Firms offer assistance amid disaster relief

Globe Telecom, Inc. will be offering free remittance services from Sept. 30 until Oct. 5 for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) sending money to victims of tropical storm Ondoy, while Manila Water Co. has suspended a rate increase to ease the burden on consumers.

In a statement, Globe Telecom said "no other fees will be charged from the sending customer as well as the receiving beneficiary."

The company also said its international partner Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) has donated P1 million for relief efforts. Globe Telecom will be distributing 10,000 relief packages to families in affected areas in Marikina and Rizal.

Manila Water, meanwhile, said it had moved the implementation of the Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment (FCDA), earlier scheduled to take effect Oct. 2, to Nov. 1.

The FCDA is a pass-through mechanism which allows water utilities to recover foreign currency losses, or pass on foreign currency gains which come from payments for concession loans and foreign-currency denominated borrowings used for expansion and improvement.

The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System had approved an increase of P0.19 per cubic meter in the monthly bill of household customers.

Meanwhile, Lucio C. Tan- led Philippine Airlines (PAL) expects operations to go back to normal by next week after cancelling several flights because of severe weather.

Jaime J. Bautista, PAL president, said in an interview that the carrier was forced to cancel 50 of its regular flights last weekend due to tropical storm Ondoy.

"More than 50 flights were cancelled due to the storm for two days. Even if we have around 300 flights that is still a big number. But we expect things to normalize by next week," said Mr. Bautista.

Several domestic flights were also diverted or cancelled this week with the approach of typhoon Pepeng. Mr. Bautista said those stranded because of the cancellation of flights have been allowed to rebook their flights without fees. "We have allowed our clients to rebook their flights without any penalties. We’re going to allow this until Sunday," he said.