Payong at Pahiyas. An enterprising roving vendor sells much-needed umbrellas in front of the winning homes in Thursday’s Pahiyas Festival in Lucban, Quezon. Locals said such steady rains, continuing into the weekend as Typhoon Cosme drenched huge parts of Luzon, was the first time in recent memory for the crowd-drawing festival. --LEON MEDADO

DEVELOPING countries like the Philippines are in danger of experiencing an almost 50-percent cut in  potential economic growth in 2008 and 2009 if the credit crisis in affluent countries, the decline of the United States dollar and soaring oil and commodity prices persist and worsen.

In the update of the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008 report of the UN, developing countries are seen under an optimistic scenario to grow by 6.3 percent and 6 percent in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

INFLATION is seen to hit hardest this year from the third quarter, when the rise to the three-year-record 8.3 percent in April could be topped, on expectations that food and fuel prices would reach their highest levels. 

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) made this forecast over the weekend, with Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. saying the outlook on inflation this year was “too fluid” at this point because only a few of the regional wage boards have decided on the petitions for wage increases that range from P80 to P125 a day.

SAN Miguel Corp. (SMC) lent its retirement plan a total of P38.112 billion from the third quarter of 2007 until March 2008. The amount was used to finance the plan’s acquisition of SMC shares.

However, it appears now that San Miguel Corp. Retirement Plan (SMCRP) bought SMC shares in a big block only as a short-term, and not as a long-term, investment. In short, it was engaged in trading—that is, buying and selling—SMC stocks, which would eventually end up in the hands of an unknown buyer.

MILITANT group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said Friday consumers may have been paying up to P4 billion to the government in the form of the value-added tax (VAT) on system losses of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) from 2006 to 2007.

Bayan said businessman Jesus Arranza, president of the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI), earlier called on the Department of Finance (DOF) to remove the VAT on system loss, a component of the electricity bill representing power lost to pilferage and inefficiency.

TROPICAL storm Cosme battered the whole of Northern and Central Luzon and triggered rains in other parts of the country Saturday, causing power shortages and telecommunications disruptions, though initial reports could not say yet the extent of displacement of people in flooded areas.

THE business-process outsourcing (BPO) companies that generated revenues of $3 billion last year were seen to benefit from the global slowdown and post a surge in revenues seen reaching at least $10 billion this year.

FILIPINOS think their competency in English improved in April 2008 compared with March 2006, according to the Social Weather Stations Inc. (SWS).

And, in the view of Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, “ample government spending and strong support from the country’s booming information technology-enabled business-process outsourcing industry” had helped build up the English-language skills of many Filipinos.

THE International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri) has practically assured the United States Senate that prices of key food crops such as maize and sugar would drop significantly if a moratorium on biofuel production were implemented immediately.

In his testimony at a hearing of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Ifpri’s Mark Rosegrant estimated that corn prices will go down by 20 percent, cassava by 14 percent, sugar by 11 percent and wheat by 8 percent in two years after the moratorium. “If biofuel demand from food crops were abolished after 2007, prices of key food crops would drop more significantly.” 

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Hero’s child Francesca Neri, 6, the eldest of four children orphaned by PO3 Francisco Neri, stares at the flag-draped coffin of her father during a hero’s burial Sunday at Manila’s South Cemetery. Manila police officer Neri and another officer were killed as they responded to a robbery and the killing of a man who had just withdrawn money from a bank in Manila last week. Also on Sunday, another bank employee died, bringing to 10 the number of victims killed when unknown gunmen robbed the RCBC Bank in Cabuyao, Laguna, in what was described as one of the bloodiest bank robberies in Philippine history. --AP