Vizcaya slide claims 5 lives /P200-K for info on newsman’s killers/ Beneco heroes

BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred P. Dizon

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- Nobody can stop nature when it strikes and turns violent goes a tired adage. Pundits have often said it happens year in year out but this Banana Republic’s preventive and mitigation measures still leaves much to be desired.
    One can see on Facebook netizens criticizing officials’ pronouncements of Filipinos being resilient like it is a badge of honor during calamities and hard times.
    What is needed, they say, is a scientific, humane and competent approach to situations and calamities and not giving lame excuses of people being used to hardship and will be able to weather bad situations like storms.
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For one, super typhoon Ulysses battered the country last week which left residents reeling in hardship and despair due to floods, heavy rains, lack of food and relocation sites among others even as local government units appealed to private sectors for help.
    Netizens said taxpayers’ money and government services should have been used in times like this. Another queried why Thursday and Friday were declared non-working days for government offices and workers when it should have been the time they should have been out working and giving needed services.
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This corner would like to commend the hard-working personnel and heroes of the Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) like the linemen who braved the storm to bring electricity to our homes as transformers were destroyed when heavy rains and wind toppled electric poles.
    Power was restored Thursday after a few hours.
    This goes to show that the Beneco really needs OIC general manager Melchor Licoben, an electrical engineer who spent many years with the power firm who knows what to do in situations like calamities.
    Under his leadership the technical aspects of the brownout were speedily and competently solved. The National Electrification Agency should now confirm his status as a full-fledged general manager considering he held different positions in Beneco and showed his competence as compared to an aspirant to the position reportedly close to Malacanang who doesn’t have the qualification based from NEA guidelines.             
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I phoned a Landbank branch official on Friday if I would be able to withdraw but she told me, they would only be releasing money to those in government that day because the Central Bank didn’t release money to them yet.
Don’t those in the private sector also need money, I thought, but I left it at that and didn’t comment. Makes one think how taxpayers’ money  is used considering all these corruption and scams in government but that is another story.
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This, as the Police Regional Office 2 reported Thursday that five persons were killed while nine others were missing in a landslide in Sitio Kinalabasa, Sitio Compound, and Sitio Bit-ang, Barangay Runrunu, Quezon, Nueva Vizcaya.
    PRO2 Information Officer Police Lt. Col. Andree Abella told local newsmen the landslide happened around 4 p.m. Thursday.
    “Naging malambot ang lupa dulot na rin ng patuloy na pag ulan dala ng bagyong Ulysses,” a resident was quoted as saying.
     Probers said houses in the area were made of light materials and were totally buried in mud and rocks.
Three were killed in Sitio Bit-ang and one each in Sitio Kinalabasa and Sitio Compound. Six residents were missing in Sitio Bit-ang and three in Sitio Compound.
    Quezon Municipal Police and NVPPO personnel led by Police Col. Ranser A Evasco, acting provincial director, and the PDRRMC of Nueva Vizcaya were reportedly conducting search, rescue, and retrieval operations at press time.
    Teams led by Police Brig. Gen. Crizaldo Nieves, PRO2 director, with other law enforcement and search and rescue teams, distributed an initial 100 packs of relief goods and provided immediate assistance.
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A P200,000 reward has been offered for anyone who could provide information leading to the arrest of the assailants of a local journalist in Asingan, Pangasinan, according to a report by Liezle Basa Inigo. 
    Members of the Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in eastern Pangasinan reportedly offered the cash reward to hasten resolution of the murder of Virgilio Maganes of the local daily Northern Watch.
    Maganes was shot dead by two motorcycle-riding men near his home in Sitio Licsab, Barangay San Blas in Asingan. (See page 1 article for more details).
    The murder occurred three days after Maganes celebrated his 62nd birthday.
    A case conference led by Undersecretary Joel Egco of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security was conducted with Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) Maganes.
    Egco, the SITG members and Brig. Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr., chief of the Ilocos region police, reportedly agreed to make the Maganes case a priority.
    “I’m happy with how the case is progressing. We have identified persons of interests,” Egco said.
    Three motives – internal squabble, old grudge and politics – are being eyed by investigators.
    Egco said the murder may or may not be related to the first attempt to Maganes’ life in 2016, which also occurred after his birthday.
    Azurin expressed belief the assailants could be contract killers, noting the way how the victim was executed.
Maganes died at the scene due to multiple gunshot wounds in the body.
    Azurin appealed to anybody with information on the murder to come forward and help solve the case.
    Villasis Mayor Nonato Abrenica said two weeks ago, Maganes visited him in the office and they exchanged pleasantries.
Abrenica expressed hope the case will be solved immediately, noting the town has been peaceful before the Maganes murder occurred.