MAKATI CITY — THREE candidates gunning for the presidency promised if elected, they will throw cash and strike deals with labor receiving countries in relation to overseas employment of Filipinos.

However, former Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and Senator Manuel Villar– failed to identify where they would get the money since any of them will have to contend with a yawning budget deficit.

MANILA – PHILIPPINE regions with higher growth rates used remittances for development efficiently, a paper by a University of Santo Tomas economist finds.

College of Commerce Assistant Dean Ma. Socorro Calara said these are the Cordillera Administrative Region, Southern Tagalog region, and the National Capital Region. Her study cited these regions were more efficient in making remittances contribute to regional productivity, which is measured by gross regional domestic product or GRDP.

MANILA — MORE families of overseas Filipino workers are spending less on food and more on health, a study by the Asian Development Bank revealed.

Using econometric estimations, Filipino Alvin Ang, Indian Shikha Jha, and Indonesian Guntur Sugiyarto noted that the percentage share of expenditures of migrant households to food went down slightly, from 44.9 percent in 2000 to 43.3 percent in 2006.

PRAGUE (PRAHA), Czech Republic — FROSTY weather and a global crisis failed to chill a multinational company here since acting as reliable recruiter and benevolent employer to foreign workers from central Philippines.

Teleplan Prague s.r.o.’s gaming business unit president Roberto Tongo calls it “comfortable employer’s services,” or providing comfort to workers.

PRAGUE (PRAHA), Czech Republic –THEY stepped outside the moss-covered stone-church in cadence with the white flakes falling languorously from a mint blue sky.

Most of the 382 Filipinos are in no hurry to leave; not because the Church of Our Lady of Victory parish in Karmelitska street in downtown Prague keeps out the cold, which has fallen down eight degrees below zero in recent weeks.