Day: March 20, 2024

Hanoi: After three weeks of implementation, the charity campaign called Trieu Buoc Chan Nhan Ai (Million Steps of Kindness) to raise funds for the Vietnam Red Cross has drawn than 40,000 participants and recorded more than 586,000 km, fulfilling 41% of the fundraising target.

Taking place in 56 days from February 25 to April 22, the campaign aims to attract 70,000 runners and walkers who record their sports activities through V-Race app.

With their 700,000km recorded, the participants will contribute 7 billion VND (282,599 USD) to the fund, which will be used to build seven boarding school kitchens for children in impoverished mountainous areas; support 70 poor families for sustainable livelihoods; organise humanitarian markets providing necessities for 700 disadvantaged families; provide consultation and nutrition support for 7,000 poor children; and organise medical examinations and deliver free medicine for 7,000 people in difficult circumstances in Dien Bien, Son La, and Thai Nguyen provinces.

The camp
aign, part of the activities to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the historic Dien Bien Phu Victory, is also a special call towards history, showing respect and gratitude for those who sacrificed to protect the country.

“A Million Steps of Kindness” begins a humanitarian journey – giving and receiving love, extending from the North to the South, from the plains to the mountains and border, from rural to urban areas, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Red Cross Bui Thi Hoa said.

This campaign opens up opportunities to build a happy and compassionate community, while sending out a strong message of solidarity and unity in the society, she added.

Doan Tuan, a member of the Me Linh Runner club, who has run 822km in 23 days of the campaign to lead the performance rankings on the V-Race app, said that by joining the campaign, his happiness has tripled with joys from physical exercise, spreading happiness, and easing difficulties of others. He has encouraged 40 other members of his club to join the campaign.

The message
that the campaign spreads is similar to the theme ‘Happier Together’ of this year’s International Day of Happiness, which underlines that happy is love and sharing, and kindness brings happiness./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

ILOILO CITY: The Iloilo provincial government is working hard to boost the agriculture industry to help ease the impact of inflation.

‘As much as we can, we help agriculture so that we can address the supply side but there are other factors that are beyond our control, especially those that are coming from the international market,’ Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. said in a media conference Wednesday.

Iloilo province registered a 2.1 percent inflation rate in February, the lowest among all the provinces and highly urbanized cities of Western Visayas.

Defensor said the rate is significant, especially since the province registered 1.2 percent in January.

He, however, stressed that February’s inflation rate was also affected by the international market and supply.

Contributing to the uptrend inflation are housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels; food and non-alcoholic beverages; and a slower decline in transport.

Electricity; cereals and cereal products, meat and other parts of slaughtered animals,
particularly pork; and fuels are among the factors that accelerated the inflation.

Defensor said the latest inventory showed an increase in hog population in the province.

The provincial government is also preparing to embark on sentineling in line with its recovery efforts from African swine fever.

Seven municipalities progressed to pink from the previous red or infected zone, including Batad, Sta. Barbara, San Miguel, Oton,New Lucena, Barotac Viejo, and Banate.

The provincial government is also mulling the idea of embarking on swine dispersal to assist farmers affected by the El Niño phenomenon.

Other interventions of the province are embedded in the program of the provincial agriculture office.

Meanwhile, the headline inflation in Western Visayas at 2.7 remains lower when compared with 10.8 percent in the same period last year, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Source: Philippines News Agency

MANILA: The Department of Agriculture (DA) said Wednesday the majority of the warehouses of the National Food Authority (NFA) are still operating despite an ongoing investigation into the alleged improper sale of rice buffer stock.

In an ambush interview on the sidelines of the Kapihan sa Manila Bay briefing, Agriculture Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa reiterated the Office of the Ombudsman’s preventive suspension order against 141 NFA officials and employees entails temporary closure of select warehouses.

The first batch of suspension included 99 warehouse supervisors nationwide.

“There are 288 warehouses sa buong Pilipinas, at 169 iyong regular na nag-o-open tapos madagdagan pa ng 20 (in the entire Philippines, and 169 are open regularly, and 20 more shall be added),” De Mesa said.

“And hopefully iyong utos din ni Secretary (Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr.) doon sa mayroon pang sarado na mabuksan agad, at mapalitan iyong mga bodegero na na-suspend. Iyon iyong mga parte ng utos ni Secretary kay NFA OIC Admini
strator (Larry) Lacson (the order of Secretary on the locked [warehouses] should be immediately reopened, and replace the suspended warehouse supervisor. That’s a part of Secretary’s instructions to Administrator Lacson),” he added.

For his part, Lacson vowed to keep the NFA operations rolling despite the ongoing investigation.

“Ako po (I) as an OIC, I’ll just do iyong day-to-day, kailangan ibangon ko lang iyong NFA. At makapag-operate nang maayos. Kaya unti-unti bumabalik kami sa operasyon (I just need to restore the NFA so we could operate properly. That’s why we’re slowly getting back in operations),” he said in a separate interview at Radyo Pilipinas.

He added that he will leave the investigation up to authorities as the NFA focuses on securing rice buffer stock for the year.

The legal counsel of 108 NFA suspended employees, meanwhile, called for a swift investigation considering its negative effects on “honest government employees.”

“I think it’s unjust. Why? Because a lot of these people are actual
ly just doing their ministerial duties,” Lawyer Dino de Leon said.

De Leon argued that a shotgun approach shouldn’t be used since nominal employees are left with no choice but to adhere to orders from higher-ups.

“For example, you are a warehouse supervisor, hindi naman pwedeng hindi mo susundin iyong paglabas ng palay. Hindi rin pwedeng sabihin na legal ba iyan? Kukwestyunin mo iyong actions ng higher management. (You cannot disobey disposition orders for palays. You cannot ask, is it legal? Nor question the actions of higher management),” he said.

“In other words, kung hindi mo ni-release, insubordination ka. Kapag nilabas mo, sasabihin dawit ka (if you’ll not release it, that’s insubordination. If you release it, you’ll get implicated),” De Leon added.

The DA earlier expressed hopes to bring more suspended NFA employees back to work, if proven innocent.

The Office of the Ombudsman took back the six-month preventive suspension order against 23 warehouse supervisors and one branch manager in Batangas af
ter its investigators found erroneous data on the list provided by the DA, which was sourced from the NFA.

Unhampered buying

De Mesa, meanwhile, said the NFA has a PHP17.2 billion budget to purchase 300,000 metric tons of buffer stock for 2024.

“Iyong NFA kasi, kahit may mga sarado (na warehouse), sinisigurado ni Administrator Lacson na maraming truck na may mga umiikot (Even if some NFA warehouses are closed, Administrator Lacson is ensuring that many trucks are going around),” he said.

Lacson, however, noted that buying palay remains challenging during the peak harvest season, considering the high buying price of local traders.

“Ang buying price natin ay PHP23 clean and dry, PHP19 ang wet. So, marami ho diyan, mahigit PHP25 pa ang palay (Our buying price is at PHP23 for clean and dry, PHP19 for wet. Many of [the traders], have over PHP25 [buying price] for palay),” he said.

Lacson said farmers are very much welcome to sell their palay to NFA warehouses nationwide, in case, some traders are taking adva
ntage of them.

To date, the DA expects around 9.6 million metric tons of harvest for the peak harvest from March to April.

Source: Philippines News Agency

MANILA: Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Ralph Recto said preliminary data showed that the national government has posted a budget surplus in the first two months of the year.

“As of today, for the last two months and a half, our revenues are 20 percent up year-on-year (YOY) while spending is 10 percent up YOY, so we do have a surplus,” Recto said on the sidelines of the briefing for the country’s hosting of the two-day World Economic Forum (WEF) Roundtable that ended Tuesday.

“In fact, last January, first time we had a surplus of roughly PHP88 billion, almost double that of January 2023. So far, we’re hitting the numbers, surpassing the targets, and we hope that continues.”

Data released by the Bureau of the Treasury earlier showed that the national government posted a budget surplus of PHP88 billion in January, up by more than 90 percent from the previous year’s PHP45.7 billion.

Total revenues during the month amounted to PHP421.8 billion, higher than last year’s PHP348.2 billion while government s
pending amounted to PHP333.99 billion.

Recto said the DOF continues to assist the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to improve tax collection.

“We’re assisting the BIR and BOC by analyzing all the data and provide them with that data as well, where to concentrate to collect the taxes and to whom they should be collecting the taxes from,” Recto said.

For this year, the Development Budget Coordination Committee expects revenues to reach PHP4.3 trillion.

Source: Philippines News Agency

MANILA: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a new market intelligence tool to help foreign and domestic businesses map investment opportunity areas (IOAs) across the Philippines.

The Philippines’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Investor Map highlights 12 investment IOAs across the country, all aligned with the SDG, including climate finance initiatives and nature-based solutions.

Each IOA provides comprehensive information, including the specific development needs it addresses, anticipated developmental impacts, supportive conditions, potential impact risks, and illustrative case studies.

‘As interest grows among private sector actors to align investment activity with the SDGs, there is a demonstrated call for unifying standards, tools, and services that can be relied upon by investors to support a process of targeting, measuring, and achieving development outcomes,’ UNDP Philippines Resident Representative Dr. Selva Ramachandran said during the launch in Makati on March 19.

‘
This is the reason why the UNDP, through its SDG Impact Team, in partnership with the Centre for Impact Investing and Practices, initiated the development of the SDG Investor Maps,’ he added.

The UNDP Philippines produced the map in partnership with the SDG Impact and the Center for Impact Investing and Practices (CIIP), and was supported by the recently concluded UN Joint Programme on Integrated National Financing Framework (JP-INFF).

NEDA Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon, who was also present at the launch, highlighted Manila’s strides in SDG financing in the country.

‘We made sure that the SDGs are mainstreamed in the Philippine Development Plan. Taking off from the lessons from the pandemic, we have seen that we need to effect an economic and social transformation so that we can have a prosperous and inclusive society,’ she said.

‘We are championing the SDGs because we know that if we achieve the SDGs in 2023, it gives us better chances of achieving our Ambisyon2040,’ she added.

The Philippine’s 12 I
OAs may be accessed through the global platform — https://sdginvestorplatform.undp.org/

The platform currently houses 613 IOAs from various countries around the world and provides private sector investors with access to country level market intelligence, including on-the-ground insights on local investment landscape and investor connections.

The Philippines’ SDG Investor Map was prepared through close collaboration with the government and the private sector, the UNDP Philippines said.

Source: Philippines News Agency