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A GROUP of officials in Cebu has strongly condemned the attacks directed at Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco over the country’s controversial new tourism slogan and campaign video that turned out to have included images from other countries.

In a manifesto posted on Monday, July 3, 2023, 11 House representatives, and 54 mayors and members of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP)-Cebu Chapter expressed their support for the secretary of the Department of Tourism (DOT).

Daanbantayan Mayor and LMP-Cebu President Sun Shimura approved the manifesto that was noted by LMP-Cebu Secretary Pablo John Garcia IV.

The manifesto said the attack was a product of “patent mudslinging and dirty politicking” targeting the reputation of Frasco.

Economic recovery

On the same day, the Cebu Provincial Board approved a resolution supporting the DOT’s newest slogan “Love the Philippines,” that aims to further promote the country as a top tourist destination.

“The entire Province of Cebu finds it imperative to fully support this initiative, as it also resonates with the province’s efforts to fully utilize the benefits of tourism for economic recovery, economic growth and countryside development,” the resolution reads.

The manifesto described the fiasco as “a coordinated demolition job” against Frasco’s leadership of the country’s tourism sector.

“We maintain that this barrage of criticisms in social and mainstream media is aimed at destroying neither the DOT nor the concerned private advertisement agency, but Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco herself,” the local officials said in the manifesto.

“We strongly believe this demolition job to be perpetrated by individuals with their own questionable agenda, perhaps to sway the trust and confidence of President (Ferdinand) Marcos (Jr.) in a Cebuana,” it added.

However, the manifesto did not specify who was behind the alleged demolition job.

The manifesto added that Frasco was a valuable asset among President Marcos’s Cabinet members for conducting herself in a “most commendable manner” for both domestic and international audiences.

Frasco ranked second to Interior Secretary Benjamin “Benhur” Abalos Jr. among the top-performing Cabinet officials in a recent survey, according to the manifesto, which also cited Frasco’s election as vice president of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) General Assembly and chairperson of the UNWTO Commission for East Asia and the Pacific during the recent 55th meeting of the world tourism body.

In fact, it was the Philippines, represented by Frasco, that was elected vice president and chair, according to the DOT’s press statement on the June election.

The DOT’s newest tourism slogan, “Love the Philippines” received mixed reactions from the public for allegedly not being original, while the new video campaign material received criticism for containing stock video footage that was not even shot in the Philippines.

The local officials said the DOT had not paid for the production of the new promotional audio-visual presentation (AVP) which is believed to have been commissioned for around P50 million.

The new AVP was produced by DDB Philippines, the contracted ad agency.

On July 3, DOT terminated its contract with DDB Philippines for its failure to comply with one of the Tourism department’s requirements, “originality.”

The ad agency has apologized to the DOT and to the general public over the use of stock footage in the new campaign material.

The AVP has already been taken down both from Youtube and the DOT’s official Facebook page. (EHP, CTL)

NEARLY one third of the water produced by the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) daily is lost due to wastage, depriving the distribution utility of an average of P2.4 million in daily revenue and the opportunity to address the large unmet demand for water in its franchise area.

Minerva Gerodias, spokesperson of MCWD, said the P2.4 million is equivalent to an average of 86,000 cubic meters of water, which represents a loss of 31.8 percent of the firm’s daily water production.

“That is how big it is. It can go up or it can go down, but that is around somewhere there,” she told SunStar Cebu on Tuesday, July 4, 2023.

MCWD produces 270,000 cubic meters of water from all its water sources each day.

This is less than half of the daily water demand of 560,000 cubic meters in its franchise area that covers Talisay City, Cebu City, Mandaue City, Lapu-Lapu City; and the towns of Cordova, Consolacion, Liloan and Compostela.

Water wastage, also known as non-revenue water, is the produced water that is “lost” before it reaches the customers.

In his June 15, 2023 investigation report recommending the removal of Chairman Jose Daluz III and members Miguelito Pato and Jodelyn May Seno from the MCWD board of directors, Cebu City Legal Officer Jerone Castillo cited the Sept. 21, 2022 petition for their removal filed by the MCWD Employees Union and its Executive Board before the Office of the Ombudsman Visayas that pointed to the spiking of the non-revenue water to 30 percent, which is higher than the 20 percent industry standard, as among the reasons for their petition.

As early as 2002, or more than two decades ago, however, under a different board chairman, MCWD was already losing 32 percent of the water it produced daily to leaks, pilferage and for firefighting, with most of the non-revenue water caused by leaks blamed then on old pipelines still belonging to the Osmeña Waterworks system, the forerunner of MCWD, according to a SunStar Cebu report that year.

Non-revenue water

Gerodias said non-revenue water can occur through physical losses from leaking and broken pipes, as well as from free water made available by MCWD for firefighting.

She, however, did not specify what places are greatly hit when a leaking occurs, explaining that “there are no specific places that we look after because these could happen in random places.”

Gerodias also disclosed that there are leaks that are brought on by mistakes made by other parties, such as when some telecommunications companies unintentionally break up the installed water pipes of MCWD when burying fiber optic cable underground.

“There are also times when they install their lines underground and they commit such error and they do not report to us—we do not have any idea that it is leaking,” she said.

Gerodias added that similar incidents also happen when digging is done to build drainage systems.

She divulged that when these mishaps occur, the involved and accountable companies are charged for the entire amount of water lost as a result of the leakage.

Gerodias acknowledged that non-revenue water has an impact on how consistently MCWD delivers water to homes, particularly when accidents involving pipe leaks happen near residential areas.

“It has affected the stability of supply to our consumers, especially those areas affected by the leaks,” Gerodias said.

According to the MCWD’s Planning Department, an ordinary household in the franchise area that is supplied by the water firm consumes around 21 to 23 cubic meters of water per month.

This means the non-revenue water of around 86,000 cubic meters a day would have supplied around 3,909 ordinary households for an entire month.

Measures

She noted that while it is inevitable and therefore hard to entirely eradicate, the problem of non-revenue water from leaky and broken pipes is being addressed and they have hired more staff specifically to work on it.

According to Gerodias, the number of workers whose main responsibility is detecting and repairing leaks has increased. She did not, however, say how many people are in the team.

“This is to have a swifter reaction time when to report that there is a damaged pipe because if we will only employ a few people, there are instances that many pipes will leak at once,” she said.

She said they monitor the pipes within their franchise area every day.

Deep wells

Gerodias also reminded the public not to dig wells and illegally extract groundwater as severe water extraction from groundwater can lead to seawater intrusion.

She said those who wish to construct deep wells must get a permit from the National Water Resources Board.

She added that it is not within the bounds of their powers to apprehend those who illicitly dig deep wells, but they discourage the public to do so.

Presidential Decree 1067, or the Water Code of the Philippines, forbids the unauthorized building of deep wells and prescribes penalties for violators.

According to Article 94 of the law, unless the person is specifically exempted from obtaining a permit by the provisions of the Code, any person who commits appropriation of water without a water permit shall be subject to a fine of not more than P3,000 or imprisonment for not more than three years, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court. (with CTL)

 

 

by Lui Queano

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(Beirut) - The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have arbitrarily arrested and summarily deported thousands of Syrians, including unaccompanied children, to Syria between April and May 2023, Human Rights Watch said today.

Deported Syrians said the LAF gave no consideration to their refugee status

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July 05, 2023 5:39 AM

Japan has received a stamp of approval for the release from the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

 

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Over the ne

The Philippine Space Agency signed the Copernicus cooperation agreement on June 30 to implement a capacity-building program for the Philippines funded by the European Commission.

A senior official of the Bureau of Immigration and four other officers convicted for involvement in the pastillas scheme have been dismissed from their posts after they lost their cases before the Court of Appeals, the BI said yesterday.

The camp of Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez confirmed yesterday that he and the secretary-general of the House of Representatives have already “signed” the Maharlika Investment Fund and “transmitted” it to the Senate.

Telco giant PLDT Inc. has asked the government to map telecommunication facilities, especially cable lines, to prevent damaging them as a result of new projects and road repairs.

The country’s outstanding debt has hit another record high, breaching the P14-trillion mark as of end-May.

The United States yesterday thanked the Philippines for the continuing and growing friendship between the two nations as friends, partners and allies.

Senators are calling for a ban on the upcoming film about the iconic Mattel doll “Barbie” over a scene reportedly showing China’s nine-dash-line claim over the South China Sea, which was invalidated by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016.

President Marcos has directed concerned agencies to investigate the smuggling, hoarding and price fixing of onion and other agricultural products, acts that he described as tantamount to economic sabotage.

After denouncing the Department of Tourism and its ad agency contractor over a tourism promotion video gaffe, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda has mellowed and even promised to help beleaguered DOT Secretary Christina Frasco fix the problem.

Following the Supreme Court acquittal of five Chinese and a Filipino believed to be part of a major drug ring, the Department of Justice said yesterday it would probe the prosecutors who bungled a P1-billion drug case in 2003 and implement measures to achieve higher conviction rates.

July 04, 2023 10:40 PM

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has also started a process to induct Belarus into the regional security grouping by next year.