In a release, Singson said the proper installation of project billboards is part of the DPWH’s transparency efforts.

He also said that these project billboards are very important because they provide information on the name of the contractor, project start date, contract completion date, contract cost, name of consultant for foreign-assisted projects, the DPWH implementing office, and the project’s funding source.

“Some ongoing projects have installed project billboards but with incomplete information,” Singson added.

He also directed the presence of “flagmen” 24/7 to manage the traffic along these ongoing projects, especially along heavily travelled major roads.

Meanwhile, the DPWH chief said that political billboards will not be allowed to be installed 100 meters before and after all DPWH projects, and in between the project limits or within the road right-of-way.

Likewise, contractors are not allowed to place names or pictures of politicians on their equipment or carry political billboard on their equipment. Otherwise, these contractors shall also be held accountable.

Singson enjoins the public to monitor public works projects and report wrongdoings during project construction through the telephone numbers provided in the project billboards or through the DPWH 24/7 hotline 165-02. (DPWH/RJB/JEG-PIA-NCR)

Among the promoted officers were Col. Hernando Iriberri, Col. Remegio M Valdez, and Col. Crisologo Nayve.

A member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1983, he also served as the Department of National Defense (DND) and Philippine Army spokesman.

He was also the Chief of the Unified Command Staff of the Southern Luzon Command.

Meanwhile, Valdez of the Philippine Marines also received his first star while in his post as the Commander of the 3rd Marine Brigade based in Sulu. He also served as Executive Officer of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Education and Traning, J9 of the AFP.

He was also the Deputy Commander of the 1st Marine Brigade based in Isabela City, Basilan.

Lastly, Nayve also received his first star with his promotion to Brigadier General. He is the current Chief of the Office for Defense Reform of the DND. He was also the Executive Officer of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Communication, Electronics and Information Systems, J6 of the AFP.

AFP Chief of Staff General Jessie D Dellosa congratulated the newly promoted officers and expressed his gratitude to them for their “continued hard work, dedication to their duties, and contribution to the betterment of the AFP organization.”

“Your promotion to the rank of general comes with greater challenges and rising expectations from the people you have sworn to serve. I am very confident that you will continue to outdo yourself further as you remain dedicated and committed to your respective duties and responsibilities. Continue on with your selfless service to the Filipino people and to the country that you are mandated to protect and secure,” Dellosa said. (AFP/RJB/JRCA-PIA-NCR)

Clad in his signature yellow shirt, the President arrived at the opening of the Palarong Pambansa 2012 here to the cheers of the more than 30,000 crowd in attendance from the 17 regions of the country, as he stated the government programs for sports development.

As he formally opened the national games, President Aquino congratulated and saluted the athletes who have gone through rigid trainings and practices to showcase their skills and talents in various sports events.

For the Palarong Pambansa 2012, the national government through the Department of Education (Deped) allotted P200 million to ensure that athletes are properly provided with their needs and that the entire event would go on smoothly, the President revealed.

The 2011-2016 Philippine Road Map of the Philippine Sports Commission, he said, is also in place and one of its feature is the Focused Sports Policy where several sports events will be given utmost priority, to include boxing, taekwondo, athletic, swimming, archery, bowling, weightlifting and billiards.

Almost P200 million or 33 percent of the annual remittance under the Sports Development Fund will be allotted for the improvement of sports in the country, he added.

Aside from the Palarong Pambansa, the government has started the Batang Pinoy program in 2011 which centers on honing the sports talent of the youth.

The Philippine national games will also be revived and will serve as a national try- out grounds for athletes from the grassroots level.

“Ito ang magbibigay sa kanila (mga atleta) ng tsansa na makapaglaro sa national team, (This will give them a chance to play in the national team), he said.

The try-outs will start in Dumaguete City soon, he said.

The President said the government will not end its focus on the youth sports but will also shower its resources on sports development for persons with disabilities (PWDs) and inmates.

At least P5 million pesos was allotted for PWDs and at least 8,000 inmates from all over the country were given fitness regimen to care for their health.

Sports development is part of the Aquino administration’s Millennium Development Goals to promote health care and physical fitness for Filipinos. (ANL/VHS-PIA 1 Pangasinan )

“Selecting job applicants can be a tough challenge for employers. They may need more time to review job applications, to go over details of their credentials, and to interview candidates,” Baldoz added.

“Time invested in careful hiring procedures saves time and helps lessen incompatible job placements, which in the long run, will contribute to the goal of providing decent and productive work for all,” she further explained.

She advises applicants to be optimistic and to be patient as there are enough job vacancies and livelihood opportunities for everyone who applied.

“The processing and hiring by the employers will continue after the job fair, and the DOLE will monitor that,” she added.

Baldoz stressed that jobseekers must register onto Phil-Job.Net so they can be assured that their job applications will not be put to waste because the Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) will closely monitor the status of the applications through this jobs-matching facility.

As of press time, there were a total of 360,777 job vacancies offered by 1,706 employers across the 16 regions of the country. Of the number, 74,352 vacancies are offered by 1,085 local employers, while the rest – 286, 425 – are overseas vacancies.

This year’s Labor Day celebration theme is “Pagtutulungan. Pagbabago. Disenteng Trabaho.” (DOLE/LFB/RJB-PIA NCR)

Provincial DOST Officer Alfonso Berto identified the passers as Mara Cleofe Balitnang of St. Tonis College and Aden Ace Rivera of the Tabuk National High School.

He said the successful examinees will undergo orientation on the scholarship guidelines this coming May at the DOST Cordillera Regional office at La Trinidad, Benguet. “The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding will follow after the orientation with the presence of both or one parent or guardian,” Berto said.

DOST scholars are entitled to P6,000.00 per semester tuition and other school fees; P5,000.00 a year for book allowance; round trip transportation allowance; P5,000.00 stipend for those taking Physics courses, Geology and Mining engineering; and P4,000.00 for those taking other DOST-SEI priority courses.

Berto said government is continuing to provide scholarship grants to those deserving students in support to the country’s bid to be at par in the industrialization race with developed neighboring nations.

“In the pursuit of a science and technology-led economy, we have to tool our human resources through scholarship awards for students with high aptitude in science and mathematics and willing to pursue fields of science and technology,” Berto explained. (PAB/PIA-CAR/Kalinga)

This is the result of the recently concluded nine-month research jointly undertaken by the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (DA-PhilMech) and the Department of Science and Technology-Industrial Technology Development Institute (DOST-ITDI), an agency statement said.

DA-PhilMech Executive Director Ricardo L. Cachuela said, the country can easily meet its pectin requirements as mango peels can be used as raw material to manufacture pectin using a simple extraction process.

“We consider this a breakthrough, since up to now, the country imports all of its pectin requirements. Based on the nine-month research where trials were conducted at the laboratory, production of pectin from mango peels can be upscaled at the commercial level,” Cachuela said.

The cost of imported pectin is estimated at around P27,000 per kilogram. Laboratory-scale production of pectin from mango peels costs only about P6,000 per kilogram. Government data showed that the country imported around 93,150 kilograms of pectin in 2008.

Pectin is a group of carbohydrates used as a stabilizer, and gelling and thickening agent by the food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries.

Based on the findings of the Bio-Processing Engineering Division of DA-PhilMech headed by Dr. Cristina Gragasin, in tandem with Dr. Rosalinda C. Torres of the DOST-ITDI, 5 kilograms of mango peels can be used as raw material to come up with a kilogram of pectin.

The quality of the pectin produced from mango peels, according to the research, is comparable to pectin made from apple pomace. Another popular raw material for the manufacture of pectin is citrus peelings.

Mango presents a better opportunity for the Philippines to produce pectin as the country’s mango farms have an output of around 884,000 metric tons per year.

DA-PhilMech and DOST-ITDI undertook the research on making pectin from mango peelings as the mango processing industry produces tons of peelings every years and mango peelings are usually thrown away. (LFB/RJB/DA-PIA NCR)

The 36 entrepreneurs are members of four organized Self-Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran (SEA-K) associations from the cities of Caloocan, Manila, Parañaque and Valenzuela, a release from the agency said.

The amount of P325,000 was distributed to the 36 individuals with capital assistance ranging from P3,000 to P15,000 through the Tulong Puhunan Ahon Kabuhayan Project of the Philippine Good Work Foundation (PGWF) and the DSWD’s SEA-K livelihood assistance program.

Ronald Villar, an individual recipient said, “I hope that I will be able to save for my own capital not to rely anymore on loans.”

Villar started his buy and sell of scrap materials business with his first loaned capital of P5,000 through SEA-K in January 2010. He fully paid the amount in six months and applied for a second loan in August 2010 amounting to P8,000 and his third loan was in the amount of P10,000.

His buy and sell business progressed and he was able to put up his own junk shop. To increase his capital and further expand his business, he again applied for additional capital assistance and was granted the amount of P15,000 in March 2012.

Ahon Kabuhayan is one of the projects of PGWF which uses the Self-Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran (SEA-K) scheme. It aims to alleviate the plight of the poor by providing them assistance to start a small business or augment their existing capital.

Meanwhile, DSWD identifies beneficiaries and provided capacity building through conduct of Basic Business Management Training (BBMT) to the members of the SEA-K associations. (DSWD/RJB/LFB-PIA NCR)

“This isn’t the usual marijuana eradication operation, because the objective was to search and destroy the deeply concealed cannabis plantations hidden and unreachable only by foot patrol,” revealed Director Gil Cesario P. Castro, of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) – Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

PDEA – CAR’s Operation Plan (OPLAN) “Cliffhanger 2” last April 16 to 20 was undertaken with air assets of the Philippine Air Force (PAF) 1st Air Division (1AD) Tactical Operations Group (TOG) 1, which enabled law enforcers to locate and eradicate 51 marijuana cultivation sites in Bakun and Kibungan, Benguet. According to Castro, these sites had been untouched since the 1980s, and their cannabis produce represent about 30 to 40 percent of the marijuana supply at the national level.

Uprooted or seized during the five-day massive eradication operation were 1.40 tons of dried marijuana stalks; 503,214 full-grown cannabis plants; 44,500 marijuana seedlings; 16 kilos of dried cannabis fruiting tops; and one kilo of marijuana seeds with overall Dangerous Drugs Board value of P260,972,800.

The marijuana plantations, having an aggregate land area of 2.56 hectares, were situated in five sitios of Kayapa, Bakun, Benguet accounting for 18.74 percent of the plantation area, and three sitios of Tacadang and two sitios of Badeo, both in Kibungan, Benguet or 81.26 percent of the aggregate area.

The marijuana cultivation sites were found in treacherous, towering rocky mountains and cavernous, steep-sided valleys, needing some of the operating units to rappel or cross rivers. The rows of cannabis plants were likewise interspersed between rows of corns or vegetables. Still, some were concealed by sunflowers and other shrubs. The harvested stalks were also hidden among the bushes, in the cemeteries or inside caves. Watering hoses, pesticide sprayers, and commercial fertilizers for the marijuana plants were likewise found in place.

“High-impact adrenaline rush infused our agents to rappel the cliffs just to reach and stomp out the cannabis plantations. Tensions even arose as one of the teams was able to hit a marijuana brick processing site, in which suspected narco-terrorists with assault rifles tried to engage the anti-drug operatives,” Castro informed.

The processing site was discovered underneath a big rock, where a heavy-duty hydraulic jack, one marijuana brick molding box made of iron, wooden separator plates, dried cannabis fruiting tops wooden compressing box with a wooden compressor and other paraphernalia for converting the fruiting tops into brick form were confiscated.

The nine-team regiment of anti-narcotic units was composed of operatives from PDEA – CAR, PAF 1AD TOG1, Police Regional Office – Cordillera, Philippine Army 5th Infantry Division 503rd Brigade Civil Military Operations Battalion and Military Intelligence Group 1, National Bureau of Investigation – CAR, and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group – CAR.

Except for some representative samples, the uprooted or seized marijuana were burned on-site. The samples were publicly razed in a ceremonial burning at the Camp Bado Dangwa ground last Friday at around 4:30PM, witnessed by Chairman Ronnie Ricketts of the Optical Media Board of the Philippines, the mass media, local government units, civil society groups and the operatives.(PIA CAR/Emelyn Fama-PDEA CAR)

The loan condonation program is applicable to private employees who are now individual paying members due to their separation from their previous private employer because they have either resigned or retired and had incurred an outstanding, unsettled loans from the SSS.

SSS Bangued branch manager Benedicta Garcia is calling on applicants for retirement who have outstanding loan balances that have become delinquent to file their application for loan condonation before the SSS applies or deducts their outstanding loan balances from their retirement benefits or disability benefits, whichever is applicable.

Meanwhile, SSS Bangued explained the process in the application for other claims such as the claim for disability benefits and sickness benefits.

In an interview with Eric Andrada, the Administrative Officer of SSS Bangued over the local radio here, he said, the diagnosis of the government doctors on the SSS members applying for disability benefits are evaluated by their own medical doctors who come to Bangued every second Thursday.

The SSS doctors conduct the final evaluation of their diagnosis to determine the degree of disability. Members who do not recover from their illnesses after two years of medical treatment may file for either partial or permanent disability whichever is applicable.

The sickness benefit on the other hand is given to employees or members who get sick for a minimum of four days. The sickness benefit can also be extended to the member even during the recuperation period for as long as the member does not report for job. SSS pays for the total number of days that the member had not reported for duty in his job.

For the sickness benefit, members are given 120 days per year. If after two years, the patient-member does not recover from his sickness, he may file for either partial or permanent disability depending on the degree of his disability as determined by the SSS doctors. (MTBB/PIA CAR, Abra)

Police Senior Supt. Valfrie Tabian, PNP provincial director, said few crime incidents and and car accidents have been recorded by their agency since the observance of the Lenten holidays from April 4 to 9.

“Despite these incidents, the observance of the Lenten holidays in the province is still peaceful and orderly because of the plan that we have implemented and carried out inorder to secure the devotees as well as commuters who spent their vacation in various provinces,” Tabian said.

He also attributed the peaceful condition of the Lenten holidays in Nueva Vizcaya on the visibility and support of policemen along with volunteer civic organizations who put up their traffic assistance alongside the national highway from Sta. Fe town to Diadi town.

There was no untoward incident was reported during the observance of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion on the top of Bangan Hill, which was participated by devotees, according to Tabian.

On the night of April 8, a heavy traffic temporarily stranded commuters along the national highway in Bambang town as two vehicles suffered brake failure and ramped on the portion of a road being constructed in Barangay TopHill.

“But this incident has been solved immediately because of the assistance of other agencies and civic organizations,” said Police Chief Inspector Wilfredo Velayo, Bambang town chief of police. (TCB/BME-PIA 2 Nueva Vizcaya)