Vol. II No. 39 • ISSN 2094-4098 March 7-13, 2011 • P15.00

Page 3

By HERNZ CUARE

To page 2

PO2 Jamaron Sandag: ‘Liberator of Siocon’

SEVEN years of oil production. Seven long years of freedom from oil importation and thereafter the start of making the Philippines as oil exporter far ahead than other countries in South East Asia.

These seven glorious years are not far from the coun-try’s reach.

That is if President Benigno Simeon “PNoy” Aquino knows how.

OIL FREEDOMIF PNOYKNOWSHOWPinoys shortchanged in EDU projects?

This Dyaryo Magdalo learned as ExxonMobil, the world’s largest pub-licly-traded international oil and gas company, and BHP Billiton, the world’s largest integrated resourc-es company, hit positive signs in its exploration projects in four areas of South Sulu Sea within Service Contract 56. It has an estimated oil reserve of over 750 million barrels.

These seven glorious years are the country’s dream from Sulu Sea ex-ploration alone without counting oil reserves in the regions of Luzon and Visayas.

To further the country’s dream in broad daylight, there are 112 oil eploration targets within the North-west Palawan basin with potential oil reserve of 11.5 billion barrels.

Not counting the Sulu Sea oil exploration, President Noynoy Aquino boasted that oil reserve in Palawan is almost equal to Iraq’s stock, the second biggest proven reserve

next to Saudi Arabia.The President was also

uplifted with reports on sizeable natural gas field in Mindoro Occidental.

But, can these billions of oil reserves and billions of financial gains be felt by Filipinos who longed for domestic economic stability?

Or, will this be one to remain an eternal dream just like the boastings of the country’s Malampaya 600 million barrels of oil reserve that has enriched not the Filipinos but the foreign consortia?

Loss despite rich gas

As can be gleaned from the Malampaya Natural Gas Project, the Commis-sion on Audit has found that the country, instead of gaining, has lost P53.140 billion between 2003 and 2009 from its share of the net proceeds from the sale of natural gas and conden-sates from the Malampaya project.

The corporate income

taxes of the project’s ser-vice contractors were de-ducted from the govern-ment’s 60 percent share as reflected in 2009 report of the Department of Energy.

The Malampaya Gas Project, one of the largest industrial undertakings in the country, extracts natu-ral gas under the waters off the northwest coast of Palawan. It transports the gas by a pipeline to a gas plant in Batangas for processing and delivery to three power stations.

The service contractors that operate the natural gas project are the US-based Chevron, Anglo-Dutch Shell Exploration and the PNOC Exploration Corp.

Is this loss validor invented?

The answer may be

found in the huge amount of money that was given to the Province of Palawan as its share for the devel-opment of national wealth.

In fact, the reported $2 billion of shares com-

promised to the province was tagged as the root of the murder of radio broad-cast journalist Dr. Gerry Ortega.

Ortega was said to have criticized former governor Joel T. Reyes for highly-irregular practices using

MONEY, money, money. A lot of money in hundreds of millions of pesos

were seen as the guiding star in the investigation of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) concerning the overturning of Princess of the Star in the waters off Romblon.

This is the opinion of Dyaryo Magdalo as to what happened. This opinion was based on what the newsweekly perceives as a concoction of narratives by Coast Guard officials.

It is Dyaryo Magdalo’s opinion that these officials changed their tones of reasons purportedly to bury the truth of who are to blame in the death of about 700 passengers of what turned out to be a “floating coffin,” MV Princess of the Stars.

Literally, the ship floats no more off the coast of San Fernando, Romblon on June 21, 2008.

That sea tragedy happened two years ago. But until now, the family of the long-buried victims and those whose bodies were not found are still hungry of justice.

It is theorized that millions of pesos of Sulpicio Lines swayed in the delay of judgment despite the naked face of truth that Sulpicio is all to blame.

For the deaths of still unacounted passengers, it was said that Sulpicio had already been paid by the insurance firm. Sulpicio was also said to have earned other millions of money from an international com-pany that salvaged the ship. Before all these pay-ments came, it was said that Sulpicio had already gained millions of pesos from the fares of passengers

these big funds.In fact, Reyes was ac-

cused of selling out Pala-wan when he agreed to a compromise with the national government in an issue of whether or not Malampaya is located within the province to en-

title Palawan the big share from the gas extraction.

EDU rights continously auctioned off

EDU stands for explo-ration, development and utilization of sites being

believe to have reserves of crude oil.

Started by predeces-sors, the present adminis-tration continues to exploit the natural wealth of the country. However, it also continuously auctioning

Justice sunk in Princess of the Star sea tragedy

whose voyage turned out to be to heaven or hell. From what happened, Dyaryo Magdalo believed

that the insurmountable wealth of Sulpicio was uti-lized to silence the victims and families, buy services of the courts, and pay the principles of government officials tasked in investigating maritime disasters.

The families of the victims claimed they were paid P200,000 per dead loved ones. Those who ac-cept the cold cash were made Sulpicio’s lawyers to execute affidavits of quitclaim.

Ex-PCG chief exonerated Sulpicio

Based on the evidence gathered by Dyaryo Mag-dalo, it is of the opinion that then Coast Guard Com-mandant Wilfredo Tamayo and his successor Com-modore Luis Tuason determined the tone of the findings of the Board of Maritime Inquiry (BMI).

The said “findings” were reviewed by no one else but Tamayo being the chief then of the Coast Guard, which, in turn, has powers over the Board of Mari-time Inquiry that actually conducts maritime disas-ters.

During a congressional inquiry, the PCG and of-ficials of Sulpicio Lines conspired in blaming the captain of the ill-starred ship, who was Captain Flor-encio Marimon.

Marimon, they said of their findings, must be the only one who should be blamed because he sailed to the eye of the storm despite prior information that

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2 Vol. II No. 39 March 7-13, 2011

Publisher:RONALDO E. RENTA

Editorial:TOTO CAUSINGEditor-In-Chief

Design & Layout:RONALDO B. HERICO

Disclaimer: All news articles and opinions expressed by the writers are entirely their own and do not reflect the opinion of the publisher, the management or the editor of this publication.All Rights Reserved: No part of this publication may be copied or reproduced nor translated in any language or form for commercial pur-poses without prior written permission from the publisher and its writers or columnists.

MAGDIWANGPUBLICATIONS

Six-year-old girl’s brutal death,Cebu cops’ ‘brutal’ mistake By HERNZ CUARE

From page 1

To page 7

THE arrest of a Norwegian tourist and his nurse girlfriend in Cebu as sus-

pects in the brutal death of a six-year-old girl last February 9 is turning po-lice investigators into “police predators.”

It looks more that the National Bureau of In-vestigation (NBI) is cor-rect in asserting that the death of the girl cannot be blamed to the couple who were lining up for a plane flight when picked up by police operatives from the queue.

If it turns out that the NBI is correct, then Cebu cops, including their chief, must answer for the brutal mistake in their investgiation now that the damage done to man and woman they arrested is beyond repair.

Girl found withbroken skull

Before discussing the incompetence, let this be-gin from here.

It could have been a prelude to a series of ab-duction of children for trafficking in the province of Cebu. But the unprec-endented kidnapping and murder of a six-year-old elementary pupil, Ellah Joy Pique, has put to stop the evils that might have fallen on the “angels” in the countryside.

Ellah Joy, who studied at Calajoan Elementary School in Minglanilla, was kidnapped. Her bat-tered nakedness was dumped at a cliff along the national road in Ba-rangay Sayaw, town of Barili, province of Cebu, in the morning of Febru-ary 9.

It was believed her unstoppable tears and longing for comfort of her family has consumed the patience of her abduc-tors, a male caucasian and a Filipina, who probably tried to tame her inno-cence by giving her two 50-peso bills for candies

and creams.Her abductors’ pa-

tience must have ran out as shown by slaps laid on Ellah’s face that resulted in laceration and bleed-ing of her lower lip. Her head was banged on ve-hicle’s dashboard till her skull fractured causing her brain to bleed.

In solving the contro-versial crime that haunted the province of Cebu, the police looked for leads with a theory that a male suspect has a look of a foreigner with pedophile taste and with painted (tattooed) body, while the other is a Filipina prosti-tute.

Armed with this the-ory and the cartographic sketch of the suspects, the police started running around the bush until a couple, a Nowegian and a Filipina, with the sem-blance of the suspects, was stopped at the Mactan Airport on Saturday night, February 10.

The Norwegian, Sven Erik Berger, 49, from Oslo, Norway, and his Filipina fiance Karen Es-drelon, 24, were to spend Valentines Day and hold their formal engagement in Hong Kong for five days when they were pulled out from the wait-ing line at the Mactan International Airport for being suspects in the ab-duction and killing of El-lah Joy.

However, the police theory on the suspects went out of taste for Berger has a clean body and has no semblance of a pedophile, while Esdrelon is no prostitute. Esdrelon is a single mother, a Ce-buana registered nurse who worked at Tuburan Health Center from July to December 2010, while Berger is a computer en-gineer and chairman of a photography club in Kongsberg, Norway.

When showed with the cartographic sketch and being unaware that they were suspects in the now controversial crime,

Esdrelon even joked that the sketch looked like her boyfriend Berger.

When informed that they were suspects in the killing of Ellah Joy, and when press photographers took their shots, Esdrelon went hysterics, denied the accusation with prayer and tears. But her shouts and tears were of no use for the police instantly de-clared that with the arrest, the “case is solved.”

With the purpose of detaching themselves from the crime, the cou-ple listed down their ac-tivities on Feb. 8, the day Ellah Joy was abducted in front of the Calajo-an Elementary School, but PNP Cebu Director Erson Digal, instead of checking the couple’s ls-ited itinerary, wasted his time talking to reporters, speculating and insinuat-ing, winning his media mileage by destroying the dignity of the couple.

But, are the couple re-ally the perpetrators of the crime?

“Definitely, not!” De-clared by Cebuano medi-cal practitioners in their rally for justice for Ellah Joy, Esdrelon and Berger. The same is the campaign in Twitters, blogs and Facebook. They fear that the true criminals are scot-free and are now hunting for their next prey.

Facebook social page – “Justice for Ellah Joy Pique” – has postings of Cebuanos and Norwe-gians, all are optimistic that Berger and Esdrelon are victims of a “wrong, mistake” police operation.

The Cebu PNP was even accused of being hungry-for-money for railroading the investiga-tion against Berger and Esdrelon, and conclud-ing that the case of Ellah Joy is closed, therewith empowering them to feast on the P100,000 bounty alloted by the town coun-cil of Minglanilla and P25,000 added by the city council of Cebu.

Jergen Eide com-mented that the police has already traced the Mit-subishi Pajero with plate number 679 used in the abduction of Ellah Joy, but for still unknown rea-son, they blinded them-selves and, worst, they sacrificed the dignity of Berger and Esdrelon.

Eide further claimed that the owner of Pajero “was accused of kidnap-ping five years ago, but the Cebu PNP (Philippine National Police) does not care.”

Cebu Governor Gwen-dolyn Garcia, not con-vinced by the investiga-tion and operation of the Cebu PNP, asked for an independent probe by the National Bureau of Inves-tigation-Central Visayas.

The NBI conducted an in depth investigation and discovered that the PNP

erred in accusing and ar-resting Berger and Esdre-lon. But before the NBI can report to Garcia, the PNP filed in rush before the prosecutor’s office the “complex crime” of kidnapping with homicide and violation of the Anti-Trafficking of Persons Act. The charges were based merely on three kids’ positive identifica-tion of the couple.

Background

Ellah Joy was on her way home at 4:00 pm of February 8, following 10-year-old twins after school when a black SUV (Pajero with plate number

679) stopped in front of them.

The car’s door opened with a Caucasian man on the driver’s seat and a Filipina woman sitting beside him. Ellah, who was offered a ride home, boarded the car, sat on the woman’s lap, smiled and waved at her friends goodbye.

At 7:55 am the fol-lowing day, Ellah’s poor naked and lifeless body was found wrapped in two cream-colored bed-sheets and blankets with three rocks and gray cable wires snaked around her tiny frame.

Ellah Joy was the youngest child and

the only daughter of the Pique family.

NBI report

The independent in-vestigation by the NBI confirmed that Berger and Esdrelon were tell-ing the truth that they were in Cebu City in the afternoon of Feb. 8, when Ellah Joy was abducted in the southern town of Min-glanilla.

Following the itiner-ary described by Berger and Esdrelon, the NBI agents talked to the staff of Norwegian Language School in Lahug, where the sweethearts visited to enroll Esdrelon in a lan-

guage course about 3:30 pm of Feb. 8.

The agents also viewed security videotapes of the Waterfront Lahug Hotel. Its camera recorded the couple checking in at 4:40 p.m.

Despite the findings that can overturn the ac-cusation of Cebu PNP, the NBI can no longer inter-vene in the case for the charges against Berger and Esdrelon were al-ready filed before the prosecutor’s office.

Berger who proposed mariage to Esdrelon, mother of a three-year olf boy, had flown into Cebu from Norway a day before the abduction of Ellah Joy on Feb. 7.

off exploration and devel-opment contracts to for-eign conglomerates.

Australia’s Nido Petro-leum Ltd. had successful completion of the drill-ing of two wells in SC 54 where the first oil dis-covery in the Philippines in the last 14 years was made.

The two wells there, Yakal-1 and Tindalo-1, about 5.5 kilometers apart, confirmed a combined gross oil column of ap-proximately 200 meters.

Shell Philippines Ex-ploration B.V. hired drill ship Frontier Phoenix in conducting “exploratory drilling” in another auc-tion packaged as Service Contract 60 in offshore northeast Palawan.

Shell Philippines oper-ates SC 60 and holds 55 percent of the contract, with Kuwait Petroleum owning 30 percent and South China, a local com-pany, accounting for 15 percent.

Then there is this Ser-vice Contract 56 in South Sulu Sea. This consortium

Oil freedom if PNoy...is composed of ExxonMo-bil that owns 50 percent interest in the contract, Australian firm BHP Bil-liton Pty Ltd. owning 25 percent stake and local company Mitra Energy Philippines Ltd. owns the remaining 25 percent working interest in the project.

SC 56 is 900 kilometers southwest from Manila, 200 kilometers northwest from the Municipality of Bongao and 65 kilometers from the Municipality of Mapun in the province of Tawi-Tawi in the Autono-mous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

ExxonMobil expects its Service Contract 56 to yield potential oil reserves of 750 million barrels, enough to cover for the country’s daily consump-tion of 275,000 barrels per day in seven years.

In another project, in-stead of using locally the country’s oil, the Philip-pines exported hundreds of thousands of barrel car-goes of Galoc’s crude or Palawan Light to Thai Oil

and South Korea’s SK En-ergy for a good price.

Galoc produces 15,000 to 20,000 barrels per day.

Galoc lies within SC 14 in 300 meters of water, some 60 kms offshore of Palawan.

The Galoc reservoir is some 2,200 meters below the sea floor and its first production commenced in October 2008.

Galoc Production Company (GPC), in which European trader Vitol has 68.6 percent stake and Australia’s Otto Energy has 31.4 percent interest, is the operator of the field, with a 58.29 percent share. The remaining 41.71 per-cent share of the field is split between Nido Petro-leum, with 22.28 percent, and several Philippine partners.

Nido also had two suc-cessful oil discoveries in Philippines—Yakal and Tindalo—covered by Ser-vice Contract 54 off Nort-west Palawan, explored by Asutralian Nido Petroleum Ltd., have the potential to yield over 35 million bar-

rels of oil.The Tindalo 1 oil well

is flowing 15,000 barrels per day.

Nido also identified over 20 prospects in shal-low waters with an esti-mated potential for 200 million barrels.

However, all those that were produced were not sold to the Philippine market.

The practice of ex-porting the country’s oil products is already an old practice just like what hap-pened to the extracted oil of Malampaya which were sold to South Korea.

The Calauit oil field in offshore Northwest Pala-wan, a site of two oil dis-coveries in the 1990s that flowed a combined 10,000 barrels of crude per day, is explored by Australian firm Otto Energy Ltd. The field is projected to contain between 13 and 67 million barrels of oil reserves.

The Marantao offshore prospect in Palawan con-tains an estimated 1.8 tril-lion cubic feet of gas and

March 7-13, 2011 3 Vol. II No. 39

Justice elusivefor MuslimValor medalist

By HERNZ CUARE & TOTO CAUSING

PO2 Jamaron Sandag: ‘Liberator of Siocon’

THIS Muslim cop is the real hero deserving a hero’s burial—not former Armed Force Angelo Tomas Reyes.

The star of this Muslim cop shines so bright, far, far brighter than four stars on the

shoulder of Reyes whose bravery to face death came with cowardice in facing the charges of corruption.

That corruption ac-cusation consisted of a welcome fund of P50 mil-lion given him when he took over the helm of the AFP, the funds used by his wife Teresita in travel-ling abroad 42 times along with the wife of Lt. Gen. Jacinto Ligot, the chief handler of the military funds during his time, and others.

If only P100,000 were spent for each travel, then Mrs. Reyes at least spent P4.2 million, an amount that cannot be justified by the P37,000 monthly sala-ries of the AFP chief. The fact that she traveled with the wife of the comptrol-ler reinforced the idea that the funds they were using came from the military.

While there are many who insist Reyes died hon-orably, there is no question that his death was highly questionable.

“I do not know the dignity of his birth, but I do know the glory of his death.”

This is the scream-ing phrase that greets one when he or she enters Lib-ingan ng mga Bayani.

The message is clear: that the cemetery is ex-clusive for all who had unquestionably glorious deaths, and no one must have been there having questionable deaths.

One of those buried there is a Muslim cop who proved his heroics beyond compare.

This Muslim cop is Police Officer 2 Jamaron Sandag.

Sandag demonstrated extreme gallantry in action that can be equaled only by United States’ Medal of Valor awardee Sgt. Jose Calugas Sr.

A member of the Spe-cial Action Force, Sandag singlehandedly repulsed the attack of more than 100 members of Abu Sayyaf as he defended the town of Siocon.

They said 35 were killed when Sandag sprang to action, including 10 fel-

low cops at the Siocon Police Station and 25 Abu Sayyaf raiders.

At that time on May 4, 2003, PO2 Sandag was a living-out prisoner at Siocon Police Station in the town of Siocon, Zam-boanga del Norte. Over a hundred of Abu Sayyaf men raided the town, tak-ing its mayor hostage and killing all policemen and soldiers.

Seeing everybody dead, Sandag took a rifle of his dead colleague and started fighting off the bandits. He stopped the attempt to burn the police station and he killed many of them. The raiders were withdrawing when the re-inforcements of the gov-ernment came.

While battling it out, Sandag was said to be moving from one place to another that the attackers might have gotten an im-pression the bullets rain-ing on them were coming from not just one soldier.

Nevertheless, four

years later Sandag was decorated the Medalya ng Kagitingan, the PNP’s equivalent of the Medal of Valor in the Armed Forces.

Thereafter, Sandag was given the name as “The Liberator of Siocon.”

The official Medal of Valor citation reads:

“Although a detainee at the Siocon Police Sta-tion, PO1 Sandag self-lessly fought the aggres-sors, using the M16 rifle of a wounded co-policeman in defending said station. With remarkable intrepid-ity, Sandag not only bewil-dered the enemy but also disrupted their plans, spe-cifically the burning of the Police Station. By bravely standing his ground until reinforcements arrived, PO1 Sandag and other defenders repulsed the en-emy attack.”

On the part of Sgt. Calugas, his story of hero-ism and gallantry occurred during the World War 2, 1942.

Seeing the forces of

Americans and Filipino scouts to have been in the losing end and knowing that their machine gun a kilometer away had be-come silent, Calugas con-vinced 16 of his comrades to run amid the hails of bullets to the gunnery and use it.

Only Calugas and a buddy made it through the rains of Japanese bullets. As he took charge of the machine gun, he repaired it first before using the same to rain it on the ad-vancing imperial forces.

Before darkness came, the Japanese forces were turned back.

Thus, Calugas was buried in a hero’s grave in Washington State, given a park for his name, and apartment complex also to his name.

In the case of Sandag, he was buried in Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Unlike Calugas who died gloriously by a natu-ral death, Sandag died in a mysterious and brutal way.

Sandag’s death must have become more bru-tal when the former AFP Chief of Staff was buried along with him in Libin-gan ng mga Bayani.

Mystery ofValor awardee’s death

Medal of Valor award-ee Sandag died in a myste-rious way.

He was later found to have died meaninglessly in 2009.

His body was found in an advanced state of decomposition and with a bullet hole in the head.

It was discovered in a landfill in Barangay San Isidro, Rodriguez, Rizal on March 16, or, 19 days after he was reported held hostage by a group of armed men inside a Taguig apartelle in West Bicutan, Taguig.

Operatives of the Southern Police District conducted a rescue op-eration during the reported hostage-taking in Taguig on February 25, 2009 but Sandag and his captors

were no longer the area.To serve justice to

Sandag, the Philippine National Police created Task Force Sandag, com-posed of elements from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), Aviation Security Group, Southern Police District, Rizal Provincial Police Of-fice and Crime Laboratory.

But his death until now has never been resolved. The task force until now is carrying an empty bag. This is appalling and sick-ening for the killers not to be punished, much more that the one they killed was a treasure of the na-tion being a medal of valor awardee.

The task force has never been heard to have continuously worked on the case to unmasked the killers of the hero.

Circumstances which led to the key to murder of the Valor awardee

Knowing that the hero was a member of a Mus-lim tribe in Mindanao, the crime investigators must have known the tradition of “rido” or vengeance kill-ing until all members of the family of the one who ag-grieved are wiped out.

The task force inves-tigators must have also known the murder charge filed against PO2 Sandag, regarding the killing that was said to have been committed by him when he was 13 years old.

These circumstance must have been looked into for it is always possi-ble that the Valor awardee was killed in the pursuit of “rido.”

The task force must have also investigated the family of the person who was allegedly murdered by Sandag when he was 13 years old.

Thus, this led the task force to build up a case and filed it against persons who were of a Muslim tribe.

Those accused were five policemen and 13 ci-vilians, some of them ba-rangay officials.

Charged for his mur-

der were Police Officers 2 Borjan Jawali and Asmad Badlis; Police Officers 1 Said Wahid, Sukarno Ad-jod and Roderick Mag-sano, all assigned at the Southern Police District (SPD).

Ten of the 13 civilians charged for murder were Aljon “Junjun “ Pawai Sala, Haron Gacao alias Pahambong, Gaini “Gani “ Wadja, Asman Amila-san alias Abuel, Salim Janihim, Ramili Wahid, Jahim Payao, Hadji Mobin Payao, Majid Adbulhaman alias Shariff Larudin and Gamar Janihim, the al-leged mastermind.

Justice elusive for Valor awardee

But the fate seems bit-ter for the Valor awardee.

There is no clear sight that justice may be served for the Valor awardee.

All the accused escaped before charges could be filed at the Department of Justice. They all remained at large till today.

Indeed, it was estab-lished that the murder of Sandag was the result of decades of clan war.

His family in Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte was involved in a “rido” or vendetta with another Muslim family, Payao.

The Payao family vowed to kill all male heirs of the Sandag clan.

Raised from a family of farmers, Sandag was determined to become a policeman after earning his criminology degree.

He worked as a jani-tor at SAF Headquarters, passed the stringent PNP entry requirements, and then hurdled the 6-month commando training.

In whatever measure, Sandag’s story is for a film.

He is a legend of one man fighting against mon-sters or truckloads of war-riors who were impossible to subdue without an aid of an “agimat,” “bertud,” “anting-anting” or amulet or charm, like in the films of Ramon Revilla.

MARHS BATCH 1966- Alumni of the 1966 Batch of Manuel A. Roxas High School on San Gregorio St., Paco, Manila pose for posterity during their 45th Annual Alumni Homecoming held at the Composite Wing Savings & Loan Association, Inc. (CWSLAI) under Colonel Dell Ocbina, (Ret.) CWSLAI chairman, on January 30, 2011. Sitting in front (left to right) are: Jean Posis, Helen Barredo, Cora Ocbina, Petrona Torres, Vivian Villanueva, Lolita Gatbonton and other unidentified alumni members. Standing on the 2nd row are: Flor Gonzales (2nd from left), Connie Millize, Lut Jolly (5th from left), Lettie Florendo, Merle Gorospe, Lourdes F, Rivera (8th from left). Standing alone on the third row is Tisha Dominguez.

PHOTO BY JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL

Privileged spits

By Toto C. Causing

Hernz quarry

By Hernani Cuare

4 Vol. II No. 39 March 7-13, 2011

A reply to ex-PMA superintendent

Smuggling rumors linked to Bongbong 2016!TOO many names and big names are dragged to the smuggling hul-labaloo at the Bu-reau of Customs, like the name of Senator Bongbong Marcos, the son of the former strongman whose body still lies in a re-frigerated coffin.

But what’s the fuss with Bongbong’s name at the Customs clandestine smuggling operation? Why his name is so gigantic that port officials and players are squab-bling to gain more and save more billions of funds?

After the 2010 elections, Bongbong has been the talk of town. The year 2016 is far, too far, from imagination. But his handlers are some-what in a hurry and they’re quite pretty sure that the Pal-ace has already been drawn in to his palm.

As if for reason of his name, the Bureau of Customs has re-portedly opened the gate for smugglers. As if it has already been declared that “let’s rush to gain and save early for 2016.” As if saying that this is all for Bongbong.

What a mess?The gates of BOC

are now open to smug-glers allegedly after Customs Commis-

sioner Lito Alvarez re-portedly ordered a stop to benchmarking prac-tice of the bureau. For onlookers, the act of Al-varez is advantageous to government. But for port players who have the byword of early election fund, it looks somewhat like offering them a pot to fill defi-nitely not for the gov-ernment coffers. Any-way, will Bongbong really do what Senator Manny Villar did years before the 2010 polls? Villar lost in his 2010 presidential bid.

Benchmarking refers to a payment of P10,000 for every importation via 20-footer container van and P20,000 per 40-footer container van without the benefit of physical examination of the imported goods. Benchmarking payment is an assured collection for government coffer aside from duties and taxes.

I’ve heard the name of Bongbong for the throne late last year when I was told that he was in need of a speechwriter. His name cropped up the second time last week when somebody approached me and talked about Customs’ public rela-tions.

I was told that the bureau is in need of a high-caliber PR handler who has the capacity to

guide the tri-media – TVs, radios and news-papers – to report only praises and no port ho-cus-pocus.

It makes me wonder why the bureau needs a handler when its per-formance has satisfied expectations.

I was told that Alva-rez has lifted the bench-marking and the name of Bongbong has been the talk in the corridors of the country’s first defense against smug-gling.

What an intrigue? It’s nonsense to tow

the name of Bongbong to whatever clandestine smuggling plan at the ports.

However, I believe that Bongbong has to clear and distance his name from port crocs before it’s too late. Somebody is digging a grave, burying the in-tegrity left of the good senator.

The lifting of bench-marking is likely giv-ing away the assured government gains. But Alvarez might have thought otherwise for benchmarking is not the

only effective weapon in hitting the target col-lection of the bureau. He is convinced that there are other means of satisfying or surpassing the target collection.

At present, the BOC reported that it has ex-ceeded the collection target for the month of February 2011 by P582 million.

The bureau’s collec-tion goal is P20 billion and it collected P20.58 billion. Alvarez is not contented with this achievement of his of-fice, so, he allegedly discarded benchmark-ing.

Before the lifting of benchmarking, a refer-ral letter from the Of-fice of Executive Sec-retary Paquito Ochoa was received by the OCOM (Office of the Commissioner, Bureau of Customs). The let-ter was about the des-ignation of the new head of the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG), the defunct anti-smuggling body that was once lorded by now Dangerous Drugs Board Chair Antonio

“Bebot” A. Villar Jr.The referral letter

shook the knees of port players and others with personal interest in the unabated smuggling un-dertakings.

With the sheer pur-pose of halting the move of someone who wants to head the anti-smuggling group, the names of respected government officials were drawn to the fore.

Benny Kho was namedropped. As if, he’s a ghost ready to haunt. As if, he’s the man to be talked first before reviving the anti smuggling body. Kho was reportedly with the defunct EIIB and Task Force Subic.

I have nothing against Benny Kho for we have worked to-gether for years when I served PASG as its writer from 2007 until its abolition in 2010.

Persons with interest at the BOC contended that the act of reviv-ing PASG is nonsense for President Noynoy Aquino has already de-clared it dead due to du-plication of functions.

If it’s already impos-sible to revive the anti-smuggling group, why port players seemed shaking and turning all stones to prevent its re-turn? And why they’re proposing the creation of an anti-smuggling task force not by the president but by Alva-rez himself?

Somebody is cook-ing something at the OCOM.

Anyway, the refer-ral letter from the Pal-ace was received by the OCOM two weeks ago. Since then, no words yet have come from Al-varez.

In reading the turn of events, the ultimate purpose of barring the revival of the anti-smuggling group by Malacañang is to secure the interest of kings and queens at the BOC.

They don’t want oth-ers to enter the playing field and take a piece of the pie that they guarded for months since PNoy appointed Alvarez as BOC com-missioner.

However, in mani-festing their desire to corner port illegal operations, they have wronged big men that they namedropped, like Kho and Bebot Villar who kept their silence for long after PNoy took the reigns of power.

These men of vested interest claimed that

Kho and Villar are fuming mad when the group of Salipada, former PASG-Basulta director, initiated the move lobbying in the palace for the revival of PASG.

What an intrigue?The fact that Vil-

lar and Kho have kept their silence and have distanced them-selves from the ports after the abolition of PASG is a concrete display of submission to whatever decision of the present admin-istration.

Moreover, Villar has submitted himself to the pleasure of the president by announc-ing in public, before his kababayans in Pangasinan, that he is willing to leave his present government post if PNoy orders so. He even encour-aged members of his local political party, “Biskeg Pangasinan,” to support the pro-grams of PNoy.

These port crocs who are namedrop-ping the respected men in government service should be dis-ciplined early for oth-ers not to follow.

They are sowing intrigues by sacrific-ing the integrity of honorable men who have treasured their names in the service of the country.

[Author: This is a reply I wrote to a former superinten-dent of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) who answered my general call to the PMAers to stand up and demand change. In respect to privacy of communication, I am not publishing the said answer.]

Dear Sir Manuel,First, let me thank

you for honoring me with your reply.

I understand your position and I believe in your assertion of facts, having come from one who has per-sonal knowledge of what he saw, heard, felt, experienced and understood from all these observations. I credit this to you be-cause you are a for-mer superintendent of the Philippine Mili-tary Academy (PMA) whose portals say: “Courage, Integrity, Loyalty.”

Second, let me thank you that your views reinforced my belief that the good-ness or badness of a man is not exclusive in the institution of learning where he came from.

Third, let me stress you are correct in say-ing that however it is unfortunate that com-pared to alumni of other institutions the gradu-ates of PMA are unique-ly placed in a circum-stance that when they begin to serve they are placed in positions that hold extremely high public trust and confi-dence.

However, with this unique situation the PMAers are in, we the taxpayers are more of-ten unkind in arrogantly demanding more from PMAers by arguing that we pay for your school-ing and services so that they must return our fa-vor to our satisfaction.

We do this not be-cause we pay for their schooling and salaries when they serve. We do this more because most of us placed most of our hopes and future in the hands of these suppos-edly gallant and true honorable men. You cannot deny that we civilians looked at the PMAers as our saviors; and that we looked at them as our last bulwark that cannot be corrupted even if the system of politics or governance or all others have be-

come so incurably cor-rupt and dishonest.

Perhaps you felt the silent majority amongst us the people cheer-ing when some of your alumni seized Oak-wood hotel to stand up against the corrupt Glo-ria. Perhaps you felt our frustrations that our hopes died when these PMAers were even made to surrender by other PMAers who were in cahoots with Gloria.

Perhaps you felt the cry of the silent ma-jority of us the people when the very persons to whom we pinned our hopes, our dreams, and our future were the very same persons who col-laborated with Garcil-lano to trample with our voices.

This is truly sad.Perhaps, keeping

your justifications in your heart, the PMAers will understand when we are blinded by rage when we see our taxes going down the drain

of greed for wealth and power of PMAers.

Perhaps, the conscien-tious PMAers, who we believe are in the major-ity, will understand when we the people rage at the appearance of military money being wasted in-stead of being sent to our beloved soldiers who died for us not in the manner we expect but in the way our hearts and conscience revolt: as in the beheading of our sol-diers in the field due to the mortars that ought to reinforce did not fire be-cause of ammunition that went dud.

Perhaps the good of the PMA officers and gentlemen understand our shallow thought when we see colonels and generals doing cor-rupt acts as we see to-day with the “Pabaon” and “Pasalubong” scan-dal along with PMAer police officials linked to carnapping, like Gen. Boysie Rosales: that we immediately forget

the fine soldiery skills and techniques they ac-quired from their school but think these men as bastards, sons who have no fathers.

Pardon our rudeness as taxpaying civilians who also have contrib-uted some of our rela-tives to the PMA and many of them died as unsung heroes unlike Angelo T. Reyes who killed himself instead of facing to disprove ac-cusations of immorality yet he got the privilege of being buried in a place whose gate pro-nounces to the whole world: “I DO NOT KNOW THE DIGNITY OF HIS BIRTH, BUT I DO KNOW THE GLO-RY OF HIS DEATH.”

Pardon us for what we see immediately is a picture of blame point-ing to the imagined fail-ure of the PMA to train its cadets to become real disciplined officers.

Pardon us if we ex-pect PMA to deliver us

officers who have been hardened to the basic rules of goodness, of-ficers trained how to moderate universal greed, officers molded to become unselfish to the point of giving up life in the name of country and people, of-ficers who do not mis-take honor and glory as equivalent to wealth or political power, offi-cers who are willing to die ahead of their men, officers who stay neu-tral during non-violent political upheavals like what was displayed by Egyptian military of-ficers in between the maze of protest and the demand of Mubarak to assert to stay in power.

To the contrary, we have not seen the major-ity of PMAers asserting what is right when their senior officers looked clearly in wrong places.

Thus, we often won-der: if these men are will-ing to die by the bullets of Moro separatists, Abu Sayyaf men and NPA reb-els, why can’t they risk their lives just to stand up for what is right?

We have seen so many coup d’etats during Cory’s time and these were led by PMAers.

We have seen EDSA 2 where Gen-eral Angelo Reyes and others chose side to oust a legitimately-chosen president in-stead of doing what the Egyptian military did: stay neutral and let the people shout out to their hearts con-tent as long as they stay peaceful and let them battle it out with whoever the sitting president is.

We have seen many senior PMAers sub-jecting themselves to political kingpins that they would give unconditional coop-eration even to the point of running in conflict with the peo-ple they serve. They were trained with the sanctity of the chain of command but we have seen many se-nior PMAers breaking the chain just to edge out fellow PMAers in the contest for promo-tions.

We have seen the system of promotion as nothing more than a battle of who are the closest to the authority that promotes.

Perhaps, the PMAers will under-stand us, the people.

Jerry’s BlogsBy Jerry S. Yap

Jannarally speakingBy JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL

March 7-13, 2011 5 Vol. II No. 39

Angelo Reyes:Flight means guilt

Luding Bongaling’s juetenginvades La Union

“Jueteng kobradors” of Baguio City migrat-ed to a new gambling nest: the province of La Union.

The reason? The jueteng of Luding Bon-galing in Baguio City has temporarily closed shop and the illegal num-bers game in La Union is now in full swing.

Baguio City “kobra-dors” claimed that hun-ger strikes their digestive systems and their stom-ach worms are likely in protest due to the unex-pected stop of jueteng operations.

However, the “kobra-dors” reached La Union to their dismay. Lud-ing has already formed a powerhouse to run

the lucrative 1602 opera-tion. Weary in their travel with no gains, the Baguio City “kobradors” returned to the City of Pines with smiles no more.

Luding, on the other hand, is enjoying the fruits of reigning and running alone La Union’s jueteng collection! Luding proud-ly declared that “grease money” has already soft-ened the PNP and the NBI in that province.

They are partners in crimes as claimed by one who introduced himself as bagman of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The bagman, who slowly gains influence is ironing the jueteng opera-tion in La Union to the ex-

tent of gaining for himself the nametag: PROTEC-TOR/FINANCIER/NBI BAGMAN. He came from the clan of VILLANCA.

Who can be among them, Boyet?

Luding’s operation in La Union sends to naught the ONE STRIKE POLI-CY of the PNP.

Tsk tsk tsk … What could be the feeling, GEN. RAUL BACALZO?

Jueteng of Tony ‘Bulok’Santos drawn in Marikina for QC to CAMANAVA areas

He is now known as the “most sophisticated jueteng operator” in the country. He is Tony “Bu-lok” Santos.

Just take note. Bolok’s

jueteng is drawn in Marikina City but his op-eration is in Quezon City.

Indeed, it’s impossible to catch his too sophis-ticated illegal operation. You’re great, “boy bulok”!

And because of his un-conventional style, Bulok has extended his operation to CAMANAVA (Caloo-kan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela).

Yes, Bulok has all the laughter to the ONE-STRIKE POLICY of the PNP. His discreet op-eration has dealt out the INTEL UNIT and DI-RECTOR’S OFFICE of Quezon City Police Dis-trict (QCPD).

One “PAPA MAYOR” is the shining shield of jueteng operator Bulok

Santos.Now, what can you say,

GEN. BENJARDI MAN-TELE?

“3 bad eggs” are

new bagmen of MPD

The bagman of Manila Police District (MPD) was struck out.

His throne was taken over by three bad eggs.

These three are known as alias BEN HANDU-LAN and TATA PUNY-EN-TE ABET who are now alive and kicking, and the one standing like a rooster, TATA BHER.

What puzzles us is the MPD’s speedy change of bagman/collec-tong.

Why, oh, why, Gen. Roberto Rongavilla?

Do your men assign “quota” too high and too strict? Or, do they count off some of their collec-tion?

Gen. Tan is new chief of

Airport Police Department

Airport Police Depart-ment (APD) has allegedly acquired a new boss.

He is retired Gen. AL-GER C. TAN, PMA Class ’79.

General Tan took over the post of ret. Gen. Sal-vador Peñaflor who took over the position of Col. Rene Gonzales at IID-PASS CONTROL OF-FICE.

We have no in-depth background of Gen. Tan except of his being the for-

mer PASSCOR chief.This could be a mess.

Gen. Tan might clash with Captain Manuel Wong who has posted many security guards of Passcor.

Rumors circulate at the airport that when the general assumed his new post last Thursday, Captain Wong was out of reach or cannot be located. Wong allegedly went to Camp Crame to ask for help (SOS) from a police general who happens to be his broth-er-in-law?

Well, it’s time to watch and see of who’s the barrel-chested, Gen. Tan or Captain Wong.

I first met the then Maj. Gen. Angelo Reyes a few years ago at the Philippine Army Head-quarters in Fort Bonifa-cio when I was doing a story about the Army’s anniversary. He was at that time the Command-ing General of the North-ern Luzon Command (Nolcom).

I tried to interview him about the Army’s activity in connection with their anniversary but he begged off. He in-stead referred me to the Army’s spokesman, the then Col. Cardozo Luna.

That was my first and the last time to meet him in person, although I learned from a friend he became an Honorary Member of the Pugad Lawin Philippines, Inc. where I used to be the first Muslim Secretary General in 1994. In Pugad Lawin my Call Sign is “Maharajah,” my actual title in the Sul-tanate of Sulu & North Borneo (Sabah), while that of General Reyes is “Bantayog” or monu-ment.

The next time I saw him was through a tele-vision. That time, he was the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), dur-ing the administration of former President Joseph Estrada.

Before going further, let me recall that General Reyes later said goodbye to his outgoing Com-mander-in-Chief Estrada at the culmination of what they called “Edsa II.” That was the time when Erap succumbed to the mass protest and decided to cross over Pa-sig River. To my mind, Reyes was there not to actually say goodbye but to make sure Erap vacate Malacañang. I observed as if there was nothing unusual to Reyes. That

was unlike most of the then President’s Men who genuinely appeared wor-ried, including our wed-ding sponsor Mayor Ed-ward Hagedorn of Puerto Princesa City and the for-mer commander of Presi-dential Security Group (PSG) Brigadier General Rudy Diaz. The two even shed tears when Erap boarded the Philippine Coast Guard barge.

By the way General Diaz is also my long-time friend. Our acquaintance started during the martial law days, just after it was proclaimed by Marcos on September 21, 1972. I was in my first year at the Min-danao State University campus in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi. General Diaz was among the young officers of the Philippine Marines who landed in Tawi-Tawi. He was then holding the rank of captain in the Ma-rine Battalion Landing Team that encamped in the town of Bongao under the Sulu Sea Frontier Com-mand (Susefcom).

Going back to Gen-eral Reyes, he continued his service as the Chief of Staff under Gloria Maca-pagal Arroyo until he was forced to retire by his age.

Upon retirement, he was rewarded by Gloria with several Cabinet posts. At first, he was appointed as the secretary of the De-partment of National De-fense (DND) from 2001 to 2003.

In 2004-2006, he was appointed as the secretary of Department of Inte-rior & Local Government (DILG), succeeding Joey Lina.

He was then appointed as the secretary of the Department Environment & Natural Resources (DENR), succeeding Mike Defensor. He occupied the DENR post from 2006 un-til 2007.

Thereafter, Gloria named Reyes as the secre-

tary of the Department of Energy (DoE). He carried the portfolio until Arroyo finished her term on June 30, 2010.

Reyes again grabbed the headlines.

This time, he was at the top of the news of sev-eral television stations and newspapers and even the main menu of the com-mentaries in different ra-dio stations.

He was made the palat-able food concerning the P50-million “pabaon” that was received by Reyes as revealed by the former budget officer of the AFP, retired Lt. Col. George Rabosa, during the Senate committee hearing.

Rabosa, who admitted he benefited also from the taxpayers’ money, said that when Reyes retired as Chief of Staff the latter was given P50 million as a “send-off” money or a “pabaon” in pursuance of the military tradition that started several decades ago.

This is in contrast to the “pabaon” of former Senator and now Muntin-lupa Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, who served as AFP Chief of Staff in 1991 during the time of the late President Corazon C. Aquino.

In a radio interview over DZMM, Biazon said he received a “pabaon” when he retired, but clari-fying that what he got was P1.3 million as his retire-ment pay. He said it is a “legal pabaon” out of his 3-year lump sum retire-ment pay, accumulated leave credits, and all other legal benefits.

Biazon, the chairman of the House Commit-tee on Defense, opined that Rabosa’s statement is credible, citing that Rabosa himself admitted that he, too, benefited out of the taxpayer’s money by pocketing parts thereof every time there was a re-tiring AFP Chief of Staff.

This revelation of

Rabosa must have prompt-ed Senator Jinggoy Estra-da to widen the Senate in-vestigation by inviting all other retired generals who served as chief of staff.

Perhaps it will go even up to the time of former President Fidel V. Ramos who also served as AFP Chief of Staff during the administration of Presi-dent Cory Aquino.

Reyes fought back by filing a case of an anti-graft and corrupt practices act before the Office of the Ombudsman against Senator Estrada and whistle-blower Rabosa. But the senator just be-littled the charges, saying how he could be charged with graft when he has not squandered taxpayer’s money. He also said that he was clothed with a par-liamentary immunity from suit as it was an official proceeding of the Senate.

But when Reyes killed himself before his moth-er’s grave, the charges of Rabosa all the more hard-ened up into the truth.

There was no other rea-son why he chose to end his life. It was the extreme fear to face the extreme shame.

That suicide was not meant to “save” the repu-tation of the AFP. It was not meant to shield his wife and children from the unavoidable forfeiture case because of the docu-mentary evidence showing the 42 travels of the wife during his time as AFP chief cannot be explained by his salaries.

If he held evidence to his innocence, Reyes could have been bold as a lion to present them to the Senate.

If he chose to depart from the real life world, then it apt to apply the common argument that says: “flight means guilt.”

The last wish of a childwith cancer-stricken eyes

“My both eyes can now be removed after I can have my last wish that is to see my idol, movie actress Marian Rivera,” says a six-year-old girl confined at the East Avenue Medi-cal Center in Quezon City.

This was shown in national television news and I was so touched by the predicament of that young girl who remained unknown to me. It has prompted me to include her story in this Jannarally Speaking column.

I failed to write the name of the child but her story as I have said touched me so much. Anytime from now on the doctors at the East Avenue will remove her both eyes due to cancer. Perhaps, by the time this column sees print, this young girl can no longer see.

One of her eyes is total-ly blind and the other one can hardly see. Her attend-ing physician said her two eyes should be removed otherwise the cancer cells will engulf the rest of her body.

Thus, the choices were “to save her life or to save her vision.”

The brave young girl opted that her life be saved and does not mind at all if her vision would be per-manently impaired.

But her last wish be-fore her eyes were to be taken away was to see popular movie and televi-sion actress Marian Rivera and she appealed to her to visit her at the East Avenue Medical Center.

After hearing the story of this child, I said to my-self: “I am good enough that although I now wear a reading glass. I am lucky that my vision is not yet totally impaired. How I wish, too, that this child can have an eye transplant even in just one of her eyes if having both sounds to be very expensive! I hope

there will be an eye donor or a Good Samaritan that can help this poor girl.

***POSTSCRIPT: This

columnist would like to thank the lovely couple Dell and Cora Ocbina who are regular hosts of the reunion of their 1966 high school batch from the Manuel A. Roxas High School (MARHS) in Paco, Manila.

I have attended their annual homecoming twice. Dell and Cora gra-ciously attended to their classmates and some of the spouses of their class-mates. I am one of those, being the spouse of Maria Lourdes Rivera , or simply “Ludy Rivera” to them a.k.a. Hadja Sharifa Ainee.

During their Janu-ary 30 reunion held at the usual place of Dell, the Composite Wing Savings & Loan Association, Inc. (CWSLAI) at the Bayani Road in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, I met some of the 1966 Batch of MAR-HS high alumni coming from the different parts of the world. I learned many of them succeeded in their chosen careers.

I met Helen Angeles Barredo who was kind enough to introduce to me her name. Helen was with her husband Caloy, whom I supposed a retiree already and the couple as I knew is based in Virginia, USA.

Then another class-mate of them is Alex Punzalan, who introduced himself to me also as the classmate of Ludy right from elementary until high school. Alex is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And you know what? Alex used to be the manager of the assembly department of the McDonnell Douglas Canada, Ltd. of The Boe-ing Company, the one that manufactures the Boeing aircraft passenger jet.

Other alumni are Can-

ada-based, the couple of Gardy and Lettie Florendo, who donated imported T-shirts for the raffle; Merly Gorospe of California, USA; Vivian Torralba-Villanueva, of New York, USA, who donated some green bucks.; and the couple Ernie and Jean Posis, who donated several colorful Las Vegas Fi-esta Casino T-shirts that were raffled to the mem-bers; and others who do-nated cash amount.

Another classmate of Ludy and her Facebook friend is Flor Gonzales, who is based in Daly City, California. Then sitting in the same table with us, I met also their other classmate, Petrona Torres with her husband Karl where I had our “kodak” together, but I did not have the chance to talk to him since he speaks only their Ger-man language. Achtung!

As usual, I was so glad to meet again other 1966 high school batch of “Roxas High” who are Manila-based, like the forever-friendly Rolly Vasquez, and Ross Pestano, the vice-president of my health insurance, MEDoCare Health Systems, Inc.; Andy Musngi; and also our neighbors from Pandacan, Manila who are also from the same batch like Cirilo Tisado and Lolita Gatbonton.

Last but not the least, one of the popular alum-ni of Roxas High School is former Ambassador Orly Mercado, whom I met during our East Asian Regional Me-dia Programme in last March 2010 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

* * *For comments and

suggestions, e-mail the author at jannaral69@gmail.com or contact him at +639167957154.

6 Vol. II No. 39 March 7-13, 2011

Justice sunk inPrincess of the Starsea tragedyFrom page 1

typhoon signal No. 3 was on his route from Manila to Cebu City.

Tamayo and Tuason showed the Master Oath of Safety Departure (MOSD) issued by Marimon.

An MOSD is a waiver of a ship captain which stands for silence admittance that it will all be his fault for whatever happens (accident) after his vessel leaves the port.

What is sad is that Captain Marimon cannot rise from whereever he is now to defend himself. The accusation can no longer be rebutted by him. Cap-tain Marimon had been counted as among the dead.

Dyaryo Magdalo sees this act of the PCG and Sulpicio as an insult to the truth. They therefore must answer.

It was so wise for them to point fingers at the dead captain. Nobody can refute their assertion ex-cept for other circumstances that can overturn them if indeed the Coast Guard has the genuine interest in pursuining justice.

“Dead man tell no tale,” so they said.To further crucify the dead captain, Dyaryo Mag-

dalo is of the opinion that the PCG officials invented the story of an “alternate route” which was alleged by it to have been “brained” by the dead captain.

To make their unbelievable story believable, the PCG presented Petty Officer 1 Felix Sardan for the latter to claim he boarded MV Princess of the Star 15 minutes before it left the Manila port.

In his story, Sardan said he told Marimon about signal No. 3 on his route to Cebu but the captain showed him an “alternate route” to ferry the passen-gers to safety.

When asked to present a copy of the “alternate route” supposedly drawn up by the captain, Sardan failed to present one to the congressional inquiry.

The story of Sardan was put to a big doubt by Dyaryo Magdalo after voyage experts divulged that the ship will suffer the same fate since it has no other route but the waters in Western Panay that is adja-cent to Sibuyan and Mindoro seas where typhoon Frank passed.

The experts said that the winds of the typhoon ran “counter-clockwise” and there was no way for the Princes of the Star to hide from the ravaging winds even if it reached Western Panay where strong winds of typhoon Frank was to traverse through directly to north of Panay Island.

However, it was obvious that Sardan conspired with his superiors in modifying the findings of the inquiry of the Coast Guard. This is because he

claimed he inspected the ship for only 15 minutes.

Maritime experts talked to by Dyaryo Magdalo said that it is impossible to complete the inspection of a ship as big as Princess of the Star in 15 minutes. The ship as big as that re-quires at least two hours or at least 120 minutes for one PCG officer to complete his inspection.

Moreover, the in-vestigation of PCG In-ternal Affairs Services (CGIAS) said in its com-munication dated August 26, 2009 and transmitted by Naval Captain Danilo M. Vilda to Tamayo that it uncovered that Sardan did not board the MV POTS.

Captain Adrian Es-pera, in his testimony, never mentioned Sardan boarding the vessel 15 minutes before its depar-ture.

Allan Ybarsabal, the guard on duty, did not see any PCG personnel

coming down the gang-plank or passing through his post at the dock.

Nelson Durano, an employee of United Dockhandlers Inc., said he did not notice any PCG persoinnel disem-bark from Princes of the Star prior to the depar-ture.

This Vilda report was solidified when the PCG Legal Service affirmed its findings.

With the goal of sav-ing Supicio Lines from damage suits, officials also blamed the Al-mighty for the sea trag-edy.

They said: “It was an act of God.”

But no one was will-ing to try the Creator of heavens and earth, so, Congress threw off the accusation of lawyers.

In saving their juicy positions at the PCG, Tamayo and Tuason re-ported to Arroyo that they followed the PCG Guidelines based on

Memorandum Circular 04-07. However, reports and circumstances said otherwise.

According to MC 04-07, a vessel shall not be allowed to sail when storm signal No. 3 is de-clared.

So that even if there were “alternate route” supposed to have been presented by the captain of Princess of the Star, still it was a standard op-erating procedure, no ifs and no buts, for the PCG not to allow any ship from leaving the port of origin.

Before Princess of the Star left, there is no dispute that the Phil-ippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and As-tronomical Services Administration’s (PA-GASA) issued a news bulletin that sginal no. 3 will hit Masbate, Biliran, the route of the ship from Manila to Cebu.

The same MC 04-07 was obviously not also observed by the PCG. This is so because it al-lowed Princess of the Star to leave Manila without unloading the passengers for the vessel to take shelter.

The PCG also clearly violated MC 04-07 when it failed to monitor and get the entire weather bulletin at all times and disseminate the same to all shipping and PCG units.

The PCG Task Force Sea Marshall Command-er also failed to report every four hours as to the status of the vessel in the high seas.

What further aggra-vated the lies of the PCG officials was the fact that MC 04-07 can never be the basis for regulating the departure of ships during typhoon for it was never published in the Official Gazette nor in any newspaper of gen-eral circulation.

Benjamin P. Mata, 77, a retired rear admi-ral, called the invented inspection by Sardan as “a joke.”

He said he cannot

imagine that the process can be done in half an hour. “It’s impossible to do that in 10 days,” he says.

Mata also questioned the competence of the PCG boarding team, or Sardan.

The inspection job is supposed to be car-ried out by an official with the equivalent rank and experience of a ship master and not just a pet-ty officer.

“He’s going out there blind. He doesn’t know what to look for,” said Mata, vice chief of the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI) that investigated the June 21 sinking of the Princess of the Star.

He said that in count-ing passengers, the boarding party usually looks at the bunks and on that basis decides wheth-er the vessel is crowded or not.

In international prac-tice, he said that no such pre-departure inspec-tion takes place, adding that governments rely on the captain’s signed Oath of Safe Departure, which states that every-thing’s been done to put his vessel out of harm’s way, and whether it is carrying a dangerous cargo.

Unfortunately, here, it’s just a piece of worth-less paper.

In other countries, governments usually just issue weather alerts. Ships take notice.

According to Mata it is only in the Philippines where pre-departure ar-rangements are in place and ports are not shut down during typhoons.

The claims of Sardan

Sardan, 42, who has spent 13 years in the Philippine Navy before he joined the PCG in 2001, dosclosed that he merely verified the valid-ity of documents on the ferry’s seaworthiness. “It’s MARINA that does the inspection.”

Sardan, during his meeting with the ferry’s

captain, said that Mari-mon told him he was go-ing ahead with his sched-uled departure at 8 p.m. on Friday, June 20.

At that time, a ty-phoon was developing in the Visayas. But in Manila, only Storm Sig-nal No. 1 was declared by Pag-asa, indicating winds of up to 60 kilo-meters per hour. Signal No. 2 was hoisted far-ther along the route, with gust winds of up to 100 kph as expected.

Sardan said that Marimon told him he had developed an al-ternative route to take if the storm—desig-nated locally as “Frank” and internationally as “Fengshen,” or “God of Wind”—will intensify in the Tablas Strait, dubbed as a “graveyard” for the number of vessels that had met deadly disasters there.

“I agreed with the plan,” Sardan claimed.

The PCG was taken to task for allowing the Princess of the Stars to depart in the face of a brewing typhoon.

Pagasa was lambast-ed for failing to issue timely weather bulletins.

Seeking to exculpate itself from any liability, Sulpicio Lines declared that the tragedy was an “act of God.”

But Manila Archbish-op Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales said it was “an act of a stupid person,” blaming the ferry for sailing onto Frank’s dev-astating fury.

Retired Commodore Amado Romillo, 77, dis-missed a P4.45-million civil suit filed by Sulpi-cio Lines against Pag-asa for failing to inform the ferry of an approaching typhoon.

“You do not need to look in the papers that there is a typhoon be-fore you start getting the weather report. It’s rou-tine. All the reports that come out the whole day, you must have that on board, even if the weath-er is good,” Romillo said.

Education on the airlaunched in ARMM

The Department of Education (DepEd) of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has launched recently a radio-based instruction program to provide people in re-mote areas of ARMM functional literacy and help reduce the record high illiteracy rate in the region.

It can be noted that ARMM has the high-est illiteracy rate in the country, according to government statistics.

Acting Regional Governor Ansaruddin Alonto-Adiong and Ra-mon Bobier, project di-rector of the Basic Edu-cation Assistance for Mindanao (BEAM) of the Australian Agency for International De-velopment (AusAID),

officially kicked off in simple rites here in this city the operations of the dxED (Radio Da’wah), a foreign-assisted radio sta-tion located on 99.7 FM frequency.

The radio facility, housed within the DepEd-ARMM compound here, is funded with P1.5-million by the BEAM-AusAID and managed by DepEd-ARMM’s Bureau of Al-ternative Learning System (BALS).

Its 1000kw radio trans-mission facility reaches most of the remote vil-lages in mainland prov-inces of ARMM, namely Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur including Marawi City, Bobier said.

BEAM assisted the

DepEd-ARMM in acquir-ing the necessary permit and license to operate the radio station from the National Telecommuni-cations Commission and forged a partnership with the Philippine Broadcast-ing Service (PBS)-Radyo ng Bayan, giving it ready access to programs and other educational services of the government.

The radio facility will mainly run a school-on-the-air program anchored on the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) for the Alternative Learn-ing System (ALS) – a set of competencies that can be acquired via non-conventional teaching methods – for thousands of out-of-school youths

in far-flung villages in the two provinces, DepEd-ARMM Sec-retary Baratucal Cau-dang said.

The radio programs will likewise allow lis-teners to acquire live-lihood and vocational skills, functional liter-acy, and critical infor-mation on health and nutrition, he said.

Caudang said nego-tiations are underway for the ARMM’s Bu-reau of Public Infor-mation headed by Ex-ecutive Director Ali G. Macabalang to make use of the radio facil-ity as an added avenue in its campaign to keep the regional populace abreast with the opera-tions and thrusts of the autonomous gover-nance.

By JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL

March 7-13, 2011 7 Vol. II No. 39

FOUR warring clans in Lanao del Sur have fi-nally smoked the peace pipe after engaging in bloody family feuds called “rido” that had cost 10 lives.

This came after the provincial government led by Governor Ma-mintal “Bombit” Alonto Adiong Jr. initiated ne-gotiations for settlement among four families.

Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Spokesman Ali Macabalang said that the protagonists and their relatives shed tears of joy when the final peace pact was done in settlement rites before the governor and the spectators.

Macabalang said this was reported to him by Masiding Yahya, the provincial coordinator of the ARMM’ Bureau of Public Information for Lanao del Sur.

“It’s another feat for the administration of Lanao del Sur Gover-nor Mamintal ‘Bombit’ Alonto-Adiong Jr.,” Ya-hya said in a dispatch to Macabalang.

Yahya said that the reconciliation rites were officiated by religious and traditional leaders at the provincial capitol complex in Marawi City recently, where the lead-ers of the warring four families swore before the Holy Qur’an to bury their hatchets.

Yahya named the families involved in the just-settled “rido” cases as those of Lumbaca Unayan ex-mayor Hadji Aziz Apolo Aloyodan; former Lumbatan vice-mayor Hadji Ibrahim Ampuan; Barangay chair of Calolon, Lumbaca Unayan Datu Aragasi Bacontol; Bukari Raado, and their relative-sup-porters.

“The parties prom-

567 million barrels of oil.Shell Philippines Ex-

ploration B.V. (SPEX), the local oil exploration unit of Royal Dutch Shell, is con-centrating drilling activities at its Service Contract (SC) 60 in Northeast Palawan.

Joining SPEX with a majority 55 percent stake in SC 60 are Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Co. (30 percent) and South China Resources Inc. (15 percent).

The Department of Energy opened at least nine to 10 new sites for oil and gas exploration under the administration of President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. The areas will include Pala-wan, Mindanao and also in Central Luzon.

More oil explorations

More than 90 pros-pected drilling sites within offshore northwestern Palawan alone, estimated to be holding as much as 11.4 billion barrels of oil,

were identified by Austra-lian Nido Petroleum.

These prospective ar-eas were located within its five service contract areas: Service Contract 14C1, which covers the Galoc oil field; SC 54A, Tindalo oil prospect; SC 54B, Gindara, Lapu Lapu and Princesa Deep drilling candidates; SC 58, and SC 63, Aboabo-1.

Accordingly, SC 58 is estimated to hold 5.701 billion barrels; SC54A , 205 million barrels; SC54B, 2.403 billion bar-rels; SC 63, 3.071 billion barrels, and SC 14 C, 82 million barrels.

Sulu Sea drilling

ExxonMobil has drilled its fourth explora-tion well in the deep-water of Block SC 56, and dis-covered natural gas.

The previous wells were Palendag-1 from this July, and Dabakan-1 and Banduria-1, drilled be-

tween October 2009 and February 2010.

Partners in Block SC 56 are operator ExxonMo-bil on 50%, Mitra Energy with 25% and BHP Billi-ton holding 25%.

By 2013, the West Linapacan consortium is targeting to draw oil from the oil field northwest of Palawan.

Pitkin is confident that this scheme could tap the reservoir to yield 10,000 to 20,000 barrels of oil a day.

With a hint that the government will sell off the country’s oil reserved, the Filipinos hope that PNoy will not repeat what former President Fidel Valdez Ramos did as Nur Misuari accused him of negotiating the sale of 2.5 trillion cubic meters of gas for only P4.5 billion.

PNoy must there-fore examine policies on EDU of the oil and min-eral fields. It looks like the Filipinos have been short-changed.

From page 2Oil freedom if PNoy...

Breakingthe rulesof “rido”

ised to co-exist peace-fully and set aside their conflicts as they signed the covenant of peace. They also agreed to drop all cases they filed in court related to the rido, which had claimed more than 10 lives from among their families,” Yahya said in his report.

The settlement cer-emony was coordinated by Lanao del Sur Pro-vincial Ulama Council, the provincial Council of Elders, Lumbaca Un-ayan municipal mayor Itomama Guro; Lum-batan mayor Mamintal Rasuman and Marogong vice mayor Sultan Adul-gafor Dumaorog.

Yahya said the gover-nor gives priority to set-tling of “rido” cases be-cause these form part of the major impediments to peace and growth in his province.

Records show that in his almost four years as the governor, Adiong has settled more than a dozen of bloody clan wars.

He said “rido” is usu-ally begun by disputes in politics, property, and wrong exercise of “maratabat” (pride) among Moro tribes.

In Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, which are the oth-er provinces making up the ARMM, hundreds of similar clan wars also play a major obstacle to peace efforts.

For this, Adiong has started working with his younger brother, ARMM Acting Regional Gov. Ansaruddin Alonto Adiong, to try to settle clan wars in other prov-inces.

The Alontos and Adi-ongs hold the distinction as families free of “rido” while most politicians in the ARMM provinces are haunted by this problem.

By JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL

THE early registration of kinder-garten students for the opening of classes on June 2011 in the Autono-mous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) went on smoothly, a high education said recently.

Regional Secretary Bart Cau-dang of the ARMM’s Department of Education (DepEd) said the registra-tion that simultaneously took place all over the country last January 29 was an initial implementation of the government’s Enhanced K+12 Basic Education Program.

A few days before the registra-tion, Caudang directed all schools administrators and teachers across ARMM to “see to it that most if not all prospective registrants are ac-commodated on time and that rules

on the program implementation are strictly complied with.”

The K+12 or Kindergarten plus 12 years basic education is a public education system mostly applied in the United States and Europe effec-tively. The model adds two years to the current education model of 10-year basic education program in the Philippines, he said.

The ARMM education secretary, who is very enthusiastic about the program, explained that it will help students to acquire intensive knowl-edge that will help them become globally competitive, emotionally mature and be ready as well in the future by the time they apply for jobs.

JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL

DepEd: Kindergarten program early list-up in ARMM smooth

TWO public officials, a woman and a man, were accused of graft and corruption at the Department of Agriculture. They were pin-pointed to as brains behind the killing of jour-nalist Marlene Garcia-Esperat.

The triggerman and the co-conspirators admitted that these Agriculture officials contracted them to kill Esparat.

But the tagged brains of Esparat murder were able to return to their work on February 18, 2010 as regional officials of the department for Region 12.

These officials are identified as Osmeña Montañer and Estrella Sabay, finance officer and accountant of the Department of Agriculture for Central Mindanao, respectively.

The triggerman and his fellow conspirators were sentenced by reclusion perpetua after pleading guilty

Depleted justice for EsperatBy HERNZ CUARE

for killing Esparat.Despite these, Monta-

ñer and Sabay were able draw freedom and – on top of it – return to their work.

It was like a reward for the murder of their cri-tique, Esparat.

The murder case against Montañer and Sabay proved useless in 2005 after it was trashed by Judge Francis Palmo-nes of Tacurong City Re-gional Trial Court on Au-gust 31 of that year. It was said that this decision was adopted by the Cebu RTC.

The dismissal of the murder case against Montañer and Sabay was perceived as a maneuver from the true color of jus-tice. This, despite the fact that another suspect Row-ie Barua, was accepted as a state witness after pin-pointing to the two DA of-ficials as the masterminds of the crime.

As if it was unreason-able for the court to grant the petition of the suspect to turn into a state witness without considering his accusation against the ac-cused, in this case, Monta-ñer and Sabay.

Esperat, a columnist for Sultan Kudarat paper The Midland Review, was a host of radio program “Madame Witness” where she exposed cor-ruption in government, es-pecially at the DA Region 12. She was also elected president of Region 12’s Tri-Media Association un-til her death on March 24, 2005.

First husband of Esparatwas killed like her

Esperat, like her hus-band Severino “Rino” Aguihap Arcones, was killed for exposing cor-ruption in government.

Arcones was an area manager of Bombo Radyo when he was gunned down in front of his house in the morning of October 17, 1989, seven (7) days after he celebrated his 37th birthday on Democracia St., Jaro, Iloilo.

Three bullets were em-bedded into the body of Arcones to kill him on the spot.

Arcones was the an-chorman of the top-rated public affair programs “Zona Libre” and “Good Morning, Philippines.” He was a hard-hitting po-litical radio commentator who feared no one.

The police arrested Arcones’ alleged killers identified as Bienvinido Santerva alias Ka Ranie, a Sparrow Unit leader in Il-oilo, and Gilbert Demon-teverde alias Ka Rambo, a ranking leader of Urban Partisan Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army.

The Ilonggos were not convinced that Santerva and Demonteverde were the real killers of Arcones for his exposes were di-rected against the corrupt and not against the CPP-NPA.

Unfolding of events

Prior to her work as journalist, Esperat was employed at the DA Re-gion 12 from 1987 to 2004. There, she uncov-ered numerous graft and corrupt practices commit-ted by public officials, in-volving rampant misuse of public funds intended for the use of marginalized farmers.

Esperat had worked as a chemist at the DA and later as a DA resident om-budsman.

She accused Montañer and Sabay as “corrupt,” responsible for the unre-mitted government’s share of GSIS premiums of DA 12 employees from Janu-ary to December 1997.

At DA, Esperat stum-bled on the controversial fertilizer scam that has rocked the nation.

She uncovered that DA regional office had distrib-uted to the local farmers insufficient, inferior, and far cheaper fertilizers than what was originally listed in the official department budget.

Her discoveries sparked a Senate probe into the multi-million fertilizer scam that dragged controversial Agriculture former Un-dersecretary Joc-joc Bo-lante, further implicating former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who was accused of using the fertilizer fund for the 2004 elections.

Esperat, along with several witnesses, also ex-posed the deliberate burn-ing of DA office in Cota-bato City on May 7, 1998. The fire, she asserted, was meant to destroy the hard evidence in the cases against Montañer and his companions.

Frustrated by the coun-try’s slow due process, Es-perat turned to the power of the pen and airwaves to expose her bothering dis-coveries. This, however, led to her death.

In early 2005, Monta-ñer and Sabay purportedly drew a plan to permanent-ly silence Esperat through ex-military intelligence officer Rowie Barua.

This plot succeeded.

Prosecution & trialof ‘masterminds’

Barely two weeks after the killing of Esperat, sus-pect Randy Grecia surren-dered, and identified his three companions – Barua as coordinator, ex-Sgt. Estanislao Bismanos as lookout, and Jerry Cabay-ag as the gunman.

On March 24, self-confessed killer Gerry Cabayag said he shot Es-perat in the head in front of her two children while they were taking their supper inside her house in Tacurong City.

An amended April 15, 2005 murder complaint was filed against two of the suspected master-minds, Sabay and Monta-ñer.

The Department of

Justice (DOJ) formed a prosecution panel led by Cotabato City prosecutor Tocod Ronda, said to be an ally of Montañer.

Ronda endorsed the dismissal of charges against the two officials on June 29, 2005.

A month later, DOJ re-organized the prosecution panel without Ronda who was later stripped of his prosecutorial post.

On July 4, 2005, Bis-manos, Grecia and Cabay-ag pleaded guilty. Barua, on the other hand, turned into a state witness.

The case, previously tried in a Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat court, was trans-ferred to Cebu through the endorsement of the Supreme Court acting on the request of Esperat’s family and the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journal-ists, Inc. (FFFJ).

Esperat’s head legal counsel, Atty. Nena San-tos, said they were ex-pecting a favorable trial, despite enduring several

setbacks before the case’s transfer to Cebu.

The trial in Cebu City started on February 15 of that year before Regional Trial Court Branch 21 Judge Eric Menchavez, after rejecting the motion filed by the prosecution to reconsider the dismissed murder charges against suspected masterminds Montañer and Sabay

In the hearing, Ba-rua detailed to the court how Montañer and Sabay asked for plan to kill Es-perat to the point of hiring Bismanos and company to “silence” the journal-ist. He also detailed the P120,000 payoff for the hatchet’s job.

The court handed down a decision, convict-ing to life imprisonment Bismanos, Cabayag , and Grecia.

The Esperat murder case is a disgrace to the country’s justice system for despite a clear identifi-cation of the masterminds and full cooperation from

the witnesses, the result fell short of expectation.

Convinced that there was miscarriage of jus-tice, former Justice Sec-retary Raul Gonzalez ordered government pros-ecutors to immediately reinstate charges against Montaner and Sabay.

Esperat’s sister, Valm-ie Garcia Mariveles, who re-filed the charges against Montañer and Sa-bay, gathered more evi-dence.

The refiling of murder charges happened in Octo-ber, 2008, but that seemed toothless compared to the influence and money of Montañer and Sabay, who even managed to return to government service.

Where is justice?

With this development, it is not known how jus-tice be served for Esparat and her children and other members of her family.

Whatever, the question remains: Where is justice?

8 Vol. II No. 39 March 7-13, 2011

ELECTRONIC JEEPSHIT MUSLIM MINDANAO

ARMM’s E-cars: These two brand-new electric-run cars acquired by the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) were launched early this month to serve visitors and government workers free of fare inside the 21-hectare ARMM compound in Cota-bato City. Inset photo shows ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo assisted by Regional Public Works Secretary Engr. Titing Sumagayan driving one of the vehicles during the launching rites. ARMM CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

THE Autono-mous Region in Muslim M i n d a n a o (ARMM) head

office in Cotabato City has acquired recently two electronic cars or e-jeepneys similar to what Makati City’s commer-cial zone is using.

Ali Macabalang, ARMM spokesman, told Dyaryo Magdalo these two electronic cars were acquired by the ARMM out of sav-ings from the increased value of Philippine peso against the US dollars in the market.

The visitors and government workers of agencies housed inside the 21-hectare ARMM compound in Cotabato City are now enjoying the service of the e-cars free of charge while traveling in the wide compound of the seat of power of the Muslim autonomous region.

ARMM’s Public Works and Highways Secretary Titingalangit Sumagayan had long disclosed the “good news” to the local me-dia. But the journal-ists were able to finally

By JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL

witness the E-jeepneys services only during the recent launching offici-ated by Regional Exec-utive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo and assisted by Sumagayan himself.

Sinarimbo drove one of the brand new fuel-less transport fa-cilities, with over two dozens of Cotabato and Maguindanao media men riding as maiden passengers of the cer-emonial travel around the sprawling ARMM complex here.

Each of the two 14-seater e-cars runs on electricity without any smoke emission. It can reach a maximum speed of 35km per hour. The 12 batteries that power it needed four hours of charging to go on an eight-hour operation, Sumagayan empha-sized.

Sumagayan said that the environment-friendly vehicles were purchased with the funds from the P6-million savings made by the ARMM’s De-partment of Public Works and Highways out of the loan from the Japan International

Cooperation Agency (JICA) intended for pover ty-a l lev ia t ing and peace-building projects.

He said that each of the e-jeepney costs P650,000.

Sumagayan said that for the start of the e-jeep operations, passengers of the two e-cars will not be charged for fares. But later, when they are used to it, a reasonable fare may be collected to defray the maintenance cost of the units.

He urged the rid-ing public to help take care of the new ve-hicles, saying that such units are valued highly by the administration of Acting ARMM Re-gional Governor Ansa-ruddin Alonto-Adiong as a “fruit” of its sav-ings from efficient fis-cal management of the JICA loan due to the empowered value of the peso against the US dol-lar.

Sumagayan said that the dollar posted a much higher rate against the peso when the loan from JICA was approved.

In the course of the

project implementa-tion, he said that the ex-change rate tipped in fa-vor of the peso, causing them to have savings.

He said that apart from the two e-cars, the DPWH-ARMM also acquired a number of

other vehicles for var-ied purposes out of the same savings.

For his part, Si-narimbo said the e-car operation is intended not only to make com-muting around the ARMM compound

more convenient but it also supports the re-gional government’s fo-cus on green technology and other environmen-tally-sound projects.

The ARMM execu-tive secretary said they are contemplating on

getting additional units of the e-jeepney to ser-vice Polloc Freeport and the planned housing community for ARMM employees should the pending scheme prove to be very sensible and practical.

LOCAL officials of Jolo, Sulu are commending the condi-tional cash grant program of the government for helping transform the lives of almost 70,000 indigent families in the province.

The entire province of Sulu, under Gov. Sakur Tan, is com-posed of 19 municipalities and it is covered by the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, a flagship program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) that targets to curb poverty in the country through invest-ments in human capital.

“4Ps is instrumental not only in alleviating poverty but also in enhancing the quality of life in our constituency,” said

Munib Estino, mayor of the town of Panglima Estino.

Estino said the monthly sub-sidy of as much as 1,400 pesos received by each family goes a long way in enabling them to meet day-to-day subsistence and attend to basic health ser-vices.

Sulu is one of the poorest provinces in the country with 65% of the population living below the poverty line, way higher than the national aver-age of 32%, according to sta-tistics.

Acting secretary of DSWD-ARMM Pombaen Kader said the 4Ps was started in the prov-ince in 2008 with the town of Jolo as pilot area.

Today, the program caters to

69,631 families in the province and around 187,000 families for the entire ARMM, which is home to the country’s poorest provinces, she said.

The government spent P10 billion last year to support a million recipients across the country thru the 4Ps.

In her recent visit to the ARMM, DSWD Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman dis-closed that majority of the ad-ditional 2.3 million target ben-eficiaries of the 4Ps nationwide this year would come from the ARMM.

The national government has already allotted P21 billion more to allow the expansion of the program.

JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL

Cash grants transformlives in Sulu