SENATE Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. today said an administration plan to raise the monthly retirement pensions for members of the Social Security System and Government Service Insurance System should prod Congress to act on long-pending bills that prescribe such benefit adjustment.
Pimentel said the planned increase is long-overdue and should be implemented through appropriate legislation and amendments to the SSS and GSIS charters.
"It is imperative on the part of the government, specifically the SSS and GSIS, to extend pension, disability and other benefits to retirees that are reasonable, adequate, and commensurate to their contributions to the social security scheme.
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SENATOR Edgardo Angara today urged his colleagues to prioritize enactment of a Rural Employment Generation program which seeks to spur job creation in the countryside through the development of idle lands in 2009.
Angara, chairman of the senate committee on finance, said there is a need to accelerate the development of idle and under-utilized agricultural land throughout the country as a means of generating rural economic activity, especially since majority of our country's poor population belongs to the rural sector.
He said that in generating rural employment, it is anticipated that at least one person will find employment for every hectare developed, with an increase in income of Twenty Five Thousand Pesos (Php 25,000.00) per farmer.
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SENATOR Mar Roxas today pushed for tax rebates as a stimulus package to help workers cope with the global financial meltdown’s effect on the local economy.
Roxas, chairman of the Senate trade and commerce committee, said there were several ways the government can implement a rebate, such as reducing the value-added tax from the present 12% to 10%, for the next two years.
Another way, which Roxas has proposed in Senate Bill No. 2689, would provide a one-time P5,000 tax rebate for the country’s 2 million fixed-income earners.
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At 2:00 a.m. today, a Low Pressure Area (LPA) was estimated based on satellite and surface data at 620 km East of Virac Catanduanes (14.8°N 130.5°E) Cold front affecting Luzon and Eastern Visayas.
Forecast :
Luzon and Eastern Visayas will experience mostly cloudy skies with scattered rains. The rest of the country will be partly cloudy to cloudy with isolated light rains.
Moderate to strong winds blowing from the Northeast will prevail over Luzon and Visayas and the coastal waters will be moderate to rough. Elsewhere, winds will be light to moderate blowing from the Northeast and Northwest with slight to moderate seas.
