Philippines News

UP to 60 government officials in Cebu have launched a manifesto to show support to Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Christina Garcia-Frasco amid the issues faced by her office.

They include some mayors, councilors and members of the House of Representatives.

“We, the Congressmen, City Mayors, Municipal Mayors, and Councilors under the banner of a united and indivisible One Cebu Island, declare our full and unwavering support to the Department of Tourism (DOT) led by our very own, a Cebuana, Secretary Christina Garcia-Frasco,” part of the manifesto reads.

The officials believe that there is an intention to sabotage the accomplishments of the DOT under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“Given the circumstances, it is not difficult to see that the goal of all this is to sabotage the great accomplishments of the DOT Secretary, who continues to deliver to the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.,” according to 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 Marcos in a Cebuana — who represents the very island that delivered the highest number of votes to the President and the Vice President in the 2022 Presidential Elections,” it added.

Majority of the Cebuano officials signed the six-page manifesto except for Cebu City North District Rep. Rachel 'Cutie' Del Mar and Danao City Mayor Thomas 'Mix' Durano.

Last week, the DOT released its new slogan "Love the Philippines," which received mixed reactions.

But the provincial board pushed a resolution to support the new slogan during its session last Monday, July 3, 2023.

The slogan is said to promote the country as one of the top tourist destinations in the world.

In the privilege speech of Cebu 5th District Provincial Board (PB) Member Andrei Duterte, he slammed the critics of Secretary Garcia-Frasco regarding the new tourism slogan.

Duterte believes that the remarks were made to embarrass the secretary and damage her supposedly good reputation.

Duterte's defense is that he has seen how persistent and dedicated the DOT Secretary is in her work, despite the fact that she is serving as mayor of Liloan town.

“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,” Duterte said in his resolution.

“As the chairman of the committee on tourism and as someone who witnessed first-hand how hardworking our Cebuana secretary is, I cannot just let this issue pass,” he added.

In line with this, the PB urged the Cebuanos to rally behind the DOT and Secretary Garcia-Frasco. (ANV, TPT)

THE brother of the suspect in a shooting incident at a billiard hall in Sitio Kalubihan, Barangay Tabunok, Talisay City has surrendered to the police.

According to Police Lieutenant Colonel Randy Caballes, chief of Talisay City Police Station, that last Sunday, July 3, John Niño Cantila Gevereola, who is of legal age, and Norman Simbajon alias Nono, 27, were playing billiards when they got into an argument.

Norman’s younger brother, Lester allegedly went to his rescue and shot Gevereola, according to Caballes.

Norman surrendered on Monday, July 3.

Caballes asked Norman to convince his brother to surrender as well along with the weapon he had used in the shooting. (BBT, TPT)

Presidential Adviser for Creative Communications Paul Soriano will again direct the president’s State of the Nation Address on July 24, House Secretary General Reginald Velasco told media on Tuesday.

Today, a group of armed thugs in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, attacked Elena Milashina, a prominent journalist and a recipient of Human Right Watch's award for extraordinary activism, and Alexander Nemov, a human rights lawyer. Both had been working on the case of Zarema Mussaeva, who was being tried on apparent politically motivated charges.

A viral TikTok video incorrectly claimed that comedian Vice Ganda gave P3 million to facilitate the release of teen celebrity Awra Briguela, whose real name is McNeal Neri Briguela, from police custody. Briguela only posted bail of P6,000. This is false.

Herbosa said they were just waiting for a formal order on the matter. 

MANILA, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank has classified the Philippines as a lower middle-income country with a gross national income (GNI) per capita of 3,950 U.S. dollars.

According to a report released on Monday by the World Bank, the Philippines' GNI per capita increased by 11.3 percent to 3,950 dollars in 2022, still within the multilateral lender's list of lower middle-income economies of 1,136 dollars to

WITHIN a month after Lieutenant Colonel Mark Gifter Sucalit assumed as the city's new police chief, at least 50 persons were arrested in Carcar City in southern Cebu, while over 300 drivers received citations.

Reducing crime in the city is one of Sucalit's objectives.

Between June 2, 2023 and July 2, during police anti-criminality operations, 10 drug personalities were detained and 6.3 grams of suspected shabu worth P42,840 were confiscated.

The police also arrested 12 wanted persons and 28 others involved in illegal gambling.

“Kining atong ilegal nga sugal sagol-sagol ni siya dunay nadakpan ilegal nga swertres naa usab sa tong-its ug sabong,” Sucalit said.

(There are various types of illegal gambling; some are caught playing swertres, some playing tong-its, and others doing illegal cockfighting).

The police visited the homes of people whose gun permits had not been renewed as part of their campaign against illicit firearms, of whom two turned in their firearms, and three others had theirs confiscated.

The majority of the drivers who received 335 citation fines from the Carcar City police were not wearing helmets. (BBT, TPT)

AFTER 10 months since the swimming prohibition was put in place due to a high level of fecal coliform, the municipality of Cordova on Mactan Island will now allow visitors to swim in Bantayan Bay in Barangay Poblacion starting Sunday, July 16, 2023.

This was announced by Cordova Mayor Cesar "Didoy" Suan during a flag-raising ceremony last Monday, July 3.

Suan hoped that Bantayan Bay will now be ready for bathing and swimming activities not only for the Cordovahanons but also for other visitors from other places.

After the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB 7) discovered a high level of fecal coliform in the waters off Cordova, Suan announced on August 15, last year that swimming in the area was no longer safe.

In contrast to the allowed threshold of only 100 mpn per 100 ml, the Cordova local government previously reported that the faecal coliform level in the area had reached 2,400 most probable numbers (mpn) per 100 milliliters (ml).

But Suan said that the level of fecal coliform in Bantayan Bay has now dropped to 0.8 mpn per 100 ml.

“So, we will open it to the public by July 16," Suan remarked.

To make sure that the cleanliness of the area is maintained, Suan also tasked the municipal tourism officer and other concerned officials to hold seminars for all stakeholders who are currently operating in Bantayan Bay, including boat operators and other individuals who offer swimming-related activities.

However, the local government clarified that no cottages are allowed to operate in Bantayan Bay.

To avoid polluting the seawater, the local government will also install public comfort rooms at the Marine Watch Office.

"Kabaw ko, modagsa na ang bisita coming from different munisipyo or cities, kay nindot gyud baya ni atong lugar. So para magpabilin siya nga nindot ug limpyo, mag-seminar sa ta og two weeks para gikan sa basura, gikan sa pagpangihi, gikan sa unsa pa, nga atoang mapadayon nga limpyo atong lugar," according to the mayor.

(I’m confident that more visitors from other municipalities or cities will come because our place is really beautiful. So in order to maintain its beauty and cleanliness, we will hold a seminar for two weeks to help us keep our place free of garbage, pee, and other messes).

Apart from mangroves, the municipality has sandbar and beautiful beaches which they can offer to visitors. (ANV, TPT)

WHAT WENT BEFORE. Last June 27, 2023, members of the MCWD Employees Union (MEU) -- under a new set officers elected January this year -- withdrew a petition filed September 21, 2022 with the Visayas ombudsman, asking for the removal of board chairman Jose Daluz III and its directors.

Earlier, on June 16, City Legal Office (CLO) head Jerone Castillo announced that the CLO has recommended the termination of Joey Daluz and two directors as a result of its investigation on a clutch of alleged irregularities committed by them. The charges were contained in the MEU petition that the ombudsman endorsed "for appropriate action" to Mayor Michael Rama, for which Rama, several months later, ordered a CLO inquiry.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED. The MEU, through its president, Samuel P. Suson, earlier in a public statement said the members weren't consulted by the previous officers about the petition and the complaint was "based on unfounded allegations."

Monday, July 3, Suson went beyond that. Suson told me they are "correcting a wrong" committed by the past officers and the new officers are "protecting the union as a whole." Suson in a letter to me said the said officers "intentionally neglected to present their factual basis" to support their allegations. (Did the previous officers have factual basis but deliberately omitted it from the petition?) And they forgot, Sison said, to mention that pandemic Covid-19 and the super-typhoon Odette severely affected MCWD operations.

Suson -- supervising warehouse officer of MCWD's property materials department -- expanded his previous statement to include "malicious imputation and disinformation" by the previous union officers.

UNION'S VIEW ON DALUZ PERFORMANCE. To the slew of charges in the September 2022 petition, which the incumbent officers and members withdrew in June 2023, the MEU has a justification: Covid and Odette. Yet despite the two major disasters, Suson said, MCWD "did not stop to do its best to provide for their consumers."

Patting the back of "our general membership," Suson, an MCWD employee for 34 years, told me the members "did not fret but continued to serve, braving all difficulties brought by the pandemic and the calamity." Earlier, the MEU resolution said the board under Daluz has "demonstrated independence, integrity and exceptional leadership" -- lavish praise that didn't come from the previous officers who wanted "off with your heads" for Daluz and his colleagues. Suson, leading the new set of officers, said "the conditions of running the MCWD have ultimately improved."

LIMITS ON LIABILITY OF MCWD BOARD, DIRECTORS. The Local Water Utilities Act of 1973 limits functions of the water districts such as MCWD to "establishing policy." "It shall not engage in the detailed management of the district." The chairman and the directors may be blamed for irregular contracts but how much of MCWD's work cannot be laid at Daluz's and other directors' door? Could consumers blame the directors for slow trickle from MCWD faucets and steep price of water they don't get or have to wait for at dawn? The law says "no director may be held personally liable for any action of the district."

Ah yes, they may be removed -- but only for just cause, after review and approval by LWUA.

2 FINDINGS ON SAME CASE. One, by the mayor's legal office, which found Daluz and his colleagues guilty of the irregularities and failures the previous MEU complained about.

Two, by the MCWD workers union, which found the petition baseless, having "no factual support."

Neither report of the CLO and the MEU disclosed how the inquiry was made by each and the facts they found. At least, the CLO report -- which was circulated, to, among others, the mayor, ombudsman and Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) -- must have contained the nature, extent and result of the department's inquiry.

But like the MEU's findings, no details were publicized.

LWUA has to look at the evidence to decide for or against Daluz and company. Expectedly, it will examine the documents in its hands. If LWUA investigators have done more than that, the public won't know until it reads its decision.

LWUA WILL ASSESS, DECIDE. LWUA, which oversees the local water districts, is also the authority that decides whether Joey Daluz and the two other MCWD board members should be removed or retained.

The Cebu City mayor has the right to appoint MCWD directors but, clearly, cannot cut their fixed terms short "without just cause" and without "review and approval by LWUA."

We suppose LWUA has mechanism for investigating complaints against directors and officials of a water district. But that's not familiar, or even known, to the public.

CAN UNION REPUDIATE PAST OFFICERS' ACTION? Suson made a distinction between (a) withdrawal of the petition by the general membership and (b) the new MEU officers' "approval and concurrence" to the withdrawal of the 2022 petition. The union wanted "to correct the wrong committed by the previous officers," he said.

That's what has made the withdrawal legal, Suson said. "It is within the power of the incumbent MEU officers to adopt a new resolution that will effectively revoke a previous resolution."

Mayor Rama on June 29 said the withdrawal didn't change the fact that MCWD employees had petitioned against their chairman and their two board members. Along that line but unsaid are these: the ombudsman already acted by passing it to the mayor, the mayor acted by ordering the City Legal Office to investigate, and the CLO made its recommendation to LWUA, the ombudsman and other agencies with some authority over MCWD, and of course must have gotten the side of Daluz and his two co-respondents.

It's now with LWUA and out of the hands of the city mayor and the MCWD Employees Union, I told Suson. He agreed but said, "That does not preclude members and officers of the union from making their stand known." MEU wanted, Suson said, to "dispel all misinformation and malicious imputation" of the previous MEU officers.

PUTTING ONE OVER RAMA. Aside from Mayor Rama's brief reaction (above) to the withdrawal of the petition, the mayor's camp has been quiet over the Daluz camp's move. While the case was deemed submitted when the CLO sent its recommendation and, probably, Daluz and company gave their side, the MEU move must have prompted LWUA to review the situation or look at it more closely. And the Daluz group scored some points on public opinion, chiefly because of the mayor's reticence; his city administrator, Atty. Collin Rosell, probably not getting a certified pass yet, didn't say a single word.

"Ultimately" though -- as Suson would say, not "bottom line," not "at the end of the day" -- it's how LWUA would resolve the case. And LWUA still has to tell the public its procedure on investigating a local water district. The losing party presumably could go to court -- but that would be another phase of the Daluz-Rama tug-of-war.

MANILA, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The erupting Mayon volcano, approximately 500 km southeast of the Philippine capital, has increased seismic activities, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology warned on Tuesday.

The institute said that alert level 3 on a scale of 5 remains at the most active volcano in the Southeast Asian country, despite the persistence of "a continuous tremor-like series of weak volca

(New York) - Hong Kong authorities have issued baseless arrest warrants and HK$1 million (US$128,000) bounties on eight exiled democracy activists and former legislators that expand China's political intimidation campaign beyond its borders, Human Rights Watch said today.

On July 3, 2023, the Hong Kong national security police

The sovereign-debt crisis is hitting Africa particularly hard and could lead to a lost decade of development. While the G20 has tried to ease the burden, its Common Framework has proven ineffective and needs to be fixed, and international institutions must make room at the policymaking table for African countries.

 

ADDIS ABA

A progressive youth group scored the renewed push to increase fares within the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3), a move they call would hit students and workers the most even with the recent increase of the Metro Manila minimum wage.

A progressive youth group scored the renewed push to increase fares within the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3), a move they call would hit students and workers the most even with the recent increase of the Metro Manila minimum wage.

The country cannot meet its own needs in the aftermath of its nuclear phase-out, the outlet has claimed

Germany has had to ramp up electricity imports in the first six months of the year, after the government decided to shut down the country's last remaining nuclear power plants in favor of renewable energy sourc

MANILA - Unidentified assailants shot and wounded a photojournalist in Quezon City on June 29, 2023. Rene Joshua Abiad of Remate online sustained gunshot wounds in the hand and the shoulder. Six relatives who were with him in a sports utility vehicle and a bystander were also hurt in the attack. One of them, Abiad's four-yea

Photos from Rappler.

GLENDA GLORIA, executive editor and co-founder of Rappler, has been awarded one of the world's most prestigious journalism honors, the Women in News Editorial Leadership Awards from the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

Gloria was

CHEERS TO the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Philstar.com for their reports that discuss the need for holistic and humane approaches in dealing with illegal drugs and in

A 19-year-old man was arrested in a buy-bust operation by the members of the Mabolo Police Station and the City Intelligence Unit of the Cebu City Police Office at 10:30 p.m. on Monday, July 3, 2023 in Sitio Persimon. Lahing-lahing, Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City.

The suspect was identified as Reymart Badju Sayson alias Mamart, a resident of the said place.

Seized from him were packs of suspected shabu worth P37,060 and a .38 revolver.

According to Police Major Eraño Regidor, the head of Mabolo Police Station, Mamart has a reputation for being so tough that even his neighbors are terrified of him.

Before the buy-bust operation, the members of Special Weapons and Tactics and Mabolo Police Station received reports in the afternoon that Sayson shot another drug personality in the area only known as Askal but the latter managed to run.

Responding policemen recovered an empty shell of .45 pistol from the crime scene.

They, however, did not recover the .45 pistol used in the shooting.

“Usa pd ning bataa sa problema sa tanod sa Mabolo kay mahadlok sila kay armado, naa daw ni 38 ug caliber .45, ang 38 ra amo nakuha, Amo follow up karon ang cal. 45 ky naa daw gibilin ni certain Fredo usa ka gwardiya.,” according to Regidor.

(The tanods in Mabolo were having a difficult time dealing with this youngster because they are terrified of him because he is armed; he is said to have a .38 and a .45 caliber, but we only got the .38. We are now searching for the cal. 45 that was allegedly entrusted to a guard named Fredo).

Police said the suspect was also involved in car burglary incidents in Mabolo.

Regidor said that on March 29, 2023, the suspect exchanged gunfire with one Roy-Roy Mojado, an alleged hitman of a drug personality.

Regidor added that Mamart is also a leader of a gang.

He said that last January, Mamart also stabbed a man who was attending a New Year Mass at the Mabolo church, but the victim did not complain for fear that the suspect would come back.

Regidor revealed that Sayson's neighbors were pleased with the news of his detention. (AYB, TPT)