News Briefs: May 10, 2019

Palace: May 13 a non-working holiday

Malacañang has declared May 13 a special non-working holiday to allow voters to choose the country’s new set of national and local officials. The declaration was contained in Proclamation No. 719, which was signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and issued by the Palace on Thursday. —Julie M. Aurelio

Lower power bills seen by August

Expect lower electricity bills in August, when Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) would have fully implemented the Supreme Court ruling ordering power companies to bid out the power supply deals it had entered into to generate added power reserves, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said on Wednesday. “We will see a significant drop in electricity prices, especially in the Meralco franchise in three to four months from now while they implement the CSP (competitive selection process),” Gatchalian said during the Meet Inquirer Multimedia forum held on Wednesday at the Inquirer’s main office in Makati City.  —Melvin Gascon

Investors not bothered by ‘matrix,’ says Neda chief

Investors “have learned to be transcendent in their view of the economy … [so they are not] really so bothered about some stylistic things having to do with matrices,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia told a press conference on Thursday. The head of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) was referring to the diagram released the day before by Malacañang that allegedly showed a conspiracy to discredit the Duterte administration. “They are more concerned about the performance of the economy,” the Neda chief said. —Ben O. de Vera

Visitors from South Korea, China, US top PH tourists in Q1

Visitors from South Korea, China and the United States comprised more than half of the 2.2 million foreign tourist arrivals during the first quarter, the Department of Tourism said on Thursday. There were 519,584 tourist arrivals from South Korea,  463,804 from China and 293,780 visitors from the United States, representing 58 percent of total foreign visitors in the first quarter. Also on the top visitors list are tourists from Japan (177,769); Taiwan (77,908); Australia (73,147); Canada (72,352); United Kingdom (53,402); Singapore (39,484); Malaysia (37,651); India (36,275) and Germany (33,725). —Jerome Aning