Philippine Stock Exchange

The Philippine Stock Exchange (Filipino: Pamilihang Sapi ng Pilipinas) (PSE: PSE) is one of the two stock exchanges in the Philippines, the other one being the Philippine Dealing Exchange. It is the primary stock exchange in the Philippines. Aside from being one of the major stock exchanges in Southeast Asia, it is also the first and the longest one operating since 1927.

It currently maintains two trading floors, one in Makati City's Central Business District and one at its headquarters in Pasig City. It is presently composed of a 15-man board, chaired by former Supreme Court Justice Jose Vitug, an independent director, who was reelected a 4th time on May 18, 2008 (since July 2005). Francis Lim was reelected to a 5th term as president since 2004.

The PSE before the mid-1990s was reminiscent of other outcry stock exchanges found throughout Southeast Asia before the technological advancements made during the last decade. On January 4, 1993, the former Manila Stock Exchange started the computerization of its operations using the Stratus Trading System (STS) with a company called Intelligent Wave Philippines. Later that year, on June 15, the former Makati Stock Exchange adopted the MakTrade trading system, the same system used on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and developed by the Chicago Stock Exchange. Both systems were linked on March 25, 1994, producing one set of opening and closing share prices, but orders were queued up on two different books.

Two years later, on November 13, 1995, both systems were unified when the PSE adopted the "Unified Trading System" (UTS) operating under the MakTrade system.

When the PSE started trading bonds on January 15, 2001, the system was modified to allow stock brokers to trade bonds using the same terminal. Also, the PSE-RoSS Interface System, a system allowing stock brokers to access the Philippine Bureau of the Treasury's Registry of Scriptless Securities (BTr-RoSS), was made operational on the same day.

Companies are listed in the PSE on the First Board, Second Board or the Small and Medium Enterprises Board.

Butuan City

The City of Butuan is the regional center of the Caraga Region in the Philippines. It is located at the northeastern part of Agusan Valley in northern Mindanao, sprawling across the Agusan River. It is bounded to the north, west and south by Agusan del Norte, to the east by Agusan del Sur and to the northwest by Butuan Bay. According to the 2000 census, it has a population of 267,279 people in 50,273 households.

The name "Butuan" is believed to have originated from the sour fruit "Batuan". Other etymology sources say that it comes from a certain "Datu Buntuan", a chieftain who once ruled over Butuan.

Butuan City has a land area of 816.62 km², which is roughly 4.1% of the total area of the Caraga region. With an estimated total population of 300,000, it has an average density of 367 persons per km², higher than the regional average density of 101 persons per km².

The existing land use of the city consists of the following uses: agriculture areas (397.23 km²), forestland (268 km²), grass/shrub/pasture land (61.14 km²) and other uses (90.242 km²). Of the total forestland, 105 km² is production forest areas while 167.5 km² is protection forest areas.

The forestland, as mentioned earlier, comprised both the production and protection forest. The classified forest is further specified as production forest and protection forest. In the production forest industrial tree species are mostly grown in the area. The production forest on the other hand, is preserved to support and sustain necessary ecological performance. One is the watershed areas will dry up and during heavy rain, rapid water run-off will occur creating flash floods. And in sunny days, rapid evaporation happens, leaving the area arid.

Jennifer Barrientos

Jennifer Tarol Barrientos was born in San Mateo Rizal. She is also the Binibining Pilipinas titleholder for 2008. She is the official representative of the Philippines to the Miss Universe pageant which will take place in Nha Trang, Vietnam on July 14, 2008.

From 1952 to 1963, the Miss Philippines pageant was held to select the representative of the Philippines to the Miss Universe Pageant. In 1964, Stella Marquez-Araneta started the Binibining Pilipinas Beauty Pageant after acquiring the local franchise for the Miss Universe Pageant. The grand winner of the Binibining Pilipinas Beauty Pageant is awarded the title of Bb. Pilipinas Universe and is the official representative of the Philippines to the Miss Universe Pageant.

The current Binibining Pilipinas-Universe titleholder is Jennifer Barrientos.