Pet Melliza

Over a thousand converged at the Calinog Campus of the W. Visayas State University October 28, 2011 for the General Assembly of the Tumandok, the indigenous people of Panay Island. Calinog town is 55 kilometers northwest of Iloilo City. The gathering kicked off with a parade at the town center. The shouted for the return of their ancestral domain, the highland along the triboundary of Aklan, Iloilo and Capiz provinces. Some 35,000 of that has been declared military reserve of the Army by Pres. Diosdado Macapagal in 1962.   The assembly ends October 30.   Except for Negritos, different ethno-linguistic groups in the Philippines -- Visayans, Tagalogs, Moros, Lumads (of Mindanao), the indigenous peoples of the Cordilleras--have communalities.   They share the same racial root -- Malayo-Indonesian; and the same linguistic origin -- Malayo-Polynesian.  The "squaterization" of the Tumandok. In 1962, a certain Diosdado Macapagal, father of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the...

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By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper Iloilo City consumers may yet end up paying more than P3 per kilowatt-hour after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved the supply contract between supplier Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) and distributor Panay Electric Company (PECO). That’s on top of the approved P0.30 per kilowatt-hour that ERC already granted to PECO application for addition in its distribution charg. By year-end, should ERC grant the bid of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to acquire the transmission line from PEDC, consumers would be paying P1 more on top of the P3 already granted to PECO. Two years ago, we were regaled    that the coal-fired power would “solve” the shortage and costly electricity. We have been duped as we found ourselves today outraged by unannounced and unexplained outages that occur at least once daily. Atty. Tuki Altura, PECO legal counsel, says it opposes the NGCP-PEDC deal because it stretche...

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper Iloilo City consumers may yet end up paying more than P3 per kilowatt-hour after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved the supply contract between supplier Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) and distributor Panay Electric Company (PECO). By year-end, should ERC grant the bid of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to acquire the transmission line from PEDC, consumers would be paying P1 more on top of the P3 already granted to PECO. Two years ago, we were regaled    that the coal-fired power would “solve” the shortage and costly electricity. We have been duped as we found ourselves today outraged by unannounced and unexplained outages that occur at least once daily. Atty. Tuki Altura, PECO legal counsel, says it opposes the NGCP-PEDC deal because it stretches the imagination how consumers could be liable for “transmission” cost to be charged by NGCP when PEDC erected its plant and transmission line right wi...

THE BEEKEEPER By Pet Melliza The “accident” in Calinog town is no accident. It is a disaster-waiting-to-happen as Iloilo’s agriculture deepens its dependence on chemicals. Fifteen farmers of that town, 60 kilometers north of Iloilo City, fell ill; one of them, a child, succumbed later. The culprit: chemical sprays that contaminated their shallow well. Survivors said they fell ill after eating “garangan” (starfruit)_ and “iba” (kamias) but Calinog mayor Alex Centena declared on air morning of October 17 that health workers sent to Brngy. Bado and adjoining Brgy. Dalid, found out that the victims drew drinking water from a common source, a shallow tube well contaminated with chemicals. Ten of the casualties came from Brgy. Bado, five kilometers from the poblacion while five, including the lone fatality, from Dalid. “There were heavy spraying activities within one-kilometer radius from the well a week earlier,” said Centena. The tube well consisted of only nine concrete tube culvert...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER Corridors of hospitals in Metro Manila were crowded in July through September this year as dengue hemorrhagic fever struck down hundreds. TV footages showed stricken kids sharing beds as the hospitals already overstretched their capacities. In Iloilo, dengue cases are less this year compared to last year’s but just the same, at its peak in June – August, public hospitals were also filled to the corridors. The magnitude though did not approximate the previous year’s when district hospitals like the Don Pedro Trono Memorial in Guimbal town, had to erect tents to shelter those rejected from corridors. There is no medicine for dengue and the only cure for the ailment, spread by the mosquitoes  Aedes aegyptii  and  Aedes albopictus,     thus far is early detection and intervention to prevent shock from dehydration and low blood platelet. Health authorities say medical intervention aims to raise the patient’s resistance through ...

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper A group of five-year olds in their 40’s or 50’s played a sick, sick joke on their own friends and colleagues in the Iloilo press, making the latter poorer by P14,000.00, at least. Throwing away P14,000 to pay for the costliest meal in their lives was necessary, otherwise the victims of the sick joke would have to land in jail and charged for estafa under Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code for not paying their meals at the most expensive hotel on Boracay Island, Malay, Aklan. The cabal responsible for pulling off the trick first contacted via “texting” on mobile phone journeyman Francis T introducing himself as a “mayor” in one Aklan town. The “mayor” asked Francis  T to gather  a group of reporters for a press conference on the island resort.  The latter complied and assembled seven reporters through text messaging, to proceed to Boracay. Upon arrival at the island resort, Francis T texted the “mayor” of their presence and queried ...