BusinessWeek MINDANAO
2013 ppi’S Best in Business and Economic Reporting
YOUR Mindanao-wide BUSINESS paper
Volume VI, No. 006
2014 ppi’S Best in ENVIRONMENTAL Reporting
www.businessweekmindanao.com
Fri-Sat | July 10-11, 2015
X
Market Indicators
Electric coops as X X social enterprises for socio-economic dev’t of rural areas Briefly
As of 6:35 pm july 9, 2015 (thursday)
FOREX
PHISIX
US$1 = P45.21
7,312.46
5
cents
50.97 points
No fake rice MARAWI City -- The National Food Authority (NFA) of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has assured the public that there is no synthetic, or fake, rice in the region amid reports of such product sold in Davao City and in other areas. The NFA-ARMM has conducted inspections in rice retail outlets all over the region since July 1 in response to reports of suspected synthetic rice sold in some provinces not only Mindanao but in Luzon and the Visayas as well. “We closely supervise rice (distribution) in the region and so far, we have not monitored any fake rice,” said Fernando Nuñez, NFA-ARMM assistant regional manager.
Collection upbeat TANDAG City – The Revenue District Office (RDO) 106 of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in Surigao del Sur has reiterated its resolve “to give their all” just to hit the 2015 tax goal. Citing the collection target of P745,763,000, Monib Dimakuta, revenue district officer, said his office remains optimistic in spite of the snags met as can be gleaned from the actual collection for the period January-May 2015 plus the partial report on tax collection last June. The BIR chief bared that for the first five months, this year, a collection of P331,632,462.80 has been posted plus the partial collection of P58,123,263.45 for the month of June or a total of P389,755,726.25 as against the target of P440,209,000, incurring a deficit of P50,453,273.75 or equivalent to 11.46 percent.
By BONG D.FABE, Contributing Editor
NANAY Emilia Lood and her husband are tilling a 2 ½ hectares of land planted to cassava but their income from the farm is not enough to make ends meet. That is why the 57-year-old resident of Sitio Kirahon in Barangay San Martin, Villanueva, Misamis Oriental operates a small sari-sari (variety) store and offer battery charging service, among others, to augment their meager income from the farm. “But we are always at the losing end financially because I only charge PhP5.00 per mobile phone. Even for rechargeable flashlights, I charge only PhP5.00,” she told this reporter in the dialect. On a decent day, Nanay Emilia’s sari-sari store can rake in less than PhP300, a portion of which she diligently set aside to pay for electricity. Since December of 2014 when Sitio Kirahon was
finally energized, Nanay Emilia’s electric bill was only PhP132 a month; but this shot up to PhP493 a month starting last May. And her small house only has two light bulbs, a small refrigerator and a television set. With such prohibitive and exorbitant price of electricity, rural Filipinos refused to be connected to the grid resulting to at least 40 percent of sitios in Mindanao still without electricity—a major stumblingblock to Mindanao’s sustained development, government reports said. “Instead of allowing capitalists business ventures continued control of our power utilities, it is high time that we the power consumers seize control of the power industry and in so doing bring down the prices of electricity in our country,” stressed Alice Mercado of the Philippine Federation coops/PAGE 11
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Consumers to gain from Agus privatization By BONG D. FABE Correspondent
M
INDANAO consumers will stand to benefit when electric cooperatives finally take the management and operations of the Agus-Pulangi Hydro-Electric Power Plant (Agus-Pulangi HEPP).
This was the assessment made by officials of 1Mindanao Energy Cooperative (1Miecoop) Federation at the sideline of the recently held Mindanao Cooperative Power Summit in Cagayan de Oro. Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) spokesperson B enc yr us Ellorin said that after the summit, select cooperative gain/PAGE 11
FISHING BREAK. Fishing boats moor near the mouth of Davao River in Davao City, as fisherfolk take a break from their daily routine due to rough seas over the weekend in the Eastern seaboard of Mindanao. mindanews photo by keith bacongco
Exports seen to rise with Davao Sasa Port upgrade GROWTH of the country’s export demands is seen to rise with the modernization of the century-old Davao Sasa port, Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC)
Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said on Thursday. Abaya is set to visit Davao City on Friday (July 10) to meet with stakeholders and discuss how the Davao Sasa Port Modernization Project will impact on social and economic growth for the countr y—especially Mindanao. Citing a study, he said that Davao Region’s container traffic is projected to increase by at least six percent annually over the next 25 years, which will amount to three million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) by 2040. rise/PAGE 9
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