Pet Melliza

WHERE are the dragon flies, spiders, frogs, bats that used to abound in Iloilo in our childhood? They are gone now. Or so it seems. By childhood, I am referring to the era of "young once"  of media veterans of Iloilo like Herbert V, Pidro J and yours truly, of the '50s, '60s and '70s. And even '80s.   Chemical-dependent farming system obliterated them. Other human activities misnamed "development" deprived them of their habitat and the conditions necessary for their survival. Seeking their whereabouts today is as urgent as seeking and destroying breeding places of diseases-carrying mosquitoes, particularly, Aedes egyptii and Aedes albopictus , two strains that spread the virus that causes dengue hemorrhagic fever, or simply, dengue. Chemical inputs might have raised farm production but the downside is it engendered problems like the decimation of natural predators that control pests. Before chemical farming, rice planting season was not re...

The Beekeeper By Pet Melliza Are lump sums allowed in annual budgets of local government units (LGU)? This question is now subject of contention between the legislative and executive branches of government of Iloilo Province. Governor Arthur D. Defensor, Sr. insists that is legal as he integrated lump sums in his proposed 2019 annual budget which now hangs because majority at the sangguniang panlalawigan (SP) want them itemized first. I don’t want to dip my hands in the fray. But being one of the 2,000 or so provincial employees whose fourth and last tranche of salary increase under the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) effective January 2019 is in limbo, this is no longer funny especially the insistence of the majority to “itemize” all those pesky lump sums as sine qua non . Back to the question: are lump sum allowed in LGU annual budgeting. I dare answer: “YES”. The law not only makes that automatic but also mandatory of LGUs to appropriate out of th...