Aquino announces incoming Cabinet officials
Manila (29 June) — President-elect Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III this afternoon announced in a press conference the composition of his Cabinet and some key positions, which include two incumbents who retain their posts in the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine National Police.
The rest of the officials are a mixture of former Cabinet members in the administrations of Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, as well as new personalities from the academe and the private sector. Aquino also announced that he will serve in concurrent capacity as Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
The announced oficials include:
1. Executive Secretary: Paquito Ochoa
2. Secretary of Foreign Affairs: Alberto Romulo
3. Secretary of Finance: Cesar Purisima
4. Secretary of Justice: Leila L. de Lima
5. Secretary of National Defense: Voltaire Gasmin
6. Secretary of Education: Bro. Armin A. Luistro
7. Secretary of Budget and Management: Florencio “Butch” Abad
8. Secretary of National Economic and Development Authority: Cayetano L. Paderanga Jr.
9. Secretary of Agriculture: Proceso V. Alcala
10. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources: Ramon Paje
11. Secretary of Transportation and Communications: Jose ‘Ping’ de Jesus
12. Secretary of Labor and Employment: Rosalinda Baldoz
13. Secretary of Health: Dr. Enrique T. Ona
14. Secretary of Tourism: Alberto A. Lim
15. Secretary of Trade and Industry: Gregory L. Domingo
16. Secretary of Social Welfare and Development: Corazon ‘Dinky’ Soliman
17. Secretary of Science and Technology: Dr. Mario G. Montejo
18. Secretary of Energy: Jose Rene V. Almendras
19. Secretary of Public Works and Highways: Rogelio Singson
20. Secretary of Agrarian Reform: Virgilio delos Reyes
21. Secretary of the Commission on Higher Education: Patricia Licuanan
22. Secretary of the Presidential Management Staff: Julia Abad
23. Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines: MGen. Ric David
24. Director General of the Philippine National Police: Jesus Verzosa
25. Presidential Spokesperson: Edwin Lacierda
26. Presidential Legal Counsel: Eduardo de Mesa
27. Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process: Teresita ‘Ging’ Deles
28. Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue: Kim Henares
Aquino said the structure of the Government Communications Group is still being finalized.
Sub-cabinet positions will likewise be announced later. (vmg/PIA)
PGMA signs EO removing tariff on 4 imported items
Manila (29 June) — THE government has removed the tariff on imported steel, asphalt, crude oil and petroleum products.
“The elimination of three percent rates of duty on said products imported from non-ASEAN countries will address the tariff distortion,” the EO said.
The decision to remove the tariff on the said products was reached during the May 25 meeting of the National Economic Development Authority Board.
Mrs. Arroyo also signed the executive order that will effectively reduce the price of steel products by removing the tariff on imported hot rolled coils (HRC) and cold rolled coils (CRC).
Despite the efforts of Global Steel Philippines Inc. (GSPI) to defer it, the law was signed last June 22 as Executive Order 898. (PIA-Bohol)
Arroyo years saw dramatic surge of RP ICT sector
Manila (29 June) — Many milestones in the country’s information, communication and technology (ICT) sector have been achieved under the term of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, according to the national commission that pursues ICT buildup in the country.
Among the milestones achieved under the President’s watch according to Chua, was the historic automated national elections last May which has been long planned as a priority project of the outgoing Chief Executive.
The country’s first automated polls, Chua said, modernized the country’s electoral process and ensured credibility in the results.
“In general it was a very successful automated election where results were delivered with speed and results made available on the day of the exercise. This brought credibility to a process much-maligned in the past,” he said.
Another achievement, according to Chua, was the dramatic surge of the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector which has been a major contributor to economic development as the industry chipped in more than US $7 billion in export revenues last year.
Chua said that from 2,000 employees in the year 2000, Philippine BPO employment grew tremendously to about 500,000 at present.
He pointed out that the country has already made a name for itself as one of the leaders in ICT after the national outsourcing association in the United Kingdom named the Philippines as the “off-shoring destination of the year” for the second time last year.
“Now we are seen as the number 2 player in the world next to India which is something for a country of our size and our level of development,” Chua said.
In terms of technology use in education, Chua said that one of the most important initiatives of the President is to computerize all 6,000 public highs schools in the country. He said that the government to date has already placed computer laboratories in 5,000 schools with about 4,000 equipped with internet connectivity.
Chua said that the country today has 70 million mobile subscribers compared to 6 million users in 2000. “Practically every Filipino has a mobile phone,” Chua said.
He also highlighted that 24 million people in the country already have access to internet, buttressing CICT’s mandate to provide the technology for every Filipino. (PIA-MMIO)
DENR launches cadastral survey project in Camarines Sur
by AS Araya
Legazpi City (29 June) — A cadastral survey project is now ongoing in Pasacao,Camarines Sur, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources here said.
At the launching program Noble appealed for support and asked all the barangay chairmen, and officials present to inform their respective constituents about the importance of the cadastral project.
“We need the support and cooperation of all, especially the landowners and claimants so that the project can be completed successfully,” Noble said.
Cadastral survey refers to survey made to determine the metes and bounds of all parcels within an entire municipality or city for land registration and other purposes. (DENR V/PIA)
NVizcaya forms anti-smoking task force
by Ben Moses Ebreo
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya (June 29) — In line with the enactment of an ordinance prohibiting smoking in public places and conveyances, provincial officials here have formed a task force designed to oversee its proper implementation and enforcement at the provincial capitol.
Virginia Galapon, project coordinator of the anti-smoking program here said the task force is composed of local as well as national government agencies such as the Provincial Human Resource Management Office (PHRMO), Provincial Health Office (PHO), Provincial Planning and Development officer (PPDO), Provincial General Services Officer (PGSO), Civil Service Commission (CSC), Philippine National Police (PNP) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) such as the Federation of Jeepney Drivers and Owners, academe, religious sector and media organizations and agencies.
The anti-smoking ordinance dubbed Ordinance No. 2010-049 or An Ordinance Prohibiting Smoking in Public Places Including Public Conveyances, Imposing Penalties for Violations Thereof and Providing Funds Therefore and signed by governor Luisa Cuaresma in March this year took effect in June 21 and started with an intensified tri-media information campaign.
Stickers have been posted in various places within the provincial capitol grounds as part of its information, education and communication program, according to board member Edgardo Balgos, main author of the ordinance.
Selling of cigarettes among canteens and transient vendors within the provincial capitol have been prohibited as part of anti-smoking ordinance implementation.
The anti-smoking ordinance, otherwise known as the Smoke-Free Ordinance of Nueva Vizcaya also imposes penalties among violators such as P1,500 for the first offense, P2,500 for the second offense and P5,000 for the third and subsequent offenses.
Galapon said the task force will be formulating its roles immediately after the issuance of an executive order and the implementing rules and regulations of the anti-smoking ordinance to put teeth for its enforcement.
“The ordinance is still piloted within the provincial capitol but it will be enforced provincewide when other local government units will be adopting the same in their respective communities,” she said. (PIA NVizcaya)
Educators honor PGMA
Manila (25 June) — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was honored yesterday by the country’s biggest organization of private schools with a testimonial event in Malacanang during which her support to the country’s private education sector was highlighted.
The umbrella-group Philippine Association of Private Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAPSCU) also thanked the outgoing Chief Executive for including the private education in her priority programs.
“When you made the pronouncement that the Filipino nation should take advantage of the flatness of the world and move into the first world in 20 years and created the Presidential Task Force for Education (PTFE) to assess, plan and monitor the entire educational system, making a firm commitment to truly improve the educational system towards producing a globally-competitive workforce, nurturing the future leaders of our nation and thereafter adopting the recommendations and action plan for the implementation of the Philippine Main Education Highway, Your Excellency reminded us that the human mind is the nation’s fundamental resource and that our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education,” the PAPSCU said in a certificate of recognition given to the President.
The certificate was signed jointly by Jose Paulo E. Campos, PAPSCU president; Alejandro Escano, vice president of the Technical Vocational Schools Associations of the Philippines (TEVSAPHIL); Vicente Fabella, president of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU) and; Daniel Dial, president of the Association of Christian Schools Colleges and Universities (ACSCU).
Summing up its role in the country’s education sector, PAPSCU officials said that private education helps enrich democracy. And they added they were gratified by the President’s support to private education.
“Unlike its public counterpart, private education rarely developed according to a national plan where there is a dominant blueprint for forms, structures, pursuits and policies. Nobody can safely predict the total shape of private education in the future, or its size. And variation not only enhances the public-private partnership in education, it also enriches democracy,” the manifesto said.
The President was then handed the plaque of recognition for the “education legacy you left the Filipino people. Thank you for this and we hope you continue to support private education and consider it a priority of your legislative agenda,” the manifesto said. (PIA-MMIO)
PGMA’s budget reforms, lower debt payments freed more funds for eco and social services
Manila (25 June) — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s reforms instituted at the Department of Budget and Management, have substantially improved the national budget process and efficiency, allowing government to pour in more funds to economic and social services.
“These reforms have helped us strengthen fiscal consolidation. From 2001 to 2009, there is a downward trend in the budget deficit,” Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Undersecretary Laura Pascual in a news conference in Malacañang yesterday.
She said the reforms have made the budget strategy-based and result-oriented and improved the efficiency of budget execution.
“Allocation of budget is now focused on actual outputs. If the project is not implemented, there will be an impact in the release of funds and on the budget for the following year. So, there is more pressure on agencies to deliver,” Presidential Spokesperson Ricardo Saludo explained.
Pascual said the DBM has pushed the implementation of public expenditure management that resulted to a decrease in government disbursements, from 19.9 percent to 17.1 percent in 2008.
Pascual credited this achievement to the decline of personnel services and debt interest payments due to improved deficit control.
“With the decline in the amount allocated to debt payments, resources were allocated more and more to economic services, which includes infrastructure projects, particularly in transportation,” Pascual said.
From 2000 to 2009, budget allocation for economic services increased by 128 percent (or 14 percent a year), from 167 billion in 2000 to 382 billion in 2009.
Allocation for social services grew by 112 percent (or 12 percent a year), from 213 billion in 2000 and 452 billion in 2009.
On improving the efficiency of budget execution, Pascual said the DBM has exercised the early release of budget and faster funds utilization by agencies.
She said the government has implemented the semestral release of Notice of Cash Allocations (NCAs) which lapses monthly.
She added the DBM has also examined books and advise agencies on the proper use of funds.
“This improves fund utilization and enables agencies to save funds,” she said. (PIA-MMIO)
CAR leaders thank PGMA; confer on her “Mother of Cordillera” title
Manila (25 June) — Leaders from the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) trooped to Malacanang yesterday (June 24) to bid President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo farewell as well as thank her for her support to the development of CAR.”
Governor Eustaquio Bersamin of Abra, Mayor Reinaldo Bautista, Jr. of Baguio City, Gov. Nestor Fongwan of Benguet, Representative Solomon Chungalao and Gov. Maximo Dalog of the Mountain Province heaped praise on the President saying that the development projects she initiated in the region have lifted the lives of Cordillerans.
Bersamin thanked the President for her scholarship and social re-integration program which has provided deserving students employment opportunities that resulted in the increase in the number of rebels returning to the fold of the law. CAR used to be an operational area of a renegade group of communist rebels.
Bautista called the President “our loving mother,” and said that her holiday-tourism promotions including spending her summer and Christmas vacations in Baguio City have boosted the city’s image as the country’s summer capital.
Fongwan expressed the thanks of the people of Benguet sustaining the province’s vegetable production and for her pioneering efforts to ensure the freshness and affordability of produce from Benguet farms through the establishment of cold chain storage facilities and the construction of more farm-to-market roads.
Chungalao and Dalog, meanwhile expressed what they said were their “eternal and endless gratitude” for the President’s show of “so much concern and support” for the development projects in CAR.
These milestone projects include:
1. the rehabilitation of the Halsema-Mt. Data to Bontoc and Bontoc to Banaue roads and the Bontoc-Lugwagan, Tabuk-Tuguegarao, and the Baguio City-Cayapa-Nueva Vizcaya roads, among others;
2. the construction of numerous farm-to-market roads throughout CAR;
3. the establishment of the Benguet cold chain storage and the La Trinidad fruit and vegetable mini-processing plant;
4. the construction of irrigation projects for some 9,700 hectares of agriculture land throughout the region;
5. the designation of Baguio City as the northern node of the Philippine Cyber Corridor benefitting a total of 79,950 from the marginal sector;
6. the establishment of the Cordillera Regional Development Council; and;
7. support to the renewed pursuit of Cordillera regional autonomy.
In his welcome remarks, Environment Secretary and Cabinet Official for Regional Development-CAR Horacio Ramos lauded the President, thus: “These milestones may be her legacy for the Cordillera but for us, they are the foundations for renewed economic development opportunities for our generation and generations yet to come.”
“Notwithstanding some criticisms on her leadership, her Excellency has actually cemented her place in the history of the Cordillera and we Cordillerans will be forever grateful for the economic development projects and initiatives you have established and initiated for us,” Ramos added.
After the testimonials, the President was conferred the “In-Inan di Kordilyera” (Mother of the Cordillera) title by way of Resolution CAR-024 of the Cordillera Regional Development Council which expresses deep gratitude to Her Excellency for her unprecedented attention and full support to the CAR. The President left Cordillera a legacy of improved development foundation by which Cordillerans will continue to pursue efforts towards a personally more dignified and better quality of life, said the Resolution.
The President was then presented with tokens of appreciation from the participants consisting of beads and a intricately woven coat.
The head beads, according to Presidential Assistant Armando Galimba, represent wisdom and sovereignty while the beads woven to form a necklace represent enduring leadership and motherhood.
The coat, meanwhile, will “provide” protection for the President. (PIA-MMIO)
Three Bicol rivers not biologically dead – EMB
Legazpi City (25 June) — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) in Bicol has maintained that three rivers in the region reported earlier as biologically dead are actually not dead at all, according to the agency’s regional official.
Engr. Gilbert Gonzales, DENR-EMB Bicol regional director, recalled that Anayan (Camarines Sur), Malaguit (Camarines Norte) and Panique (Masbate) rivers were earlier reported as biologically dead by media outlets here that prompted uncalled alarm among the residents directly gleaning resources from the rivers.
Gonzales averred the bureau has been conducting surveillance, sampling and monitoring of the rivers to verify their status and environmental quality, consequently found out that these rivers remain in fact being utilized by communities along them.
Paracale and Malaguit rivers are classified as Class C waters while Anayan river is listed in Class D waters as stated in the 2009 annual assessment report pursuant to DAO 34 series of 1990.
“This means that these Class C inland waters could be utilized as fishery water for the propagation and growth of fish and other aquatic resources, recreational water (boating etc.) and industrial water supply for manufacturing processes after treatment, meanwhile Class D waters could be utilized for irrigation, agriculture, livestock watering and industrial water supply for cooling, etc,” Gonzales explained.
Though the average dissolve oxygen (DO) level for Anayan River was 6.3 mg/L, Malaguit River – 7.4 mg/L and Panique River – 7.4 mg/L concentration level respectively, however, pH (basicity and acidity of water), temperature (T) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) were also considered in the classification and assessment. Results concluded that it passed minimum requirement.
The term biologically dead which likely mean lifeless (anaerobic environment) or zero dissolved oxygen is not applicable in these rivers since as per assessment by the EMB, there are various aquatic livelihood undertakings such as fish cages, aquaculture and crab fattening that are predominant in the area.
Moreover, the bureau assured the public that a more intensive and pro-active program of action is underway to maintain and hopefully elevate these rivers’ environmental quality. (EMB V/PIA)
Eagle Quiz’s 20th year continues to charm studes
Legazpi City (25 June) — The premier environmental quiz challenge, the Eagle Quiz, in the country continues to charm elementary and high school students evident of the significant increase in the number of participants since the project’s inception in 1990.
Now on its 20th year, the Eagle Quiz, will be spearheaded anew by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) regional office here for the provincial and regional finals this June in line with the Environment Month celebration, DENR-EMB Regional Director Gilbert Gonzales said.
“The EQC continues to draw support from participants and cooperators region wide, as only environmental quiz challenge in the country every year it draws an increasing number of contestants from the six provinces,” Gonzales revealed.
DENR Bicol is optimistic of a continuing success in the coming years through the support and cooperation of all the field offices, the major sponsors, the Energy Development Corporation, UNOCAL Philippines, Inc. (formerly known as Philippine Geothermal Inc.) co-sponsored by the Pollution Control Association of the Philippines-Bicol chapter (PCAPI-V), all the participating schools and students, and parents.
The provincial eliminations of the EQC was held June 22, 2010, while the regional finals or the “Battle of the Eagles” that will be heralding new breed of champions as 12 contenders from the elementary and secondary levels outwit each other at the Bicol University, Legazpi City on June 29, 2010. (EMB V/PIA)
