Belaro and Associates Law Offices recently entered into an agreement with Charterway Secretarial Limited, a Hongkong firm for the opening of the Firm’s affiliate office located at Suites 1403-4, 14/F Nan Fung Tower, 173 Des Voeux Road, Central, Hongkong. The agreement was formalized between Derek Tse, Charterway’s Managing Partner and Atty. Salvador Belaro Jr., during the latter’s China trip last January 2-10, 2007.

The agreement is seen as a timely move so that the Firm could improve its advisory services to a growing clientele from Mainland China and other countries which maintains regional and/or satellite offices in Hongkong. It will likewise result in faster services by the Firm for company formation projects not only for Mainland China and Hongkong but also for the Bahamas and British Virgin Islands. For the past two years, the Firm has worked on various company formation projects, making it one of the few, if not the only, Manila-based firm which offers such company formations as part of its services.

The OFW Adviser Plus, a free newspaper which will be distributed to Overseas Filipino Workers all over the world was recently registered with the Department of Trade and Industry. As it will be given to OFWs for free, it is intended to become a vehicle for rendering public service to OFWs by making it a disseminator of timely advice on legal, medical, health, investment, finances, travel, and other matters of relevance to them. Every issue would have regular features on the above-mentioned topics wherein experts from various fields would be requested to “donate” their articles for the welfare of our economic heroes.

According to Publisher Atty. Salvador Belaro Jr., the newspaper is one paper which could afford to be, at least liberally speaking, “to be apolitical” since the various advice that would be featured in the paper would be very useful guides for our OFWs and that being the case, the paper could just stick to rendering public service and refrain from”politics”.

The newspaper will be published in Manila and Hongkong and will have news bureaus in the following areas: Australasia, Europe, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. It will be printed bi-monthly by King’s Visions Printing and Publications Inc.

Due to the regular inquiries during the past year on the handling of immigration services, especially those coming from Japanese and South Korean clients, the Firm found it appropriate to open an Immigration Department. Thus, effective the start of the new year, the Firm now accepts immigration services including those relating to visas, work permits, grace period extensions and the like.

Pearl S. Buck Foundation-Philippines, Inc. , a non-stock, non-profit organization that helps marginalized, discriminated, disenfranchised, disadvantaged and abused children and communities, recently confirmed the composition of its current Board of Trustees and officers.

The Chairperson of the Board is Commissioner Myrna Yao of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW) and who is also the National President of the National Council of Women in the Philippines (NCWP) and a board member of the Technical Education and Skills Authority (TESDA).

The President of the Board is Ms. Rosalind Wee, a distinguished corporate personality who is the founder and director of several industrial firms such as the Marcel Group of Companies, Global Stride Inc., and Tagaytay Hospital System, Inc.

The other officers are Ms. Veronica Villavicencio, Vice-President, who is also the Executive Director of Peace and Equity Foundation and formerly the Undersecretary of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC); Dr. Amelita Gaerlan, Secretary of the Board, who is also the Dean of the Angelicum’s College Department; Dr. Carol Sobritchea, Treasurer of the Board, who is also the Director of the University of the Philippines Center for Women’s Studies; and Ms. Erlin de Ungria Tagle, Executive Director, who is the Chair of the Women in Nation Building and an active member of the party list Abanse! Pinay.

The other members of the Board are Mayor James Gordon, Jr. (as represented in the Board by Liezl Elica), Ms. Barbara de los Reyes, newscaster Bill Velasco, Dep. Dir. Marilyn Manuel, Atty. Alice Morada, Veronica Tapia-Merck, and Dr. Leticia Cordero-Yap. Legal Adviser to the Board is Atty. Salvador Belaro Jr.

A project that would convert coal to gasoline is now underway in the Philippines. This would be made possible by the agreement made between H&WB Corporation and Headwaters Energy Services (HES), formerly Headwaters Technology Innovation Group, Inc. (HTIG), on one hand, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Headwaters, Inc., which provides for the deployment of Headwaters proprietary technology for the production of ultra-clean liquid transportation fuels from Philippines and imported coal. The goal of the project is to establish a coal-to-liquids facility that will produce 60,000 barrels per day. This coal liquefaction complex will be self-sufficient in power requirement and a net power output of 67 MW. A three-step plan has been developed with the aim to start the construction of the facilities in 2010.

At the top of the project is H&WB President Antonio Ver, who with his years of involvement in pioneering energy deals rightfully deserves to be noted as the Philippines foremost energy expert. Atty. Salvador B. Belaro Jr. assists the Philippine proponents and the California-based H&WB, LLC in legal and corporate matters.