“Lump sum” items amounted to P501 billion in the proposed P2.606-trillion national budget for 2015 that Malacañang submitted to the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of state workers were deprived of salary increases and modest bonuses when the Department of Budget and Management shifted their benefits to projects funded by the Disbursement Acceleration Program over the last three years.

Relax, it’s nothing, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said. But the sight of an armored personnel carrier escorting five military trucks carrying heavy weapons and equipment in front of Nepa-Q Mart on Edsa in Cubao, Quezon City, alarmed people in the area on Wednesday.

“No one got rich out of teaching; it’s your legacy that matters.” A Filipino educator serving an indigenous tribe living in one of the remotest villages in Davao City is among this year’s recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize.

ASIA TOURIST BOOM

Faced with snaking queues at immigration, overflowing baggage carousels and expensive flight delays, Asian nations are rushing to build hundreds of new airports to cope with surging demand for air travel in the region.

Newly-appointed Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. said there was no intelligence report of any destabilization plot against the Aquino administration, saying the military’s morale now is “high.”

International boxing icon and Sarangani lawmaker Manny Pacquiao told President Benigno Aquino III to focus on education in his reform agenda.