JEREMY FLINT, British American Tobacco (BAT) general manager, presides at a news conference to underscore how BAT takes seriously its role as a responsible corporate citizen in the Philippines. The finance department has said it will hear out BAT’s arguments on the Bureau of Internal Revenue misclassification of its Pall Mall cigarettes. With Mr. Flint is BAT’s legal counsel Carlo G. Baniqued. --NONIE REYES

DESPITE its declared intent to spare the public from new taxes as they bear the impact of the expanded value-added tax, the government may be forced to impose new taxes sooner than planned—in the next two years or even next year—to cover for the P13 billion to P16 billion in revenue losses from corporate income taxes.

SELLING cigarettes in the Philippines has increasingly become harder with each year, but the British American Tobacco (BAT), its tax problems notwithstanding, vowed on Tuesday to keep the business going.

SEAWEED exporters hit by the rising peso are considering raising prices, and the president of the largest of them, Benson U. Dakay, plans to have his Cebu-based Shemberg Marketing Corp. increase the price of its semirefined cottoni seaweed by about P15 per kilo to cover foreign-exchange losses in the first six months this year.

ONCE again, dirty politics is threatening to scuttle the government’s antipoverty program, which the Chief Executive her-self had laid out through the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC).

PALACE officials tried, but failed, to hold back the approved rate increase of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) under its performance-based rate (PBR) system, citing potential impact on consumers, according to sources.

“A BOTTOM-UP approach in which the local governments are given crucial roles is the way to go if the country wants to achieve progress and sustainable economic growth.”

Utility says WESM adjustments led to cost gap, appeals to ERC

IN view of the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) decision to readjust the rates at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in September and October last year, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will seek the regulator’s approval to recover the cost difference between the settled price then and the readjusted price now.

Receipt, receipt, receipt

WITH about P65 billion in taxes lost to government each year, enough to cover the expected budgetary deficit this year, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves on Tuesday reiterated his appeal to every consumer to demand receipts for every purchase.

Full agenda lined up for Apec leaders

A FULL agenda awaits participants in the 15th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders Meeting in Sydney, Australia, from  September 7 to 9, whose key objective is the establishment of a regime of greater sharing of economic prosperity among the APEC member-countries.

From zone of conflict to zone of peace

THE Spratlys, claimed by six countries—the Philippines, China, Brunei, Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam—and a source of several near-armed skirmishes and diplomatic protests, may soon become a “zone of conflict to a zone of peace and cooperation.”

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Manila Water pays P200-M income tax Manila Water’s chief finance officer Sherisa P. Nuesa hands over a check amounting to more than P200 million to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves and Director Teresa S. Habitan as payment for the company’s income tax for the second quarter of 2007. This brings its income-tax payments for the first half to P435 million. By the end of this year, Manila Water said that it would have contributed more than P1 billion to the government’s coffers.