Dagupan, Procter & Gamble Finally Signed MOA to End Garbage Woes

DAGUPAN SIGNS MOA WITH SURE GLOBAL W2W INNOVATIONS FOR WASTE TO ENERGY FACILITY 

DAGUPAN CITY – In compliance the “Ecological Solid Waste Management Act”, Mayor Belen T. Fernandez and the SURE Global Waste to Worth Innovations entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on August 10 to improve the city’s solid waste management and end the operation of the 50-year old open dumpsite in Tondaligan.

SURE is under the auspices of Procter and Gamble and the Asian Development Bank.

THUMBS UP FOR W2W – Mayor Belen T. Fernandez (2^nd from left, seated) along with City Legal Officer Victoria Cabrera (left, seated) and the members of the council (standing from left) Marcelino Fernandez, Marvin Fabia, Jeslito Seen, Alvin Coquia, Jose Netu Tamayo, Maybelyn DC Fernandez, Dennis Canto and former councilor Carlos Reyna do the thumbs up sign with Jill Boughton (2^nd from right, seated), president and Chief Executive Officer of SURE GlobalW2W Innovations and Paul Puthenpurekal (right, seated), director of SURE GlobalW2W Innovations after signing the Joint Venture Agreement by and between the City of Dagupan and SURE GlobalW2W Innovations for the W2W facility. (CIO photo by Jojo Tamayo)

The MOA was signed by Jill Boughton, president and Chief Executive Officer of SURE Global W2W Innovations; Paul Puthenpurekal, director of SURE Global W2W Innovations; City Legal Officer Victoria Cabrera and Fernandez in a fitting ceremony held at CSI Stadia.

The Waste to Worth Project, especially designed for Dagupan, underwent a series of feasibility analyses. It aims to deliver an economically viable, environmentally sound and fully compliant with environmental controls and guidelines.

The Waste to Worth facility in Dagupan is anticipated to produce 4,000 liters of diesel from plastics and 6,000 kilograms of usable methane from food waste per day.

Boughton assured that the facility will be environment friendly to the city as it will strictly comply with the environmental controls and guidelines once it is operational.

Not All Members of Congress Are Intelligent

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

For the past days I was glued at You Tube catching up with the Houses of Senate and Representatives on how the P6.5 billion shabu (Methamphetamine Hydrochloride) was sneaked before the eyes of the personnel of the Bureau of Customs through the Green Lane (where shipments are not required to undergo inspection) and found its way to a warehouse in Valenzuela.

“A tip of the iceberg, sannamagan,” I told myself when I arrived from work while I sipped my coffee and watched our congressmen questioned, chided, rebuked, and whatchamacallit their guests.

Let’s cut the chase. In these hearing in aid-of-legislation and in aid-of-grandstanding as people around the world watch some of these Senators and Congressmen strutted their stuffs, I just learned that not all solons were intelligent and not all the lawyers had the savvies of the law.

“Anong klaseng tanong iyan ?!” I cried on a certain Congressman Sarmiento's poser to a regular Customs honcho who was not appointee of Faeldon if the latter policy was effective when he took the helm of the Bureau.

Salamabit, what kind of poser was that?

Of course the threatened Custom official would affirm in a positive way Faeldon’s style of running the BoC otherwise he would be undermined.
I’m not talking here about Congressman Sarmiento because I did not meet him yet.

But it should be a lesson for us lesser mortals that not most of those elected in Congress are intelligent. These sonnafabitch became congressmen or senators because they have monies (where most if not some were stolen from the coffer) that catapulted them into power.

Editorial Writing Goes Wrong

City Hall Brouhahas Continue

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

This would happen when an editorial writer goes beyond a topic he did not know and becomes a laughing stock to his learned readers.

This my initial reaction when I read the editorial of Northern Mirror, a community newspaper in Pangasinan, after it was mass disseminated for free in public because of the editorial that lambasted the transfer of the city hall of Dagupan City.

The lengthy opinion of the week written in English and titled “Missing the Point: The Dagupan City Hall Transfer” was bereft of logic even it phrased and rephrased the prose of the Great William Shakespeare’s opus Hamlet.

CRITICS. Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez (extreme left)
and harsh critics Vice Mayor Brian Lim and Councilor Red Erfe-Mejia

Some of the excerpts:

 “The problem with the issue of “whether or not the transfer the city hall” misses the most crucial fact, which is where the city hall is being transferred to – the property of Kerwin Fernandez, brother of the mayor. The transfer of the city hall as an issue of necessity, modernity, or for any other reason is only secondary to the primary issue – corruption, or the abuse of power to benefit oneself. Therefore the question that should be debated by Dagupenos is this: “Whether or not the city hall should be transferred to the property of the mayor’s family”. To paraphrase from William Shakespeare’s immortal (“literary” – insertion from the columnist) classic “Hamlet”, the discussion should be this: To transfer or not to transfer, the city hall to the property of the mayor’s brother that is the (“nagging” – insertion from the columnist) question (“that begs an answer” – insertion from the columnist)”.

Since that scathing editorial was an opus before the eyes of the detractors of the mayor, here’s my “Opus ng Sigarilyo” to rebut it:

How can, HesusMariaHusep, a donated land can still be owned by the family of the donor? Donation Law, as seen on Civil Code of the Philippines, says: “Donation is an act of liberality whereby a person disposes gratuitously of a thing or right in favour of another, who accepts it (Article 725)”.

It means donation is consummated if the local government of Dagupan City, the donee, the recipient, or the receiver represented by the mayor accepts the generosity of the donor Kerwin Fernandez.

So how come, son of a gun, the transfer of the city main edifice goes to the lot of the family of the mayor when donation law says that ownership goes to the donee (city government) who accepts it?

The lesson we can learn in this literary blunder is editorial writers should not venture on legal topic that they don’t know.

Mag straight reporting na lang kayo, or leave topic like this to experts, or you seek the advice of the authorities like a lawyer before you start hitting the key pads of your computer!

You’re not blazing your guns on your target; you’re blasting your guns on yourselves!

***

For the past days I was glued at You Tube catching up with the Houses of Senate and Representatives on how the P6.5 billion shabu (Methamphetamine Hydrochloride) was sneaked before the eyes of the personnel of the Bureau of Customs through the Green Lane (where shipments are not required to undergo inspection) and found its way to a warehouse in Valenzuela.

“A tip of the iceberg, sannamagan,” I told myself when I arrived from work while I sipped my coffee and watched our congressmen questioned, chided, rebuked, browbeated, and whatchamacallit their guests.

Let’s cut the chase. In these hearing in aid-of-legislation and in aid-of-grandstanding as people around the world watch some of these Senators and Congressmen strutted their stuffs, I just learned that not all solons were intelligent and not all the lawyers had the savvies of the law.

“Anong klaseng tanong iyan ?!” I cried on a certain Congressman Sarmiento's poser to a regular Customs honcho who was not appointee of Faeldon if the latter policy was effective when he took the helm of the Bureau.

Salamabit, what kind of poser was that?

Of course the threatened Custom official would affirm in a positive way Faeldon’s style of running the BoC otherwise he would be undermined.
I’m not talking here about Congressman Sarmiento because I did not meet him yet.

But it should be a lesson for us lesser mortals that not most of those elected in Congress are intelligent. These sonnafabitch became congressmen or senators because they have monies (where most if not some were stolen from the coffer) that catapulted them into power.

Thus in a democracy we should have a watch dog and a free and intelligent press who would check, expose, criticize the shorthcomings and excesses of our national lawmakers.

Aside from Sarmiento there was this congressman whose emphatic questioning even made our Pangasinan Congresswoman Baby Arenas relished it.

That drama could be best seen or heard on my radio program where I and my tandem Harold discussed it.

ME: Palakpakan mga congressmen doon sa Congressman na kamukha ni Matet de Leon iyong anak ni Nora Aunor, ay oo si Harry Roque ( a lawyer), pinagsabihan niya ang mga taga Custom na hindi na puwedeng gamitin iyong mga balot balot ng P6.5 billion ng shabu na nabuksan nila sa Warehouse sa Valenzuela kasi walang Search Warrant (from Court) ang mga taga Custom? Tama ba si Harry Roque?
HAROLD: Tama!
ME: Mali !

I explained to Harold that not all raids need search warrant. The Philippines Constitution and jurisprudence cited some of these exceptions. They are Customs Search or Goods Concealed to Avoid Duties, Warrant-less Search Incidental to a Lawful Arrest, Seizure of Evidence in “Plain View”, Search of Moving Vehicle, Consented Warrantless Search, Stop and Frisk, and Exigent and Emergency Circumstances.   

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com)

Piñol Graces Mango Forum in Pangasinan

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol graced recently here the second leg of a forum that discussed the Five – Year Road Map for the country’s mangoes amid the alarming decline of the fruits’ production.

Secretary Manny  Piñol. Photo Credit: Rappler.com

Piñol said the forum was a convergence of mango farmers, contractors, processors, and others .
The forum aimed to craft a Five-Year Road Map for the Philippines Mangoes, first launched in Davao City last week, was registration - free where lunch and snacks had been served.

The Philippines used to lead the production of this agricultural premium product in the global market.

To Lessen Flooding: DPWH Allocates Gas for Dagupan River's Dredging

 DAGUPAN CITY – The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Region 1 is going to further intensify its dredging operation in various rivers in the city after allocating one year gas ration for its dredging machine stationed along the Pantal River.

A dredging machine of the Department of Public Works & Highway.

 The information was relayed by personnel of DPWH Region 1 EMD Office headed by Engineer Dejosis Domagas and Engineer Jaime Silen to Mayor Belen T. Fernandez when they paid her a courtesy call on July 27 at her office.

 The DPWH has allocated P1 billion budget for its water and land based equipment and 70 percent of which will go for its water-based operations, which include those in Dagupan.

 Mayor Fernandez thanked the agency for its support in the dredging operations in Dagupan as this will help lessen the effect of flooding in the city.

 Recently the city conducted a citywide river and creek cleaning program in the barangays, a regular activity observed by the city as a flood mitigating measure under the food for work program of the City Engineering Office aside from the Operation Sitio program.

 “We are indeed lucky that DPWH is very supportive of our cause of dredging our riversaside from the other mitigating measures that we have already started to ease the perennial flooding in our city,” said Fernandez.

 The intensified dredging operations will start on Monday, according to the DPWH.

 DPWH also assured of even wider dredging operation in the city, which will extend  as far as to the mouth of the Pantal River when its  two dredging machines still undergoing maintenance, will be  operational. (Joseph C. Bacani/CIO)

Duping Fake B.I.R Men: Public Warned!

 

No seed banks, others make PH dependent on imported garlic

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

ROSALES – The absence of government facilities like seed banks could mean the Philippines will be forever dependent on imported garlic.

According to Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) President Rosendo So even the country reached three years from now it will not achieve fifty percent of locally produced garlic sufficiency as long as there are no seed banks and post production facilities like cold storage that would be built in the country.

GRILLED - Sen. Cynthia Villar, chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Food, grilled Dir. Vivencio
 Mamaril, OIC, Bureau of Plant Industry, to explain why the price of garlic in the local market
rises  to P200 per kilo when the landed cost of imported garlic is P17 per kilo only. PHOTO
CREDIT: Senate of the Philippines 

“Mahirapan kasi wala tayong mga malalaking seed banks to produce. Dapat direction ng D.A is maglagay ng mga seed banks to produce ng mga bulbs ng bawang kung hindi iyon wala tayo,” he stressed.

The Department of Agriculture under Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said the most effective way to deal with the shortage of the bulbous plant and combat the garlic cartel is to raise local production by up to 50 percent of the total consumption.

To do this, it plans to provide loans to garlic farmers, buy cold storage facilities, and look for areas to grow more garlic.

Places that primarily produced the bulbous plant are Ilocos Norte, Mindoro, and Cabuyao, Laguna.

It can be recalled that the DA proposes an allotment of P200 million budgets for 2018 to spike the production of garlic and onion.

SINAG Executive Director Jayson Cainglet cited that the budgets will not be enough if the target is to locally supply the 50 percent of the Filipinos demand on garlic.

It needs P700 million allocations to achieve this target, Cainglet said.

One of the research facilities the SINAG President eyes are the partnership of the DA with State Universities and Colleges (SUC) that could provide for laboratory, research work, and seed banking and propagation.

“I hope the budget of the D.A will increase so it can help on the supply of garlics in the market,” SINAG President So cited.

He said that the Philippines only produce 7 percent of garlic while it imports 93 percent of it.

The Philippines creates 7,468 metric tons (MT) of the crops while it imports around 57 MT based on available import permits.

Recently, Senator Cynthia Villar berated Bureau of Plant Industry Director Vivencio Mamaril after consumers clamored for the hefty prices of garlic that ran up to P200 per kilo while its imported landed price was only P17 a  kilo.

Piñol suspected that a cartel controlled the number of imported garlic that went to the market thus the spiraling of its prices.

The Secretary recently blacklisted 43 companies which only imported a modicum amount of garlic despite being issued a permit allowing them to import large quantities.

"We would not allow them to import [garlic] anymore because at a time we needed them to import, they did not import. This is the first indication na may cartel," Piñol told reporters.

The Secretary said he would be issuing new licenses to importers of the bulbous plants.

 Piñol is presently lobbying Congress for a P60.6 billion 2018 budget of the DA or an 18.4 percent increase from its approved budget of P51.2 billion this year.