The global deployment of overseas Filipino seafarers continues to post robust growth rates well into the year 2006 on the strength of the country's efforts to comply with the International Maritime Organization's amended Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping, the Department of Labor and Employment yesterday reported.

A report earlier reaching Labor and Employment Secretary Arturo Brion shows that the total global deployment of Filipino seafarers surged robustly by another 10.6 percent or, 16,646 between Jan. 1 and Aug. 22, 2006 to 173,166, from 156,520 in the same period last year.

Acting Labor Secretary Danilo Cruz said that as the trend continues to sustain amidst the growth in global shipping and preference for skilled Filipino seamen, "we may well exceed the 250,000 level in total global deployment of our seafarers, and even approach the 300,000 mark in the entire 2006."

Trial farms yield up

The result of the Sept. 3 harvest from the mass production of Masipag Organic Rice Farming Technology at trial farms in Purok Gaisano, Brgy. Alijis, Bacolod City exceeded expectations.

Dominador and Roberta Macainan, a farmer-couple who own the trial farms, said they are happy with the 20-kilo Masipag M50 variety seeds sown on a one-half hectare land which yielded 74 cavans, a Federation of Free Farmers press release said.

Harvesting and threshing took place Sept. 1, 2 and 3.

Bunye: RP heading
out of debt trap

Trapped in a back-breaking debt regime for years, the Philippines is finally well on the way out of the hole and heading toward an era of balanced budget in less than three years, the Malacañang spokesman said in a press release yesterday.

The declaration followed the decision of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's senior economic official to exit from the no-loan arrangement with the International Monetary Fund amid growing confidence in the sustainability of the government's successes in the fiscal front, the press release said.

"We are on the road to a debt-free Philippines, on top of a balanced budget by 2008, when we shall be able to reduce our debt payments by half," Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in his statement. Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said an official statement on the decision not to renew the no-loan arrangement with IMF was forthcoming, but he strongly indicated that "that's the direction we're going."

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