Pet Melliza

  By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper We join in sighing with relief, the family of a student in Cebu City who was convicted and excluded from the graduation ceremonies by a pack of religious educators, ironically. This morning (March 30), the early TV news flashed a report that the Regional Trial Court (RTC) had ordered the school run by Catholic nuns to let the girl graduate and join the graduation rites. We don’t know the merits of the case. What we have are so far sketchy data based on published reports. First off, the high school senior’s trouble began when the nuns discovered photos of her in her social network account in bikini. There was nothing wrong in those pictures except that in some, she was wearing two-piece swimming attire. The shots were taken in a wholesome family excursion in a beach where people were expected to swim and so, wear swimming gear, that is, the conventional bathing suit and two-piece or bikini for girls, and a trunk for boys. The family was not offende

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper We commended earlier in this space Atty. Sonette S. Daquita for advocating two measures upon her assumption as regional director of the Office of the Ombudsman in W. Visayas. One is to hone the skills of her investigators, the other to de-clog the docket by referring to the Commission on Audit (COA) and the Civil Service Commission (CSC)  matters falling under their respective competence. Pelagio Apostol Jr.  has gargantuan tasks ahead of him since he started functioning as  Deputy Ombudsman (DO).  He was appointment in 2007 but was sidelined. The one acting de facto head of Visayas was Virginia Palanca-Santiago. Apostol recovered his authority as mandated by RA 6770 after Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez resigned in disgrace March 31, 2011. Gutierrez emasculated Apostol and bequeathed on her co-alumna at Ateneo Law, Palanca-Santiago, the title “assistant ombudsman” to circumvent RA 6770 that positions the deputy ombudsmen next to the ombudsman. The fic

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper Gone are all the fishing boats from the Iloilo River Wharf, showing the trend that the once center of  economic life in Iloilo City is heading to, well, desolation. That’s one of the points raised in our round table discussion during lunch last Saturday after “Kape kag Isyu” talk show that yours truly co-hosted. Broadcaster Ompoy Pastrana and columnist Peter Jimenea rued that the river was becoming a desolated place. “Before, there was life as people flocked there for commerce,” noted Ompoy. “The wharf had mid-size boats loading or disgorging bags of lime, cement, rice, and fruits.” Sidewalk vendors selling balut and drinks were all over because stevedores and visitors patronized their goods. The “kumpit” from Mindanao also disappeared  from the river wharf. The speedy, wooden boats for decades transported lanzones, mangosteen, durian and people from Mindanao. The economic life steered by their mere presence along the river is sorely missed. A year a

William Martirez, former provincial administrator of Iloilo, now works to ensure low income communities ILOILO CITY (24 March 2012) -- Microensure released P18 million in compensation to victims of Typyoon Sendong in Mindanao, today's guest in the talk show Kape kag Isyu disclosed. Over 2,000 perished and 700 remained unaccounted for in the wake of the flash floods triggered by Sendong December 17 in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities. Microensure, an insurance company that cater to enterpreneurs and self-employed groups, immediately released the insurance compensation of at least P50,000 per enrollee, said its Philippine country manager  William Martirez. "The purpose of releasing the compensation immediately is to give quick relief to our policy holders in order to enable them start their recovery," he explained. Microensure's market include farmers, drivers, entrepreneurs and even "sikad" (pedicab) drivers attracted to its competitive charges. It

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER During the 20 th  annual assembly of the Iloilo Provincial Employees Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Inc. (coop, in short), at Punta Villa, Iloilo City March 18, yours truly stumbled into a round table discussion with provincial guards who had endless tales to tell. Uncertainty faces them as they would cease in three years working at the Iloilo Rehabilitation Center (IRC), recently renamed Iloilo Provincial Integrated Jail (IPIJ) which will be fully taken over by the Bureau of Penology and Jail Management (BJMP) of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). Iloilo Gov. Arthur D. Defensor, Sr., promised that the different offices of the Iloilo Provincial Government would absorb the displaced guards who throughout their employment in the provincial government have been used to the routine of rendering 48 straight hours jail duty and a rest of 48 hours, part of which they spent to escort inmates to the courts where they earned extra P300 in per die

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper Antique holds the largest coal deposit in the Philippines, if not the world, yet how come this province remains poor and its people wretched? During the incumbency of Gov. Salvacion Perez, the province clinched a favorable court decision of more than P700 million in real property tax arrears of DMCI, owner of the coal mine. Perez finished her three straight terms without collecting a centavo from the company.  DMCI insists, and so won with that argument on appeal, that the situs of its taxation is in Manila as the taxing power is the national, not local government unit. Antique is also entitled by the Local Government Code, to its share in the exploitation of its mineral resources -  coal -- but always ends up holding an empty bag. To DMCI the power, the glory and profits; to Antique the misery and dangers engendered by the open pit  mining that already poisoned a sizeable area in the surrounding and rendered it unfit for fish and weed farmi

"Tarzan" is not a man but a noodle resto along Calle Real where diners have the chance of viewing how their orders are prepared by the chef who starts with a dough which in a few  minutes, is turned into fresh noodles.  At P78 per steaming bowl, the noodle soup serves as a meal with its generous serving of slivers of beef and bean sprouts. The noodle soup is a relishing experience. It's rare in Iloilo where fresh noodle is served with togue or mungo bean sprouts I dropped by Tarzan one fine afternoon and got mixed feeling of being amused by the chef whose adroit hands transform a dough into noodles in matter of minutes.  A two-way glass panel separates the dining area from the kitchen whose activities are visible to custormers. I got dismayed though because no less than the owners thereof and friends drive away non-smoking customers by their cigarettes. I caught them in camera drinking and smoking while pretending to take pictures of my bowl of steaming noodl

17 MARCH 2012 (ILOILO CITY, Philippines) -  Motor cycle riding men shot and injured broadcaster Fernando "Kapid" Gabio March 2 while he was washing his car front of his house at Jaro, Iloilo City. He was hit in the leg. He is luckier than his co-anchor in a previous air time, Neil "Lito" Jimena who was murdered August 22, 2011 in Negros Occidental -- by motorcycle riding assassins. Evening of October 3, 2007, Police Officer 2 Frederick Capasao, assigned in the anti-drug campaign was murdered at his residence in Jaro, Iloilo City in front of his wife, also by gunmen on board a motorcycle and a van. A year after him, another cop, Jomari Lamis, was driving home in Iloilo City November 1, 2010 on a motorcycle from his assignment in Guimaras Province, was chased by two men riding in tandem on a motorcycle and shot by the one at the back. He died while en route to the hospital. August  30, 2011, real estate agent Richard Cesar was reading newspaper along a sidewalk in