EDGE

MEMBERS of the Davao City Council playing truant by leaving the session hall in the middle of a discussion with-

out saying “may I go out” yesterday prompted Councilor Melchor V. Quitain, acting presiding officer, to halt the ongoing session when the num-

ber of those present dwindled.Prepared to adjourn the session, Quit-

ain then went down from the presiding of-ficer’s lectern and settled back to his seat, mumbling.

The session had started promptly at

around 2:00 p.m. but by 3:30 p.m. after noticing that many councilors had left the session hall without noticing the chair, Quitain could not hide his dismay.

“Don’t they know that every time they leave the session hall they disrupt the dis-

P 15.00 • 20 PAGESwww.edgedavao.net

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9 , 2012

SportsPage 14

Radioman slainIndulgePage A3

Science/EnvironmentPage 4

Serving a seamless society

FRADIOMAN, 13

FSESSION, 13

Follow Us On

DAVAO

Session halted due to lack of quorum

Shot 7 times

By Jade C. Zaldivar

A broadcast journalist was killed in Mati City, Davao Oriental yester-day, coincidentally five days after

the observance of World Press Freedom Day.

Nestor Libaton, 45, a reporter of the Catholic dxHM radio of Mati was shot dead at about 2:25 p.m. by unidentified men who were aboard a motorcycle.

One report said Libaton was driving a motorcycle with Eldon Cruz, another reporter hitch-riding, when two men aboard another motorcycle caught up with them along Pinagsablayan highway in Sitio Bitan-agan, Barangay Enrique Lopez and one of them shot Libaton sev-en times, killing him instantly. Cruz was unharmed.

Chief Supt. Jaime Morente, direc-tor of the Philippine National Police of Davao Region, said the case is being in-vestigated.

“The investigators are trying to de-termine if the attack was work-related as a hard-hitting commentator. Let us wait for the result of the investigation,” Morente said.

Mati City Mayor Michelle Rabat called Libaton’s death “unfortunate.”

“I have already ordered the police to investigate the incident and look at all possible angles,” she said.

Libaton, father of four, began his career as a volunteer reporter before eventually being promoted as a regular reporter.

Colleagues remember Libaton a good man, friendly, and hardwork-ing.

Libaton is the third mediaman killed within a span of two weeks. The others were Rommel Palma, killed in Koronadal City on April 24, and Michael Calanasan, slain in Laguna on April 30.

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012

A lawmaker today called for a con-gressional inquiry

on the failure of the gov-ernment to establish the Central Credit Information Corporation (CCIC) under Republic Act 9510 other-wise known as the Credit Information System Act in 2008.

Reps. Rufus Rodri-guez (2nd District, Cagay-an de Oro City) and his brother, Maximo Rodri-guez, Jr. (Party-list, Abante Mindanao), authors of House Resolution 2026, urged the House Commit-tee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries to investi-gate why more than three years after its effectivity, there is still no CCIC estab-lished to the detriment of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

Rodriguez said Sec-tion 5 of RA 9510 created a corporation which shall be known as the Credit Infor-mation Corporation (CIC), whose primary purpose shall be to receive and consolidate basic credit data, act as central regis-try or central repository of credit information and provide access to reliable, standardized information on credit history and on the financial condition of borrowers.

“The Bangko Sen-tral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is pushing for the establish-ment of the CIC because it will allow credit-worthy enterprises to easily se-cure bank loans and ad-dress the pressing need of MSMEs for enhanced credit access,” Rodriguez said.

2 THE BIG NEWS EDGEDAVAO

‘THE whole world knows that China myriad more ships and aircraft than the Philippines. At day’s end, however, we hope to demon-strate that international law would be the great equalizer.’

--Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario. PDI

Quips

HOUSE Assistant Majority Lead-er Karlo Alexei

Nograles asked the Com-mission on Elections to conduct bidding anew for the counting machines to be used in the 2013 elections in order to shut down all suspicions of irregularities and other claims of alleged viola-tion of the anti-graft and corrupt practices act.

Nograles said it would not hurt the Come-lec to conduct a deeper legal scrutiny on its decision to exercise its option to purchase ar-rangement with Smart-matic in light of some le-gal opinion that this could be contrary to pertinent procurement laws.

“There is wisdom in the observations of some legal minds that since the contract with Smartmatic may have already lapsed, perhaps the more pru-dent procedure to follow is to conduct new public

bidding to make way for other interested suppli-ers,” Nograles said.

The decision of the Comelec to exercise its “option to purchase” the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines from Smartmatic which were leased by the gov-ernment for the 2010 national elections is be-ing questioned by several sectors including Davao City Archbishop Fernando Capalla who said that the “subject” of the original contract only pertained to the 2010 elections.

“Of course, Smart-matic can bid again and there wouldn’t be any problem if Smartmatic gets the contract anew because this time it would be done through open, proper and competitive bidding,” Nograles said. “Anyway, there’s still time. Comelec can still conduct a new bidding so as to erase all doubts and avoid all these legal questions.”

Karlo asks Comelec to conduct bidding anew

ELEVATING the sta-tus of the Davao Gulf Management

Council (DGMC) into an authority needs the back-ing of the House of Rep-resentatives to champion it in Congress.

DGMC Secretary Gen-eral Leo Avila said the council still has to look for someone to push the con-version of DGMC into the Davao Gulf Management Authority (DGMA).

In an interview, Avila revealed that in Septem-ber last year, DGMC ap-proved a resolution ask-ing Congress to create the DGMA out of the present council organized to look into the welfare of the Davao Gulf.

He cited the creation of DGMA as vital “in favor of the Gulf” but he made it clear that he is not strong-ly pushing it but “I am just open to the idea.”

He presumed that LGUs would be “a little bit reluctant about it” be-cause some of the pow-ers and responsibilities of LGUs on coastal wa-ter management would be taken from them and be entrusted to the DGMA.

“It needs full accep-tance of the LGUs.”

Avila admitted the need for an enforcement role of the DGMC after noting some instances of violations committed by some LGUs . He did not elaborate on this, how-ever.

Created in August 1999, DGMC is the brain-child of the Save Davao Gulf Foundation, Inc. (SDGFI); Internation-al Marinelife Alliance (IMA); Human Develop-ment International (HDI), the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and the Depart-

ment of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Non-government or-ganizations and national government agencies had seen the importance of putting together efforts to protect and sustain a healthy Davao Gulf which has made a major contri-bution to the economic life of residents in the Davao region.

Bearing the respon-sibility of overseeing the Davao Gulf conser-vation, the DGMC only serves as the coordinat-ing body of five coastal cities and 18 munici-palities that lie along the coastline of the Gulf.

Though just a coordi-nating body, DGMC sets the agenda for LGUs and NGOs to work together for the wholistic manage-ment and protection of the Davao Gulf.

“We are united by the waters of the gulf,” Avila said. “We have to work to-gether.”

But the DGMC cannot compel member LGUs to implement the lined up programs and drawn guidelines to ensure the protection of Davao Gulf.

“We can only ask them, suggest, but they imple-ment the programs,” he said.

The DGMC Frame-work Plan for 2004 to

2014 lays down eight core programs. These are in habitat manage-ment, fisheries manage-ment, foreshore manage-ment, coastal tourism and water use, enterprise and livelihood development, watershed management, waste management and pollution control; and le-gal arrangement and in-stitutional development.

The Davao Gulf de-serves to be managed and protected as the World-wide Fund for Nature-Philippines (WWF) con-siders it as “one of the most diverse marine eco-systems in the world.”

It is located 984 kilo-meters south of Manila, with an area of 6,600 square kilometers. The Gulf binds together the coastlines of Davao City, Davao del Sur, Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley and part of the coastal ar-eas of Davao Oriental. The Island Garden City of Sa-mal (IGACOS) lies at the center of the Gulf.

The Davao Gulf has diverse species of man-groves, seagrasses, coral reefs. The Gulf is the hatching ground of marine turtles, and the feeding ground of ceta-ceans such as Dugongs, dolphins and whales in-cluding migratory shore-birds.  [PIA 11/JEANEVIVE DURON-ABANGAN]

Congress backing sought to create Davao Gulf management authority

By Lorie A. Cascaro

INDUSTRY clustering proves to be effective with the success of the

Davao Industry Cluster Ca-pacity Enhancement Proj-ect (DICCEP) of the region’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said project manager Romeo L. Casta-ñaga.

Funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) with about 30 million yen, the DICCEP was replicated to the national level, resulting in the Nation-al Industry Cluster Capacity Enhancement Project (NIC-CEP) for 2012-2015 to be launched on May 11.

“Based on the assess-ment of JICA and the head office of the DTI, the project can be replicated in other

regions, while clusters will be upgraded in the Davao region,” he said.

Basically a capacity building, the DICCEP uti-lized industry cluster strat-egy which converge all sectors participating in an industry from production, processing, logistics and marketing.

He said when individual producers and businesses are converged, they are empowered as a group that can produce in volume and compete as their competi-tiveness is enhanced.

He cited the Sto. Tomas Banana Industry Cluster Cooperative or STOBICA as a pioneer of the DICCEP, saying the members were individualistic before they were converged, and has done joint buying of inputs

at better prices, and direct access to export market af-ter being organized.

The Information and Communication Technol-ogy (ICT) Davao also used their training sessions to prepare its ICT roadmap, he said.

The ICT sector was able to benchmark in interna-tional events, tap human resources for business pro-cess outsourcing, and made Davao City as number one among the next wave cities, which were attributed to the technical support from the DICCEP.

Aside from banana and ICT, other clusters among the eight created by the DICCEP include tourism, wood, mining, coconut, sea-weeds and mango.

With the NICCEP, three

more clusters will be added to be part of counterpart ac-tivities in hthe Davao region namely livestock and poul-try with the Department of Agriculture as lead agency; machinery and equipment parts with the Department of Science and Technology; and biofuel with the De-partment of Energy.

Before the JICA funding, the DTI 11 was first to inte-grate with the regional de-velopment council and was able to come up with Davao Region Industry Cluster Plan for 2005-2010.

Because of the DIC-CEP’s success, the DTI 11 was awarded with the Good Practice Award 2010 Strat-egies in Achieving Desired Sector Outcomes by the Na-tional Economic and Devel-opment Authority Board.

TIRED. A man uses the bench outside a bar in the city to catch a few hours of sleep. [KARLOS MANLUPIG]

DICCEP’s clustering policy effective, says DTI

Solons urge gov’t to establish central credit info corporation

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012

By Lorie A. Cascaro

SR. Stella Matutina of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters

and three environmental advocates Rodolfo Rivera, Jojo Witara and Maria Fe Matibo filed yesterday complaints of harassment and intimidation against elements of the 67th and 28th Infantry Battalions under the 10th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army before the Com-mission on Human Rights (CHR) 11.

Environmental group Panalipdan said the re-cent military harassment and red-tagging of Sr. Stel-la Matutina, a Benedictine nun and Secretary Gener-al of Panalipdan Mindan-ao or Defenders and Ad-vocates of Environment, Creation and Patrimony, and peasant leaders of Panalipdan Davao Orien-tal was intended to stop their advocacy against foreign large-scale mining in Davao Oriental.

In February 2009, Sr. Matutina and three other leaders of Pan-alidpan Davao Oriental, Wenceslao Mapa, Ma Fe Matibo, and Gil Sentin-ates, stayed overnight in the barangay hall in Ta-tayan, Cateel municipal-ity, Davao Oriental Prov-

ince after an environment education session with the community, when el-ements of the 67th Infan-try Battalion barged in at 3:30 a.m. and harassed them at gunpoint.

Matutina claimed that she was being followed by company vehicles owned by the Philippine You-bang Mining Corporation in 2010.

In the last quarter of 2011, men riding motor-cycles in tandem were seen parking their ve-hicles outside Matutina’s residence in a public mo-torcycle terminal, waiting there for hours.

Secretary general, Francis Morales said that based on the statement of Sr. Matutina that on November 2011, soldiers attended a forum in Ba-rangay San Isidro, Lupon where Sr. Matutina gave an environmental educa-tion.

“1st Lt. Francisco Lin-gat of the 28th Infantry

Battalion spoke during the forum accusing that Panalipdan was connect-ed with the NPA and that their battalion is part of the Investment Defense Force (IDF), a govern-ment policy protecting mining interests,” said Morales.

“Last March 12, the 28th IB conducted a Barangay Assembly in-tended by the battalion to form a Barangay De-fense System (BDS). 1st Lt. Hermie Montelibano said during the assembly, “Do you remember the re-cently killed Italian priest Fr. Tentorio? He was an NPA! There’s also a wom-an introducting herself as a nun, but she’s not a nun because she’s an NPA. Stella is her name,” he added.

Fr. Fausto Tentorio, an Italian priest of the PIME congregation, who was killed by still unidenti-fied men last October 17 who worked for decades

3THE BIG NEWSEDGEDAVAO

FNUN, 13

THE National Nutri-tion Council (NNC) in the region is working

on producing a coffee table book to feature a compila-tion of distinct Davao food recipes.

Apart from promoting nutrition, the cook book aims to sell Davao as food tourism destination, NNC regional chief Teresa Ung-son told the media on Mon-day’s weekly Kapihan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao.

Ungson explained that the book will be a fusion of different food and vegeta-ble recipes with the distinct taste of Davao City .

“It’s only in Davao that we get a fusion of inter-national cuisines such as French and Spanish inte-grated with Davao taste,” she said citing the fruits pomelo and durian to have been mixed in several food menus.

If pushed through, Ung-son said the NNC project will be the first Davao cook book to be published, say-ing that “no cook book of Davao is found in the mar-ket.”

“We can be proud to

have a cook book of our own,” she stated.

The production of the yet untitled coffee table cook book is at the level of collecting Davao interna-tional cuisines and low-cost vegetable dishes, and tak-ing pictures of these foods.

Ungson said they are planning to invite old res-taurant establishments in Davao City which have been part of the Mindanao culi-nary experience as well as hotels, malls and schools to support the book produc-tion and promotion.

She raised the need for sponsorships to help de-fray production cost which she estimated to reach P500,000 for the initial pro-duction of 200 copies of the book.

NNC also intends to present the said project to the Davao City Tourism Of-fice for a possible partner-ship.

The Davao cook book also aims to be part of the 75th anniversary of the city this year, Ungson stated.

NNC projects to launch and release the book next year. [PIA 11/CARINA L. CAYON]

Nutrition council to produce food book

HARASSMENTS. Sr. Stella Matutina of the Order of St. Benedict who is presently based in Davao Oriental condemns the harassments against her allegedly perpetrated by the military because of her environmental advocacies. [KARLOS MANLUPIG]

Nun, envi advocates file complaints vs militaryBy Jade C. Zaldivar

THE Philippine Ar-my’s 28th Infan-try Battalion has

sought the support of Ba-rangay Lintawan, Lupon, Davao Oriental to deny having tagged a nun as a member of the New Peo-ple’s Army.

Gathering statements of support from local lead-ers, 28th IB commander Lt. Col. Leopoldo Imbang Jr. also denied having sup-ported only mining inves-tors in the area.

Imbang said the mili-tary is also concerned about the environment.

“We too, don’t want to see more lives wasted because of floods, huge logs ramming into hous-es of our brethren and homes being swept away by floods during heavy rains,” he said.

The accusation against a nun was made during a forum held in March at Barangay Lint-awan with the attendance of local leaders, the 28th IB and environmental ac-tivists, including Order of St. Benedictine nun Sister Stella Matutina, head of Panalipdan Mindanao.

Matutina on Mon-day said that during the March 2 forum she was tagged by 1Lt. Hermie Montelibano of the 28th IB as one of the NPA reb-els active in the province.

“Unsa man diay ang NPA)? Combatant diba, ang naga-dala ug ar-mas? Asa man ang armas

namo? Mura bag des-perado na kaayo sila para di nila ma-identify kung kinsa ilang kalaban o dili,” Matutina said in a forum held recently at the At-eneo de Davao University.

Imbang said the ac-cusation never happened.

Barangay Lintawan chief Arlene Luzon, who was present in the March 2 forum said the alle-gation of Sr. Matutina against the 28th IB has no basis.

“I was present the entire time during the info-drive and 1Lt. Mon-telibano of the 28th IB did not mention that she (Ma-tutina) is an NPA nor did he say that Fr. Fausto Ten-torio was killed because he was an NPA,” said Lu-zon, referring to the state-ments made by Matutina.

Luzon also cited Mon-telibano’s having afforded some basic needs to their community.

“With the efforts of the 28th IB, water sys-tems, health centers and school renovations and constructions were com-pleted, and this barangay is one the beneficiaries” she said.

San Isidro Barangay Councilor Emelita Gastar-do said Matutina was al-lowed to speak during the forum ‘as requested by 1Lt. Montelibano.’

“As a sign of respect, we let her speak. At the time she repeatedly called for the immediate removal of 28th IB from the area,” Gastardo said.

To be fair, Gastar-do said, they also allowed Montelibano to respond. “We also let 1Lt. Montel-ibano to air his response. He asked if we would want all the soldiers to be pulled out from the barangay.

“Us officials, together with the local populace present at the assembly, refused Sr. Matutina’s demand for the removal of the military from our community. Immediately after that, Matutina and her companions walked out of the assembly area,” Gastardo said.

In a press confer-ence held at the Ateneo de Davao University this Monday, activist environ-mentalist group Panalip-dan Mindanao’s Matutina related how they were allegedly harassed by the military for opposing min-ing and logging in their ar-eas, although she did nor categorically say in what form the harassment took.

“The reality is, instead of protecting the small people, the military stands by logging or mining corporations. These bat-talions are part of the so-called Investment Defense Force (IDF), a government policy to protect mining interests,” she added with-out elucidating.

Matutina’s human rights work involves com-munity organizing and grassroots education in lobbying against com-mercial logging and large scale mining in Davao Ori-ental.

Local leaders back militaryon NPA-tagging accusation

‘GONE are the days when the funds you funnel to our country will end up like wa-ter leaking through a bro-ken pail.’

--President Aquino before a gathering of the ADB Board of Governors in Manila. PhilStar

Quips

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012

By Lorie A. Cascaro

SR. Stella Matutina of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters

and three environmental advocates Rodolfo Rivera, Jojo Witara and Maria Fe Matibo filed yesterday complaints of harassment and intimidation against elements of the 67th and 28th Infantry Battalions under the 10th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army before the Com-mission on Human Rights (CHR) 11.

Environmental group Panalipdan said the re-cent military harassment and red-tagging of Sr. Stel-la Matutina, a Benedictine nun and Secretary Gener-al of Panalipdan Mindan-ao or Defenders and Ad-vocates of Environment, Creation and Patrimony, and peasant leaders of Panalipdan Davao Orien-tal was intended to stop their advocacy against foreign large-scale mining in Davao Oriental.

In February 2009, Sr. Matutina and three other leaders of Pan-alidpan Davao Oriental, Wenceslao Mapa, Ma Fe Matibo, and Gil Sentin-ates, stayed overnight in the barangay hall in Ta-tayan, Cateel municipal-ity, Davao Oriental Prov-

ince after an environment education session with the community, when el-ements of the 67th Infan-try Battalion barged in at 3:30 a.m. and harassed them at gunpoint.

Matutina claimed that she was being followed by company vehicles owned by the Philippine You-bang Mining Corporation in 2010.

In the last quarter of 2011, men riding motor-cycles in tandem were seen parking their ve-hicles outside Matutina’s residence in a public mo-torcycle terminal, waiting there for hours.

Secretary general, Francis Morales said that based on the statement of Sr. Matutina that on November 2011, soldiers attended a forum in Ba-rangay San Isidro, Lupon where Sr. Matutina gave an environmental educa-tion.

“1st Lt. Francisco Lin-gat of the 28th Infantry

Battalion spoke during the forum accusing that Panalipdan was connect-ed with the NPA and that their battalion is part of the Investment Defense Force (IDF), a govern-ment policy protecting mining interests,” said Morales.

“Last March 12, the 28th IB conducted a Barangay Assembly in-tended by the battalion to form a Barangay De-fense System (BDS). 1st Lt. Hermie Montelibano said during the assembly, “Do you remember the re-cently killed Italian priest Fr. Tentorio? He was an NPA! There’s also a wom-an introducting herself as a nun, but she’s not a nun because she’s an NPA. Stella is her name,” he added.

Fr. Fausto Tentorio, an Italian priest of the PIME congregation, who was killed by still unidenti-fied men last October 17 who worked for decades

3THE BIG NEWSEDGEDAVAO

FNUN, 13

THE National Nutri-tion Council (NNC) in the region is working

on producing a coffee table book to feature a compila-tion of distinct Davao food recipes.

Apart from promoting nutrition, the cook book aims to sell Davao as food tourism destination, NNC regional chief Teresa Ung-son told the media on Mon-day’s weekly Kapihan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao.

Ungson explained that the book will be a fusion of different food and vegeta-ble recipes with the distinct taste of Davao City .

“It’s only in Davao that we get a fusion of inter-national cuisines such as French and Spanish inte-grated with Davao taste,” she said citing the fruits pomelo and durian to have been mixed in several food menus.

If pushed through, Ung-son said the NNC project will be the first Davao cook book to be published, say-ing that “no cook book of Davao is found in the mar-ket.”

“We can be proud to

have a cook book of our own,” she stated.

The production of the yet untitled coffee table cook book is at the level of collecting Davao interna-tional cuisines and low-cost vegetable dishes, and tak-ing pictures of these foods.

Ungson said they are planning to invite old res-taurant establishments in Davao City which have been part of the Mindanao culi-nary experience as well as hotels, malls and schools to support the book produc-tion and promotion.

She raised the need for sponsorships to help de-fray production cost which she estimated to reach P500,000 for the initial pro-duction of 200 copies of the book.

NNC also intends to present the said project to the Davao City Tourism Of-fice for a possible partner-ship.

The Davao cook book also aims to be part of the 75th anniversary of the city this year, Ungson stated.

NNC projects to launch and release the book next year. [PIA 11/CARINA L. CAYON]

Nutrition council to produce food book

HARASSMENTS. Sr. Stella Matutina of the Order of St. Benedict who is presently based in Davao Oriental condemns the harassments against her allegedly perpetrated by the military because of her environmental advocacies. [KARLOS MANLUPIG]

Nun, envi advocates file complaints vs militaryBy Jade C. Zaldivar

THE Philippine Ar-my’s 28th Infan-try Battalion has

sought the support of Ba-rangay Lintawan, Lupon, Davao Oriental to deny having tagged a nun as a member of the New Peo-ple’s Army.

Gathering statements of support from local lead-ers, 28th IB commander Lt. Col. Leopoldo Imbang Jr. also denied having sup-ported only mining inves-tors in the area.

Imbang said the mili-tary is also concerned about the environment.

“We too, don’t want to see more lives wasted because of floods, huge logs ramming into hous-es of our brethren and homes being swept away by floods during heavy rains,” he said.

The accusation against a nun was made during a forum held in March at Barangay Lint-awan with the attendance of local leaders, the 28th IB and environmental ac-tivists, including Order of St. Benedictine nun Sister Stella Matutina, head of Panalipdan Mindanao.

Matutina on Mon-day said that during the March 2 forum she was tagged by 1Lt. Hermie Montelibano of the 28th IB as one of the NPA reb-els active in the province.

“Unsa man diay ang NPA)? Combatant diba, ang naga-dala ug ar-mas? Asa man ang armas

namo? Mura bag des-perado na kaayo sila para di nila ma-identify kung kinsa ilang kalaban o dili,” Matutina said in a forum held recently at the At-eneo de Davao University.

Imbang said the ac-cusation never happened.

Barangay Lintawan chief Arlene Luzon, who was present in the March 2 forum said the alle-gation of Sr. Matutina against the 28th IB has no basis.

“I was present the entire time during the info-drive and 1Lt. Mon-telibano of the 28th IB did not mention that she (Ma-tutina) is an NPA nor did he say that Fr. Fausto Ten-torio was killed because he was an NPA,” said Lu-zon, referring to the state-ments made by Matutina.

Luzon also cited Mon-telibano’s having afforded some basic needs to their community.

“With the efforts of the 28th IB, water sys-tems, health centers and school renovations and constructions were com-pleted, and this barangay is one the beneficiaries” she said.

San Isidro Barangay Councilor Emelita Gastar-do said Matutina was al-lowed to speak during the forum ‘as requested by 1Lt. Montelibano.’

“As a sign of respect, we let her speak. At the time she repeatedly called for the immediate removal of 28th IB from the area,” Gastardo said.

To be fair, Gastar-do said, they also allowed Montelibano to respond. “We also let 1Lt. Montel-ibano to air his response. He asked if we would want all the soldiers to be pulled out from the barangay.

“Us officials, together with the local populace present at the assembly, refused Sr. Matutina’s demand for the removal of the military from our community. Immediately after that, Matutina and her companions walked out of the assembly area,” Gastardo said.

In a press confer-ence held at the Ateneo de Davao University this Monday, activist environ-mentalist group Panalip-dan Mindanao’s Matutina related how they were allegedly harassed by the military for opposing min-ing and logging in their ar-eas, although she did nor categorically say in what form the harassment took.

“The reality is, instead of protecting the small people, the military stands by logging or mining corporations. These bat-talions are part of the so-called Investment Defense Force (IDF), a government policy to protect mining interests,” she added with-out elucidating.

Matutina’s human rights work involves com-munity organizing and grassroots education in lobbying against com-mercial logging and large scale mining in Davao Ori-ental.

Local leaders back militaryon NPA-tagging accusation

‘GONE are the days when the funds you funnel to our country will end up like wa-ter leaking through a bro-ken pail.’

--President Aquino before a gathering of the ADB Board of Governors in Manila. PhilStar

Quips

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 20124 EDGEDAVAOSCIENCE/ENVIRONMENT

HORSES were do-mesticated 6,000 years ago on the

grasslands of Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan, a genet-ic study shows.

Domestic horses then spread across Europe and Asia, breeding with wild mares along the way, re-search published in the journal PNAS suggests.

The work, by a Cam-bridge University team, brings together two com-peting theories on horse domestication.

The matter has been hotly contested by scien-tists.

Archaeological evi-dence suggests horses were tamed in the west-ern part of the Eurasian Steppe (Ukraine, south-west Russia and west Ka-zakhstan).

Experts think they were used for riding, and as a source of meat and milk.

However, these ar-chaeological clues - such as traces of horse milk found in ancient pots from the western Eur-asian Steppe - are at odds with evidence from mito-chondrial DNA.

These studies suggest domestication happened in many places across Eu-rope and Asia.

The new study looked at nuclear DNA samples taken from 300 horses living in eight countries in Europe and Asia.

Genetic data was fed into computer models de-veloped to look at differ-

Mystery of horse taming ‘solved’

ent scenarios for domes-tication.

Dr Vera Warmuth from the Department of Zoology at Cambridge said: “It shows that horse

domestication originated in the western part of the Steppes and that the spread of domestication involved lots of integra-tion of wild horses.”

The theory explains why evidence from mi-tochondrial DNA - which contains genes inherited solely from the mother - suggests horses were do-

mesticated many times, in different places.

In fact, it appears that wild mares were used to re-stock herds of existing domesticated horses, per-

haps because they did not breed easily in captivity.

This is the case with Przewalski’s horse, which is the closest wild relative of modern horses. [BBC]

HEAVY rain and flooding has had a disastrous impact on many of the

RSPB’s nature reserves, the charity has said.

Nests and breeding grounds have been destroyed by rising water levels, the bird protection group added.

The BBC’s rural affairs correspondent Jeremy Cooke said the recent deluge of rain had come in the wake of acute water shortages.

Among the worst affected is the Ouse washes in Cam-bridgeshire, which is an im-portant wetland habitat.

The reserve is used as part of a flood relief system for the Great Ouse river and the Environment Agency was forced to open sluice gates which prevented flooding up-stream, but meant the nest-ing grounds of many wading birds were washed away.

Redshank, lapwing and rare black-tailed godwits were among the victims.

Jon Reeves, RSPB’s site manager at the Ouse Wash-es, said: “Following centu-ries of land drainage across the UK, the Ouse Washes is now the most important stronghold for these birds

Heavy rain disastrous for birds

after they have been largely forced out of other sites.

‘Devastating’“Literally, we have all

our eggs in one basket and we’ve lost them.

“It’s devastating to watch the nests succumb to the rising waters without being able to do anything to prevent it,” he added.

But our correspondent

said lowland snipe were worse hit with over a third of their estimated popula-tion in England and Wales having had their nests de-stroyed.

At the Minsmere reserve on the Suffolk coast, avocet and black-headed gulls and been particularly badly af-fected.

The RSPB says there has

been similar destruction at nature reserves at Pulbor-ough Brooks in West Sus-sex and Fairburn Ings, near Leeds, West Yorkshire.

But one family of coots at Fairburn Ings survived when the nest full of eggs was washed away.

The nest floated to a spot 30 metres away where the eggs were able to hatch. [BBC]

ECOWASTE has urged the government and the citizenry to rally

behind a proven solution to society’s chronic problem with stinking garbage, toxic gases and depleted soils: decentralized composting.

The EcoWaste Coali-tion gave a big push to the biological breaking down of organic discards as the International Composting Awareness Week is ob-served from May 6 to 12.

“The intensive com-posting of biodegradable discards at all areas and lev-els of waste generation can dramatically reduce the vol-ume of discards assigned for disposal by at least 50 percent in most cities and municipalities,” said Christi-na Vergara, EcoWaste Zero Waste project officer.

According to the Na-tional Solid Waste Man-agement Commission, the entire country generates some 35,430 tons of waste per day, of which some 8,000 tons come from Met-ro Manila.

Of these, 50% are food and other organic discards, 25% plastics, 12% paper, 5% metals, 3% glass, 1%

hazardous waste and 4% residual waste.

“Decentralized com-posting will translate to millions of savings for our cash-strapped local govern-ment units (LGUs) due to avoided disposal costs,” she pointed out.

“By separating organic discards at source, we re-duce the risk of contami-nating recyclable materials and, as a result, increase the value of recyclables and make them safer for waste workers to handle and re-cycle,” she added.

“Composting further re-duces the emission of green-house gases such as meth-ane, which is about 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide in terms of trapping heat, by keeping food, garden, farm and other organic discards out of dumpsites and land-fills,” she said.

The country has over a thousand waste disposal fa-cilities, including 1,027 open and controlled dumpsites long forbidden by Republic Act 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, as well as “sanitary” landfills, cement kilns and incinera-tors, the EcoWaste said.

EcoWaste group pushes for decentralized composting

[PNA]

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012 THE ECONOMY 5EDGEDAVAOStat Watch

MONTHLY AVERAGE EXCHANGE RATE (January 2009 - December 2011)

Month 2011 2010 2009

Average 43.31 45.11 47.637December 43.64 43.95 46.421November 43.27 43.49 47.032October 43.45 43.44 46.851

September 43.02 44.31 48.139August 42.42 45.18 48.161

July 42.81 46.32 48.146June 43.37 46.30 47.905May 43.13 45.60 47.524April 43.24 44.63 48.217

March 43.52 45.74 48.458February 43.70 46.31 47.585January 44.17 46.03 47.207

3.5%4th Qtr 2011

3.7%4th Qtr 2011

USD 3,342Million

Nov 2011USD 4,985

MillionNov 2011

USD -1,643Million

Nov 2011USD -114

MillionDec 2011

P4,442,355Million

Nov 2011

4.71%Oct 2011P128,745

MillionNov 2011

P 4,898Billion

Oct 2011

P 43.65Dec 2011

3,999.7Sept 2011

128.1Jan 2012

3.9Jan 2012

3.4Dec 2011

284,040Sept 2011

19.1%Oct 2011

6.4%Oct 2011

1. Gross National IncomeGrowth Rate(At Constant 2000 Prices)

2. Gross Domestic ProductGrowth Rate(At Constant 2000 Prices)

3. Exports 1/

4. Imports 1/

5. Trade Balance

6. Balance of Payments 2/

7. Broad Money Liabilities

8. Interest Rates 4/

9. National Government Revenues

10. National government outstanding debt

11. Peso per US $ 5/

12. Stocks Composite Index 6/

13. Consumer Price Index 2006=100

14. Headline Inflation Rate 2006=100

15. Core Inflation Rate 2006=100

16. Visitor Arrivals

17. Underemployment Rate 7/

18. Unemployment Rate 7/

Cebu Pacific Daily 5J961 / 5J962 5:45 Manila-Davao-Manila 6:15Zest Air Daily Z2390 / Z2390 5:45 Manila-Davao-Manila 6:25Cebu Pacific Daily 5J593 / 5J348 6:00 Cebu-Davao-Iloilo 6:30Philippine Airlines Daily PR809 / PR810 6:10 Manila-Davao-Manila 7:00Philippine Airlines Daily PR819 / PR820 7:50 Manila-Davao-Manila 8:50Cebu Pacific Daily 5J394 / 5J393 7:50 Zamboanga-Davao-Zamboanga 8:10Cebu Pacific Daily 5J599 / 5J594 8:00 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 8:30Cebu Pacific Daily 5J347 / 5J596 9:10 Iloilo-Davao-Cebu 9:40Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri/Sun 5J963 / 5J964 9:40 Manila-Davao-Manila 10:10Philippine Airlines Daily PR811 / PR812 11:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 12:20Cebu Pacific Daily 5J595 / 5J966 12:00 Cebu-Davao-Manila 12:30Silk Air Mon/Wed/Sat MI588 / MI588 18:55 Davao-Cebu-Singapore 13:35Cebu Pacific Thu 5J965 / 5J968 12:55 Manila-Davao-Manila 13:25Cebu Pacific Tue/Wed//Sat 5J965 / 5J968 13:35 Manila-Davao-Manila 14:05

Silk Air Thu/Sun MI566 / MI566 18:55 Davao-Singapore 15:20Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri 5J507 / 5J598 15:00 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 15:30Philippine Airlines August 15:55 Mani2Mani 16:50Zest Air Daily Z2524 / Z2525 16:05 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 16:45Cebu Pacific Daily 5J967 / 5J600 16:35 Manila-Davao-Cebu 17:05Philippines Airlines Daily PR813 / PR814 16:55 Manila-Davao-Manila 17:45Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Thu/Sat 5J215 / 5J216 18:00 Cagayan de Oro-Davao-Cagayan de Oro 18:20Cebu Pacific Daily 5971 / 5J970 18:40 Manila-Davao-Manila 19:10Cebu Pacific Tue/Sat/Sun 5J973 / 5J974 20:00 Manila-Davao-Manila 20:30Cebu Pacific Daily 5J969 / 5J972 20:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:00Airphil Express Daily 2P987 / 2P988 20:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:00Philippine Airlines Daily except Sunday PR821 / PR822 21:20 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:50Philippine Airlines Sunday PR821 / PR822 22:20 Manila-Davao-Manila 22:50

as of august 2010

CONTRARY to claims that the government has been generating profits

from power sales in the Min-danao grid, the government owned and controlled Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) actually incurred accumulat-ed losses amounting to P15 billion from 2001 to 2011 from the operations of its power facilities in Mindanao.

PSALM made the state-ment to ensure utmost trans-parency to all relevant sec-

tors as to the actual financial position of the Mindanao plants’ operations.

According to PSALM Pres-ident and Chief Executive Of-ficer Emmanuel R. Ledesma Jr., while operation of hydro plants results in operating profits, losses from coal, geothermal, and diesel-fired plants significantly exceed the revenues generated from the hydro plants.

In fact, the cost of pro-ducing electricity from these facilities is more than the

time-of-use rate imposed on Mindanao consumers.

Ledesma pointed out that the revenues generated from the hydro plants are being used to cover the operating losses from these facilities.

PSALM sources electric-ity from these facilities to meet the demand of Mindan-ao consumers in view of the limited and intermittent sup-ply from the hydro plants.

Ledesma further stated that another major consid-eration is the capital expen-

ditures incurred for plant maintenance and rehabilita-tion. This has not been taken into account in the calcula-tion of the plants’ operating income.

Ledesma hopes this in-formation will enlighten Mindanao consumers. The incurred P15-billion losses were assumed by PSALM and would be passed on to con-sumers through the univer-sal charge upon approval by the Energy Regulatory Com-mission. (PNA)

Gov’t is losing P15 B in Mindanao power facilities

HIPSTER. A young kid from the Matigsalug Tribe with a Mohawk hair-cut displays bracelets made from in-digenous materials along the highway of Bukidnon. [KARLOS MANLUPIG]

THE Department of Fi-nance (DOF) reiterated the need to reform the

current tax structure for sin products following the 20 per-cent contraction in excise tax

revenues in 2011.Data released by the Fi-

nance department show an excise tax collection of P25.4 billion last year, down from the P31.5 billion in 2010.

Sin taxes collection down by 20% in 2011 The same data show that

last year’s drop in excise tax revenue is not the first time it happened. From 2004-06, ex-cise tax collection increased to P26.8 billion but contracted to P23.2 billion in 2007. It again went up in 2008 at P27.6 bil-lion but went down again the following year to P24.2 billion.

“This fall in revenues proves that our current ex-cise tax scheme for tobacco is structurally flawed, and is in need of immediate changes,” DOF Undersecretary Jeremias Paul said.

“Although PMFTC has claimed that nothing is wrong with our sin tax system, the fig-ures show how vulnerable this system is to being abused,” he stressed.

The DOF official disclosed that after the legislation of Republic Act 9334, otherwise known as the Sin Tax Law, in 2007 excise tax collection has been uneven due to what he called is front-loading.

Under the current system, taxes are raised every two years and Paul said the drop in sin tax collection was regis-tered in 2007 and 2009, which are “the years when taxes were raised.”

“This is the worst fall yet in for our tobacco sin tax rev-enues. It’s a tell-tale sign that the system is structurally de-fective. That’s why we need the Abaya reform bill to fix this,” he said, referring to a House Bill 5727 filed by Cavite Rep. Joseph Abaya proposing for a single rate tax system.

Relatively, Action for Eco-nomic Reforms (AER) senior economist Jo-ann Latuja said front-loading has been a prac-tice in the country since 2004.

She explained that tobacco

companies have avoided the full weight of the tax increase by concentrating sales be-tween the application of these tax hikes.

“Unless the Abaya sin tax bill is passed our country will continue to bleed billions of pesos in government funds, which could have been used for improving the lives of our fellow Filipinos,” she said.

Further, the Finance de-partment estimates at least P19.5 billion lost from tax reve-nues from 2006-2010 because of downshifting by smokers from higher-priced brands to lower-priced cigarette.

Under the current multi-tiered sin tax structure, taxes are based according to ciga-rette prices in 2006. Brands that entered the market after 2006 are given higher taxes even if the new entrant is clas-sified as low-priced brand.

Latuja said switching to lower-priced cigarettes is not only disadvantageous to the government but more so to the smokers.

The DOF is supporting the Abaya Bill since it does not only provides additional revenue for the government but also aids in addressing cigarette consump-tion among the young and the poor.

Latuja stressed that “the numbers are just indisputable: the Abaya reforms are vital to fixing this faulty tax system, while lessening consumption of the number one cause of death in our country today.”

“If this bill is not passed, the revenue losses could be the least of our concerns, since a health crisis is already brewing in our midst that endangers the young and poor populations of our country,” she added.

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 20126 THE ECONOMY EDGEDAVAO

BANKS have tight-ened their stan-dards for loans to

enterprises in the first quarter this year but those for household loans remain unchanged, a cen-tral bank survey shows.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) released Monday the results of its first quarter 2012 Senior Bank Loan Officers’ Sur-vey, which cited that the credit standards tighten-ing was for top corpora-tions and not for the large middle-market, small and medium-sized, and micro enterprises.

“The overall net tight-ening of credit standards for loans to enterprises reflected banks’ cautious view on the outlook of the economy and of cer-tain industries amid the still uncertain global economic prospects, per-ceived decreased access to market financing, and reduced tolerance for risk and stricter financial sys-tem regulations,” the cen-tral bank said.

The central bank said the net tightening was evident on stricter loan covenants and greater use of interest rate floors but noted that banks have been extending larger credit lines to enterprises since the second quarter of 2010 and longer loan maturities.

It also noted the “net narrowing of loan mar-gins for large middle-market and small/me-dium enterprises, while loan margins for top corporations were un-changed after narrowing for the past five consecu-tive quarters.”

It also said that stan-dards on collateral re-quirements have re-mained unchanged since the third quarter of last year.

“In terms of expecta-tions, respondent banks see a further tightening of credit standards across all types of loans to enter-prises over the next quar-ter,” the BSP said.

On the other hand, household lending stan-dards were unchanged for the second consecu-tive quarter, due to “sta-ble asset portfolio and steady economic outlook of banks, as well as un-changed financial system regulations and bank tol-erance for risk, and stable

profile of borrowers.”Among the types of

household loans, credit standards for auto and personal and salary loans remained unchanged since the third quarter of last year but credit standards for credit card loans “appeared to have tightened slightly while those for housing loans eased somewhat in first quarter of 2012.”

On specific credit stan-dards for household, loan margins were unchanged but credit line sizes “have been slightly reduced.”

The BSP also noted the “net easing of standards on collateral require-ments, loan covenants, and loan maturities” but disclosed the increased use of interest rate floors.

“Over the next quar-ter, banks indicated that credit standards would likely remain unchanged for auto and personal/salary loans while those for housing and credit card loans would likely ease somewhat in the near term,” the BSP said.

The survey also showed the unchanged overall demand for loans from enterprises, which was traced to “the rela-tively stable interest rates, unchanged financ-ing terms of banks, avail-ability of other sources of funds and steady custom-er financing needs, cus-tomer accounts receiv-able financing, and eco-nomic outlook of banks.”

On the other hand, household loans in-creased particularly for housing loans due to low-er interest rates and more attractive financing terms during the quarter.

“The overall positive net change in demand for household loans and the stable demand for busi-ness loans were consis-tent with available data showing strong bank lending growth during the first two months of Q1 2012,” the BSP said.

“Looking ahead, re-spondent banks expect demand for credit from both businesses and households to continue to increase in the next quar-ter,” it said.

The survey was par-ticipated in by 19 of the 34 commercial banks sent with questionnaires resulting a response rate of 55.9 percent.

Banks tighten credit standards for businesses

THE Department of Trade and Indus-try will convene

the National Price Coor-dinating Council (NPCC) within the week to ensure a steady supply of meat, rice and sugar in the mar-ket in light of the planned “meat holiday” by hog raisers.

Trade and Industry Undersecretary Zenaida C. Maglaya said the NPCC would meet this week to confirm inventory, production volume and prices of these basic com-modities.

Maglaya said that pric-es of pork had remained stable at P170 to P180 per kilo but if the hog raisers would make good of its threat to declare a “meat holiday,” the gov-ernment should be ready because it would take be-

tween 6 and 8 months to grow a pig before harvest.

Hog raisers have an-nounced plans to hold a meat holiday to protest the alleged inaction from the Bureau of Customs on the entry of cheap im-ported meat, such as pork and chicken.

Prices of chicken have already gone up by P10 per kilo to a high of P30 from P110 and P120 per kilo but not because of the impact of meat holiday but because of the warm weather that had slowed down production.

The NPCC is also mak-ing an inventory of rice stocks because the lean season for rice starts from July to September.

“We want to have a confirmation that we have sufficient buffer for the lean season,” Maglaya

said.Price of sugar has

gone up by P1 per kilo to P45 from P44, which had been the price for a long time.

Maglaya further said that the Bureau of Fisher-ies would be represented in the meeting because prices of “tamban”, the fish use in sardines, have remained at P25 per kilo even after the ban on fish-ing “tamban” was lifted last March 1. Before the ban, price of “tamban” was at P22 per kilo.

The DTI had agreed to raise the prices of canned sardines by P1 per can when prices of “tamban” went up to P27 from P22 in late 2010 when the ban of fishing “tamban” was imposed.

With the lifting of the ban, the DTI also expect-

ed that prices of canned sardines would be rolled back by P1 per can. Pre-vailing prices of canned sardines are at P13.50 although a few are selling at P14.

Apparently, the prices of canned sardines re-mained high because the prices of “tamban” re-mained at P27 per kilo even after the lifting of the ban.

“If the price of fish goes back to P22 per kilo, then we expect a P1 roll-back in prices of canned sardines,” said Maglaya. Prices of “galunggong” have gone down to P110 from P120 per kilo.

Prices of other ag-ricultural products like vegetables, except for carrots, have remained stable or even at lower prices. (PNA)

DTI takes stock amidst threat of ‘meat holiday’

THE European Chamber of Com-merce of the Phil-

ippines (ECCP) strongly backs the principle of non-discrimination, sim-plicity and transparency as embodied in the excise tax bill of Representative Joseph Emilio Abaya.

“This reform is long overdue,” said the ECCP statement.

“ECCP welcomes a simplified specific rate

structure for beverage alcohol as it supports re-sponsible drinking deci-sions to be made as the tax is based on the level of alcohol content in the product rather than on price, quality or origin,” the statement added.

While ECCP is aware of the concern expressed by the local companies, it strongly disagrees with the accompanying argu-ment that imported prod-

ucts are in turn being fa-vored by the Abaya bill.

According to ECCP, the Abaya bill is merely ad-dressing a long standing violation of WTO prin-ciples by equalizing the rates on alcohol and cre-ates a more level playing field for tobacco products.

Consequently, ECCP opposes any solution or proposal that would maintain discrimination between local and im-

ported products and en-courages the passage of the Abaya bill –HB 5727- as soon as possible and without delay.

In this context, ECCP supports the policies of the Department of Health and the Department of Fi-nance to use the tax rev-enues from this reform to support the poor, expand medical support and de-velop employment oppor-tunities. (PNA)

European biz chamber seeks transparency on sin taxes

THE Philippines’ gross international reserves (GIR) went

down to US$ 76 billion in April this year from US$ 76.1 billion the previous month partly due to de-clining prices of gold in the international market.

Bangko Sentral ng

Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. on Monday said another fac-tor was the payment by the national government of its maturing dollar-de-nominated debts.

“These outflows were largely offset, however, by income from investments

abroad of the BSP and for-eign currency deposits by authorized agent banks (AABs),” he said.

The central bank chief assured that amid the drop in the foreign re-serves, the current level “remains adequate for the country’s requirements.”

He said that the latest GIR level was enough to cover 11.4 months worth of imports of goods and payments of services and income.

Also, it is equivalent to 10.8 times the country’s short-term external debt, based on original maturity

and 6.4 times based on re-sidual maturity.

The BSP targets a US$ 79 billion foreign reserves level this year while last year’s GIR amounted to US$ 75.3 billion.

Relatively, the coun-try’s net international reserves (NIR), which

included revaluation of reserve assets, also went down by US$ 0.1 billion to US$ 76 billion at the end of the fourth month this year.

The central bank de-fines NIR as the “differ-ence between the BSP’s GIR and total short-term liabilities.” (PNA)

PHL’s international reserves drop to $76 B

THE Aquino admin-istration assured the public that the

overall Philippine bank-ing system remains sound and stable despite the closure of the Export and Industry Bank Inc. (EIB), a Malacanang official said on Monday.

Presidential Spokes-person Edwin Lacierda issued the statement during the regular press briefing in the Palace on Monday to allay the fears of the public following the closure of the bank.

“Rest assured that the banking system is finan-cially sound po; mas mal-akas po ang ating bank-

ing system. And that’s why Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. (of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) is encouraging the use of banking institutions,” Lacierda stressed.

In a statement, the BSP said that the Mone-tary Board placed Export and Industry Bank Inc. under a receivership on April 26, 2012 pursuant to Section 30 of Republic Act No. 7653 or The New Central Bank Act.

The BSP said the board made its decision on account of the bank’s

“inability to meet its ob-ligations as they become due, insufficient realiz-able assets to meet its li-abilities and its inability to continue in business without involving prob-able losses to its deposi-tors or creditors.”

Moreover, it also said that the EIB wrote BSP to “surrender the bank operations to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and to declare a bank holiday ef-fective April 12, 2012.”

The BSP noted that the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation

(PDIC) stands ready to service valid deposit claims from depositors of EIB and complete pro-cessing of claims as soon as possible.

Likewise, the BSP said the overall Philippine banking system remains sound and stable with ample liquidity and high level of capitalization.

The BSP assured that the closure of EIB is not expected to adversely af-fect the Philippine bank-ing system considering its relatively small size. Its total assets are equivalent to only about 0.3 percent of the total assets of the banking system.

n Closure of Export Bank has minimal effect on banking industry

Banking system is stable, Malacañan assures

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012 7ICT HUBEDGEDAVAO

SAMSUNG’S highly anticipated Galaxy S III smartphone is

getting glowing reviews on technology blogs and across social media sites but its design is a source of contention.

Samsung has foregone cutting-edge design and world-first specs on the flagship device in favor of an improved user inter-face, software optimiza-tion, exclusive on-board features and consumer-pleasing specs.

The device sports a desirable list of hardware specifications that in-clude a huge 4.8” HD Su-per AMOLED (1280x720) display, a 1.4 GHz Exynos 4 Quadprocessor, an 8MP camera, a 2,100mAh bat-tery, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. It runs on a custom-ized version of Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Added features such as Siri-challenging voice commands (S Voice), cloud storage, eye-track-ing and lag-free photo taking will also help Sam-sung differentiate the device from its Android competitors.

While bloggers la-mented the flagship smartphone’s lack of edgy design, they praised the

The Samsung Galaxy S III flagship smartphone.

Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone delights with exclusive features, voice interactions

device’s specs, improved user interface, software optimization and exclu-sive features.

Engadget said, “this is a good-looking phone, with an impressive high definition Super AMO-LED screen and a proces-sor that looks likely to spar for top spot among Android devices,” but complained it lacked

stand-out design and “wow-factor hardware.”

Ars Technica called it “a conservative evolu-tion of the Galaxy S II,” and added “It’s just a pity that for all the innovation on the inside, and all the work that Samsung has done on the software, the whole thing is wrapped up in a package that’s so mediocre. Flagship

phones deserve better than flimsy plastic.”

“There’s no doubt that the SIII will be a big seller,” said The Next Web.

Microbloggers agreed that “Samsung galaxy s3 sure looks a cracker with some awesome features and specs” and said “I se-riously want a Samsung Galaxy SIII. I can’t wait

until it’s released in the US this summer...I’ll be first in line!”

Other Twitter users questioned the Galaxy S III’s lackluster design saying, “The galaxy S3 really looks like my gal-axy nexus in a way. :o I thought it would be rect-angular” and “The de-sign of Samsung Galaxy S III looks so bad that I

won’t bother reading all the specs. I will skip this one.”

Gizmodo has posted a side-by-side comparison of the Galaxy S III and the iPhone 4S on its site.

The Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone will launch in Europe on May 29 before a wider rollout in global markets. Pricing has not been announced.

FACEBOOK Inc CEO Mark Zuck-erberg fielded

questions about the No. 1 social network’s slowing revenue growthand its $1 bil-lion purchase of Insta-gram as he kicked off a cross-country road-show to promote the company’s $10 billion initial public offering.

Wearing his trade-mark “hoodie” sweat-shirt, jeans and sneakers, the 27-year-old chief ex-ecutive said he would do the Instagram deal again if he had to, according to attendees at the event.

Hundreds of inves-tors showed up for the presentation at New York’sSheraton Hotel, which was closed to the media, on Monday.

The world’s largest social network aims to raise about $10.6 billion, dwarfing the coming-out parties of tech companies like Google Incand grant-ing it a market value close to Amazon.com Inc’s.

The 8-year-old so-cial network that began as Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room project in-dicated an IPO range of $28 to $35 a share on Thursday, which would value the company at $77 billion to $96 billion.

The size of the IPO reflects the company’s growth and bullish ex-pectations about its money-making potential as a hub for everything from advertising to com-merce. Many investors say they expect Face-book to raise its offer price-range as the road-show progresses from New York to major cities

such as Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.

Amid the hoopla of one of the most closely watched IPOs in years are persistent concerns about Facebook’s lon-ger-term growth and Zuckerberg’s majority control.

Zuckerberg, who will have roughly 57 percent voting control after the IPO, personally forged the deal to acquire mo-bile app maker Insta-gram in a matter of days last month with little involvement from Face-book’s board of direc-tors, according to media reports.

Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is escorted by security guards as he de-parts New York City’s Sheraton Hotel May 7, 2012. [REUTERS]

Facebook’s Zuckerberg kicks off investor show

A hedge fund bat-tling the man-agement of Ya-

hoo! called for the release of documents about the recruit-ment of chief execu-tive Scott Thompson in a scathing filing Monday with regula-tors.

The filing by the Third Point with Se-curities and Exchange Commission came af-ter the hedge fund’s deadline passed on its demand for the ouster of Thompson for mis-representing his educa-tional background.

Third Point, which owns 5.8 percent of the struggling tech giant, filed its slate of can-didates for the Yahoo! board, ensuring a proxy battle, as it stepped up its attack on manage-ment.

“Yahoo! has not ex-plained how its Search Committee could hire a CEO without doing a ru-dimentary check on the

applicant’s credentials -- a check that would have quickly revealed that Mr. Thompson did not have a computer science degree,” the fil-ing said

“The inaccuracies in Mr. Thompson’s edu-cational background are not isolated. (Patti) Hart, a member of the Nominating Commit-tee and the chair of the Search Committee her-self has exaggerated her academic background.”

Third Point also of-fered a series of criti-cisms from others in its filing about Yahoo!’s handling of the matter, based mainly on news reports.

“Legendary inves-tor Warren Buffett

stated on CNBC on May 7, 2012 that ‘it doesn’t sound like an inadver-tent error... If you can’t trust the people you’re working with, you’ve got a problem.’”

Yahoo! has said it was continuing its re-view of the matter.

Third Point, led by activist investor Daniel Loeb, said that “Yahoo!’s failure of process is es-pecially damning given the Nominating Com-mittee’s summary re-jection of all but one of the candidates that Third Point has pro-posed be appointed to the Board, thus forcing a wasteful proxy con-test at the 2012 annual meeting.”

Yahoo! raiders step up attack on CEO, board

‘YOU do have now an ex-cellent legal framework for disaster risk reduction and excellent legal framework for climate change adaptation.’

--United Nations special envoy Marga-retta Wahlstrom

Quips

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 20128 VANTAGE POINTS

CriminalityEDITORIAL

EDGEDAVAOProviding solutions to a seamless global village.

ANTONIO M. AJEROEditor in Chief

OLIVIA D. VELASCOGeneral Manager

LORIE ANN A. CASCARO • JADE C. ZALDIVAR • MOSES C. BILLACURAStaff Writers

Columnists: MA. TERESA L. UNGSON • EDCER C. ESCUDERO • AURELIO A. PEÑA • ZHAUN ORTEGA • BERNADETTE “ADDIE” B. BORBON • MARY ANN “ADI” C. QUISIDO • LEANDRO B. DAVAL SR., • NIKKI GOTIANSE-TAN • NICASIO ANGELO AGUSTIN • EMILY ZEN CHUA • CARLOS MUNDA Economic Analyst: ENRICO “GICO” G. DAYANGIRANG

KARLOS C. MANLUPIG • JOSEPH LAWRENCE P. GARCIALEANDRO S. DAVAL JR.,

PhotographyARLENE D. PASAJE

Cartoons

KENNETH IRVING K. ONGCreative Solutions

NEILWIN L. BRAVOSports and Motoring

Printed by Zion Accuprint Publishing Inc. Door 14 ALCREJ Building,

Quirino Avenue, 8000, Davao City, PhilippinesTel: (082) 301-6235

Telefax: (082) 221-3601www.edgedavao.net

editorial@edgedavao.netmarketing@edgedavao.net

CAGAYAN DE ORO MARKETING OFFICELEIZEL A. DELOSO | Marketing ManagerUnit 6, Southbank Plaza Velez-Yacapin Sts.Cagayan de Oro CityTel: (088) 852-4894

MANILA MARKETING OFFICEANGELICA R. GARCIA | Marketing ManagerBlk. 1, Lot 10, La Mar Townhomes, Apitong St.,Marikina Heights, Marikina City Tel: (02) 942-1503

CARLO P. MALLOFeatures and Lifestyle

ALBERTO DALILANManaging

GREGORIO G. DELIGEROAssociate

RAMON M. MAXEYConsultant

JOCELYN S. PANESDirector of Sales

RICHARD C. EBONAIMELDA P. LEE

Advertising SpecialistsAGUSTIN V. MIAGAN JR

Circulation

SOLANI D. MARATASFinance

EDGEDAVAO

The wrong equation

CRIMINAL elements in Davao City are becoming bolder each passing day if we base our observation on the police

stories published by local media during the last 72 hours.

At least two prominent citizens and a low-ly sari-sari store owner became victims of crimes against property in this short span of time. These include City Tourism and Invest-ment Promotion Officer Jason Magnaye and Davao Light and Power Company assistant vice president Mark Valencia whose homes in affluent enclaves were ransacked by rob-bers who carted away cash and valuables worth P354,000 and P134,000, respectively. The third victim, the sari-sari store owner, 79-year-old Rosario Gonzales, was the most unfortunate because the robbers killed her.

At first blush, the above crimes were en-raging, as they were chilling. The incidents show the robbers have become more daring that some residents think that they are see-ing the onset of a crime wave, perhaps caused by hard times, joblessness and worsening poverty and hunger hereabouts.

And yet, at closer look, the situation is not that helpless. The Davao City Police Office has statistics to show that there is a a downward trend in incidents of robbery- theft from Jan-

uary to April. At a press conference held at the Task

Force Davao Headquarters in Santa Ana wharf, yesterday Police Sr. Supt. Ronaldo dela Rosa, Davao City Police Office head, claimed there were only 21 incidents recorded in Jan-uary with two suspects arrested. In February, there were about 36 cases with seven sus-pects arrested and seven cases filed. The in-cidents decreased in March with 31 incidents with three arrested and three cases filed m while in April the incidents went down fur-ther to 20 with six arrested and six cases filed.

Still, dela Rosa noted that the early days of May saw 13 incidents of burglaries already being recorded. The DCPO chief was candid enough to admit that “if we cannot arrest the figures most likely the incidents will be high-er than previous months.”

Whatever, the situation calls for dela Rosa and his men to shape up and not allow the situation to further deteriorate. The lawmen should never allow it to reach a point when law-abiding citizens would be afraid to go out for fear of being victimized by thieves and robbers. It would grossly disappoint Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, he whose mag-nificent obsession is to have a city where the criminal elements would be afraid to go out.

ALMOST four years ago now, just be-

fore I left my post in the government, power shortage in Mindanao had been predicted to happen within the next three years. The government then knew all about it and mas-sive efforts were done to respond to such looming crisis. I recall that the government had prepared a master plan for energy which was sup-posedly intended to increase the country’s capacity to generate more power and to manage the demand so that when the time comes we would be able to provide for the energy requirements of our industries.

Little attention was accorded to the warning. Though the business sector has shown fear and anxious anticipation, they could only do so much. The generation of more power was and still remains the ul-timate and desirable response. Yet, invest-ment in this area was not actively encour-aged, although occasionally promoted. Pol-icies and incentives to encourage private in-vestments in power generation are unclear, miniscule, and - to some extent - irrelevant to the call of the time.

In recent past, power barges have been deployed in critical areas in Mindanao to augment the supply of power. However, such remedy does not prove to be long last-ing and sustainable as their operation is so costly. Operating them as permanent gen-erators does not make any sense.

Last year, efforts were also exerted to increase Mindanao’s generation capacity through some proposals to open base load plants running on coal or diesel. Aside from theirnegative impact to the environment, these proposals were also viewed as more expensive. In fact, they really are.

Now that the power crisis is here push-ing Mindanao to a tunnel of darkness, Mala-canang and its allies in Congress are now contemplating of granting the President an emergency power.

As of now, we do not know what that emergency power is for and how it would be exercised. What we know are the many yet interconnected implications of the pow-er crisis, and these should be addressed strategically rather than politically.

The worst implication pertains to the disruption in the production process which could lead to higher production cost; hence, higher prices of manufactured goods. Higher prices tend to adversely affect the purchasing power of the peso; hence, de-mand for higher wages could be anticipat-ed but would be difficult to grant because the level of overall productivity is low due to the disrupted production process.

Interrupted operation due to power shortage could also push businesses to close, retrench labor or transfer operation to other places where power supply is ad-equate and sufficient to sustain produc-tion and business operation. The overall effect is a sluggish local economy of affect-ed areas as there would be less economic activities, higher unemployment and low wages.

With these possible scenarios, all the goals and objectives set to make the coun-try more competitive and for the local communities to grow and prosper would all go to naught.

If we are serious in creating a climate conducive to do business in and attract more investments to come to the Philip-pines, it is imperative for the government to address the power crisis. Granting the President an undefined emergency power is not the practical and most effective solu-tion.

Emergency powers granted to former Presidents did not prove to be beneficial to the masses. For example, a review of the emergency power vested to former President Fidel Ramos to deal with a simi-lar crisis would reveal the grey areas that devious operators used and abuse to make easy money for themselves alone at the ex-pense of ordinary consumers.

As the members of Congress continue to push for the granting of emergency power to the President, perhaps they could discuss the elements of such power and ensure that it would benefit the ordi-nary Filipinos. We can also hope for the Congress to deliberate on the matter more quickly and swiftly; otherwise, it might be better for them to use the time to discuss the solution to the power crisis than the granting of the emergency power.I con-tinue to believe that power crisis equals emergency power is a wrong equation.

Of course, the ability to use such emer-gency power – if ever granted - is yet an-other matter!

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012

LACK OF E D U C A -TION IM-

P O V E R I S H E S SOCIETY – Talk about a tall or-der. Throughout last year just like in the previous year, news spread around that pri-vate schools would again increase tu-ition fees and other miscellaneous ex-penses. Many students, most especially those who are in the secondary grades and college levels, have long given up on their education.

With school fees increasing every year, thousands of students fully under-stand that their hope and aspiration for a better future could never be a reality. A university education nowadays has not been an initiation for the intellect but rather a lesson in frustration and disap-pointment. It is rather regrettable that the students’ education is deadening in-stead of stimulating.

Their frustration has often erupted in rage – students continue to stage street protests and the government continues to crack down on them. The series of protests and demonstrations were os-tensibly to demand top education of-ficials to prevent private schools from increasing fees at the height of financial difficulties. However, the government’s apparent “quick action”, for obvious rea-sons, ended up at nothing and did noth-ing for the students’ enthusiasm.

The reason for students, and of course, parents’ dissatisfaction is quite simple. Since the early 90’s education

already has become more of a privi-lege rather than a right. They feel that the country’s current education system where government allows private edu-cational institutions to raise their fees, depending on the increase level ap-proved by concerned government agen-cies notably the Department of Educa-tion (DepEd) and Commission on High-er Education (CHED) had done them boundless disservice.

That is why several thousands of students from private schools flocked in hordes and transferred to public schools, which in fact has only aggravated the prevailing problem on education. Public schools as we all know can only offer a “band-aid” solution and accept a very limited number of students precisely because of the prevailing awful problem such as lack of classrooms, school and office supplies, power and water supply, desks, tables, other facilities, and most importantly teachers. And besides, ad-ditional students, school facilities and tutors would also require fresh supple-mentary government funds.

Is the country’s education system in shambles, it might be asked? Are there structural problems that affect the whole system? Is there a mismatch be-tween education and economic needs that allows private institutions to rake in huge profits and at the same time push parents and students more toward des-titution? Why are the funds allotted to education just a pittance compared to other government agencies?

Education experts and analysts be-lieve that what aggravates the situation

is that the problems in our education system have taken on a political dimen-sion. They argue that education has gone nowhere in the years when politi-cal leaders clashed at every twist and turn, so hope for an improved education structure rests conclusively on change in the political system.

Several thousands of students who have long given up on their education accept menial jobs in order to survive. Thus, they can be seen driving taxicabs, answering phones, serving food, man-ning hotel reception desks and as tour guides. Making money actually is not easy, but many in the student generation think about how to make money to make both ends meet in time of financial diffi-culties, and while they are out of school.

Lack of education impoverishes soci-ety and certain logic dictates that with-out proper education “socio-economic policies are formulated by mediocrity.” Disillusioned by government indecisive-ness, thousands of students have been idle and embittered for several years. But as long as school fees continue to rise at accelerating pace, the govern-ment cannot avoid a series of street pro-tests and demonstrations and likewise cannot ignore the student populace.

Understandably enough, the student population demands better education and better opportunities as much as they do democracy. While the economy provides a place to stay, something to eat and something to wear, education on the other hand is for progress. Unfortunate-ly, progress it seems looks distant.

9VANTAGE POINTS

Monkey Business

EDGEDAVAO

A lesson in frustration and disappointment

BY GRAHAM E. FULLERCOMMENTARY

Education of Islamist politicians begins

Pacman draws the lineREP. Manny Pacquiao was re-

ported to have recently presided over a meeting with his political allies.

It was a cru-cial meeting where he report-edly drew the line and put an end to all speculations, maneuver-ings and machinations inside his ‘growingly’ monolithic political party.

A year ago, Pacquiao likewise presided over a meeting among all mayors of Saran-gani allied with him to announce his decision to run for governor and trade places with Gov. Miguel Rene Dominguez who is on his third and last term. Many tried to downplay the inevitable union with his erstwhile political rival. In fact, until the latest meeting where Pacquiao finally put down his feet, not a few of his supporters and political advisers were still in the 2010 mode.

But Pacquiao was reported to have told doubters enough is enough.

Pardon me for the quote but he was re-ported to have said: “Kung uban, ta uban ta. Kung dili mo uyon, magbulag na ta karon (If we are together, we are together. If you dis-agree, let’s go separate ways now).” Or some-thing to that effect.

Pacquiao was of course referring to his political union with Dominguez.

Last week, Pacquiao was seen conferring with Dominguez and all the mayors of Saran-gani in Baguiao City further ending all talks about a failed unity between the two influen-

tial leaders in the province.Rep. Manny Pacquiao (in red T-shirt)

meets with Gov. Miguel Rene Dominguez (in black jacket) and mayors of Sarangani at his Baguio Hotel.

Pacquiao and Dominguez fielded differ-ent slates during the 2010 elections, which was said to be the most expensive campaign in the history of local politics. Although Pac-quiao handily won over Roy Chiongbian, a longtime family ally of the Dominguezes and the Alcantaras, he was forced to fork out close to half a billion pesos (US$10 million) in the run-up month and to the election. Counting expenses in preparation for his second run for a congressional seat, he is said to have spent close to P700 million, in total.

The Chiongbian-Dominguez camp itself was reported to have also spent at least P120 million.

From the economic and financial points, a Pacquiao-Dominguez tandem makes every sense. It saves both camps money. With box-ing retirement on the horizon, Manny cannot afford to again gamble his well-earned riches for a public office which pay cannot even cover for the monthly upkeep of his two man-sions in General Santos City.

Besides, Manny’s favorite brother Roel is eyeing the congressional seat for the first dis-trict of nearby South-Cotabato-General San-tos City. He needs to bankroll the candidacy of Roel as well as support his friend Ronel Rivera who is running for mayor in the city against Mayor Darlene Antonino-Custodio. Or presumably against Rep. Pedro Acharon Jr if the latter is prevailed upon by Antonino patriarch Adelbert to return to his former po-

sition.Two costly electoral contests in two dif-

ferent fronts for Pacquiao will be asking too much from his resources.

With Manny setting his sights for a Sen-ate run in 2016, he needs to save whatever resources he has and is going to earn in the next two years, indeed.

Another factor that may have weighed heavily on Pacquiao’s insistence of honoring an earlier political pact with Dominguez is his soured relations with Malacañang. Pacquiao is no longer the poster boy of the presidential palace like he was during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In fact, his close-ness with Arroyo is probably the reason why President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino II has not warmed up with him.

Without Malacañang’s support, Pacquiao is a lost kid in the House of Representatives. Another three years of being a wall flower at a dance party will not advance his cause for a Senate seat.

With all the above-cited factors consid-ered, I always believe Pacquiao is more cut for any elected executive post where his connect with the masses will reinforce his heart for the poor. Where he might lack the eloquence and articulateness in congressional debates, we will have plenty of compassion with peo-ple, who like him, knows poverty like there is no wealth and abundance in their vocabulary.

Only the insipid will insist Pacquiao goes of the political kill in Sarangani by abandon-ing his commitment to forge an alliance with Dominguez. And there are still many around him. Pacman knows as his signature T-shirt says.

ISLAMIST politics in the Middle East cracked wide open with the Arab awakening: Islamists have emerged on

top in Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, and Egypt. West-ern publics, lulled by the sight of iPhones and other social media at work, assumed that the demonstrations, rebellions, and regime changes were all driven by Muslim wannabe Westerners and that Islamist poli-tics were relics of the past.

But when dictators started to fall, it shouldn’t have been any surprise that Is-lamists quickly came out on top. This wasn’t a conspiracy. Islamists have paid their dues many times over for decades as the only group with a clear regional identity, a vision, a courage, and a willingness to suffer the harsh responses of dictators.

They spoke out, went to prison, and sometimes died. Brave doesn’t always mean correct, but it means they garnered the re-spect of the public. Western-style liberals couldn’t really fill up the main square on a good day, although the participation of a new generation of youth with idealism and drive is evidence of an exciting new genera-tion of activists.

Islamists make Westerners nervous, sometimes with good reason. We have seen what the most fanatic and worst of them can do – 9/11, primitive Taliban forces, and backwards views toward women. But Is-lamists have also been driven by a Muslim nationalist zeal, fueled by hostility to past Western political domination and wars brought to their own lands.

Islamists were in a way lucky for a while. Excluded from the system, they could only deliver Islamist critiques but never had to shoulder the burden of office, the responsi-bility to make things work.

That has all changed. Islamists are being elected into office and will be assuming the daunting policy problems of their neglected societies. The voting public is excited at the change and will give them a grace period to start improving things. But that period will be limited. Islamists can’t go on winning elections on the basis of pious religious slo-gans or even anti-Westernism (assuming the West is no longer there with boots on the ground).

Islamists, too, will eventually be chucked out of office if they can’t deliver the goods. And they know it. They will have to make hard policy decisions on complex issues – or they too will soon lose their hard-acquired luster.

In the exhilarating new field of more open Middle Eastern politics, the once op-pressed and cornered Islamist spectrum is now opening out, expanding into new space: liberal or conservative, pragmatic or rigid, cautious or bold, skilled or unskilled, politi-cally savvy or not.

We see this spectrum in Tunisia and Egypt today: ultra-conservative Salafis, more moderate Muslim Brothers, a smaller seg-ment of liberal Islamists – all in competition. What’s more, the field is not static. Islamists, now free to play, are evolving rapidly, gaining experience in the face of the hard political and policy decisions ahead of them.

The process has brought some hearten-ing developments. Ultra-orthodox Salafis in Egypt have now surprisingly backed for president the most liberal Islamist candidate in the pack. But should we be surprised? Salafis, too, want to win elections, to back the candidate most likely to win.

Islamists, united by shared years in the dungeons, now differ with each other in the atmosphere of greater political freedom. They are not rejecting, but playing in, the po-litical game. If a pious, well-meaning but iso-lated bearded sheikh can’t play in the politi-cal arena and manage the country, Islamists don’t want to go down with the ideological ship.

In Turkey 10 years ago, a secularized public voted for a party with Islamist roots, the ruling Justice and Development Party, not because it was pious but because it proved it could run municipalities, and it went on to major successes at the national level. It wasn’t about Islam, it was about the economy, services, smart politics. And it has prospered now for over a decade to become a model of what an Islamist party can be-come.

There are smart and stupid Islamists, competent and incompetent, popular and unpopular. Some will come to office and quickly flail and fail; others will demonstrate vision and management skills. Public demand and expectations will soon sort them out.

[Graham E. Fuller is the former vice chair-man of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA; his most recent book is “A World With-out Islam.”]

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 201210 SUBURBIA EDGEDAVAO

OFFICIALS and Mem-bers of the Philip-pine National Police

(PNP) and Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) have their newest home in the city as the Local Govern-ment of Tagum inaugu-rated last May 5, 2012 the 7th substation located in Barangay Magugpo South built by the City Govern-ment through the leader-ship of Mayor Rey T. Uy.

The local chief execu-tive led city officials and other functionaries dur-ing the inauguration of the new building which is specifically located in Er-nesto Punsalan Street, ad-jacent to the City’s Postal Office, the City Health Center and the Barangay Hall of Magugpo South.

The building, which stands at the previous city’s nursery site of the Tagum City Agriculture Office with an area of 812 square meters, has two administrative offices, two quarters, a jail cell and comfort rooms. It also has a large portion for the city’s 2 fire trucks. The construction of the said building was financed by the local government.

This is part of the lo-cal government’s continu-

ing efforts in disaster risk reduction and maintain-ing peace and order.

Senior Inspector Ed-win Pelaez of the Tagum City’s Bureau of Fire and Police Superintendent Rimas W. Lamber of the Tagum City Police Office expressed gratitude to the local government for the new inaugurated building which they said will help their respective office’s swift public service.

Rev. Fr. Arnold Tiplaca from Diocese of Tagum Parish officiated the blessing of the said building.

In his remarks, Mayor Uy reminded the police officials and fire marshals present to be true to their sworn oath of public ser-vice, as well as to take care of the building, espe-cially its cleanliness.

Present during the in-auguration are City Vice-Mayor Allan L. Rellon, City Administrator Rafael E. Abrenica, Executive Sec-retary to the Mayor Delia dela Cruz and City Coun-cilors De Carlo “Oyo” Uy, Frank Remitar, Alfredo Pagdilao, Geterito Ge-mentiza and Joedel Caasi. [BY: LOUIE LAPAT AND EDWIN OF CIO TAGUM]

Tagum inaugurates new police, fire substation

Members of the Bureau of Fire Protection and the Philippine National Police join leaders of the City of Tagum in inaugurating its new substation located in Ernesto Punzalan St., in Barangay Magugpo South, Tagum City last May 5, 2012.

In his remarks, Mayor Uy reminded the police officials and fire marshals pre-sent to be true to their sworn oath of public service, as well as to take care of the building, especially its cleanliness. The Local Government of Tagum inaugurated the new substation of the Philippine National Police and Bu-reau of Fire last May 5, 2012. Said building is located in Ernesto Punzalan St., Magugpo South, Tagum City. [PHOTO BY LOUIE LAPAT OF CIO TAGUM]

The new structure picture of the newest home in the city with 812 sq. meters, the Philippine National Police and Bureau of Fire Protection building which was inaugurated last May 5, 2012 the 7th substation located in Ernesto Pun-zalan St., Barangay Magugpo South built by the City Government of Tagum through the leadership of Mayor Rey T. Uy. [PHOTO BY LOUIE LAPAT OF CIO TAGUM]

SHOWERS of thick foam, gyrating young fire dancers, and a

maddening crowd of par-ty-goers marked opening of the 4th environment-themed summer beach sports festival and second anniversary of Beach View Bar at Beach View Resorts in Brgy. Pindasan, Mabini, Saturday night.

The festival and anni-versary party that opened at 7:00 p.m. lasted through the night, ending at 4:00 o’clock in the morning prompted Globe and TM territory sales head June Morales to ooze with pleas-ure at the impact on the hundreds of party-goers of their foam party and gi-ant inflated balloon that his group shipped all the way from Iloilo for the sum-mer event. April Omandac, Beachview Bar manager was elated at the turnout of the party-goers which reached out at 1,160 which signifies the success of the event.

“This (foam party) is the first time for Globe to hold a foam party in Mind-anao… the best party and venue ever,” gushed out Morales.

San Miguel Beer (SMB) events organizer Nichols Briones echoed the senti-ments of Morales. “The event shows that party life in Comval is very much alive,” Briones whose firm SMB is a regular and loyal sponsor of various events in the province and provid-ed the band that played to dancing for the screaming party-goers.

The official opening of this year’s 4th Sum-mer Beach Sports Festival started with the banging of a giant gong by members of co-sponsors Small Hotel and Resorts Association led by Zosilee Yanong who rolled off the 16 events fea-tured in this year’s sports fest.

“This is one of the most festive launching events since we had our first beach sports festival three years ago,” Yanong said.

Volleyball for men will dominate the whole day of Saturday on May 12 when the beach festival reels off at Beach View. At 7:00 p.m. SMB will feature the reg-gae Battle of the Bands, fire dance competition, and an SMB Mix. The next day schedule is beach volleyball for women

The festival highlights mostly exotic sports events competitions from body painting and fire dance to open water volleyball host-ed throughout all weekends of May by several beach resorts that line the Com-postela Valley shoreline of Davao gulf.

This year’s 4th Sum-mer Beach Sports Festival introduces three new com-petitive events – biggest fish catch, bancarera around Kopiat island, and sea kite flying -- that, according to provincial tourism officer Christine Dompor, are “ded-icated to the fisher folk and their families who depend on the bounty of the sea for sustenance”.

Another contributor to the festivities is the pro-

vincial chapter of the Phil-ippine Red Cross which is going to hold a series of one-day swimming lessons for P200 under its pre-school aquatic program.

“The Summer Safety Training Program is part of this year’s World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day celebration on May 8,” explained Chapter adminis-trator Joseph Tandy M. Loy.

The swimming clinic will be held on separate weekends in May in Berioso Beach Resorts 1 & 2, Beach View, and Manaklay Beach Resort and weekdays (May 21-25) at Golden Double R. Family Resort in Manat, Nabunturan, and May 28-June 1 at Aguakan Cold Spring Resort in Mara-gausan.

The festival opens on May 5 to coincide with the 1st anniversary of Beach View bar. On May 8, the events are whole day beach volleyball for men at Beach View Resort and an SMB Night presenting a Reggae Battle of the Bands, a fire dance competition, and SMB Mix at 7:00 o’clock in the evening. The next day, Sunday, is whole-day beach volleyball compe-tition for women also at Beach View.

The other events: May 19 at boat landing in Pindasan – biggest fish catch competition start-ing 5:00 a.m., Bugsay Kopiat at 10:00 a.m., and SMB Night presenting the beach acoustics compe-tition at Magayon Beach Resort. May 20 will be devoted to the Manaklay-Kopiat Swimming Chal-

Foam, fire shower at Comval beachfest

lenge at 8:00 a.m. and sea kite flying competition starting 1:00 p.m. at the boat landing.

On May 26, the fes-tival will join Dagan sa Dapugan Araw ng Mabini Fun Run. At 10:00 a.m. the same day, Welborn Resort in Magnaga, Pantukan will host the Amazing Race and Water volleyball competitions. Magnaga

Waters in Pantukan will host a Bikini Open at 7:00 p.m.

The festival will end on Sunday May 27 with a beach tattoo competition at 8:00 a.m. in Berioso Beach Resort simultane-ous with the start of the regatta fluvial parade competition from Beach-view to Magnaga. (JPA/TOUR-ISM/IDS)

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012 COMMUNITY SENSE 11EDGEDAVAO

     

   

 

 

For  Inquiries:  Please  Call   :   PRYCE  CORPORATION  c/o  SONNY  MOLE  Contact  No.   :   0922-­‐879-­‐0036  /  (082)  224-­‐2686  Email  ADD   :   sonitomole1223@yahoo.com  

LOCATION   AREA  (sq.m.)   PRICE/sq.m.  Matina,  

Davao  City  17,940   P2,500  

Matina(Diversion)  Davao  City  

3,831   P1,500  

Bunawan,    Davao  City  

41,408   P800  

Indangan,  Davao  City  

7,056   P1,200  

Bincungan,    Tagum  City  

27,411   P1,000  

LOCATION   AREA  (sq.m.)   PRICE/sq.m.  Villa  Josefina  Resort  Village,  Dumoy  Toril,  Davao  City  

Minimum  of  240  sq.m.  

P5,985  

St.  Joseph  Homes,  Sirawan,  Toril,Davao  City    

Minimum  of  150  sq.m.  

P3,600  

LOCATION   Lot  Area   Flr.  Area   PRICE  Blk.  4,  Lot  10    

Villa  Josefina  Resort  Village  Dumoy,  Toril,  Davao  City  

240  sq.m.   177.31  sq.m   P4.8  M  

CAMELLA North-point partners with the Philippine Na-

tional Red Cross (PNRC) in teaching hundreds of kids to swim this summer in the Learn to Swim Pro-gram that runs from April 16 up to June 1, 2012.

With 20 participants per swim class and up to two classes a day, each batch will train for one week, producing over 300 new swimmers by the end of the program peri-od. The trainees are from ages five to 15 years old.

The participants are kids mostly from the Bu-hangin area endorsed by PNRC, including children of Camella Northpoint homeowners, their rela-tives or friends.

“Camella Northpoint’s hosting of the swimming program is a way to ex-

tend our camaraderie to our neighbors in the com-munity, and ensuring kids of the condo residents are safe when swimming at our wellness pool,” said Engr. Aurora Jane Marti-nez, Camella Northpoint Property Manager.

Swimming levels of-fered are preschool (Wa-ter Information), Begin-ner Swimming (Water Exploration), Advance Beginner Swimming (Primary Skills), and In-termediate Swimming (Stroke Readiness). To ensure safety and the proper learning of the young participants, six facilitators and aides were on hand to handle each class.

All trainors are cer-tified water safety and swimming instructors, lifeguards and junior life-

guards of PNRC. Adult Lifeguard-trainors are Justine Gonzales, Gher-son Cruz, Kirt Murcia, Adam Parreño, and Les-ter Mogada. Junior life-guard-trainors are Jullian Gonzales, Erick Uy, Jan Uy, Miguel Aranas, Ca-mille Quimno, Jason Mu-ñez, and Farido Ong.

As the swimming program will run up to June 1st, it is still open to accept registrants at the PNRC office or at the Cor-porate Administration Office of Camella North-point. Fee per registrant is P1,000 for a 5-day class session, two hours per day from Monday to Friday.

PNRC will award each participant with a certifi-cate of participation at the end of a successful training.

Camella Northpoint hosts swimming program for kids

TREAT your mom a very special date with nature – and

the entire family! - on Mother’s Day, May 13, 2012, at Eden Nature Park and Resort.

On Sunday, take her to a delightful Mother›s Day lunch buffet spe-cially prepared for her at the resort’s Vista Restau-rant. Surprises and spe-cial give-aways await all

moms.Pamper her with a re-

laxing stay for a night or two at the resort’s cozy mountain lodges and vil-las and let her delight in nature’s splendor at the resort’s breathtaking ex-panse and the many fam-ily-bonding activities.

Make this year’s Mother’s Day truly a very special day to the most important woman in ev-

eryone’s life, only at Eden Nature Park and Resort…Naturally. Make your reservations now, call or visit the Sales Office at Matina Town Square, Matina or call tel. nos. 299 .0313/299.1020/ 296.0791, mobile no. 918.930.7590, email info@edennaturepark.com.ph. Check out their website at www.edenna-turepark.com.ph.

Celebrate Mom’s Day at Eden Nature Park

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 201212 NATION/WORLD EDGEDAVAO

NATION BRIEFS WORLD TODAYUnite

THE three major re-gions of Southeast Asia, China, and In-

dia, must work together for Asia to overcome economic challenges, ac-cording to a top executive from the Asian Develop-ment Bank (ADB).

“The People’s Repub-lic of China, could reach high-income country status, while the Associa-tion of Southeast Asian Nations as a whole and India would be close be-hind. If such goals are achieved, the three re-gions could become the world’s leading consum-ers, producers, savers, in-vestors, and financiers,” said ADB President Har-uhiko Kuroda.

Increase

THE country’s foreign exchange reserves grew 10.9 percent due

to higher valuation of the gold holdings of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), as well as robust earnings from the overseas investments of the central bank.

In a statement, BSP Governor Amando Tet-angco Jr. announced yesterday that the coun-try’s gross international reserves (GIR) reached $75.965 billion in April or $7.477 billion higher than the $68.488 bil-lion booked in the same month last year.

Nullified

MAJORITY of sena-tors filed a joint resolution nullifying

voters’ list of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to ensure clean and honest elections in the region.

The resolution signed by 18 senators also tasked the Commission on Elec-tions to immediately conduct a new general registration of voters in all the municipali-ties and cities in the ARMM.

Questioned

THE Senate has questioned Phil-ippines’ existing

rules in granting immu-nity to diplomats follow-ing a dismissed rape case against a member of a Panamanian embassy.

During the legislative session, Senate Major-ity Floor Leader Vicente Sotto III raised the case of a 19-year-old Filipina who charged a holder of a Panamanian Diplomat-ic Passport of rape last month.

Science tilt

EIGHT young Filipino students will repre-sent the country at

this year’s Intel Interna-tional Science and Engi-neering Fair (Intel ISEF). The delegates will pres-ent their own research studies that aim to build awareness in prevalent social, ecological and economic issues.

One of the partici-pants, 17-year old Elson Ian Galang, will present an eco-friendly and ec-onomically-competitive version of a fabric made of fibers from fragrant screw pine or pandan.

US and Chinese de-fense chiefs pledged to work together on

cyber threats and forge a dialogue on security as both sides steered clear of a dip-lomatic dispute over a top Chinese dissident.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and China’s Defense Minister Liang Guanglie on Monday struck a positive note at a joint press confer-ence at the Pentagon, an-nouncing a joint counter-piracy naval exercise in the Gulf of Aden later this year and tentative plans to coop-erate in the sensitive realm of cyber security.

Liang’s trip marked the first visit by a Chinese defense minister to Wash-ington in nine years and US defense officals were anx-ious to avoid any mention of blind rights campaigner Chen Guangcheng.

Chen “didn’t come up” in the talks and officials had said beforehand that his fate was a subject for US diplo-mats at the State Depart-

DEFENSE CHIEF. Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Liang Guanglie salutes as China’s national anthem is played during an honor cordon at the Pentagon. The Pentagon

hosted Liang in a bid to boost military ties as the United States tried to contain the fallout from a diplomatic dis-pute over a top Chinese dissident. [AFP]

THE Philippine Sen-ate has until the end of May to pass a bill

amending the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) to avert a possible blacklist scenario that would exact a heavy toll on the country’s overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Mindful of this dead-line imposed by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, Senator Teo-fisto “TG” Guingona III repeated his call for the immediate passage of the bill amending the AMLA, as well as the proposed measure against terrorist financing.

Whether the Upper House would be able to pass these bills before the end of May FATF-imposed deadline remains to be seen.

The Senate is having two separate undertakings - as a legislative body pass-ing bills and acting on reso-lutions, among others, and as an impeachment court in the trial against Chief Justice Renato C. Corona.

It goes into a sine-die adjournment on June 8.

Guingona, chairman of the Senate Blue Rib-bon committee, asserted that “time may be running out on our bid to avert the

negative consequences of a blacklisting by countries who are members of FATF.”

The son of former Vice President Teofisto Guin-gona Jr. aired the call amid concerns from the finan-cial, business and labor sectors about the possibil-ity of the blacklisting by FATF member-countries.

Guingona doused spec-ulations that the bid to amend the present AMLA was due solely to the pros-pect of an FATF blacklist.

“As a sovereign nation, no one can force us to do anything,” he said.

“However, we have the obligation to ensure that

our laws address the pub-lic interest and that these are strong enough to pre-vent our country from being used as a haven for money launderers and ter-rorists. When we signed in-ternational com¬mitments against money laundering and terrorism, we commit-ted to establish the proper legal framework to sup-port such commitments,” he said.

Guingona warned that in the past, FATF member-countries have imposed closer scrutiny procedures for financial transactions coming from and going to blacklisted countries.

PHL faces blacklist over Money Laundering Act

SUMMER. Children jump into murky waters to cool themselves off during a hot day in Manila Bay. [REUTERS]

Amid diplomatic row

China’s defense chief at Pentagon

No honeymoon

FRANCE’S president-elect Francois Hol-lande was plunged

straight into the Euro-pean economic debate Monday as doubts over his plans and turmoil in Greece threatened to tip the eurozone back into crisis.

The 57-year-old So-cialist won power on Sunday, ousting right-wing leader Nicolas Sar-kozy, and is due to take office formally on May 15 before embarking on a packed calendar of ma-jor international sum-mits.

No deal

THE White House said Monday that it would not nego-

tiate with Al-Qaeda over the fate of an elderly US aid worker seized in Pakistan, after he made an emotional video plea to President Barack Obama.

“We cannot and will not negotiate with Al-Qaeda,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, adding that officials were greatly concerned for the safety of the aid worker Warren Wein-stein, and were working to find him.

Global threat

THE crisis in Mali could become a threat to global

security if the interna-tional community does not help the coup- and rebellion-hit country, the head of the UN refu-gee agency said Monday.

“We are very worried by what is happening in Mali and its impact on the region,” UN High Commissioner for Refu-gees Antonio Guterres told journalists.

Blind activist

CHINESE ac-tivist Chen Guangcheng said

Tuesday officials have told him they will help him get a passport to leave, but friends and US embassy staff are still being blocked from visit-ing him in hospital.

Chen also said he and his wife were unable to leave the hospital where he is being treated for injuries sustained dur-ing his dramatic flight from house arrest, and for a stomach condition untreated since he was in prison.

Failed

GREECE’S radical leftist Syriza party was set Tuesday

to start trying to build an anti-austerity cabinet and prevent fresh elec-tions, a day after the con-servatives failed to form a coalition government.

Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras was summoned by Greek President Caro-los Papoulias and given three days to form a gov-ernment, with debt-lad-en Greece facing stern warnings from Germany and the EU to stick to its bailout deal.

ment, not the Pentagon.The dissident dramati-

cally escaped house arrest and took refuge at the US embassy in Beijing on April 26, creating a dilemma for

both governments just days before the arrival of US Sec-retary of State Hillary Clin-ton.

Diplomats later said that a deal had been negotiated

allowing Chen to head to the United States with his family to study. But China warned the United States to take measures to avoid a repeat of the Chen incident.

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012 13FFROM 1 FFROM 1

FFROM 3

EDGEDAVAO

Radioman... Session...

Nun...among the indigenous peoples in the Cotabato area, especially in Arakan Valley.

Morales said Matuti-na, like Fr. Pops Tentorio, is leading the anti-mining campaigns in Davao Ori-ental wherein it has 14 Mineral Production Shar-ing Agreements (MPSA), the highest approved mining applications in the region.

“These mining areas are militarized and de-ployed with so-called peace and development teams (PDTs) of 67th and 28th Infantry Battalions who are conducting sur-veillance, harassment and vilification campaigns against leaders and mem-bers of groups opposed to mining intrusion in their communities,” he added.

Panalipdan expressed their alarm over the spate of harassments and kill-ings of environmental defenders perpetrated by State security forces.

The group said they will resist military terror-ism under Oplan Bayani-han as it is their patriotic and prophetic role to de-fend the national patri-mony and the integrity of God’s creation.

The National Union of Journalists of the Phil-ippines (NUJP) said Li-baton is the 152nd me-dia worker killed in the country since 1986 and the 12th since President Benigno Aquino III as-sumed office.

Last month radio re-porter Rommel Palma, 31, of Bombo Radyo, was killed by motorcycle gun-men in Koronadal City, South Cotabato.

Palma was shot in-side a vehicle while wait-ing for companion re-porter, Rey Legario, who was gathering news at the South Cotabato Pro-vincial Hospital.

Libaton is the second broadcaster murdered in Davao Oriental follow-ing Desiderio Camang-yan who was killed on June 14, 2010 while he was hosting an amateur singing contest in Manay town.

Suspect in the Ca-mangyan killing, PO1 Dennis Jess Lumikid, is still on trial.

The NUJP said the country is regarded as among the most danger-ous countries for prac-ticing journalists, noting the frequency of murders of broadcasters and the slow process of justice.

Jessie Casalda, chair of NUJP Davao, said they are saddened by the in-cident which happened a day before the court-scheduled hearing on the petition to bail filed by accused policeman Jessie Lumikid in relation with the murder of Camang-yan.

“We view the Libaton killing as another effort to silence journalists in Davao Oriental, consid-ering that the case of Camangyan has yet to be concluded and Mati jour-nalists have been very vo-cal in seeking justice for their fallen colleagues,” he said.

“Libaton’s killing only shows that the cul-ture of impunity involv-ing media killings still exists and the Aquino ad-ministration has yet to do something about it. Liba-ton was the 12th media-man killed during Aquino administration despite Mr. Aquino’s promise to end these killings and bring the perpetrators to justice,” Casalda added.

“An attack against mediamen is an assault against press freedom, thus, we urge President Aquino to make good his already two-year-old promise,” he said.

cussions? There is no use continuing if there is no quorum. This practice can-not go on. We might as well adjourn,” Quitain said.

Council secretary Charito Santos said there were 18 councilors pres-ent when the session con-vened around 2:00 pm. When Quitain asked for a recount, Santos said there were only 14 councilors still present.

Aside from Quitain, present were Nilo Abellera Jr., Victorio Advincula Jr. Bernard Al-ag Al Ryan Ale-jandre, Conrado Baluran, Louie John Bonguyan, Pi-lar Braga, Arnolfo Cabling, Emmanuel Galicia, Edgar Ibuyan, IP representative Berino Mambo-o, Tomas Monteverde IV, Jackson Reyes, and Jose Louie Vil-lafuerte.

“The matter is, this has already been going on for some time. We start late because there’s no quo-rum. This cannot go on. Why continue when there is no quorum?” Quitain asked his colleagues with undisguised irritation.

Not long after that councilors Danilo Apos-

tol and Leah Librado re-turned to the session hall and Quitain went back up to resume as presiding of-ficer.

Councilor Al-ag who was leading the discussion before the interruption then jested, “We might as well put a comfort room inside the session hall so we won’t have to leave (to answer the call of nature).”

Asked for an inter-view later, Quitain refused to elaborate on his reac-tion to the comings and goings of members which left the session without a quorum.

“Basi mu-ingon sila nga naga pa hero-hero ko. Ayaw na lang,” the coun-cilor said.

The roll call listed as “present” but “late” Coun-cilors Villafuerte who ar-rived at 3:25 pm, Rene Elias Lopez who arrived 3:44, and Karlo Bello at 3:41 pm.

Absent on official business were April Ma-rie Dayap, Jimmy Dureza, Paolo Duterte and Jashera Gonzales. Rachel Zozobra-do was on domestic emer-gency leave.[JADE C. ZALDIVAR]

SUPREME Court (SC) Chief Justice Renato C. Corona vowed to

appear and testify before the Impeachment Court to defend himself, according to Defense panel lawyer Jose “Judd” Roy III.

Roy III said that if the Impeachment Court were inclined that they would address the issue of US$ 10 million, they would willingly confront the is-sue.

The defense asked the Impeachment Court to summon Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, Harvey Keh, Risa Honti-veros, Rep. Walden Bello and seven others over Co-rona’s alleged dollar bank accounts.

However, Roy said that the matter of the US$ 10 million had never been raised in the Impeach-ment Court.

On the other hand, Senate President and Im-peachment Court Presid-ing Judge Juan Ponce En-

rile told the defense that any asset, regardless of whether legally or illegal-ly obtained, is a function of the SALN (Statement of assets, liabilities and net worth).

The defense assured the Impeachment Court that they will present CJ Renato Corona to respond to all the witnesses on the US$ 10-million issue.

Roy said that once these witnesses testify under oath on the al-leged US$ 10 million, they would present evidence to contradict this through the testimony of Corona. [PNA]

CJ Corona vows to appear at impeachment trial

MALACANANG has intervened to avert the five-day

pork and chicken holiday this weekend and called on the Departments of Finance (DoF)and Agri-culture (DA), and the Bu-reau of Customs (BoC) to sit down with the hog and poultry growers in a six-hour emergency meeting on Monday.

Swine and Develop-ment Council (SDC) and United Broiler Raisers Association (UBRA) of-ficials had not completely dropped the threat to mount a holiday, but de-cided to hold it in abeyance for another two weeks to allow the government to implement corrective mea-sures that would eliminate “technical” smuggling and over-importation that had already killed 20 percent of the backyard industry.

“We have agreed to hold in abeyance the mounting of a nationwide five-day pork and chicken holiday because Agricul-ture Secretary Proceso Alcala promised to put in place the corrective mea-sures in two weeks,” said AGAP party-list Rep. Nica-nor Briones.

“So far, so good. We hope this could lead to something more solid and for our demands to be act-ed upon as soon as pos-sible without us having

to resort to a nationwide pork and chicken holi-day,” said Daniel Javellana Jr., council director and chairman of the National Federation of Hog Farm-ers Inc., referring to the meeting with concerned government agencies.

“This was the first time that the pork grow-ers and poultry raisers met with the DoF, DA and BoC officials in one meet-ing,” said Edwin Chen, president of the Pork Pro-ducers Federation of the Philippines.

Customs Commis-sioner Rozzano Rufino Bi-azon, on the other hand, said the demands of the hog raisers and poultry growers were “doable”.

“Most, I already did before the meeting. The others, we just needed to explain to them. It was a good friendly meeting. Just as I said before, mag-usap-usap na lang instead of exchanges through me-dia,” he said.

During the meeting, Biazon told the hog and poultry growers that he had already started a re-vamp in the importation section of the bureau.

“Commissioner Bi-azon and Secretary Alcala agreed to jointly purge the list of existing importers and scrutinize the new set of applicants,” said Durian Tan from the SDC. [PNA

Palace intervenes to avert pork and chicken holiday

‘GEOPOLITICALLY, why would they (Americans) offend China, which is very close to them? There are so many eco-nomic interests at stake here.’

--Senator Joker Arroyo on the United States’ stand on the Philippine-China standoff in Scarbor-ough Shoal. PDI

Quips

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 201214 SPORTS EDGEDAVAO

MANNY Pacquiao quietly slipped unnoticed into

Los Angeles on the day Floyd Mayweather sur-vived Miguel Cotto. When he begins his L.A. train-ing on Monday, expect his booming punches to the mitts and the bags to re-verberate all over the box-ing corners of the world.

With two more spar-ring partners joining

the team, Filipino boxing hero Manny

Pacquiao enters the most difficult stage of his build-up program at Los Angeles’ famous

Wild Card Gym. Monday’s sched-

ule though consists of resumption of working with the mitts with chief trainer and Wild Card owner Freddie Roach plus rounds of punching the heavy bags, the double end ball and speed ball capped with the routine skipping rope.

Russian Ruslan Pro-vodnikov, a power-punching welterweight prospect who had been

trading punches with the World Boxing Organiza-tion (WBO) 147-pound ti-tlist the past three weeks, remains in the rotation when sparring starts Tuesday (L.A. time).

Also helping in the eight-division kingpin’s regimen to prepare for his title-defense con-frontation with Ameri-can Timothy Bradley are 147-pounder Wally Amatoso and one other 140-pound campaigner whose name Roach could not remember.

“The guy, whose name I can’t remember, has been knocking at Manny’s door for a long-time to be one of his sparring partner so we thought to give him a chance,” Roach recalled.

“We’ll be in the most crucial stage of prepara-tion and Manny knows it’ll be way tougher than what we’d been in Baguio,” Roach told this writer in an interview at the airport before members of Team Pacquiao boarded PAL flight 102 for L.A.

“Manny’s been there though many times before

One final grindPacquiao quietly slips into LA

MANNY PACQUIAO

President outlines sports road mapLINGAYEN, Pangas-

inan, May 7 (PNA) — Athletes’ training,

with focus on the interna-tional sports arena, forms part of the Philippines Sports Map until 2016, President Benigno S. Aqui-no III said here Monday.

The Sports Map had been prepared by the Philippines Sports Com-mission, which will focus on the training of athletes in events where Filipinos have greater chances of winning in the internation-al field.

These include boxing, athletics, wushu, bowling, weightlifting and billiards.

The President was ad-dressing the opening rites of the week-long 2012 Palarong Pambansa at the Narciso Sports and Civic Center here, attended by 10,000 athletes from 17 regions.

The President said the government had initially allocated P200 million, comprising 33 percent of the country’s sports de-velopment fund, for hon-ing athletes in identified sports disciplines.

The President outlined the country’s Sports Road Map for 2011-2016 which the President said would help revitalize Philippine sports and guide its quest for the elusive Olympic gold medals.

The President recalled

President Aquino addresses the opening of the 2012 Palarong Pambansa in Lingayen, Pangasinan.in 2011, he launched the Batang Pinoy national sports competition to help develop local athletes in their quest for medals abroad.

Along this line, he had revived the Philippine Na-tional Games to serve as national tryouts for poten-tial athletes from the grass-roots for them to be given a chance to join the Philip-pine team.

The President said his administration has not ne-glected the well-being of persons with disabilities, including inmates in vari-ous jails nationwide.

He said the government

has set aside P5 million so that persons with disabili-ties can continue their par-ticipation in sports activi-ties that will enhance their health and well-being.

At the same time, funds were also allocated so that some 8,000 inmates in various jails could be given regular fitness regimen that can contribute to their good health.

President Aquino laud-ed the Palarong Pambansa whose legacy developed many legends over the years like Lydia de Vega and Elma Muros in athlet-ics, Danny Ildefonso and Marlou Aquino in basket-

ball, Susan Papa and Eric Buhain in swimming, and countless others.

He said the Palaro has served as the stage in mea-suring the strength and ca-pacity of athletes nation-wide who could carry the country’s flag overseas.

Those who welcomed the President at the Pal-arong Pambansa included Gov. Amado Espino Jr. and Education Secretary Armin Luistro as well as former President Fidel Ramos during whose in-cumbency the first Palar-ong Pambansa was held in Pangasinan in 1995. (PNA)

EAT your heart out Floyd Mayweather.

Sunday’s best hit does not appear to be his fight. There’s another fight that stole the show.

Mayweather’s unani-mous win, and I must call it scrappy, over Miguel Cotto on Sunday was overshadowed by anoth-er fight—a fight not even hyped as much as the Kings of the Rings card, and yes, it’s not even planned. It’s now known as the “Thrilla in NAIA.”

The fight that be-came the most watched fight on Sunday was the airport fight between showbiz couple Raymart Santiago and Claudine Barreto and hard-hitting journalist Mon Tulfo.

The airport fight reached one million hits in a matter of hours af-ter it was uploaded on Youtube. The next day, it is the trending topic on social media, not the Mayweather fight.

Mayweather’s fight had become monoto-nous. The shoulder roll. The rope-a-dope. In the end, Mayweather survived a very aggres-sive Cotto with a final round last-impression flurry. And then during the post-fight interview, he said the same words again, ducking Manny Pacquiao and blaming the Filipino’s refusal to take the tests for pre-venting the fight to hap-pen.

Fighting at his big-gest ever, Mayweather displayed the same flam-boyance and defensive genius. He was big with

his punches when they land on Cotto and faster with his hands and feet. Mayweather is essen-tially a skilled fighter. A fighter like him comes once in a generation.

You may dislike him for his cowardice, for his braggadocio, for his flamboyance. But you can’t help but notice he is one hell of a boxer.

It is not easy to pre-dict what happens when Manny Pacquiao takes on Floyd. That is why the only way to know is to see them both on the ring for the fight the world is dying to see.

Floyd will hit deten-tion in June while Man-ny will climb the ring against Timothy Brad-ley. It appears now that Floyd has accomplished his own mission, next up is Manny. It’s like saying, “I have done mine. Let’s see what you got.”

Pressure therefore is now on Manny to survive Bradley.

But for how long will they try to avoid each other?

If they stay clear from each other, might as well see what happens next after in the Thrilla in NAIA fight.

Airport fight, not Mayweather’s, was Sunday’s biggest hit

and, as before, he’ll sur-vive the test and hopefully, win again and have some-thing to dedicate to the country and his people,” Roach said.

Tougher and harder, Roach asserted, because from seven rounds per sparring session, the most while in Baguio, the fre-quency will be increased gradually to eight to nine rounds and up to as high as 12 rounds.

Roach said he hopes the two-day rest the champ enjoyed since ar-riving in L.A. last Saturday would be enough to serve as cushion to the grueling phase he is facing in the fi-nal weeks of preparations.

The five-time trainer of the year, likewise, ex-

pressed hope that the Bible activities that re-mained the only distrac-tion in the training pro-gram so far would be less-ened this time.

“I don’t have prob-lem with that really. But I hope such activities won’t last till dawn as they of-ten happened in Manila,’ Roach said.

“Manny’s preparing for a fight and needs the good rest he could possibly get,” he said. “I was told that there are also many Filipi-nos in L.A. that belong to the same congregation.”

“I hope they’d un-derstand and not bother Manny in times of training. They will have their time anyway after the fight,” Roach avers. (PNA)

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012

EDGEDAVAOMOMS

MY mom would have turned 51 years old this coming June. She died in 2005. I miss my mom terribly. Although we were the an-tagonist in each other’s life, we shared a unique love only the two of us could understand. I was her uni-ca hija... She referred to me as her sweet baby girl, and she was my “sexeh” mom-my. I was Cinderella doing household chores while she played the perennial queen commanding orders. We fought. We hugged. We shouted at each other. The extremities of our love-hate relationship stemmed from a significant difference in behaviour. I didn’t have any semblance of her talents in theatre acting, but I inher-ited her shopaholic gene as well as her passion for dancing. I only try to remem-ber her happy and healthy days. There was never a dull moment with her. She was always bubbly and loving. Even my cousins would seek refuge in our home, turning to my mom for ad-vice. She demanded only the best for her kids. She was strong-willed and had a commanding presence that scared off those who had malicious intensions on her family. Mommy was overly protective of us, so much that I sometimes refrained myself from mentioning to her small accounts of my teacher’s misdemeanours, just to prevent her from barging in the classroom. At one point, the school principal professed she was afraid of crossing paths with my mom, and my teachers avoided talking to me after class hours. Her celebrated career revolved around two of the defining moments in a woman’s life: Pregnancy and childbirth. She pio-neered a childbirth class with this small commu-nity, dedicating her week-ends to educate expecting parents on the joy, stages,

and breathing techniques in championing natural childbirth. On weekdays, she was teacher to toddlers, for which our main living room was re-designed for. Her classroom was home to shiny, happy, and gifted kids with special needs, who she guided through life lessons by infusing theatre acting, puppetry, gardening, and paper crafts into their cur-riculum. She loved taking part in nurturing minds to celebrate and respect life, nature, and talents. My mom’s face was al-ways radiant and youthful. I am lucky she had good genes to pass on to me and my siblings. Her porcelain skin was really incompa-rably flawless. The blem-ish free face radiated with happiness, confidence, and love. Her glowing and healthy skin concealed any signs of a medical condi-tion, which, later on, would take her away from us. Death came without warning. She was diag-nosed as terminally ill, with no sign of weakness in her daily encounters and activi-ties. What was supposed to be a 2-week visit to Davao turned into a 2-month or-deal, beginning with an ambulance scene seeing us rush Mom to an emergency room shortly after leaving the airport. It was sad see-ing her painful ordeal in the intensive care unit. It was even more saddening to witness the glow in her

eyes die out with each day she deteriorated. Before we knew it, she was gone. I held back tears and stood as a strong pillar to keep my family from fall-ing apart. At that time, my head spun with disbelief that despite our efforts to sustain her, nothing could keep her alive. Maybe God just wanted to end her suf-fering. I am missing her all the more now that I am a mother. I sometimes think of how life could have been if she were still alive. For sure, she’d be a doting grandmother to my little girl, and we would have more arguments over par-enting. She would spoil my daughter at sky’s limit. She would be sneaking sweets into my baby’s mouth while I get busy with work. She could have been the solu-tion to my Yaya woes. Then again, as my step father once said, “Kung buhay pa ang mommy mo, hindi ka sana nabuntis!” True. She would have sensed threat and heartache abrewing, and she would have saved me from any complicated relationship. I miss her. I miss hav-ing a mom to fight battles that are too much for me to handle alone. I miss being a daughter. I wish she was here to help me with the little things that bother me. I wish I could still see and hear her reassuring smile

and voice, with arms wide open to hug and comfort me, especially when I’m in my “dazed and confused” state (otherwise known as GGI or gulo-gulo isip). I am still learning of ways to deal with life without

having my mother to guide me, just for her to be able to walk on and move on to better pastures. I don’t want her linger on and worry about me. I want her to en-joy peace in heaven. Mommy, wherever

you are now, I salute you for your strength. You’ve fought a good fight, and you’ve lived your life to the fullest. I will always be proud to have had you as my mother. I love you. Happy Mother’s day!

A daughter’s storyINdulge!

ALLERGIES are an abnormal response of the immune sys-tem where the body’s defens-es react to a usually harmless substance in the environment, such as pollen, animal dander, or food. Almost anything can trigger an allergic reaction, which can range from mild and annoying to sudden and life-threatening. Here are 10 of the most common triggers. Pollen Exposure to pollen from trees, grasses, and weeds can trigger hay fever or seasonal allergies. Symptoms include sneezing, runny nose, nasal congestion, and itchy, watery eyes. Treatments include over-the-counter products, prescription drugs, and al-lergy shots. Prevent symptoms by stay-ing indoors on windy days when pol-len counts are high, closing windows, and running the air conditioning. Animal Dander Proteins secreted by oil glands in an animal’s skin and present in their saliva can cause allergic reactions for some. The allergy can take two or more years to develop and symptoms may not subside until months after ending contact with the animal. If your pet is causing allergies, make your bedroom a pet-free zone, avoid carpets, and wash the animal regularly. A filter and frequent vacuuming may also help. Allergy shots may be beneficial. Dust Mites Dust mites are microscopic organ-isms that live in house dust. They thrive in areas of high humidity and feed on the dead skin cells of humans and their pets, as well as on pollen, bacteria, and fungi. Help prevent dust mite allergies by covering mattresses, pillows, and box springs, using hy-poallergenic pillows, washing sheets weekly in hot water, and keeping the house free of dust collecting-items such as stuffed animals, curtains, and carpet. Insect Stings People who are allergic to stings can have a severe or even life-threatening reaction. Symptoms include extensive swelling and redness from the sting or bite that may last a week or more, nausea, fatigue, and low-grade fever. Rarely, insect stings may cause ana-phylaxis, with symptoms including difficulty breathing, hives, swelling of the face, throat, or mouth, rapid pulse, dizziness, or a sharp drop in blood pressure. For those severely allergic, epinephrine should be administered immediately after a sting; allergy shots are recommended to prevent anaphy-laxis with future stings. Molds Molds produce allergens, irritants, and in some cases, potentially toxic substances. Inhaling or touching mold or mold spores may cause allergic re-actions in sensitive individuals. There are many types of mold; all need moisture to grow. They can be found in damp areas such as basements or bathrooms, as well as in grass or mulch. Avoid activities that trigger symptoms, such as raking leaves. Ven-tilate moist areas in the home. Food Milk, shellfish, nuts, and wheat are

among the most common foods that cause allergies. An allergic reaction usually occurs within minutes of eat-ing the offending food. Symptoms, which can include breathing prob-lems, hives, vomiting, diarrhea, and swelling around the mouth, can be severe. Avoid offending foods alto-gether; but if exposed, treatment for life-threatening reactions with an epi-nephrine injection may be needed. Latex

Latex in gloves, condoms, and cer-tain medical devices can trigger latex allergy. Symptoms include skin rash, eye irritation, runny nose, sneezing, wheezing, and itching of the skin or nose. Allergic reactions can range from skin redness and itching to ana-phylaxis, a serious reaction which can cause difficulty breathing, and hives. Medication Symptoms of allergies to medica-tions, such as penicillin or aspirin, can range from mild to life-threatening and can include hives, itchy eyes, con-gestion, and swelling in the mouth and throat. It’s best to avoid the drug altogether; however, if exposed, treat-ment for mild symptoms with anti-histamines or steroids may be recom-mended. For severe allergy symptoms, epinephrine may be needed. Fragrance Fragrances found in products in-cluding perfumes, scented candles, laundry detergent, and cosmetics can have mild to severe health conse-quences. For most people, symptoms abate once the scent is out of range. For some, repeated exposures cause an increase in symptoms that occur more often and last longer. There’s some debate as to whether fragrance reactions are a true allergy or simply a response to an irritant. Cockroaches Not only are cockroaches creepy, but a protein in their droppings can be a troublesome allergen. It can be dif-ficult to eradicate cockroaches from your home, especially in a warm cli-mate, or if you live in an apartment building where bugs can pass back and forth to a neighboring unit. Treat for roaches by using pesticides, keep-ing a clean kitchen, and repairing cracks and holes in floors, walls, and windows to prevent their entry into the home.

A2 INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012EDGEDAVAOENTERTAINMENTHEALTH

Allergy triggers

Milk, shellfish, nuts, and wheat are among the most common foods that cause allergies. An allergic reaction usually occurs within minutes of eating the offending food.

A3INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012EDGEDAVAOENTERTAINMENTENTERTAINMENT

Can The Dark Knight Rises breach $200 M in its opening weekend? Batman’s Hollywood bosses sound assured that big business for The Aveng-ers will mean big business for The Dark Knight Rises.   “We’ve seen incredible interest this entire year,” Warner Bros. exec Jeff Goldstein says. “The box office has been red hot. This is another example.” “This” was The Avengers’ blowout.  It came on the first weekend of the movie summer that was sup-posed to be, and may yet be, dominated by the final chapter in filmmaker Chris-topher Nolan’s Caped Cru-sader trilogy. “We’ll let  The Aveng-ers  stand on its own, and we’ll let  Dark Knight Ris-es  stand on its own,” says Goldstein. But if Goldstein has to pick a horse, he’s going to go with his studio’s horse: “The movie fans want to see is Dark Knight Rises,” he says. Like Goldstein, Exhibitor Relations box-office analyst Jeff Bock thinks The Aveng-ers’ success may fuel  The Dark Knight Rises’, that the

reset button has been hit on expectations. “That $200 million bar-rier can obviously be reached again,” Bock says. Not that it’s going to be easy for  The Dark Knight Rises, which, as much as anything is tasked with building on the Oscar-winning success of its 2008 predecessor,  The Dark Knight. Unlike  The Aveng-ers, which had an open field, The Dark Knight Ris-es  is opening right in the middle of summer, on July 20. If movies like The Amaz-ing Spider-Man, due out July 3, hang around, Bock thinks The Dark Knight Ris-es may be able to suck up only so much business. Also, unlike  The Aveng-ers,  The Dark Knight Ris-es  will be shown only in 2-D and 2-D IMAX,  and will not benefit from the 3-D ticket prices that made up most of the Marvel movie’s opening-weekend busi-ness. Still, Bock says, “I certainly wouldn’t count out Christo-pher Nolan and Batman.”

That sentiment is being echoed in another place you might not expect: Stark Tower. “I hope The Dark Knight Rises has as big as success as this,” says Dave Hollis, an exec for Disney, which dis-tributed  The Avengers. “I hope they have this.”

RYAN Reynolds and Blake Lively are just the cutest, eh? The seemingly pretty serious couple spent the weekend in Reynolds’ hometown of Van-couver, where they were seen brunching, shopping for grocer-ies, visiting Grouse Mountain and hanging out near Kitsilano Beach, according to eyewit-nesses. All very casual, laid-back stuff. But they also went to dinner with a certain someone who’s very important to Reynolds. That special person would be his mother, Tammy. All this togetherness comes after it was hastily reported that Lively and Reynolds had bought a home together in Bedford, N.Y. It was actually the Gossip Girl star who purchased the place—but it wouldn’t be a stretch to figure that Reynolds has a spare key, now would it? Reynolds had previously spent time with his girlfriend’s family in New York City, includ-ing a double breakfast date with big sis Robyn Lively and her hus-band.

THE Avengers’  historic  $200 million-plus opening weekend is being cheered in a place you might least expect: Gotham City.

Is Ryan Reynolds getting cozy with Blake Lively?

EXPLOR-ING every nook and cranny of a destination can take its toll on every trav-eller espe-cially when exploring i n v o l v e s lots of walking. Believe me, after a couple of days of running about and shopping, the best thing you want to do is to get a nice foot massage and sure enough, wether it be at Hong Kong’s Nathan Road all the way to Singapore, there are foot massage services that cater so every traveller’s weary feet. Singapore’s foot massage is a unique af-fair. Developed by the Chinese immigrants of the Lion City, the foot massage is more like an alternative way to stay healthy with specific pressure points corresponding to the many different parts of the body. Pressing these points allows the masseur to gauge and check your health aside from of course alleviating the pressures stored in your weary feet from days of drudgery. Siem Reap’s take on the foot massage employs not just a masseur but a school of “Dr. Fish” who go to swift work on your feet. Similar to Manila Ocean Park’s fish spa, the fish massage lets you to rest your weary feet in a tub of water while fish nip away at your calluses and dead skin cells. Persons on a diet like me may want to look for a tank with piranhas for instant weight loss but I doubt if any of the fish massages in Siem Reap have that. Of course there are other more traditional foot massages but for the sheer fun of actu-ally experiencing it, the fish massage is one to experience aside from the many stories you can tell.

A4 INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012EDGEDAVAOTRAVEL Traveller’s fixes

for weary feet

ACCUPRESSURE points on your feet and their corresponding body parts.

FEELING the pressure in Singapore.

NO luck looking for a tub of piranhas.

NO luck looking for a tub of piranhas.TRADITIONAL massage offerings are also available for the less adventurous traveller.

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012 15EDGEDAVAO SPORTS

NEW YORK (AP)--Linsanity turned the season around

for the Knicks once, and they are even more des-perate for help now.

Mike Woodson isn’t expecting it.

The interim coach said Monday he wasn’t counting on Jeremy Lin to play Wednesday when his short-handed Knicks visit Miami for Game 5 of their first-round playoff series.

‘’I’m going at this as if he’s not going to play. That’s how it’s been here for the last month, month and a half, and that’s how I’m preparing,’’ Woodson said during a conference call.

Woodson also knows Baron Davis won’t be available after the veter-an guard tore ligaments in his right knee.

Lin became the big-

gest story in the NBA in February when he went from undrafted bench-warmer out of Harvard to starring point guard who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated two weeks in a row. A quick-er-than-expected return from knee surgery would be heavily hyped with the Knicks down two point guards and facing elimination against LeB-ron James, Dwyane Wade and the Heat. But Lin just may not be ready to at-tempt it.

‘’I’ve watched him shoot and run up and down. He’s not in great shape and you know as well as I know that play-off basketball, you’ve got to be at an all-time high, and he hasn’t played in a while,’’ Woodson said. ‘’So I don’t know if that’s going to be a determining factor with the doctors,

and the fact that he hasn’t played. I can say, yes, he looks good, but again, does he feel good? Do the doctors think it’s enough time based on the injury that he’s had to get him out on the floor? I can’t make that decision.’’

Davis and Iman Shumpert have been lost to knee injuries dur-ing this series, leaving only 33-year-old Mike Bibby and seldom-used Toney Douglas at the point guard spot. Lin is close, but Woodson said that only the player and the team’s medical staff would determine when he can get back on the court.

‘’Again, I’d love to have Jeremy out there on the floor in uniform,’’ Woodson said. ‘’Don’t get me wrong, guys. Jer-emy is a big piece of our team. But if the doctors

say, ‘Mike, we’re taking a chance; he shouldn’t be out there playing,’ I can’t be that selfish and say, ‘Son, put on a uniform and play.’ I mean, I just can’t do that.’’

Lin has been playing in 3-on-3 workouts after surgery to repair torn cartilage in his left knee April 2. The Knicks said at the time he was ex-pected to miss six weeks, meaning his season was likely over unless they reached the second round.

He was going to work out again Monday, and the Knicks will practice Tuesday. Woodson said he would prefer to see Lin go through an entire practice with full contact before seeing him in a game against one of the NBA’s fiercest defenses. But there’s just no time for that.

Is Linsanity the last Knicks hope?

DEERFIELD, Ill. (AP) It seemed al-most unthinkable

the Chicago Bulls would be in this spot.

Yet here they are, trailing the Philadelphia 76ers 3-1 in the first round after taking the opener and trying to

avoid elimination as they return home for Game 5 on Tuesday night.

If the Bulls lose, they will be just the fifth No. 1

seed to fall to an eighth seed. It would also give Philadelphia its first se-ries victory since 2003, a scenario few envisioned

when the postseason started.

Guard Richard Ham-ilton says it’s been a ‘’crazy year’’ for Chicago,

and it will take a wild comeback for the Bulls to advance, particularly without injured Derrick Rose.

Bulls will try to dig out of hole in Game 5

LINGAYEN, Pangas-inan, May 7 (PNA) -- Technical Educa-

tion and Skills Develop-ment Authority Director General Joel Villanueva said the government is giving priority to nation-al sports for the sake of Filipino athletes who, he said, embody commit-ment and excellence.

“Sports is the train-ing ground for excellence and leadership, that is why the government gives importance to the Palarong Pambansa,” said Villanueva, who once represented the National Capital Region in the Pal-arong Pambansa.

Villanueva arrived with President Benig-no Aquino III when he graced the opening of the Palarong Pambansa 2012 at the Narciso Ramos Sports and Civic Center here, attended by some 10,000 athletes nation-wide.

“I remember the ex-citement when the team walked onto the court.; I was the point guard and the court general then, and we believed we could excel as leaders and as a

Gov’t giving priority to national sports,

says TESDA DG

team. We aimed high to bring home the gold,” Vil-lanueva reminisced.

The TESDA official admitted he got his first

hard lessons about lead-ership and team work to succeed from being an athlete.

He said when faced

with adversity and chal-lenges, the athlete relies on his strength and his teammates’ cooperation.

While here, he took

advantage to promote TESDA’s technopreneur-ship program.

Villanueva said train-ing to become “TESDA

Specialistas” is one so-lution to the problem of economic insecurity, particularly among the youth. (PNA)

Christina McHale from the U.S. returns the ball during a Madrid Open tennis tournament match against Samantha Stosur from Australia, in Madrid. Right, Maria Sharapova of Russia returns the ball to Irina Camelia Begu of Romania.

Injured point guard Jeremy Lin #17 of the New York Knicks looks on from the bench against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

VOL.5 ISSUE 46 • MAY 9, 2012SPORTS16 EDGEDAVAO

THE Davao Summer-fest training camps formally started on

Monday with young chil-dren from the city’s ba-rangays taking part.

At the Davao City Rec-

reation Center, kids took to the floor at the start of the basketball camp handled by the city’s col-legiate and commercial basketball coaches. The camp will run until May

Davao Summerfest camps open26 and will cover all 182 barangays of the city.

“This is a great start. We have kids from the po-blacion areas in our first sessions before we move to the barangays in the next few days to reach out to kids,” said City Sports Development Office of-ficer-in-charge Pocholo Elegino.

At the Davao Croco-dile Park, barangay kids also took to football for the first time. Partici-pants from Poblacion ar-eas clustered as A and B were the first batch of trainees at the camp han-dled by coaches from the Davao Football Associa-tion (DFA) and the Davao Crocodile Park Football Academy.

“We are happy to see kids play football for the first time. We hope that with this wide base of tal-ents, Davao can produce more talents in this sport in the next few years,” said Neil Bravo, project head of the Davao Sum-merfest sports activities.

The football camp is also expected to cover 182 barangays or close to 2,000 participants in the next three weeks.

In all, about 4,000 chil-dren are expected to take part in the Davao Sum-merfest sports camps—the biggest ever in the city. The event is one of the highlights of this year’s Davao Summerfest which runs for the whole month of May.

Among the other ac-tivities are the forthcom-ing Davao Sports Expo, SWEAT Sports Confer-ence, and the Davao Sum-mer Games comprised of several competitions like mountain biking, football, wakeboarding, sprint triathlon, and three-on-three basketball.

Duaw Davao Festival Foundation is spearhead-ing the event with the full support of the Davao City Government. The Philip-pine Sports Commission through Chairman Richie Garcia has also endorsed the Davao Summerfest.

GENERAL SANTOS CITY-- Soccsaksargen Region’s formidable

boxing team is aiming for a “grand slam” win in the ring events of the ongoing 2012 Palarong Pambansa in Lin-gayen, Pangasinan.

Jade Palomar, Region 12 boxing coach, said his team is ready to defend anew the Palaro boxing champion-ship, which it brought home in the last two national games.

Region 12, which car-ries the Cotabato Regional Athletic Association or

CRAA banner, comprises the provinces of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, North Cotabato and the cit-ies of General Santos, Koro-nadal, Tacurong, Kidapawan and Cotabato.

Palomar said the pre-liminary bouts have been set starting Monday and they expect to gain strong finishes from 2011 Palaro silver medalist Esneth Ray Domingo Jr. of Sultan Kuda-rat province in the mosquito weight division and Boy Bryan Daygon of Sarangani in the paperweight division.

R-12 pugs eye ‘grand slam’ win in Palaro

Nehemiah Simms of Medvil FC in action dur-ing the Medvil FC Davao and Comval FC match in the PFF Suzuki U23 Na-tional Cup eliminations played in Compostela Valley. [DAPOY DIAMANTE]