in Madison, Wisconsin. Jarosz is prosecuting doctors, business executives and US military retirees who have filed fraudulent medical claims that have cost the US military health-insurance program more than $100 million over the past decade in the Philippines. --AP