GENERATING jobs and business opportunities for Manileños will be the main thrust behind the construction of the Solar City commercial and business hub in Manila Bay, according to Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada.

Erap allayed fears raised by businessmen in Malate and Ermita that the Solar City will pave the way for the demise of their businesses noting that opportunities might even increase with the influx of new tourists in the tourist belt area.

“Solar City is intended to be built as a tourist- and entertainment-oriented operation, so we expect more tourists to come once the project has been completed.…

Read more: Solar City to boost businesses in tourist belt

AFTER upgrading its medical equipment and facilities by acquiring state-of-the-art technologies around the globe, Chinese General Hospital is putting up a medical school in 2017 to produce more doctors and specialists needed for its expanding medical facility in Manila.

Depending on how fast it gets the required permits and licenses from both national and local governments, the medical learning institution is expected to beef up the practitioners at the current 700-bed facility (100 beds of which are dedicated to charity patients) so that they have a ready place to train in-house during internship and get priority in being hired by…

Read more: CGH sets for expansion

MANILA residents and businessmen can finally take a breather after Mayor Joseph Estrada decided against increasing the city’s real property taxes for this year.

In a surprise move, Estrada signed into law on January 23 Ordinance No. 8516, cancelling the 40-percent increase in real property tax rates that was supposed to take effect this month.

“We are debt-free now, that’s why I ordered the stopping of the increase of our real property taxes. We have paid our debts,” he said in a press conference on Monday.

Estrada earned the ire of businessmen after raising real estate taxes by as much…

Read more: Erap shoots down 40% property tax hike

SOME alarming statistics relative to population growth and teenage pregnancies have surfaced during the recent National Family Planning Conference, thus strengthening the arguments by reproductive health advocates for the lifting of temporary restraining order (TRO) imposed by the Supreme Court on Reproductive Health law.

Citing the 2013 National Demographic and Health Survey, Dr. Juan Antonio Perez III, POPCOM executive director said that 500 teenage Filipinas get pregnant every day since 2011, exposing them to the risks of abortion and childbirth complications. 

The study also revealed that there 500,000 unsafe abortions occur in the country every year even as more…

Read more: SC asked to stop 500,000 abortions yearly