BusinessWeek M I N DA N A O CREDIBLE
Volume XI, No. 132
Market Indicators FOREX
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PHISIX
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6,415.53
23.86
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Pork tariff FINANCE Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has called on lawmakers to support President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive allowing increased pork imports at lower tariff rates for a temporary period to address the scarcity in the domestic supply of hog meat and ensure that pork remains affordable to Filipino families already reeling from the economic impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). D o minguez s ai d t he re c o mmend at io n to t he President to temporarily reduce pork import tariffs and increase the minimum access volume (MAV) on pork imports was made by him and the Cabinet’s Economic Development Cluster (EDC). This, af ter ex tensive deliberations and consultations among concerned agencies and the public, with all the tradeoffs considered in the cost benefit analysis done on this major consumer concern.
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DOE: ‘No brownouts’ during summer months Thank you for trusting us!
By MYRNA M. VELASCO, Contributor
T
HE Department of Energy (DOE) is giving its guarantee to the Filipino public that they are not going to suffer brownouts or electricity service disruptions within the stretch of the AprilJune summer months, as long as demand would remain lean and if there would be no additional major power plants that shall be plunged into forced outages.
In a briefing with the media, Energy Assistant Secretary Redentor Delola indicated that “based on what we’re seeing right now, as long as there would be no substantial outages, we don’t expect problems in the coming months.” He expounded that based on projected peak demand of 11,841 megawatts during the summer months, the ‘worst case scenario ‘would be ‘yellow alerts’ or thinning of reserves on weeks 15 to 18 (within second SUMMER/PAGE 10
SUNRISE. Crimson skies reflect on the waters in General Luna, Siargao Island in Surigao del Norte early morning Tuesday. mindanews photo by roel n . catoto
Loan window THE L and Bank of t he Philippines (Landbank) is raising its available loan window in support of local pork producers and feed millers to P30 billion from P15 billion for distressed swine industry reeling from the adverse impact of the Asian swine fever (ASF). This c ame following the directive from Finance Secretary and Landbank chairman Carlos Dominguez III for the state lender to double its support for hog raisers, feed millers, and other industry players dealing with supply shortfalls and retail price spirals of pork products. “Landbank is doubling its funds available for financing swine repopulation, feed milling operations and facility upgrades in order to help address at the soonest the supply shortfalls and subsequent retail price spirals affecting both hog producers a n d p o r k c o n s u m e r s ,” Dominguez said in a statement Tuesday.
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Govt seeks to revive Oro port as international shipment facility THE Bureau of Customs i n Nor t her n M i nd a nao (BOC-10) said Wednesday it plans to restore the previous status of the port here as an international containerized shipment facility. The port in Barangay Macabalan ceased to receive international cargoes 15 years ago when the facilitation of imported shipment was
transferred to the Mindanao Container Terminal sub-port in Tagoloan town, Misamis Oriental. BOC-10 pointed out that the Macabalan port was “once a haven of international cargo and heavily contributed to trade facilitation and revenue generation”. The decision to bring back Mac aba la n por t ’s
previous status came up in response to the clamor of various shipping lines led by American President Lines, which estimated the arrival of 300 to 400 containers per week at the facility. John Simon, BOC-10 district collector, said plans are already underway to put the ports restoration plan REVIVE/PAGE 9
CDO’s first community pantry closes after being red-tagged By FROILAN GALLARDO, MindaNews
FLOATING CANTEEN. A man paddles his canoe to sell softdrinks and several food stuffs to local tourists onboard floating cottages at the newly opened Balsa sa Laguindingan, a cool summrer resorts at Brgy. Moog which introduces floating cottages. photo by rolando sudaria
CAGAYAN de Oro City’s first community pantry closed its operations just three days since opening a f ter t he organizers were red-tagged by unknown persons. Organizers of the pantry i n Z one 4 , Sit io Pa si l,
Barangay Kauswagan led by Rene Principe Jr. found a poster displayed at the pantry site accusing them of being communist rebels, according to lawyer Ernesto Neri. Neri, a friend of Principe,
said the organizers also found that the unknown persons have distributed leaflets in the neighborhood. Archbishop Emeritus Antonio Ledesma was quick to defend the organizers, saying that communities need more food pantries PANTRY/PAGE 10
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