Pet Melliza

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER Decades under trade liberalization have resulted in the surge of agricultural imports in the local market, which have led to unprecedented bankruptcy of farmers and the country’s food insecurity. This situation will get even worse if the rice QR extension does not push through because of US opposition, IBON warned.  ( http://ibon.org/ibon_articles.php?id=235 ) It’s not the weather alone that favors rice farmers blessed by rains that enable them to plant almost continuously unlike before when they followed the seasonal chart that allowed only one cropping yearly. Credit that, too, on the Department of Agriculture which imposed QR on rice imports. “QR” stands for “quantitative restriction”the DA wrangled from the World Trade Organization. That privilege expires end of June and the DA wants it extended. Palay prices range from P14 to P17 per kilo even for slightly dried grains. Now, farmers from San Joaquin in southern Iloilo to Carles ...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER Rep. Mong Palatino (Kabataan Partylist) quickly withdrew his bill prohibiting the use of government offices for religious worship after flaks rained on it. Palatino’s bill, which also prohibits the display of religious icons in public offices, seeks to prevent the dominant religion’s monopoly in the use of government facilities. However, its prohibition comes too strong igniting interpretation that it undermines the constitutional guarantee to religious freedom. The proponent’s objective is to ensure minor religions from being edged out as the government pampers the dominant faith with the right to use state facilities. Palatino doesn’t have to withdraw his bill. He needs only stress its ecumenical features of giving equal access to all faiths to public facilities. Yours truly was born and raised under the dominant Christian religion but we agree with Palatino that governance is not a factor of religion and therefore must be s...

By Pet Melliza/ the Beekeeper One need not look far to conclude that DepED’s “K+12” be better renamed “K-9” if only to remind us of dogs.  Youth and students, teachers and parents are up in arms against it. And for reasons. K+12 is useless. Take the primary school at Brgy. Tubang, Maasin, Iloilo: it has a three-room building for all grades one to four. Only two are classrooms; the third serves as administrative office and stockroom. There are two teachers, each handling two grades. Tubang Primary School, two kilometers from the poblacion of Maasin, has 50 plus students. One teacher handles grades one and two, the other grades three and four. The two grades learn simultaneously in one sitting, not alternately. Each has its own chalkboard; pupils of one sit face back of counterparts in the other grade. The teachers, both females, say they are “used” to it anyway. “I juggle my time; I give seatwork to one grade while lecturing to the other,” one explains. We...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER Dingle has a collection of heavy equipment that makes it an envy of other local government units (LGUs) including Iloilo City which belongs to the league of “highly urbanized cities” in the Philippines. The city, 33 kilometers south of Dingle, despite its billion-peso plus annual budget is so decrepit that mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog taps private contractors even for minor works such as road repairs, rip-rapping of drainage canals and demolishing sections of roads for rehabilitation. Dingle, in contrast, does all that “by administration” or by its own crew of workers and heavy equipment. If mayor Biloy Palabrica so wished to repair municipal and barangay roads, all he has to do is dispatch workers. The town has six dump trucks, two mobile mixers, two graders, two loaders, two backhoes, two rollers and two bulldozers. A US-based foundation donates some 600 bags of cement to Dingle annually. Should Mayor Palabrica decide to convert dirt roads...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER Sen. Franklin Drilon is concerned for Iloilo but we are befuddled by his knee-jerk reaction to progressive groups who don’t sing hallellujah to his lobby to build a mega dam in Jalaur River, Calinog, Iloilo.  Rep. Nery Colmentares (Bayan Muna Partylist) is calling for a congresional inquiry on the safety of the P12-billion complex that will produce electricity and drinking and irrigation water. The partylist solon echoes fears of progressive groups that the dam sits on an earthquake belt. A local paper headlined Drilon’s assurance that the dam was “earthquake proof”, either the structure could withstand the most intense tremblor, at 10 magnitude or, as it quotes him, the fear was “baseless”, the fault line imaginary. A knowledgeable person in disaster-risk management, Jerry Bionat, confirms Bayan Muna's view. Calinog sits on the "W. Panay Fault" which starts from the southern tip of Panay at San Joaquin town and stretchi...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER A downpour June 5 evening delayed for one hour my rendezvous with cold light beer in a nearby store. But it was one night to remember after I turned on the radio. It was anchors Rod Teczon’s and Emerson Labrillazo’s baritone voices that popped out of the box airing a variety ranging from showbiz to social commentaries. “Ground Zero” radio magazine, Monday through Saturday evening, has a 20-minute segment featuring discussions on agriculture with Larry Locara, a “floating ship” at the Iloilo Provincial Capitol, as resource person. With Larry on farming, the issue is predictable: earth-friendly system that frowns on mono-cropping and synthetic inputs, chemicals in brief. Larry has been writing on natural farming since 1996 when yours truly was editorial consultant of a local daily. I invited him to contribute columns. He later wrote for another daily and the  Agriculture  magazine of the  Manila Bulletin  group. ...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER I’m a resident of Iloilo City but still ignorant of traffic regulations. A loading/unloading zone now  becomes a ticket zone later. That happened to the Mandurriao-Iloilo jeepney which stopped at the front of the Consing ancestral house in Molo, fronting the plaza and the Catholic church. The place has been a loading/unloading area throughout as far as yours truly knows but for strange reasons, a traffic aide apprehended the driver, at around 7:45 am of June 5. There were Baluarte jeepneys behind and ahead of the Mandurriao-Iloilo PUJ. A passenger at the front seat chided the enforcer in Tagalog accented Hiligaynon for being selective. The driver could only scratch his head. He was P200 poorer with the citation should he reclaim his license at the traffic mismanagement office which has the good habit of taking back receipts from payers before the latter could receive back their licenses that, in effect, provoke suspicion that the same receipt...

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper As yours truly writes here earlier, justice secretary Leila De Lima, head the Philippine delegation to Geneva for the second “universal periodic review” (UPR) that opened on May 29, has only applause for the government’s compliance with the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Centerpiece of her delivery is the impeachment and conviction of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. “This historic development shows that in the Philippines, no one is above the law as the Aquino administration pursues human rights, good governance, and anti-corruption measures,” declares De Lima,   head of the 29-member delegation before  the Human Rights Council's Working Group on the UPR. Rappler.com, however, quotes the Philippine UPR Watch, describes that the UN Human Rights Council responded to De Lima with “muted disinterest”. Philippine UPR Watch on the other hand, reports to the monitoring body on continuing abu...