Pet Melliza

Representatives of the Panay Tumandok indigenous people link growing militarization in their area to the planned mega dam called "Jalaur River Multi-Purpose Project II (JRMPP II). Increased number of combat ready Army and Police troops have been poured to the border area of Iloilo and Capiz provinces, particularly, Calinog, Iloilo and Tapas, Capiz which will host the JRMPP II and Panay River Multi-Purpose Project (in Tapaz, Capiz). The Army in its radio broadcast tags them as "communists" and "NPA rebels", a technique used to justify attacks on their communities, said Aileen Catamin, secretary-general of Tumandok. The government has deployed the 47th and 61st batallions in Central Panay where Tapaz and Calinog towns are located. Another composite batallion, sent from Mindanao and Negros islands, have arrived to reinforced. In addition, some 100 SAF (Special Action Force of the PNP) members are deployed in the dam site itself. Nestor Cast...

      Below is a press statement sent by the Global Action Against Coal, a consortium that is leading a picket at the DENR 6 Regional office in Iloilo, protesting against the land grabbing by, Semirara Coal Mine and government complicity that threatens to displace marginal fishers and seaweed farmers of Caluya, Antique. After reducing Semirara Island to a howling wilderness, after depleting its coal reserves DCMI, part of the Consunji Group, wants to expand Semirara Coal mine to adjoining islands and even mainland Antique. The people of Antique did not get a single centavo in taxes from DCMI which during the incumbency of Goc. Sally S. Perez, owed Antique more than 0600 million in real property taxes. Hundreds of families whose lives depend on seaweed farming, salt making and fishing, are at risk of being displaced simply because a giant corporation's greed for profit is insatiable, and worse, the Aquino government is siding with the intruder. -----------------...

Iloilo City October 14, 2014 The least that I want as far as thriving in the IT world is cut off ties with the Philippine Long Distance Telephone, Inc. (PLDT) which as the word suggests is a telephone utility company. I have been subscribing to its services since 1996. PLDT expanded to DSL services which I grabbed immediately because it saved me from Internet service providers which often gobbled up pre-paid cards let all be their erratic and fainting signals. This afternoon, I am left with no choice but proceed to its office in La Paz, Iloilo City. It is no longer the PLDT that I used to know: it is now a monster, a spoiled brat which Has perfected the craft of putting one over its clients for the sake of bragging super profits. I went there to deliver a brief letter asking to unsubscribe. For over a week, my landline and DSL were dead. I did notify the company which has honed the habit of tormenting complaining clients by pitting in infinite discourse with robots and wait fo...

Iloilo, both city and province, has no "AAA" or "triple A" abattoir. All it has is the lonesome "AA" in Passi City. Passi erected its slaughterhouse sometime in 2003 at P45 million. Critics rued it was "overpriced" but somehow, its local chief executive Jesry Palmares managed to overcome that as the facility became an income earner after notching an exclusive contract with Monterey, the country's major producer of frozen choice cuts of pork and beef. The National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) accredited the Passi slaughterhouse "AAA" until about two years ago when the national government entity downgraded it to "AA". Iloilo City's abattoir already absorbed over P200 million funding, first in the time of Jerry Trenas (2001 - 2010) and later his successor and still incumbent mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog. Despite the huge money it has gobbled up, the city abattoir at Tacas, Pavia, never went beyond single A. The pr...

Ceremonial mangrove planting 15th Pista sang Kakahuyan Ermita, Dumangas, Iloilo Sept. 27, 2014 Defensor (in stripes) with Dumangas emergency responders Today's ceremonial mangrove planting here, 15 km. north of Iloilo City, is also replicated in four coastal towns of Iloilo - highlighting the tremendous benefits Iloilo will reap by regreening its coasts on one hand, and the grave dangers it faces if its near-decimated mangroves and beach forest went unchecked. Some 500 volunteers from government offices and private groups joined the planting on prearranged areas - three bakhaw propagules laid beside each pre-dug hill. "When I was small, I didn't value mangroves," recalled Iloilo Gov. Arthur D. Defensor, Sr. "They were cut down in wide areas not only in Iloilo but in the whole country." Defensor admitted he learned to appreciate mangroves only in his adult years. "We only learned lately that they are habitat and breeding ground of fis...