MORE NEWS, NUEVA VIZCAYA

No kidnap-for-ransom gangs in Cagayan Valley, police say
BY JOAN CAPUNA

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya – The regional police command denied reports kidnap-for-ransom gangs are operating in Cagayan Valley, saying the purported abduction of a Cagayan-based doctor was actually a case of robbery.

This was contrary to the claims of sources in the Nueva Vizcaya police that the kidnapping of Crescente Delantado of Tuguegarao City last Dec. 14 was the handiwork of a KFR gang operating in the region.

Senior Supt. Rolando Asuncion, head of the regional intelligence and investigation division, said their probe showed Delantado was stopped by armed men while coming from Metro Manila and taken to Pangasinan.

There, Asuncion said the doctor was divested of P2 million and later dumped. His kidnappers fled with his pickup van, which was later found abandoned in front of a clinic and photo shop along the national highway in Solano town.

Asuncion said there had been only one holdup case in the region involving Filipino-Chinese businessman Lawrence Ang who was snatched in front of his gasoline station in Bagabag town last year.

Two Army soldiers were later implicated in Ang’s abduction, one of whom was arrested. Asuncion said information received by intelligence sources was too raw for them to make a conclusion that KFR syndicates now exist in the region.

He said there are no KFR groups in Cagayan Valley, saying what happened to Ang was an isolated case.

Earlier, sources claimed that Metro Manila-based KFR syndicates have come to the region, citing information that Delantado’s family shelled out P10 million for his release.

Intelligence sources claimed a four-man KFR gang operating in Nueva Vizcaya has links with other similar groups elsewhere in Cagayan Valley.

They said they have identified a number of suspects and are now building up dossiers on their activities.


Agriculture grads going back to Cagayan farms
BY RUDY A. FERNANDEZ

Who says agriculture graduates shy away from working on the farms? Not those in Nueva Vizcaya, who are leaving their jobs in cities and other centers of population to make use of their expertise in the province’s Malabing Valley, now the “citrus bowl of the Cagayan Valley.”

This “Philippine migration pattern in reverse” has been brought about by Project Malabing Valley started in 1988 under the then Nueva Vizcaya State Institute of Technology, now Nueva Vizcaya State University, currently headed by a woman president, Dr. Marilou Santos Gilo-Avon.

Then, the Malabing Valley was a sad picture of underdevelopment, with no roads (thus “unreachable”), no electricity, and no potable water system.

Villagers in the remote barangays of Malabing, Binogawan, Wangal, Capisaan, Papaya, and Tadji used to spend days on foot to reach the town of Kasibu. Only six-by-six trucks and weapons carriers could traverse the almost impassable river trails.

The presence of government agencies was almost nil except for the Kasibu municipal service agencies.

All this is past, thanks to Project Malabing Valley, which has transformed this domain of the Bugkalot tribe into the “citrus bowl of Cagayan Valley.”

Since the PMV was started in 1988, several government and non-government agencies have supported research and development activities in the valley.

For instance, the PMV supported the establishment of the Malabing Valley Multi-purpose Cooperative and pushed the development of the citrus industry in the area.

Strategies under AEOP-NVSU included the conduct of barangay development laboratory, creation of people’s organizations or cooperatives, and provision of training to promote potential agricultural commodity projects. In the BDL, an agricultural institution encourages and guides villagers to establish entrepreneurial projects.

Now money virtually grows on fruit trees in the valley, and this is the reason why the younger generations in the region are going back to the farms instead of to the cities.