MORE NEWS, BAGUIO CITY

Retailers assail NFA for slowdown in buying palay

BAGUIO CITY — Concerned rice traders and retailers assailed here the National Food Authority for the alleged slowdown in the purchase of palay from thousands of rice farmers in Northern Luzon.

This is contrary, they said, to an order of President Arroyo to the NFA to conduct massive buying of palay during this current harvest season.

Aside from the reduced buying frequency, the traders said the NFA is buying palay from the farmers at only P11 per kilo, which is way below the P17 per kilo ceiling set by the Department of Agriculture.

It is also lower than the P20 price proposed by the agriculture stakeholders.

It was reported the NFA has not complied with an order of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to establish more palay buying stations in rice-producing provinces.

The retailers and traders said the NFA is buying the palay only when the farmers deliver their produce to its warehouses.

A big-time trader, who requested not to be identified for fear of losing his rice quota, said the P11 per-kilo buying price of palay is no longer sufficient to cover expenses for production because part of the amount is used to pay for the transport of the palay to the NFA warehouses.

The same trader said he had learned that the NFA has slowed down the purchase of palay from the farmers because its warehouses are still filled with stocks of imported rice which are not being released to the market.

If the government is sincere with its pronouncements on the reduction of the high prices of rice in the market, the trader said, it should flood the market with its stocks of imported rice. This would force commercial rice traders to bring down their prices, he said.

At present, commercial rice traders are dictating market prices because they know that the NFA is not releasing its rice stocks in its warehouses.

Despite a promise of DA officials that prices of rice will stabilize during the harvest season, the trader said, rice farmers prefer to sell their palay produce to commercial traders rather than to the NFA because of the higher buying prices although it is still below the P17 per-kilo ceiling.

Many rice farmers had earlier warned they would no longer plant palay in the next planting season if the government fails to fulfill its commitment to lower the prices of farm inputs and to increase the buying price of palay. – By Dexter A See


Help needed for indigents; Amarillo concert set Tuesday
By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- The intermittent afternoon rain hit immediately hard Wednesday, before Josephine Almeron could fully explain her medical plight.

The sudden sound of the downpour startled her. She grabbed her umbrella and hastily begged leave, saying she had left her youngest child - alone at the Rizal Monument.

Earlier, the 41-year old mother of three had fetched eight-year old Frances Dane from her Grade II class at the Mabini Elementary School.

They walked for sometime until the kid complained she was tired. Josephine told her to wait at the park while she would deliver a city social welfare document to support her appeal for help.

Social worker Florecita Tul-prepared the document called “social case study report”. She noted that Josephine looked better than when she first saw her last year. “She has gained weight, her hair has grown back and seems happier this time,” it said.

Josephine made it through six cycles of chemotherapy last year, with support from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, the congressional fund of Rep. Mauricio Domogan and the city social welfare office.

With three kids to feed, a P2,000 room rental, plus P400 in city services pay monthly, Josephine had to return to work last December, a little over a year after the solo parent was diagnosed for breast cancer.

She’s now on the seven-to-three day shift as security guard beside the emergency room of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

The center has applied charity status on her case to sustain her post-chemo treatment. It means P1,500 instead of P5,000 for the cobalt planning and P130 instead of P300 per session of her on-going 30-day radiation treatment.

The generous discounts notwithstanding, it’s still a tall order. As Tul-an noted in her report, Josephine stopped her maintenance medication last month. She’s midway through her cobalt therapy, on credit to give her time to source out P5,400 for the complete, 30-day session. After that, she must be on a five-year maintenance dose.

So she returned to the city social welfare office last week. At the back of Tul-an’s report, Josephine scribbled her permission to have her plea for support written, hoping Samaritans out there would respond. She declined the idea to have her identity withheld in the news item, even if it would intrude into her privacy.

She and her children have been living apart from her husband for sometime now, she told the social worker. She admitted it had something to do with domestic violence. Her in-laws, however, committed to shoulder the education of the estranged couple’s eldest child, 23-year old Jayson, a senior nursing student. Carla Mae, their second child, finished high school but didn’t enter college because of her mother’s tight budget.

Josephine can be reached at cellphone number 09217936655.

Another 41-year old mother also sought help last week, for her toddler afflicted with multi-disability due to congenital hydrocephaly and epilepsy.

Marie Yambao, a housewife, said doctors told her that her two-year and eight-month old Angelix Marie, could no longer be treated through shunting to drain extra fluid in the brain.

The baby will never become a normal child, but her family is doing its best ease her suffering, wrote social worked Nelly Ayochok. Easing means regular medication, which the baby’s parents can’t sustain through her father’s earnings as a taxi driver.

People wanting to help may ring up Marie’s number (09202923865) or visit the family at 44 Engineer’s Hill.

Thanks to regular Samaritans, others in dire need of support for their medical deliverance are fighting on.

Rose Ann Cordova, a former day care worker and mother of three from Outlook Drive, recently had her post-chemo check-up for breast cancer with a P7,000 donation from Baguio expatriate Freddie de Guzman in Canada.

De Guzman also allotted P2,000 from his latest remittance of P12, 000 for another kid stricken with cerebral palsy, care of journalist Glo Tuazon,. Another P2,000 was used Thursday for the dialysis session of kidney patient Filbert Almoza. The remaining P1,000 will be for incidental expenses in a concert-for-a-cause this Tuesday.

Three years ago, de Guzman, an architect, teamed up with an Ibaloi woman and Guy Aliping in New Zealand, teamed up for Cordova’s chemotherapy. De Guzman also bankrolled the six chemo treatments of Linda, a 49-year old widow and mother of nine who also survived the big C.

A banker’s P1,500 enabled Nora, a mother of three on a daily maintenance for mental illness, to buy her one-year old son three cans of infant formula and food for her family. Her drug maintenance prevents her from breast-feeding her baby.

On Tuesday evening, folk musicians, tapped by singer-turned-columnist March Fianza, will do a concert at the Amarillo Folkden (former Spirits Disco). It will be for 10-year old Hodgkin’s lymphoma patient Mark Anthony Viray of DPS Compound.

Their counterparts in Northern California led by Joel Aliping, Conrad Marzan and Richard Arandia, also belted out country last Oct. 11 in Daly City Proceeds will be for a 26-year old girl suffering from vasculitis, a disease characterized by inflammation of blood vessels.

“Like in California, we hope for a crowd at the Amarillo, as it doesn’t rain evenings here,” Fianza said. – Ramon Dacawi.


DENR permit on ‘earthballing’ of 497 pine trees in Baguio hit
By Mike Guimbatan and Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY — Some 500 Pine trees in a four-hectare area in the Camp John Hay reservation here will have to go.

The clearance to remove the 497 trees was issued by Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Jose "Lito" Atienza who signed a two-page "no-cutting" permit issued last Oct. 6 to the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, through Tesoro Panga, zone administrator.

The City Environment and Parks Management Office said the trees obstructed the development of the area by Moog Control Corp. which has leased the property.

Villamor Bacullo, forester of the Forest and Watershed Management Division of CEPMO, said that the permit signed by Secretary Atienza was found by the DENR office here to be "meritorious, considering the site development and construction of two production buildings at the area."

It was noted, however, that the permit has stipulated a condition that "we are of the position that subject trees should be saved from cutting, and instead, a permit to earthball the affected trees is hereby granted."

Some residents said that Secretary Atienza has just signed the "death certificates" of the 497 trees.

They said the trees might eventually die considering the process of earthballing or the transplanting of trees.

A former worker involved in the earthballing process said the survival rate of earthballed trees, specially large sand matured trees, is very low.

"Many factors are considered in earthballing like the kind or specie, roots system, diameter, age, height, habitat, and time. Once one of these factors is affected, this would complicate or affect the survival of the tree," Forester Bacullo said.

During the balling operation, authorized representatives of CEPMO and DENR will directly supervised the work until the earthballing process ends in April 2009 or 150 days after the issuance of the permit.

The earthballed trees will be transplanted in open spaces, of lots 14 and 15 of the John Hay reservation.

Pro-environment groups also cited the low survival rate of transplanted matured trees, saying the process is tantamount to retiring the trees.

Earlier, PEZA officials said the expansion by Moog Controls Corp. will be done in such a way that only a few trees.

It turns out, however, that 497 trees, which serve as wind buffer in the area, "are to be retired."


Bolt-cut gang ransacks church-based school
By Mike Guimbatan Jr

BAGUIO CITY – The bolt-cutter gang struck again, this time ransacking a church-based school in the wee hours of Thursday carting away computers, cash and valuables.

Robbers upon gaining access inside the church premises of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines forced themselves in the UCCP-Baguio Educational School by cutting a section of a steel window using a bolt-cutter and when inside, ransacked the offices of the principal, registrar and the cashier.

The robbers used a crowbar to open the cashier’s vault carting away cash contents approximately amounting to P15,000 cash according to cashier Maribeth Tiongan.

The cashier said she was glad most cash collections were already deposited in the bank.

Four brand new slim computers and accessories valued at P27,000 each were spirited away from the building.

Two of the computers were left at the church lawn by the robbers. Lost cash and properties were estimated by UCCP- BEC principal Ruben Puguon at around P52,000.

Puguon who was last to go home Wednesday evening said he did not notice anything unusual at around 8 p.m. when he closed the lights and opened external lights.

It was around 5:30 a.m. pf Oct. 23 that Samuel Balacang, stay-in driver of the church noticed wrapped things at the church garbage area.

He opened one and was surprised to see two units of computers and accessories.
The robbers only brought out two units computers.

Police led by SPO2 Juan Piggangay said perpetrators were more than one based on several hand prints in the area.

This is the fourth incident of bolt cutting in the city after three computer shops were cleared of all their computers last July by robbers.