Showcase of best practices marks LG Code's 18th year

Iloilo City (22 October) -- The 1991 Local government Code marks its 18th year with a showcase of best practices in local governance in Western Visayas.

The five EXCELL Awardees that presented their experiences during the program held October 22, included areas in Administrative Governance for the Negros Provincial Government, by Ms. Lina Sanogal, PPDO; Social Services by Mayor Eugenio Jose Lacson of San Carlos City; Economic Development, by Mayor Christine Garin, Guimbal, Iloilo; Environmental Management, by Mayor Julieta Flores, Miag-ao, Iloilo, and Local legislation, by Vice Mayor Delia Anacan, Kabankalan, Negros Occidental.

Dir. Marivel Sacendoncillo of the Local Government Academy said in her keynote address that there are gains in the implementation of the Local government code (LGC) in the last 18 years as exemplified by these best practices.

Sacendoncillo said that despite the fact that the gains are encouraging, the LGUs still face major economic, social, environmental and disaster risk management and political challenges, hence efforts should be stepped up.

She identified the political challenges particularly as the lack of program continuity and the persistent preference of majority of local chief executives for infrastructures instead of social services, where they should maintain a balance of this to be more responsive.

She also said that there are still political bickering between many LCEs and legislators when they should be going beyond personal and political interests for the welfare of their constituents.

She further said that what has not been effectively realized in many LGUs is the genuine and real participation of civil society organizations, non-government organizations in the decision making processes in local governance, as their representations are often personally chosen by the local chief executives.

Sacendoncillo said that the areas for reform which local governance must undergo should be a review of relationships between national and local government units from the angles of development and supervision.

Development, Sacendoncillo said, must reckon with performance audit on the performance of the LGUs, where the weaker ones must be strengthened according to its needs and where the national government can complement the different capacities of particular LGUs.

Supervision, according to her, should apply the "carrot and stick" principle when necessary, to keep non-performing LGUs on their toes to keep up.

Capping the observance of the 18th anniversary of the LGC was the launching of the Codification Manual developed with the GTZ and the Urban and Regional Planning Learning Modules developed with the Canadian Urban Institute.

A French national and his wife, who were charged for murder in March this year for the death of a French woman in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental have filed administrative charges against a policeman for allegedly abusing their rights.

Abdallah and Rose Benamirouche filed administrative charges for dereliction of duty, abuse of authority, violation of police standard procedures and negligence against Senior Police Officer 4 Ramon Bantolin Jr., of the San Carlos City police and the investigator on case, before the People's Law Enforcement Board.

Bantolin, who retired from the service on September 21, this year, denied the accusations and maintained that he did not abuse their rights.

The Benamirouches, who own a beach resort in San Carlos City, and Melchorito Alcala, 31, of Danao, Cebu, were arrested by the San Carlos police on March 3, 2009 for the death of Genevieve Sonia Mas, 54, the girlfriend of Abdallah's brother, Jemaah.

Police records showed that Mas, who was the caregiver of Abdallah's brother, Jemaah, was shot pointblank by a masked gunman while she was on board a pedicab.

In a press conference Saturday attended by the couple and their legal counsel, Lester Rolando Nuique, at the Bacolod Business Inn, Abdallah claimed that when they went to the San Carlos police to file a complaint for the shooting of Genevieve, they were locked up inside the jail “like animals” and were not given counsel.

While in detention, Adballah claimed that his medicine supply was cut off by the jail nurse, whom he did not identify, until he became weak and paralyzed.

The couple also complained that the police allowed the members of the media to “feast” on them, adding that they do not know Alcala, who had earlier admitted that they hired him to kill Mas. The couple also alleged that Alcala was physically tortured by the law enforcers and that the San Carlos police did not submit an affidavit of arrest without warrant.

Nuique said it took them some time before exposing the alleged “abuses” experienced by the Benamirouche couple because they needed to process the motion for bail they filed, since they were initially denied it.

Nuique claimed he believes that the arrest of his clients was only made by Bartolin so he could retire with “flying colors”.

Bartolin, however said, he only performed his duties as a policeman to apprehend them since they were implicated in the crime by the witnesses.

The couple's rights were not abused and they were given legal counsel when they were arrested, but they refused to accept the lawyer that the police gave them, Bantolin told the DAILY STAR.

He added that he respects the couple's decision to file the case against him, saying, “It is their right to do so”.

Meanwhile, Abdallah told Mas' daughter, Vanessa, who is in France , that he does not want to quarrel with her because they feel the same.

“We lost somebody who is part of our family and I'm sorry if you are angry because you don't know the real story. You come to me so that we can understand each other… your mother considers me as a big brother and (she) trusts me,” he said

THE people and the city government of San Carlos City are showcasing this year their 17th Pintaflores Festival, which started Oct. 10 until Nov. 5, said tourism operations officer Joe Recalex Alingasa Jr.

Activities lined up for the occasion include trade fair and carnival, 2nd Pintaflores national invitational U16 football tourney, opening of agri fair, senior citizens and veterans’ night, 4th Pintaflores airsoft competition “Euzkara Raid 3”, team airsoft San Carlos, Vamos! San Carlos! Balikbayan Night, modern pop dance competition, Ganda ng Agri beauty pageant, 1st Pintaflores women’s invitational beach volley, 1st Habichuelas cooking fest, 3rd Invitational dog show competition, presidentiables' pedicab race with ABS-CBN’s Marc Logan, pintalawas (body painting), diana or pamukaw, concelebrated thanksgiving mass, cultural night presentation, mini concert feat with ABS-CBN’s talents, jamming with SMB band and Pintaflores Festival streetdancing to highlight on Nov. 5 and Pintaflores Festival ritual competition and a fireworks display in the evening.

Pintaflores, aside from the celebration of Negros Day or the Cinco de Noviembre, is celebrated in San Carlos City as the Feast of San Carlos de Borromeo, Patron Saint of San Carlos City, whose feast falls on November 4.

A first class component city of Negros Occidental, San Carlos showcases Pintaflores via streetdancers who are local residents donning colorful ethnic-inspired costumes and floral body tattoos, reminiscent of the tattooed Visayans of pre-Spanish Negros.

SMALL-SCALE projects aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions should be bundled as one for easier marketing and access funds, government and private sector officials said during last week’s Conference on Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Livestock and Agro-Industrial Waste.

The aggregation of such programs, especially in the agriculture sector, can encourage more environmentally sustainable projects, which are seen as an extra income source for farmers while preventing more adverse effects of climate change.

"Most of the projects in the country are small so we have to bring them together because applying for a clean development mechanism (CDM) is expensive," said World Bank Country Director Bert Hofman.

Tetchi Cruz-Capellan, executive director of the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines, concurred, saying that "by bundling small projects into bigger ones, it makes the project more efficient."

She added that there is a need to assess the methane that can be captured for energy-production purposes and then link hog farmers to financers of emission reduction projects.

For locally approved carbon-emission reduction projects, which are mostly methane recovery facilities in hog farms and sewage treatment, about 79% or 98 projects are considered small scale, data from the Environment department showed.

Methane accounts for 16% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

"What makes us vulnerable [to climate change] is we lack finances to cope with these changes," Mr. Hofman said, adding that the lack of funds pose as a challenge to environmentally sustainable projects.

In a study, Kurt Roos, team leader of the Agricultural Methane Programs of the US Environmental Protection Agency, said swine farming, specifically in northern to southern Luzon can cut carbon emissions by 1.778 million metric tons (MT) per year. Furthermore, alcohol distilleries nationwide can cut 562,000 MT of carbon emission, 191,000 MT for coconut processing in Mindanao and 2.553 million MT for slaughterhouses nationwide.

"This is an incremental [income to agriculture ventures]," said Environment Undersecretary Mary Ann Lucille L. Sering.

Agriculture ventures account for a third of total greenhouse gas emissions, next only to the 50% contribution of the energy sector.

To date, there are 40 United Nations-registered CDM projects in the country.

For instance, the San Carlos Renewable Energy Project in Negros Occidental cuts carbon use by 37,658 MT per year while the control of methane emissions from Quezon City’s Payatas dump site reduces 116,339 MT of carbon emissions per year.

ANOTHER container vessel has arrived in the country for lay-up services, as the world economy still suffers from steep cargo-volume decline.

According to Relinic International Trading Corp., the 12,000-gross-ton MV Vega Turmalin has arrived in its lay-up site in San Carlos City in Negros Occidental on Saturday for a cold lay-up.

Relinic president Danny David said this is only the second vessel that they have serviced for the past few months since the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) started giving out licenses for lay-up services.

The said container vessel has a capacity of 1,116 twenty-foot-equivalent units and is fitted and equipped for worldwide trade under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda.

“There are a lot of inquiries from known ship managers, and I think by November or December [we] expect to have heavy influx,” David said in an earlier interview.

The said lay-up site in Negros can only accept cold lay-up as there are environmental issues with the local government, David said.

PPA admitted that the country has limited success in ship lay-up services compared with regional peers in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, where more than a hundred to a thousand vessels of different types are being parked as a result of lower cargo volume.

“The Philippines has scored limited success in ship lay-up services, with only about 100 vessels moored in the country and mostly in Subic Bay. This remains a big challenge for the PPA,” said Raul Santos, PPA’s assistant to the general manager.

Estimates showed that there are about 1,000 vessels in either hot or cold lay-up, and about half of these are container vessels and 200 are bulkers. The rest are various types of vessels, except for tankers, since the world economy still needs petroleum products to operate.

Operators have three schemes in laying up their vessels. The cold lay-up method calls for the disembarkation of all crew members and stopping of the engines during the mooring period, while the hot lay-up still employs complete set of crew members onboard while idle. The third method according to experts is slowing down the ship’s operation by at least 50 percent to save on operational cost.

Both PPA and Maritime Industry Authority (Marina), however, have been accrediting their own lay-up agents, some of which are at the same area, a move that could confuse international vessel operators.

Marina, through Advisory 2009-16, has declared as a lay-up site the harbor of San Carlos City in Negros Occidental along Tañon Strait, an area very near to Relinic’s lay-up site.

GMA lauds Negros success
in drive vs. global warming

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo yesterday congratulated Negros Occidental for being the first province in the country to fully comply with government's nationwide Material Recovery Facility campaign.

“Congratulations to all of you. Rather than preaching to you on the MRF issue, we will praise you and inform all provinces of your successful campaign in the combat against global warming,” the president said during a climate change briefing at the Aniceto Lacson heritage home in Talisay City .

Yesterday's climate change briefing was the 45th since the President began last December her advocacy to educate Filipinos about global warming, Presidential Adviser on Climate Change Sec. Heherson Alvarez said.

He warned that if nothing is done to mitigate global warning the Philippines will continue to experience storms and flooding similar to the recent devastation that hit Manila and Luzon .

“Global warming and climate change are the most pressing threats and challenges to global food security, stability and development that mankind is facing today,” Alvarez said.

The National Solid Waste Management Program aims to reduce solid waste being generated through recycling and composting through MRFs, Environment and Natural Resources Undersecretary Demetrio Ignacio said.

Ignacio, in his report, said Negros Occidental has a 100 percent compliance in MRFs.

The volume of waste generated in the country is 30,000 tons a day creating 675 tons per day of methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide, Ignacio said.

In Western Visayas , the volume of waste generated 2,045 tons per day or 46 tons of methane per day, he added.

Negros Occidental produces 927 tons per day of waste, or 20 tons per day of methane, he said, but at least all its 660 barangays are covered by MRFs, he said.

Bacolod City has 175 tons of waste per day that produces 3.98 tons per day of methane, he added. But at least the city barangays have 100 percent MRF compliance, Ignacio said.

Of the 42,000 barangays in WV, 5,145 have MRFs or 13.2 percent, he said.

He also said there are 927 disposal facilities in the country of which 26 or 2.8 percent are sanitary landfills and the rest are open and controlled dumpsites. Another 24 sanitary landfills are under construction.

In Western Visayas, of the 103 disposal facilities, only one is a Sanitary landfill in San Carlos City , Negros Occidental, he said, but added that Bacolod and Talisay cities are also in the process of doing the same.

Ignacio called on local government units to focus on reducing wastes through MRFs or Eco parks, mainly through recycling, composting and residual treatment as alternatives to sanitary landfills.

The president said through MRFs waste could be converted into charcoal briquets, melted plastic, processing of biodegradable materials especially manure to produce biogas, and conversion of organic waste into bio-fertilizer by anaerobic process.

Ignacio said to establish 32 common facilities with charcoal briquetting machines and plastic melters will cost P532,500 per area for a total cost of P17 million in Negros Occidental.

The national government will provide a P 133,125 (25 percent) grant and the local government share would be P399,375 (75 percent), he said.

By doing all of these, we can produce a green Negros Occidental, Western Visayas and Philippines , he said.

The city police station of San Carlos again topped the performance evaluation rating among 35 police units in Negros Occidental, for the third quarter of 2009.

In the municipal category, the Hinigaran police station dislodged perennial winner E.B. Magalona police station that settled for second place in performance rating, police records show.

The 612th Provincial Mobile Group also bested three other provincial mobile group units in the same performance rating.

Chief Insp. Rico Santotome, chief of the Negros Occidental PNP Information Office, said the San Carlos City police station and 612th PMG fortified their bid to win the awards as best city police station and PMG unit, respectively, in Negros Occidental for 2009, by consistently topping the performance rating, in their categories.

In the city category, the police stations of Kabankalan and Bago City ranked second and third, while the E.B. Magalona Police Station, which topped the performance rating in the first and second quarters of 2009, settled for second place in the municipal category, with the Murcia police station as third.

The Hinigaran police station breached the number rating, owing to its recent major accomplishment in foiling the RCBC bank heist last month.

The various PNP units in Negros Occidental are rated every quarter of the year for their performance in intelligence work, operations, community relations, management of personnel, among others.

Senior Supt. Manuel Felix, provincial police director of Negros Occidental, lauded the performing police stations and units, while encouraged those which performed below par to improve by undertaking impact projects, accomplishments on special laws as well as in the religious and timely compliance with various directives from higher headquarters.

Felix said NOPPO is vying for the best police provincial office award after topping the first two performance ratings in the first and second quarters of 2009 in Western Visayas

The inauguration of an ethanol and co-generation plant in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, last Sept. 4 came like a shaft of light after a long night of searching for energy security. Or as Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes put it, “This is a major milestone in the government’s effort to reduce dependency on imported sources of energy. We should have 20 more replications of this plant all over the Philippines.”

A few days later, the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines announced that another integrated ethanol-power plant is expected to go on line in February 2010 in La Carlota City. San Carlos Bioenergy Inc. (SCBI), which owns the ethanol-power plant in San Carlos, said it is establishing, in partnership with a British firm, a similar integrated facility that will produce yearly 40 million liters of ethanol and 8 megawatts of electricity. Construction will start in June next year. Its San Carlos plant has an annual ethanol and power production capacity of 30 million liters and 8 megawatts, respectively.

In the weeks that followed, the Department of Energy announced that it had approved several “green power projects”: five wind energy service contracts, a hydro-energy service contract and biomass power project, that will produce 379 MW all together, and eight possible sites for geothermal contracting (exploration, development and use for power generation and other applications). In addition, 70 applications for power projects (50 wind and 20 hydro) were still being processed, the DoE said. Two other ethanol plants are going up in Isabela and Sarrangani, according to more recent reports.

It seems that thrust toward energy independence is taking off on the wings of environment-friendly renewable energy sources.

At the beginning of the year, a month after the Renewable Energy Act was passed, we expressed serious doubts if the country would ever be able to break free from its heavy dependence on imported fuels whose prices had reached dizzying heights the year before. After all, the Biofuels Act had been passed in 2006, or more than two years earlier, and nothing concrete had come of it.

This year, however, the two laws are beginning to bear fruit, and we have the spirit of entrepreneurship, more than our politicians, to thank for it. In fact, if there is anything to thank our politicians for, aside from the two renewable energy laws, it is for keeping their hands off “renewables.” SCBI’s P3-billion San Carlos project, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, had relatively smooth sailing, perhaps because no politicians meddled unlike other big-ticket projects like National Broadband Network or the NorthRail projects.

We are still a long way from our objective of energy security. SCBI’s San Carlos facility is just the country’s second ethanol plant (the first, a much smaller plant, is in Leyte) and it produces only 10 percent of our ethanol requirements. Other renewable energy projects are still on the drawing board. But positive steps have been taken, and the objective appears to be clearer in our sight.

By the government’s estimate, SCBI has created 500 new industrial jobs and assures 8,000 farmers of year-round employment. The opening of the ethanol plant has also raised sugarcane prices in Bacolod to P1,700 per 50-ton cane from less than P1,600 per 50 ton cane last year.

Negros Island, with its vast geothermal, wind and ethanol resources, could be the Saudi Arabia of the Philippines, Reyes said. The same thing same can be said of many of our islands. So it is not tool difficult to imagine the enormous potentials we could harness towards achieving energy independence through the production of biofuels and other “renewables.”

Biofuel development attracts P83-B investments since 2007

BACOLOD CITY — Forty companies have invested a total of P83 billion in close to 50 biofuel projects since 2007, the head of the agency in charge of promoting this new field said in a recent interview.

Mariz B. Agbon, president of the Philippine Agricultural Development and Commercial Corp. (PADC), summarized the investments as P40.8 billion in feed-stock and P42.5 billion in processing plants.

Ms. Agbon said the government firm has been assisting investors in identifying areas where they could locate and engage in the commercial planting of biofuel feedstock and establish ethanol distilleries.

"The government is pursuing its biofuel development program, making use of underutilized and marginal lands," she said.

Projects

Among the 49 biofuels projects in the country is the San Carlos Bio-Energy Inc. (SCBI) ethanol distillery and co-generation power plant that was inaugurated earlier this month in San Carlos City in Negros Occidental.

Nineteen other projects are into bioethanol production, while 28 are into biodiesel production. One involves both biodiesel and bioethanol production.

Ms. Agbon said PADC, the marketing and investment promotion arm of the Department of Agriculture, has been monitoring these projects.

The Biofuels Act of 2006 initially required the use of 1% biodiesel blend and 5% bioethanol blend in gasoline. The mandated blend has since increased to 2% for biodiesel and 10% for bioethanol.

Required volumes

For this year alone, Ms. Agbon said the country needs 268 million liters of bioethanol blend. By 2011, the requirement will increase to 594 million liters and, by 2015, it will go up to 721 million liters, leaving much room for supply.

Both SCBI and Leyte Agri Corp., the only two ethanol producers now operating in the country, can produce a yearly total of only 39 million liters.

By 2015, demand for biofuel feedstock such as sugarcane is expected to reach 10.3 million tons; sweet sorghum, 14.42 million tons; and cassava, four million tons.

Moreover, bioethanol projects will need 243,000 hectares to attain the production target. This complement includes 212,000 hectares considered idle or for expansion.

The PADCC has identified and delineated marginal and underutilized lands where plantations could be established for biofuel feedstock production and also has information on which feedstock thrives in a particular area that are available to investors.

Ms. Agbon also said that Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap recently met with officials of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service who agreed to collaborate with the PADCC in developing bioethanol feedstocks from sugarcane, sorghum and cellulosic materials, as well as biodiesel feed-stock from algae.

SAN Carlos City Mayor Eugenio Jose “Bong” Lacson said Friday that around P800 million to P1 billion is needed to develop the city’s airport.

Lacson said he is hopeful the National Government will extend the needed financial support in developing the airfield.

“We are not really looking at developing the airport to house passenger carrying aircrafts. What we have planned is to develop the airport for cargo planes because we do believe it fits based on the city’s geographical situation that is best for transporting of cargos,” he said.

“If we develop this airport, it would boost the growing economy of San Carlos, knowing that the city is a good access to some of the big cities in the Visayas,” he added.

San Carlos, situated north of Negros Occidental, is a potential access to big cities like Cebu, Bacolod, Dumaguete and even Iloilo.