By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net

MAKATI CITY, Philippines — Issues concerning the housing project of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) agency Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI) remained unsettled and continued to divide ITDI employees after two meetings held Thursday.

The housing project involves six parcels of land in barangay Molino in Bacoor, Cavite.

The land, which has a total area of 244,456 square meters, was used as an agricultural research site by the ITDI, formerly known as the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST).

When ITDI was reorganized in 1987, its agricultural research functions were transferred to University of the Philippines Los Baños.

In 1992, a resolution was passed to use the land as housing project for ITDI employees, which was made legal by the issuance of Executive Order 137 signed by President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo in October 2002.

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By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.NET

MANILA, Philippines — In an effort to promote excellence among the country’s budding architects and design engineers, Environments Global Foundation (EGF) launched two programs aimed at the country’s architecture and engineering educational institutions.

EGF is a corporate social responsibility group of the architectural and construction group Environments Global.

The two programs are the Lines to Lives Academic Excellence Award in Architecture and the Red Point Award.

The Lines to Lives is a planned annual search for the most outstanding student of architecture. Participating students must have a grade point average of 1.25, with no failure or incomplete grades.

EGF has partnered with the University of the Philippines, University of Sto. Tomas, and the Mapua Institute of Technology as part of the pilot program of the Lines to Lives, which would run from 2008 to 2009.

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By Daxim Lucas
Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE CONGLOMERATE Ayala Corp. and its real estate arm said they hade entered into a joint venture with India’s Mahindra Group to develop an exclusive residential community in one of the subcontinent’s major cities.

In a statement to the stock exchange, Ayala Corp. and Ayala Land Inc. said the deal involved development of a high-end housing enclave in the 1,500-acre Mahindra World City (MWC) in Chennai, India.

The joint venture, Mahindra Residential Developers Ltd., will be 51-percent owned by the Mahindra Group and 49 percent by ARCH Capital Asian Partners L.P., a private real estate fund managed by Ayala affiliate ARCH Capital Management Co. Ltd.

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By Daxim Lucas
Philippine Daily Inquirer

FINANCIAL losses of the tobacco tycoon Lucio Tan’s Eton Properties Philippines Inc. widened significantly at the end of last year as the company embarked on an aggressive spending program to get its first projects off the ground.

But its total assets were close to hitting the P1-billion mark a year after it was founded, Eton said.

In a statement, Eton said its net loss at the end of 2007 reached P146.7 million, 664-percent bigger than the P19.1-million loss it reported in April last year.

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By Rosemarie Francisco
Reuters

MERLY PAZ, a Filipina domestic worker in Hong Kong, has stopped sending money for the construction of her home in southern Iriga City because the peso value of her US dollar-pegged salary has fallen sharply.

“My salary is limited so I placed the house on hold,” said 31-year-old Paz who has been working in Hong Kong for nearly eight years. “But the longer I’m putting it on hold, the more that prices of construction materials are rising.”

A real estate boom in the Philippines has been powered by demand from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) such as Paz who send home salaries to fund purchases and construction of family homes.

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