By Philippine News Agency Butuan City Bureau

FIRE-FIGHTERS retrieved 17 charred bodies from the quarters of the Novo Jeans and Shirts Com-

pany located on the 3rd floor of the Lam-berto Tan Building in Butuan City that was razed by fire before dawn Wednes-day.

Authorities said one person re-mained missing as of 1:30 p.m. yester-day while the three injured are now con-fined at a local hospital.

“Based on the accounts of Novo Jeans

and Shirts Enterprises management, a total of 21 sales ladies and personnel staying in at Novo’s living quarters on the third floor of Lamberto Tan Building, which the Novo Store is renting,” Caraga Bureau of Fire Protection regional direc-tor Fire Senior Supt. Mario Socorro C. Timonera said.

Butuan City Fire Marshall Aldrick Gomez told the Philippines News Agen-

EDGE

By Jade C. Zaldivar

DAVAO City Councilor Melchor V. Quitain said no one will be excused from the ban on using

plastic containers of food and bever-ages.

Effective June 28, the city will no longer allow the use of non-biode-gradable materials such as plastic and

polysterene foam, commonly called ‘Styrofoam’ which is a brand name.

“No one can avoid criminal pros-ecution and conviction by claiming unawareness of the provisions of the ordinance because ignorance of the law excuses no one,” the councilor said on

P 15.00 • 20 PAGESwww.edgedavao.net

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10 , 2012

SportsPage 15

17 die in fireIndulgePage A4

Science/EnvironmentPage 4

Serving a seamless society

F17 DIE, 13

FNO, 13

n 3 hurt, one still missingn 15 firetrucks used in fighting

blaze

n Ban effective June 28n Food retailers informed

Follow Us On

DAVAO

‘No excuses’ in plastic ban

Butuan City catastrophe

A FAMILY THAT WORKS TOGETHER. A family of fruit and vegetable vendors tend to their makeshift stall at the Bankerohan Public Market. [KARLOS MANLUPIG]

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012

MORE than 45 fami-lies were evacu-ated from their

homes at Barangay New Visayas in Trento, Agusan del Sur following the May 7 clash between the 25th Infantry Batallion (IB) and an Organized Crime Group (OCG) linked to the New People’s Army (NPA).

Lt. Col. Cesar Molina, commander of the 25th IB, yesterday said the families are now sheltered at the ba-rangay hall of New Visayas and at the Multi-purpose Hall of Barangay Pulang Lupa.

“They were transferred to more secure shelters since their villages have been frequented by the OCG-NPA and some folks were reportedly harassed if they refuse to provide sup-port and sympathy to the criminals,” Molina said.

The local government of Trento, through the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office (MSWDO), has provided as-sistance and relief goods to the evacuees, he added.

Around 9:00 pm of May 7, troops of the 25th IB and around 30 members of OCG-NPA engaged in armed confrontation at Trento, Agusan del Sur.

Four soldiers were reported wounded from the clash which lasted for an hour. The wounded in action (WIA) were imme-diately brought to Camp Panacan Station Hospital for immediate medical treatment.

Recovered from the OCG-NPAs were three land-mines, one hand grenade, and several personal be-longings, said Lt. Col. Lyn-

don Paniza, spokesperson of 10th Infantry Division to which the 28th IB is under.

Paniza said the group of OCG-NPA was spotted to have been operating at Monkayo, Compostella Val-ley near the boundary of Agusan del Sur.

“They were tracked down. The engagement happened near the bound-ary of Comval,” he said.

Paniza said it was civil-ians who reported the pres-ence of NPAs in their area, adding that civilian reports ‘are the key to successfully apprehend the members of organized crime groups and thwart any possible atrocities they will perpe-trate.’

“We believe that the in-creasing reports from civil-ians (about the presence of OCGs) manifest the efficacy of the peace and develop-ment outreach programs of 10th ID,” he said.

BombedMeanwhile, activist

group Karapatan Southern Mindanao claimed that the military bombed the civil-ian communities causing their evacuation.

Karapatan spokesper-son Pastor Jurie Jayme said a total of seven bombs were

dropped in Barangay New Visayas.

“First there were four bombs, followed by three bombs. The residents re-ported that it was the mili-tary’s bombs that caused their evacuation,” Jayme said without further elabo-ration.

There are also differ-ences in the reports from the military and Karapatan.

Karapatan said it was in the evening of May 6 that the military first entered the barangay.

“Two 6x6 armored trucks arrived boarded by elements of the 25th IB of the Philippine Army,” Jayme said adding that it was at 7:00 am that the OCG-NPAs and the military engaged.

Karapatan said alleged victims of the bombing in-cidents and leaders of or-ganizations including Ki-lusang Magbubukid sa Pilipinas and Karapatan have conducted a dia-logue May 7 with Trento town Mayor John Mark C. Billanes.

The group added that two local leaders Melchor Malimbasao and Fermen Ballos, Jr. have filed po-lice blotters “after being threatened by some mili-tary elements to be killed once caught.” [JADE C. ZALDI-VAR]

By Jade Zaldivar

IN F R A S T R U C T U R E projects in Davao Ori-ental valued at P1.1

million were recently put up by the military through bayanihan efforts.

Two health stations were built in the baran-gays of Ilangay, Lupon and Maag, San Isidro while work was completed in the Rehabilitation and Improvement of Water System (RIWS) which which brings water sup-ply to communities.

Civil Military Opera-tions officer 1Lt. Hermie Montelibano of the 28th IB said the projects were completed through the combined participation of the community, the local and national government, and the military.

For its part, the 28th IB provided masonry, car-pentry, and plumbing ser-vices for the projects.

“We saw the need for these projects following the consultation we made with the community lead-ers,” Montelibano said.

Davao Oriental prov-ince under Governor Corazon Malanyaon and District 2 representative Thelma Almario gave funds for the construction of the health stations and the RIWS.

Half a million pe-sos was allotted for each barangay health station while P100,00 was allot-ted for the RIWS.

“The provincial office, the office of the 2nd dis-trict and the Department of Health (DOH) financed these projects after we indentified them in our Rapid Needs Assessment Report,” Montelibano said.

Doctor Joy Sanico, provincial health officer, who provided the plans

2 THE BIG NEWS EDGEDAVAO

n 4 soldiers wound-ed

‘WE would like to foster a culture of compliance among companies and their contractors and sub-contractors.’

--Labor Secretary Rosalina Baldoz BM

Quips

By Lorie A. Cascaro

COMMANDING of-ficer Luzviminda Camacho of the BRP

Magat Salamat (PS 20) of the Philippine Navy said yesterday the ship brought back 32 Filipino repatriates from Indone-sia after their joint patrol exercise with the Indone-sian Navy last April 24.

The first female com-manding officer of the Philippine Navy, she said the ship arrived in Indo-nesia last April 23 for the opening ceremony of the CORPAT PHILINDO on April 24 in Manado, and left Bitong, Indonesia for Glan, Sarangani last April 26 with the repatriates aboard. Sarangani.

The Filipino fishermen had been caught intrud-ing into Indonesian wa-ters, said Robert Empe-drad, deputy commander for fleet operations and commander, Naval Task Force Seahawk of Naval Forces Eastern Mindanao (NFEM).

The four-day exercise near Balut Island be-tween the Philippines and Indonesia ended last May 2 in Glan, Sarangani.

The biggest ship of the NFEM, BRP Magat

Salamat will be involved in another joint exercise with the Indonesian Navy in September, a twice a year event.

The CORPAT PHILIN-DO is a joint coordinated border patrol by the two countries’ navies in bor-der areas that Philippines shares with Indonesia to patrol against maritime crimes that are prevailing in the area.

Patrolling the waters from Siargao, Davao Gulf to Poliok, Cotabato, the NFEM has nine ships de-ployed in different parts of Eastern Mindanao, and will soon have two addi-tional ships, one of which, according to him, will be as big as BRP Magat Sala-mat.

He also mentioned that the Philippines’ bor-der patrol agreement with Indonesia was es-tablished 36 years ago to address maritime crimes that are prevailing in the countries’ border cross-ing.

Empedrad cited poaching, piracy and il-legal fishing, among oth-ers as possible maritime crimes along the sea lanes that they patrol, where commercial ships pass through.

32 Filipino repatriatesreturn from Indonesia

MORE PATIENCE. Motorists will have to bring more patience if they will pass through the Davao-Cagayan road as there are still partially closed sections of the road because of the on-going road rehabilitation operations. [KARLOS MANLUPIG]

Military puts up P1.1-M infra

FMILITARY, 13FSOUTHSPOT, 13

45 families evacuatedafter Agusan Sur clash

“OVERCOME your Shyness and Discover your

Potential!” That was the challenge for the Batch 1 students of the SPOTLIGHT PERSONALITY EMPOWER-MENT WORKSHOP pro-duced by SouthSpot Enter-tainment Network, in part-nership with NCCC Mall and 104.3 The Edge Radio Davao.

Last May 5 Saturday, the students were launched on stage, via a fashion and talent showcase at the ac-tivity center of NCCC Mall of Davao, as the new stars of SouthSpot Channel’s new lifestyle program entitled Spotlight TV! The TV show is the workshop’s final out-put as part of its “work-shop-on-air” curriculum designed by its Program Director JILL PALARCA. Jill is an MTV Producer/Direc-tor/Writer from New York Film Academy. She has directed MTV VJs such as Donita Rose, KC Montero, KC Concepcion, Belinda Panelo, Sarah Meier, Marc Abaya, Cindy Kurleto, Patty Laurel, and also the likes of Lucy Torres, Dominic Ochoa, Arnel Ignacio, and many more.

While in MTV, Jill Palarca has interviewed and produced segments

for Michael Buble, Mandy Moore, Matchbox 20, and many other local and inter-national artists and bands. Currently, she’s also a Com-munication Arts professor at the University of the Im-maculate Conception and a freelance Events & Market-ing Consultant.

During the 4-week workshop, the students were given intensive les-sons in TV Hosting, Emcee-ing for Events, Radio DJ-ing, Print/Ramp/Commercial Modelling, Fashion Styling and Basic Make-up by Mary Kay Philippines. They were given actual on-cam hosting exercises as VJs, Talk Show Hosts, Field Reporters, and Lifestyle Program Present-ers.

The students also got to experience a Fashion Makeover Photo Shoot with photographer Cookie Tan and stylists Frances Tendencia and Gia Osckie Selma from the Style Oven House, Ryan & Janice Sa-lon and Hair Dazzle Salon. Wardrobe was provided by WYN Fashion Ensembles, Jorgy & Missy, and Marma-lade. Former model Skye Bangoy Dionela, and Miss Photogenic of Miss Earth Davao 2010 Angelina Ar-rozal were the students’ mentor in Ramp and Print

SouthSpot launches TV stars workshop

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012 3EDGEDAVAO

LA FILIPINA UY GONGCO CORPORATION ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INCTCG Compound, Across Old Airport Road Kalawag III, IsulanSasa, Davao City, Tel no. 082-234-8778 Sultan Kudarat, Tel no. 083-2383020

WARNING PROLIFERATION OF

ADULTERATED FERTILIZER USED FOR AGRICULTURE

1. The distribution and sale of adulterated fertilizer to unsuspecting farm workers has become rampant in recent years. The manufacture, storage, distribution and sale of adulterated fertilizer is punishable under Presidential Decree No. 1144, with imprisonment of up to more than twenty years.

2. A modus operandi of criminal elements is to connive with drivers of trucking companies which transport sacks of genuine fertilizer from the supplier, replacing the contents thereof with adulterated fertilizer.

3. ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INC. with a store at Isulan, Sultan Kudarat, was recently victimized with the discovery of sacks of adulterated AMIGO PLANTERS fertilizer thereat.

4. LA FILIPINA UY GONGCO CORPORATION, owner of AMIGO PLANTERS fertilizer products, has recently instituted criminal complaints against those involved in the adulteration of fertilizer.

5. LA FILIPINA UY GONGCO CORPORATION and ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INC., an authorized distributor of the former, will not tolerate the distribution and sale of adulterated fertilizer as these result in crop failures and renders the land unproductive, to the detriment of farm workers.

6. LA FILIPINA UY GONGCO CORPORATION and ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INC. are coordinating closely to put a stop to the distribution and sale of adulterated fertilizer.

7. With the new security measures it has adopted, ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INC. assures its customers that it only sells and distributes genuine AMIGO PLANTERS fertilizer products.

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012 3EDGEDAVAO

LA FILIPINA UY GONGCO CORPORATION ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INCTCG Compound, Across Old Airport Road Kalawag III, IsulanSasa, Davao City, Tel no. 082-234-8778 Sultan Kudarat, Tel no. 083-2383020

WARNING PROLIFERATION OF

ADULTERATED FERTILIZER USED FOR AGRICULTURE

1. The distribution and sale of adulterated fertilizer to unsuspecting farm workers has become rampant in recent years. The manufacture, storage, distribution and sale of adulterated fertilizer is punishable under Presidential Decree No. 1144, with imprisonment of up to more than twenty years.

2. A modus operandi of criminal elements is to connive with drivers of trucking companies which transport sacks of genuine fertilizer from the supplier, replacing the contents thereof with adulterated fertilizer.

3. ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INC. with a store at Isulan, Sultan Kudarat, was recently victimized with the discovery of sacks of adulterated AMIGO PLANTERS fertilizer thereat.

4. LA FILIPINA UY GONGCO CORPORATION, owner of AMIGO PLANTERS fertilizer products, has recently instituted criminal complaints against those involved in the adulteration of fertilizer.

5. LA FILIPINA UY GONGCO CORPORATION and ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INC., an authorized distributor of the former, will not tolerate the distribution and sale of adulterated fertilizer as these result in crop failures and renders the land unproductive, to the detriment of farm workers.

6. LA FILIPINA UY GONGCO CORPORATION and ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INC. are coordinating closely to put a stop to the distribution and sale of adulterated fertilizer.

7. With the new security measures it has adopted, ABIGAIL FARM SUPPLY, INC. assures its customers that it only sells and distributes genuine AMIGO PLANTERS fertilizer products.

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 20124 EDGEDAVAOSCIENCE/ENVIRONMENT

In one way or the other, every Filipino seems to experience it. When it

becomes a hassle, everyone complains. But when it is gone, no one talks about it anymore.

So, how do you solve a problem like water cri-sis when the country is in fact surrounded by oceans of water? “The image of a water-rich Philippines is a mirage,” deplores Gregory C. Ira, former head of the WELLS (Water Equity in the Lifescape and Land-scape Study) of the Inter-national Institute of Rural Reconstruction in Silang, Cavite .

Elisea Gozun, former secretary of the Depart-ment of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), agrees. “On a macro-level, it appears there is plenty of water, but we are now expe-riencing problems and, in some instances, some areas (of the country) are suffer-ing from lack of water,” she points out.

The Philippines is en-dowed with rich water re-sources. Rivers and lakes cover 1,830 square kilome-ters – that’s 0.61 percent of the country’s total land area of 30 million hectares. In addition, it has 421 river basins in 119 proclaimed watersheds.

Unfortunately, the coun-try has only 1,907 cubic meters of fresh water avail-able per Filipino annually. This ranks the Philippines as the second lowest among countries with fresh water availability in Southeast Asia; Thailand tops with only 1,854 cubic meters.

By 2025, the country water demand is expected

to triple from the 1995 de-mand: from 1,303 cubic meters in 1995 to 3,955 cubic meters in 2005. “The country may be blessed with abundant water at this time, but we face an acute water crisis in the near fu-ture if we do not conserve this vital resource,” said Senator Loren Legarda.

Even today, there is al-ready a water crisis. “Wa-ter resources are unevenly distributed throughout the country, often resulting in water shortages in highly populated areas, especially during the dry season,” a World Bank report notes.

In other parts of the world, the crisis is even worse. Scientists calculate that 7 percent of the human race today does not have enough water to survive. This figure show that this will rise to 70 percent by 2050. “Most of humanity faces a future without the most basic of resources,” they claim.

When that happens, a war is more likely to happen. “Whiskey’s for drinkin’,” Mark Twain once wrote. “But water is for fightin’ over.” Ismail Seageldin thinks so, too. “Many of the wars in the past were about oil, but the wars of the coming years will be about water,” he said those words when he was still the vice-president of the World Bank.

“Over the last three cen-turies, the growth in the volume of water withdrawn from freshwater sources for human use has been much more rapid than the growth in population,” reports the Geneva-based World Health Organization.

The volume of water withdrawal has reportedly increased more than 35 times, whereas human pop-ulation has only increased by seven-fold, the United Nations health agency re-ports.

To think of, the world is awash with water. In total, there is about 1,400 mil-lion million million liters: about 100 billion liters per person. But the hitch is: 97 percent is sea water. The rest is fresh, but most of it is trapped underground or stored at the poles as snow and ice.

In fact, only 0.8 percent of Earth’s water is acces-sible and drinkable – about a billion billion liters. Given that a person’s minimum annual requirement is a million liters, there is still enough – on average. “Wa-ter, water everywhere,” wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Time of the Ancient Mariner, “but not a drop to drink.”

By 2015, nearly three billion people – 40 percent of the project world popu-lation – are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize enough water to satisfy the food, industrial, and domestic needs of their citizens.

“We need water for drinking, keeping clean, and making things – but, most importantly, we need it for farming,” said Professor Jim Wallace of the Institute of Hydrology in Oxfordshire. “About three-quarters of the water we use goes on growing food.”

“The link between wa-ter and food is strong,” points out Lester Brown,

president of Earth Policy Institute, based in Washing-ton DC . “We drink, in one form or another, nearly 4 liters of water per day. But the food we consume each day requires at least 2,000 liters to produce, 500 times as much.”

Consider rice: some 5,000 liters of water are needed to produce one ki-logram of rice. “Water has contributed most to the growth in rice production for the past 30 years,” said the Laguna-based Interna-tional Rice Research Insti-tute.

“Unlike the energy cri-sis, the water crisis is life threatening,” said Dr. Klaus Toepfer, during his term as executive director of the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Pro-gram. “The level of suffer-ing and misery represented by these statistics is almost beyond comprehension.”

By 2015, tens of mil-lions of people will have died from water-borne diseases, including an aver-age of 6,000 children every day. “It is a grave moral shortcoming that 1.2 billion people cannot drink water without courting disease or death,” asserted Sandra Postel, director of the Mas-sachusetts-based Global Water Policy Project and author of The Last Oasis.

In the Philippines, about “31 percent of illnesses are water-related due to lack of clean drinking water supply and efficient sanitary facili-ties,” said Rep. Bernadette R. Herrera-Dy of Bagong Henerasyon Party List.

Water for Life, Water for People, a United Nations publication, considered

water as “a priority field for action.” It emphasized the tragic impact the crisis has on “the everyday lives of poor people, who are blighted by the burden of water-related disease, liv-ing in degraded and often dangerous environments and to earn a living, and get enough to eat.”

It is also a question of equity. Poor households in the Philippines , for in-stance, spend a greater pro-portion of their income per month on water than do rich households. Accord-ing to study done by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), an average Filipino poor household – reliant on vended water as the main water source – spends 80 percent more on vended water than an average rich household.

Whether rich or poor, averting water crisis should be everyone’s con-cern. As Senator Legarda said, “Water stress, ampli-fied by climate change, will create a growing security challenge. We must avert any possible water crisis, which can lead to a food and health crisis if left un-checked.”

However, “we cannot talk of providing sustain-able water to the people unless we protect the source of the commodity – the watersheds,” contends Gozun. Massive destruc-tion of once-productive forested watersheds by loggers and uncontrolled land use from mining, overgrazing, agricultural expansion, and industrial-ization have contributed to water depletion.

Indeed, a healthy for-

est is one good indicator of a good watershed. “This is because forests can help to relegate the flow of water,” explains Patrick Durst, the regional forestry officer of the UN Food and Agricul-ture Organization.

“If the forest perishes,

so will the life of people,” someone once said. “The trees are our source of life. Without trees, there will be no water. If there is no wa-ter, there will be no life.”

Over extraction of fresh water underground may result to saltwater intru-sion. Such is the case of Cebu which “can always become the country’s salt capital,” to quote the words of veteran journalist Juan Mercado.

Cebu reportedly pumps 275,000 cubic meters dai-ly. Its coastal aquifer can recharge less than half. Demand from population and industry will more than double by 2030. This “over-mining” permits salt water to seep in. The dam-age is irreversible. It takes 500 years or so to flush tainted underground res-ervoirs.

“Of all the social and natural crises we humans face,” commented Koichiro Matsuura, of the United Nations Educational, Sci-entific, and Cultural Orga-nization, “the water crisis is the one that lies at the heart of our survival and that of our planet earth.”

“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of wa-ter,” noted American states-man Benjamin Franklin in 1746. Today, in many parts of the world, the well is, in-deed, drying up!

The looming water crisisBy Jims Vincent T. Capuno

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012 THE ECONOMY 5EDGEDAVAOStat Watch

MONTHLY AVERAGE EXCHANGE RATE (January 2009 - December 2011)

Month 2011 2010 2009

Average 43.31 45.11 47.637December 43.64 43.95 46.421November 43.27 43.49 47.032October 43.45 43.44 46.851

September 43.02 44.31 48.139August 42.42 45.18 48.161

July 42.81 46.32 48.146June 43.37 46.30 47.905May 43.13 45.60 47.524April 43.24 44.63 48.217

March 43.52 45.74 48.458February 43.70 46.31 47.585January 44.17 46.03 47.207

3.5%4th Qtr 2011

3.7%4th Qtr 2011

USD 3,342Million

Nov 2011USD 4,985

MillionNov 2011

USD -1,643Million

Nov 2011USD -114

MillionDec 2011

P4,442,355Million

Nov 2011

4.71%Oct 2011P128,745

MillionNov 2011

P 4,898Billion

Oct 2011

P 43.65Dec 2011

3,999.7Sept 2011

128.1Jan 2012

3.9Jan 2012

3.4Dec 2011

284,040Sept 2011

19.1%Oct 2011

6.4%Oct 2011

1. Gross National IncomeGrowth Rate(At Constant 2000 Prices)

2. Gross Domestic ProductGrowth Rate(At Constant 2000 Prices)

3. Exports 1/

4. Imports 1/

5. Trade Balance

6. Balance of Payments 2/

7. Broad Money Liabilities

8. Interest Rates 4/

9. National Government Revenues

10. National government outstanding debt

11. Peso per US $ 5/

12. Stocks Composite Index 6/

13. Consumer Price Index 2006=100

14. Headline Inflation Rate 2006=100

15. Core Inflation Rate 2006=100

16. Visitor Arrivals

17. Underemployment Rate 7/

18. Unemployment Rate 7/

Cebu Pacific Daily 5J961 / 5J962 5:45 Manila-Davao-Manila 6:15Zest Air Daily Z2390 / Z2390 5:45 Manila-Davao-Manila 6:25Cebu Pacific Daily 5J593 / 5J348 6:00 Cebu-Davao-Iloilo 6:30Philippine Airlines Daily PR809 / PR810 6:10 Manila-Davao-Manila 7:00Philippine Airlines Daily PR819 / PR820 7:50 Manila-Davao-Manila 8:50Cebu Pacific Daily 5J394 / 5J393 7:50 Zamboanga-Davao-Zamboanga 8:10Cebu Pacific Daily 5J599 / 5J594 8:00 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 8:30Cebu Pacific Daily 5J347 / 5J596 9:10 Iloilo-Davao-Cebu 9:40Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri/Sun 5J963 / 5J964 9:40 Manila-Davao-Manila 10:10Philippine Airlines Daily PR811 / PR812 11:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 12:20Cebu Pacific Daily 5J595 / 5J966 12:00 Cebu-Davao-Manila 12:30Silk Air Mon/Wed/Sat MI588 / MI588 18:55 Davao-Cebu-Singapore 13:35Cebu Pacific Thu 5J965 / 5J968 12:55 Manila-Davao-Manila 13:25Cebu Pacific Tue/Wed//Sat 5J965 / 5J968 13:35 Manila-Davao-Manila 14:05

Silk Air Thu/Sun MI566 / MI566 18:55 Davao-Singapore 15:20Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri 5J507 / 5J598 15:00 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 15:30Philippine Airlines August 15:55 Mani2Mani 16:50Zest Air Daily Z2524 / Z2525 16:05 Cebu-Davao-Cebu 16:45Cebu Pacific Daily 5J967 / 5J600 16:35 Manila-Davao-Cebu 17:05Philippines Airlines Daily PR813 / PR814 16:55 Manila-Davao-Manila 17:45Cebu Pacific Mon/Tue/Thu/Sat 5J215 / 5J216 18:00 Cagayan de Oro-Davao-Cagayan de Oro 18:20Cebu Pacific Daily 5971 / 5J970 18:40 Manila-Davao-Manila 19:10Cebu Pacific Tue/Sat/Sun 5J973 / 5J974 20:00 Manila-Davao-Manila 20:30Cebu Pacific Daily 5J969 / 5J972 20:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:00Airphil Express Daily 2P987 / 2P988 20:30 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:00Philippine Airlines Daily except Sunday PR821 / PR822 21:20 Manila-Davao-Manila 21:50Philippine Airlines Sunday PR821 / PR822 22:20 Manila-Davao-Manila 22:50

as of august 2010

A holiday on pork, beef, and chicken prod-ucts seems inevitable

in the next couple of weeks as the Swine and Develop-ment Council, and the United Broiler Raisers Association have maintained their stand in conducting a meat holi-day in protest of the govern-ment’s alleged inaction on “technical smuggling and over-importaion of meat. Emergency meetings have been called in Malacañan to avert the looming crisis. The Departments of Finance (DoF) and Agriculture (DA), and the Bureau of Customs (BoC) were asked to sit down with the hog and poultry growers in a six-hour emergency meet-ing on Monday.

Swine and Development Council (SDC) and United Broiler Raisers Association (UBRA) officials had not com-pletely dropped the threat to mount a holiday, but decided to hold it in abeyance for an-other two weeks.

“We have agreed to hold in abeyance the mounting of a

nationwide five-day pork and chicken holiday because Agri-culture Secretary Proceso Al-cala promised to put in place the corrective measures in two weeks,” said AGAP party-list Rep. Nicanor Briones.

“So far, so good. We hope this could lead to something more solid and for our de-mands to be acted upon as soon as possible without us having to resort to a nation-wide pork and chicken holi-day,” said Daniel Javellana Jr., council director and chairman of the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc., referring to the meeting with concerned government agencies.

“This was the first time that the pork growers and poultry raisers met with the DoF, DA and BoC officials in one meeting,” said Edwin Chen, president of the Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines.

Customs Commissioner Rozzano Rufino Biazon, on the other hand, said the demands of the hog raisers and poultry growers were “doable”.

“Most, I already did be-

fore the meeting. The others, we just needed to explain to them. It was a good friendly meeting. Just as I said before, mag-usap-usap na lang in-stead of exchanges through media,” he said.

During the meeting, Bi-azon told the hog and poultry growers that he had already started a revamp in the impor-tation section of the bureau.

“Commissioner Biazon and Secretary Alcala agreed to jointly purge the list of exist-ing importers and scrutinize the new set of applicants,” said Durian Tan from the SDC.

Briones said some of the Top 10 importers had alleg-edly “fictitious addresses and owners” while the No. 1 im-porter only had P31,000 in paid-up capital but was able to import some P650-million worth of frozen meat.

“We have nothing against the legitimate importers. What we are fighting are the smugglers that flood the wet markets with imported frozen meat that was being passed off as fresh meat and unfairly dragging down the price be-

cause they do not pay the cor-rect tariff,” he said.

Briones said government lost some P3.7 billion in rev-enues annually due to smug-gling and over-importation.

Javellana said the DA and BoC were considering bring-ing back to 2007 level the 40 percent tariff on offals, skin, fats and rind.

The government had brought down to five percent the tariff on offal after the US government pressured the Philippines and lobbied to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to bring down the levy in exchange for a favorable action on the quantitative re-striction (QR) on rice, he ex-plained.

“We find it a bit unfair that we are being used as a bargaining chip for the QR on rice,” he said.

During the meeting, Alcala and Biazon also agreed to in-crease the reference price for swine to US$ 2.10, US$ 2.12 and US$ 2.97 a kilo from US$ 0.80, US$ 0.97 and US$ 1.23 a kilo for chicken from US$ 0.54. (PNA)

Palace steps in to stop ‘meat holiday’

VISITOR arrivals to the Philippines hit an all-time high of 1,148,072 during

the first three months of 2012, posting an increase of 16.03 percent versus last year’s ar-rivals of 989,501 for the same period.

“During this period, visitors to the Philippines increased by 16 percent to hit almost 1.15 million. From this record, we have now achieved 25 percent of our international visitor tar-get of 4.6 million for this year,” Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez Jr. said.

“The world is now start-ing to see that ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ is not just a bunch of words on a streamer. It is a competitive argument for choosing the Philippines as one of the world’s top tourist desti-nations.

“Philippine tourism is poised to surge forward as we receive a steady increase of tourist arrivals, as seen in the first quarter of this year,” beamed Jimenez.

This strong tourism outlook was recently highlighted during the 45th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the Philippines when the De-partment of Tourism (DOT) convened foreign and local delegates in a forum on “Har-nessing the Growth Potentials of Tourism” at the SMX Con-vention Center to showcase the

developments and investment opportunities in the country’s tourism industry.

In that tourism forum, Tour-ism Undersecretary Daniel G. Corpuz presented the recently completed National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) highlighting the country’s growth potentials and invest-ment opportunities available to the private sector, investors, bankers, fund managers and lo-cal government units.

The NTDP is a product of the most thorough inventory of tourist attractions in the histo-ry of the Philippines. It divides the county into 20 clusters and identifies the key gateways that will be the focus of massive development in the next four years.

“This forum is just the be-ginning of various road shows to inform partners, as well as encourage investors and fund-ing institutions to support the implementation of the NTDP.

There is much more to be done to make the Philip-pines more fun than it is now,” Jimenez told the articipants.

Still remaining as top five tourist-generating countries are Korea, US, Japan, China, and Taiwan. The Korean market maintained its big lead over the other producers, contributing 265,031 visitors for a share of 23.08 percent of the total tour-ist arrivals during the quarter.

This is a 16.04 percent in-

crease compared to last year’s arrivals of 228,398 visitors.

The US market captured 15.64 percent of the total arriv-als or 179,561 visitors, grow-ing at 6.35 percent compared to last year’s figure of 168,847 during the same period.

Meanwhile, visitors from Japan numbered at 104,558 or 9.11 percent of the total visi-tors, an increase of 3.85 percent from last year.

The fourth and fifth biggest generating markets are China and Taiwan, which consequent-ly got the biggest double-digit growth rates of 77.53 percent and 37.49 percent respectively, comparing to last year’s figures.

China and Taiwan registered 96,455 and 57,745 visitor ar-rivals this year compared to last year’s figures of 54,332 and 42,000 visitors respectively.

“Our international exposure on CNN, promotional efforts in key markets, policy reforms to ease entry and enhance market access, and ongoing improve-ments in road and airport infra-

structure will help bring in more warm bodies. Therefore, we see no reason why we won’t hit our target of 4.6 million this year,” Jimenez added.

Other fast-growing markets include Australia with 47,651 arrivals for a share of 4.15 per-cent; Canada with 36,517 arriv-als at 3.18 percent; Singapore with 35,975 arrivals at 3.13 percent; United Kingdom with 31,700 at 2.76 percent; Hong-kong with 28,800 at 2.51 per-cent; Malaysia with 24,327 at 2.12 percent; and Germany with 21,106 at 1.84 percent share.

Overseas Filipinos contrib-uted 4.65 percent to the total tourist traffic at 53,404 arriv-als. This segment grew by 4.98 percent compared to last year’s volume of 50,871 visitors.

What sets the Philippines apart, Jimenez enthused, is that “the Philippines is about the Filipino, the Filipino and his in-fectious love of the things that the world tends to forget: fam-ily, friends and the communion with God’s beautiful earth.” (PNA)

‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’ a success, tourism arrivals hit 1.1 M

‘IT is worth noting that contribu-tion collections outpaced benefit payment by P3.2 billion—the high-est recorded since 2002. This is in step with out objectives of continu-ally building up Investment Reserve Fund and lengthening the actuarial life of the Social Security fund.’

--Social Security System President and CEO Emilio de Quiros. BM

Quips

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 20126 THE ECONOMY EDGEDAVAO

It figures

AMOUNT of reward offered by the family of slain broadcaster and environ-ment advocate Gerry Ortega for anyone who could provide information leading to the arrest of former Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes and his brother Coron Mayor Ma-rio Reyes, accused of masterminding the murder of Ortega.

THE growth in the number of total college graduates in the Philippines in 2010. As can be gleaned from data re-leased by the National Statistics Coordi-nation Board (NSCB), the number of col-lege graduates has been growing slowly in the last decade, threatening its supply of qualified human capital.

NET income posted in 2011 by the Social Security System, 12 percent higher than the P22.8-billion net income last year, according to SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Emilio de Quiros.

NUMBER of government infra-structure projects worth around P2.8 billion are now in various stages of imple-mentation in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao, according to Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson.

BUDGET for 2012 of the Depart-ment of Agriculture to fund major initia-tives aimed at propping up food produc-tion and ensuring the Philippines will be able to achieve self-sufficiency by next year.

INFRASTRUCTURE Fund creat-ed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the Asian Develop-ment Bank (ADB) to help address critical infrastructures problems in the region.

2.9percent$485-million26

P1.55million P25.5billion P61.4 billion

GLOBE Telecom on Tuesday said its consolidated reve-

nues went up by 6 percent to P20.2 billion in the first quarter from last year’s level of P19.1 billion.

The Ayala-led telco’s mobile revenues in-creased by 6 percent year-on-year from P15.6 billion to about P16.6 bil-lion this period despite intense competition and continued price pres-sures.

At-end March, Globe’s subscriber base stood at 31 million, up 14 percent from the same period last year.

Broadband revenues were also up 13 percent year-on-year from P1.8 billion to P2 billion in the first quarter amid the strong take-up of its broadband services.

Globe, however, post-ed a net profit dropped of P2.74 billion in January to March period, down by 10 percent from P2.96 billion in the same period last year.

The comapny’s oper-ating expenses and sub-sidy rose by 16 percent to P11.6 billion in the Janu-ary to March period.

This was driven large-ly by higher subsidy and marketing expenses to acquire new and re-con-tract existing postpaid subscribers, support vari-ous brand-building initia-tives, as well as product and service launches in the mobile business.

Network-related costs such as electricity, fuel, rent, repairs and mainte-nance likewise rose as a result of an expanded 2G, 3G and broadband net-works.

“We are pleased with our results this period, and the way we have built on and sustained the mo-mentum of the last six quarters. Despite intense competition, we continue to make gains in our mo-bile and broadband busi-nesses. This reinforces our commitment to our transformation agenda to better serve our custom-ers,” said Ernest L. Cu, president and chief exec-utive of Globe.

“The industry is en-tering a new phase, and we see 2012 as a year of

investments in our cus-tomers, in our networks, and in our systems and processes. We expect to emerge from this invest-ment period with sig-nificantly improved capa-bilities, well-positioned to grow and deliver en-hanced value to all our stakeholders,” he added. PLDT posts 13% rev-enue growth in Q1 The Philippine Long Dis-tance Telephone Co. on Tuesday said its consoli-dated revenues rose by 13 percent to P42.8 billion in the first three months of the year.

“Our first quarter re-sults are in line with our expectations that indus-try stability would return in gradual but quite cer-tain terms. As we con-tinue the complex task of integrating Digitel/Sun Cellular into the PLDT Group, we are heartened by the opportunities for both synergy and growth we see arising,” Manuel V. Pangilinan, PLDT chair-man, said.

With the addition of Sun Cellular, PLDT’s wire-less service revenues increased 15 percent to P28.9 billion for the first three months, compared with the P25.1 billion rec-ognized in the same pe-riod last year.

Without Digitel’s rev-enue contribution of P4.7 billion, wireless revenues would have fallen 4 per-cent to P24.2 billion as the 6 percent increase in wireless broadband cel-lular and the stabilizing of cellular data/text rev-enues were offset by the 8 percent drop in voice revenues.

Smart continues to lead the industry in terms of both revenues and sub-scribers.

PLDT’s net income fell by 6 percent to P10.1 bil-lion in the first quarter from P10.7 billion in the same period last year.

Its core profit, which excludes foreign exchange gains or losses and other non-recurring income amounted to P9.3 billion in January to March pe-riod, lower than the P10.6 billion in the same period last year.

Globe revenues up by 6% in Q1

ECONOMIC manag-ers are considering a P2-trillion na-

tional budget for 2013, 10 percent higher than this year’s P1.816-trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA), a budget and management official said.

Budget and Manage-ment Undersecretary Laura Pascua on Tuesday told reporters that the P2 trillion is the ceiling thus, there is still a possibility of setting a lower budget.

“The increase in the budget will mean addi-tional financing for so-cial services, education,

health and infrastructure investments among oth-ers,” she said.

“We will try to do it (setting a P2 trillion na-tional government bud-get) because we need to grow,” she stressed.

Pascua cited that in line with the increase in the budget, the De-partment of Budget and Management (DBM) is currently meeting with officials of the various government agencies for technical budget hear-ings. The meetings will be held until June.

Relatively, DBM Sec-

retary Florencio Abad said the inter-agency Development Budget Co-ordinating Committee (DBCC) has not finalized the proposed 2013 na-tional budget because economic managers have yet to check on their rev-enue projections for next year.

“As of today, revenue collections are improving and we hope to be able to hit the first trillion collection ever,” he said referring to the P1,066 trillion collection goal of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

Revenue goal of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) amounts to P347.1 bil-lion.

As of last March, the government posted a P33.9-billion budget def-icit, 29.4 percent higher than year-ago’s P26.2-billion budget gap.

Revenues in the first three months this year rose by 11.7 percent to P360.97 billion over year-ago’s P323.1 billion.

Also, expenditures ex-panded by 13.1 percent to P394.88 billion form the P349.3 billion in the first quarter of 2011. (PNA)

Gov’t eyes P2 T budget for 2013

CHARGES of over-pricing await those who do not follow

the suggested retail pric-es (SRP) on school sup-plies, uniforms and bags, the Department of Trade and Industry said.

DTI Undersecretary Zenaida C. Maglaya said the SRP, which was pub-lished May 5, was agreed upon by DTI, was meant to ensure that prices of these products remain at reasonable levels and retailers observe the agreed price range.

Maglaya said that the SRP was agreed during a meeting with manufac-turers and retailers.

“Since the guide prices are based on our agreement with manu-facturers and retailers, if they will not follow then we are going to give them notice to explain whey they did not comply and if their explanation do not suffice then we are going to press for neces-sary charges of overpric-ing,” Maglaya said.

Already, the DTI has conducted its first of a series of 30 “Diskwento Caravan – Balik Eskwela Edition” in 16 key cit-ies to provide as much as 50 percent discount on school supplies, uni-forms and bags before the school opens in June.

Except for crayons and pencils, prices of all school supplies have re-mained stable and are expected to remain until classes start next month.

Prices of crayons have gone up because they are petroleum-based. Also, prices of wood used in pencil manufacturing have in-creased triggering an adjustment in prices of pencils, Maglaya said.

An 8-piece notebook is selling at P19.75 from P17 while a three-piece pack pencil is now at P19.75 from P17.75 de-pending on the brand.

The DTI has also re-minded all manufactur-ers and retailers to ob-serve proper labeling of their products like the number of pages.

The DTI has already lined-up a total of 30 “Diskwento Caravan” for the month of May alone in 16 key cities in the country to bring to con-sumers cheaper priced school supplies.

Maglaya reported that participants in last year’s caravans generat-ed a total of P14 million sales. Prices of products sold at these caravans are pegged at factory levels enabling consum-ers to avail of discounts ranging from 10 to 50 percent.

The caravans are mostly in partnership with local government units, which provide for the venue.(PNA)

DTI issues price guide for school supplies

n Violators will be charged with overpricing THE Social Security

System (SSS) has an-nounced the terms

of its new P7-billion loan window for college edu-cation and skills training, which is part of govern-ment’s efforts to enhance job prospects and ensure productive employment of current and future work-ers.

SSS Officer-in-Charge Edgar Solilapsi said mem-bers earning P10,000 or less a month can apply for the Educational Assistance Loan Program (EALP) to enable them or their de-pendents to defray enroll-ment costs for college, vocational and technical courses.

“The EALP aims to boost the country’s socio-economic growth by de-veloping a larger pool of competent professionals and skilled workers. It will also help workers upgrade their knowledge and skills to secure better jobs and provide a brighter future for their family,” Solilapsi added.

Members with at least 36 contributions -- includ-ing three monthly premi-ums within the past 12 months -- are eligible to borrow for educational ex-penses of one beneficiary. The member must also be paying premiums based on a monthly salary credit of P10,000 or lower.

“The beneficiaries can be the SSS members them-selves, legal spouses or

children. Unmarried mem-bers can use the loan for the education of their sib-lings,” Solilapsi said. “How-ever, no substitution of beneficiary will be allowed to ensure that students fin-ish their studies and obtain their degree.”

The maximum loan amount per semester or trimester is P15,000 for college and P7,500 for a vocational or technical course, which must be a two-year degree program or higher. Loan releases will be made payable to the school and must be used for tuition and miscella-neous fees only. The school must be accredited by the Commission on Higher Education or the Technical Education and Skills De-velopment Authority.

Members have up to three years to repay the loan for voc-tech courses and up to five years for college degrees. The grace period before repayment, which will start on the date of the final loan re-lease, is 18 months for semestral courses and 15 months for trimestral pro-grams.

The P7-billion educa-tional loan fund for private sector workers consists of P3.5 billion in national government subsidy and P3.5 billion from SSS. It can serve as a revolving fund that may be released to benefit more borrowers as these are recovered and collected, Solilapsi noted.

SSS bares guidelines for educational assistance program

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012 7GAME CHANGERSEDGEDAVAO

It is the Asian Inter-national School of Aero-nautics and Technology (AISAT) located at the AISAT Building at the cor-ner of Sta. Ana Avenue and Leon Garcia Street. AISAT is a brainchild of Albert Y. Pingoy, himself the president of the AYP Holdings, Inc.

The AISAT idea be-came reality with the help of local investors Ricky Toehio, lawyer Myra Wee Toehio, and engineer Jon-

athan Palma, president of Acatech Support Special-ist, Inc.

Pingoy said aviation schools are clumped in Metro Manila, and Clark, now known as the avia-tion hub in the country.

“It doesn’t mean that if it’s in Davao, the quality of education is poor. It can be here so that students from Mindanao don’t have to go to Manila. We can offer here education and training which are at par

if not even higher than their quality,” he said.

Being part of the in-dustry with his own five-year old Aerowurkz Avia-tion, Pingoy saw the need for more workforces, and that he wanted to help the industry through the products of his flying school.

“The reason why we put up the school is be-cause we see the need,” he said, adding that AISAT seeks to supply local and world market’s demand for quality aviation work-ers.

Pingoy cited current demand for 600,000 me-chanics and avionics, and 72,000 pilots in Asia Pacific. He said one local

airline has announced plans of acquiring 100 airplanes in the immedi-ate future.

He bared that just one plane would need 90 to 120 employees, excluding personnel for booking, ac-counting, marketing, food catering, janitorial and human resource needs. Unbeknownst to most people, aviation is man-power-intensive, Pingoy said.

“It is really a sunrise industry,” he said. “Come to think of it, Malaysia and Indonesia are acquiring 200 to 300 aircraft in one buying binge, as if they’re just purchasing taxi cabs..

The AISAT has a guar-anteed hire program, which entails the collabo-ration of parents, students and the school to lead the students from enrolment to employment.

Jonathan Palma, who owns the Asian College of Aeronautics in Iloilo, Ba-colod, Manila and Clark, shared his company’s ex-pertise in aviation educa-tion to the AISAT, and the Acatech offers its man-power support services to major international airports in the country.

“We are not competing with other schools like we are offering these courses, or we compare aviation to nursing or HRM. We are offering them an employ-ment. But, to be employed you have be knowledge-able of the course kay mapaemploy man gyud

nato sila. Maangat nila ilang kinabuhi through employment ug lifestyle change, and hopefully they don’t blow it along the way,” Pingoy said.

To be formally launched this month, the AISAT eyes 200 students for the first batch, al-though the school build-ing can accommodate up to 1,200 students in its air-conditioned class-rooms.

It has a one-is-to-one ratio of tools and students so the trainings and lec-tures will be intensive and more focused, with highly advanced equipment that

the industry is currently utilizing.

Having a total of 11 years of experience as a pilot for corporate, com-muter-passenger and cargo airlines and aerial spraying, Pingoy has a comparison between lo-cal and international standards of aviation schools as he started his pilot course in Davao City and finished in Oklahoma and Georgia.

He said AISAT is de-signed according to the international standards he experienced abroad. He said aviation students there stay in a dormitory

Soaring high!By Lorie A. Cascaro

HERE’S ANOTHER opportunity for any Dabawenyo’s dream of seeing the world while earning coming true. No

need of going to Manila, Subic or elsewhere to become a pilot, avionic, mechanic or flight attendant. A world-class flying school is now in Davao City.

Dr. Albert Y. Pingoy (left) with Jonathan Palma (right) pose with the advanced composite repair equipment of the AISAT, one of the only two schools in the country that have this state-of-the-art equipment.

AISAT workshop/laboratory

FSOARING, 13

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 20128 VANTAGE POINTS

Lowcost carriers, low quality of serviceEDITORIAL

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EDGEDAVAO

China’s desire for better US ties

BY ALBERT L. WEEKS

OPINION

COMPLAINTS over outrageous flight delays and other forms of poor ser-vice rendered by airlines, most espe-

cially the so-called low-cost carriers (LCCs), have become daily fair in the Philippines. The pathetic situation makes us wonder if this country still has a government agency mandated to protect the interest of the rid-ing public through a law we used to know as the Public Service Act.

Most publicized flight delays are those of Cebu Pacific, but Air Philippines is fast catching up in volume and notoriety. The usual line mouthed by the top executives and drumbeaters of these airlines on their shortcomings is their being LCCs or “no frills” airlines. Being an LCC is not an excuse to be insensitive to the welfare of the pas-sengers who pay for the service. The com-panies, especially CebPac, report billions in earnings.

The same complaints have been aired a thousand or more times, but the lapses keep on recurring, giving us the impression that the airline operators enjoy seeing their

customers suffer, a kind of masochism that should have no place in the airline industry.

Cebu Pacific’s failure to inform passen-gers that their bags have been off-loaded at airport of origin will naturally worry, then incense passengers like Claudine Bar-etto, husband Raymart Santiago, et all. With frayed nerves and gathering anger due to Cebu Pacific’s miscue, no wonder the maul-ing of Inquirer columnist Ramon Tulfo took place.

With CebPac, Airphil and other airlines perpetuating low quality of service, more passengers will be enraged each passing day. Expect violent eruptions among hot-heads similar to the “Thrilla in Naia” be-tween the Santiagos and Tulfo to become commonplace in our airports

We wonder what Secretary Mar Roxas is doing about all these, especially since con-gestion in Philippine airports is pinpointed as one reason behind of the flight delays. As secretary of the Department of Transporta-tion and Communication, he should be on top of this bedlam in the country’s airports.

CHINA’S granting permission for blind dis-sident lawyer Chen Guangcheng to exit the country to study law at New York

University, plus other developments, indicate that Beijing may now be committed to improv-ing relations with the United States. At least in the short term.

Part of the Chinese motivation to improve relations may stem from the upcoming presi-dential election in the US. Beijing would not relish a change in administration inWashing-ton that meant all-out adoption of a Cold War policy by incoming conservative hawks. The reaction of Republican leaders to the Chen affair, as voiced in early May in no uncertain terms by the top candidate,Mitt Romney, was surely noted ruefully by the perceptive rulers in Beijing.

Allowing the Obama administration some space for “victory” on the Chen issue would earn President Obama some domestic favor, or at least avoid the accusation that he has weakly acquiesced to China and its human rights abuses in Mr. Chen’s case.

In addition to Beijing’s relative cooperation with Chen, the following new developments seem to presage a new Chinese posture of rap-prochement.

The latest far-ranging talks between China and the US appear to have gone smoothly. They took place in Beijing last week between a large American delegation led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and their Chinese partners. A smilingPresident Hu Jintao, to-gether with heir-apparent Xi Jinping, showed up at the meetings, although the talks had not included Mr. Hu’s head-of-state counterpart, Mr. Obama.

There were positive signs that these bi-lateral discussions could lead to better Sino-American relations on several fronts: political, economic, and military. The Chinese leader-ship, displaying unusual friendliness, showed that Zhongnanhai, the “Chinese Kremlin,” had obviously appreciated the manner in which US officials had handled the sensitive Bo Xilai af-fair.

In February, the US consulate in Cheng-du had obligingly handed over Wang Li-jun, the “defecting,” powerful, and well-in-formed Chongqing police chief. Mr. Wang had told American officials that he feared for his life from Bo Xilai’s leadership, which Wang was ex-posing as deeply corrupt.

The American consulate, after all, could have used Wang to embarrass the top Chinese leadership by publishing transcripts of what he told the Americans. Yet the consulate declined to do so. Instead, the US officials immediately turned Wang over to the Chinese authorities. And Mr. Bo was soon ousted.

Beijing’s handling of the Bo affair itself indi-cates a more reform-minded leadership, with great possible openness to warmer US rela-tions.

Chinese media continue to reprint the Chi-nese leaders’ revealing instructions to Com-munist Party and government officials follow-ing the Bo purge. These orders include prom-ises to rid the lower party and government organs of corruption and nepotism; urge the People’s Republic of China at all levels to adopt the standards of “modern states” toward the “rule of law.” This is opposed to what a party statement refers candidly to as “China’s thou-sands of years of ‘rule by man’.”

While strict censorship of China’s Internet prevailed during the Chen affair, the Chinese leadership nevertheless showed a human face with regard to Chen, his wife, and children. In the final days of the family’s stay in the Beijing hospital, the government provided them with medical care, fresh clothing, a cake for the son’s birthday, and so on. While this was obviously done “for show,” it seemed to indicate a regime posture of accommodation rather than con-frontation.

[Albert L. Weeks, professor emeritus of in-ternational affairs at New York University, is the author of several books on world affairs].

Quips‘THE United States sup-

ports a collaborative dip-lomatic process by all those involved for resolving the various disputes that they en-counter.’

--US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Philippine-China standoff in Scarborough Shoal. PDI

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012

It is unfor-tunate that it took Rep.

Daisy Avance-Fuentes (2nd District-South Cotabato) to amplify a bill separating Gen-eral Santos City from the First C o n g r e s s i o -nal District of South Cotabato.

For more than 20 straight years, the South Cotabato first district congressio-nal seat was controlled by the Antoninos. First by Adelbert Antonino then his wife Lualhati before daughter Darlene served it out for three consecutive terms.

Their ally, Rep. Pedro ‘Jun’ Acharon Jr now occupies that position. It was Acha-ron who filed the bill reapportioning the first and second congressional districts of South Cotabato and separating Gen-eral Santos City as a lone congressional district.

When the framers of the 1987 Con-stitutional apportioned the number of legislative districts, it set a minimum in the number of population (one congres-sional district for every 250,000 popu-lation). Little did they anticipate that General Santos City, whose population at that time was just a little over 180,000, will rise to become one of the highly ur-

banized cities in the Philippines.Today, there are over 536,000 resi-

dents in General Santos City, well over the minimum. Based on the 2010 popu-lation census, it is now even entitled to two legislative districts.

I have been repeatedly putting for-ward this idea since relocating here in 1999. (In 1997, I was commissioned by former councilor Aristeo Albay to make a study for possibly re-districting Davao City into four congressional districts. That paper was submitted to then 2nd District Rep. Manuel ‘Nonoy’ Garcia who said it cannot be done without amend-ing the Constitution.)

The latest incident where I had the opportunity to discuss this matter was with then Rep. Darlene Antonino who, in 2010, was then running for mayor.

I understand that it will take an amendment of the Constitution to re-apportion the congressional districts as it is incorporated in the transitory provi-sions. The law provides that no new dis-trict shall be created unless a new ter-ritory is created. Re-districting the city and South Cotabato will not result into the creation of a new province or city. But it has been done before without re-sulting into amending the Constitution.

Darlene Antonino-Custodio, now city mayor, however said it cannot be done without resorting to charter change

which effect could lead to the opening of Pandora’s box.

Acharon was also not receptive to the idea when he was still a mayor.

The two were also lukewarm, if not dismissive, of dividing the city into two political and legislative district (east and west) with Silway River as its natural boundary, similar to nearby Sarangani whose two poltical districts is separated east and west by General Santos City (Sarangani, too, has a lone congressio-nal district). This will enable the city to increase the number of seats in the city council which is long overdue.

Silway River serves as antural bound-ary between the east and west side of the city.

Having only 12 elected councilors for a city of over half a million is a politi-cal anomaly. Residents here deserve at least 16 councilors – eight for each dis-tricts – for wider representation. It will also lessen the campaign cost for candi-dates for the city council as they will no longer campaign at large. And it can be done without even having to disturb the congressional districts. But if it can be done simultaneously, why not?

It may be too late to effect changes in the districting and representation at the city council but this could be a good platform for next year’s local elections.

9VANTAGE POINTS

Monkey Business

EDGEDAVAO

Long time coming

BY MA. TERESA YOSORESSPECIAL FEATURE

Hackers’ glory days come to an end

Wrong time for overseas careersPA S S I N G through the recent gov-

ernment-spon-sored Jobs Fair at the Gaisano Mall here the other week gave me a fairly good idea of the current well-paid jobs avail-able for Filipinos in many countries..

What seems so clear to me now is the vanishing demand for nurses, a career that hundreds of thousands of Filipino students wanted to take up at the height of its global demand in the 1990’s. It turned out to be just a “bubble” of a global job demand that in time burst---just like, well, a soap bubble.

With jobs for nurses diminishing, there seems to be a greater demand nowadays for maids, care givers, hotel workers, cooks, welders, drivers, engi-neers, plumbers, and of course, call cen-ter agents.

To this day, I still can’t fathom why hundreds of nursing schools started mushrooming all over the country at the peak of the world demand for nurses. At the time, there was a shortage of nurses to fill job vacancies in hospitals and medi-cal centers all over the world.

Today, after more than ten years, there seems to be a surfeit of nurses for jobs in those hospitals. For schools who started offering nursing courses at the peak of the global demand, it turned out to be the wrong time for an overseas ca-reer.

Don’t you think it was absolutely wrong for those schools to enter the mar-ket for nurses at the peak of the world demand, without anticipating that after

four or five years, that demand for nurses would no longer be there ?

One mother from Davao spent more than P200,000 for her son to finish the nursing course in four years, go into in-ternship and pass the board exam so he could work abroad, only to end up as a call center agent. Another nursing gradu-ate I know acquired a passion for farming and became a rice farmer, losing interest completely in his nursing career.

Most of these nursing graduates won’t accept a job in local hospitals be-cause of the embarrassingly low pay, but can’t stomach the thought of working abroad far from their parents. That’s un-derstandable of course, if they have a very strong bond with their parents. It’s such an utter waste of money and time studying nursing, spending countless hours memo-rizing medical terms and nursing applica-tions, gaining experience as an intern in hospitals, only to dump them all later.

I still can recall warnings aimed at schools that were offering nursing courses left and right, even computer schools with no reputation to speak of, were offering them at the height of the nursing boom. Nursing schools were mushrooming ev-erywhere from Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.

Economists some years ago had warned of a “coming bubble” for nurses in the world’s hospitals, a point in time when there won’t be any foreign jobs available for nurses being produced by countries like Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indone-sia, India, Pakistan, etc. simply because all the slots had been filled and there aren’t any more unless hospitals expanded their operations.

In Davao, almost all the big universi-ties here--- Ateneo, University of Mind-anao, Brokenshire Memorial, Immaculate Conception, USP, UP Mindanao, etc.--- of-fered complete nursing courses. There were also the smaller, so-called “schools” offering jack-of-all-trade courses like welding, care giving, radio-tv repair, driv-ing, flying, auto mechanic---AND nursing.

What we saw, however, at the recent Jobs Fair was a huge demand for domestic helpers whose overseas salaries can range anywhere from P50,000 to P100,000 a month---- compared to only around P500 to P1,000 a month here. Although over-seas household work can be oppressive and back-breaking, salaries like these that are higher than a bank manager’s can be very attractive for many people looking for good job opportunities abroad.

Most of those applying for these jobs as “house maids” for foreign employers are housewives, single mothers, widows, ex-teachers, high school grads and desperate people who are always broke, with barely enough to eat, dying to get out of a spiral of poverty in our country.

It won’t be a surprise if there are schools now offering courses for certified professional domestic helpers designed for overseas employers. A high-demand bubble is now developing for this type of low-class job opportunity and supply of domestic helpers is still chasing this rising world demand.

How and when this global market for domestic helpers is filled will depend entirely on how the country’s schools will respond to this rising demand…..

(Comments? Email me: tradingpost_davao@yahoo.com)

HAVE you ever been attacked by hackers? Or have you heard of high profile websites in the Philippines

recently attacked by hackers such as the case of the University of the Philippines?

Hackers may seem to be spreading like a disease but, luckily, a cure has al-ready been formulated to fight them before they totally consume the cyber-space.

Such cure has been formulated by the IP Converge Data Center, Inc. (PSE: ‘CLOUD’), the country’s first and only publicly-listed Internet data center and cloud services provider.

IP-Converge offers the world’s most advanced cloud-based Distributed Deni-al of Service (DDoS) mitigation services through its partnership with US-based Prolexic Technologies, the world’s pio-neer and leading solutions specialist for the mitigation of DDoS attacks.

DDoS attacks are probably the most expensive of all cyber crimes. They are same ones recently used against gov.ph websites purportedly by a group of Chinese hackers in relation to the two countries’ current Scarborough Shoal standoff.

DDoS is able to cripple a network for a period of time by using multiple com-puters that have been infected to send out bogus traffic to a specified target.

This bogus traffic floods networks causing them to go offline – resulting in lost revenues and harmed reputation.

”With the right people to support you, the worst DDoS attacks on your net-work or websites can be mitigated easily, allowing you to focus on your business.

No need to be a hapless victim to cy-ber criminals,” Percival C. de los Reyes, IP-Converge SVP for Managed Data Ser-vices, said.

Prolexic created the cloud DDoS miti-gation space nine years ago. IP-Converge started providing Prolexic’s DDoS miti-gation services in 2007; it has remained to be the only company in the country offering this kind of service.

“It is typical for government websites all over the world to experience DDoS attacks. As proven in the past, Prolexic can handle the most damaging attacks that government institutions can ever encounter,” de los Reyes said.

Prolexic has unparalleled experience fighting DDoS attacks against companies especially in the gaming and banking verticals.

According to Prolexic, companies in these industries are most susceptible to hacking attempts. Currently, more than 10 of the world’s largest banking organi-zations rely on Prolexic to fight complex DDoS attacks.

Moreover, because it services a large number of banking clients, Prolexic is most often the first to become aware of the types of attacks being used in cam-paigns against companies in this sector.

Prolexic’s Security Engineering and Response Team (SERT) is also constant-ly researching threats against the bank-ing sector.

During its seminar on DDoS miti-gation aptly entitled “Banking on Pro-lexic” held at Makati Shangri-la Hotel, IP-Converge and Prolexic discussed the dangers of DDoS attacks and how it has become more rampant in Asia over the past years.

Oliver Kwan, Prolexic vice presi-dent for sales – Asia, further equipped IT decision makers in attendance with knowledge on how to address the worst threats on online security especially in the banking and government sectors.

Notably, Prolexic offers the most so-phisticated Time-to-Mitigate service-level agreement (SLA) of any company offering DDoS mitigation services. [PNA]

Quips

‘ I R R I G A -TION systems could sup-ply 15 mega-watts of elec-tricity in the country daily.’

--Agriculture Sec-retary Proceso J. Al-cala. BM

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 201210 SUBURBIA EDGEDAVAO

WITH the rainy season still weeks away,

Governor Rodolfo P. del Rosario invited tourists to maximize their summer fun and have an experi-ence of a lifetime in Davao del Norte.

The governor cited the endearing world-class beaches, pristine reefs, enchanting caves, cas-cading waterfalls, stun-ning mountain resorts, vast plantations and rich cultural heritage are just some of the great come-ons waiting for visitors to explore and enjoy.

“I would like to take this opportunity to in-vite everyone to Davao del Norte,” Gov. del Rosa-rio said at the launch of

DavNor’s Beat for Sum-mer Heat 2012 at the Abreeza Mall, Davao City last May 4, 2012.

He invited tourists to visit the white sand beaches of the Island Gar-den City of Samal includ-ing the Guinness World Record bat sanctuary in the Monfort Bat Conser-vation Park in Tambo, Ba-bak District; the natural caves and waterfalls of San Isidro, New Corella and Kapalong; the vast banana plantations of Panabo and Sto. Tomas; the award-winning best practices of Dujali; the historic Ising Monument in Carmen; the Madgao river in Asuncion; the numerous events being staged by Tagum City;

and, the rich cultural heri-tage of Talaingod, among other major attractions of the province.

The tourist destina-tions, summer promo-tions and products of the province were showcased in the Beat for Summer Heat 2012, which will run up to May 22, 2012 at the mall’s activity center.

In a message read by Executive Assistant Giovanni Gulanes, del Ro-sario said the activity in-tends to “redefine the hot summer sun and to make the weather more inviting and truly festive” to visi-tors.

Provincial Tourism Of-ficer Noel Daquioag said the event is part of the One Summer Fun, One

Davao project organized by the One Davao Tour-ism Officers Association (ODTOA), in cooperation with the Department of Tourism (DOT)-XI.

The ODTOA project started on April 14, 2012 with the aim of promoting the summer activities of the different destinations in the Davao Region.

The governor fur-ther bared Davao del Norte now ventures on a tourism industry that is more eco-friendly and community-based, espe-cially through the recent launch of its Ugmad Ko-munidad program, which converged the tourism, sports and livelihood pro-grams of the provincial government.

DavNor launches Beat for Summer Heat 2012

Sarangani in Photos

MAITUM, Sarangani (May 7, 2012) - Mothers from barangay Malalag show-case their dancing skills at the culmination program of Binuyugan Festival 2012 Monday, May 7, at the Municipal Gymnasium. The group is the grand

prize winner of the “Kending kending” showdown during the Search for Mother of the Year.

MAITUM, Sarangani (May 7, 2012) - Ken Bandayanon, a photographer from Davao City, is congratulated by Binuyugan Festival chairman and Provincial Board Member George Perrett as Mayor Elsie Lucille Perrett is giving the award. The mayor is assisted by photo contest organizer Beth Ramos Mon-day, May 7, during the culmination program of Binuyugan Festival 2012 and 53rd Foundation Anniversary of the municipality. Bandayanon, a consolation prize winner, also received the awards in behalf of consolation prize winners, Susing Tinapay and Rhonson Ng, and Norman Jadulang, 2nd prize winner, who are all Davao-based photographers.

MAITUM, Sarangani (May 7, 2012) - Governor Migs Dominguez and his leg-islators, Board Member Bryan Reganit (2nd from right) and Board Member Lim Gacula (6th from right), turn over a check amounting to P1.7 million to Mayor Elsie Lucille Perrett (5th from right), Vice Mayor Tito Balazon (3th from right) and the chairmen of recipient-barangays as the provincial counterpart to the school building projects of KALAHI-CIDSS for barangays Maguling, Pangi, Tuanadatu, Ticulab, New la Union and Wali with a total project cost of P10.6 million. The turn-over was held Monday, May 7, during the culmina-tion program of Binuyugan Festival 2012 and 53rd Foundation Anniversary of Maitum.

MAITUM, Sarangani (May 7, 2012) - Governor Migs Dominguez expresses his thanks to the constituents for the support they have given him, may it be a political or personal support, at the culmination day of Binuyugan Festival 2012 and 53rd Foundation Anniversary of the municipality Monday, May 7, at the Municipal Gymna-sium. Governor Dominguez is in his last term as the chief executive of the province.

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012 COMMUNITY SENSE 11EDGEDAVAO

     

   

 

 

For  Inquiries:  Please  Call   :   PRYCE  CORPORATION  c/o  SONNY  MOLE  Contact  No.   :   0922-­‐879-­‐0036  /  (082)  224-­‐2686  Email  ADD   :   sonitomole1223@yahoo.com  

LOCATION   AREA  (sq.m.)   PRICE/sq.m.  Matina,  

Davao  City  17,940   P2,500  

Matina(Diversion)  Davao  City  

3,831   P1,500  

Bunawan,    Davao  City  

41,408   P800  

Indangan,  Davao  City  

7,056   P1,200  

Bincungan,    Tagum  City  

27,411   P1,000  

LOCATION   AREA  (sq.m.)   PRICE/sq.m.  Villa  Josefina  Resort  Village,  Dumoy  Toril,  Davao  City  

Minimum  of  240  sq.m.  

P5,985  

St.  Joseph  Homes,  Sirawan,  Toril,Davao  City    

Minimum  of  150  sq.m.  

P3,600  

LOCATION   Lot  Area   Flr.  Area   PRICE  Blk.  4,  Lot  10    

Villa  Josefina  Resort  Village  Dumoy,  Toril,  Davao  City  

240  sq.m.   177.31  sq.m   P4.8  M  

IT’S that time of the year again when we get to celebrate the

most important women in our lives – our mothers. Surely, some of you are like “Oh no! Mother’s day is a few days away and I’m sitting here without a gift whatsoever!” Now, before you go to the near-est bookstore and grab a greeting card like you do every year, you may want to put things into per-spective.

For mom, the best gift would always be being with her family, which is something that might not always be possible, given some circumstances. You can, however, keep your-selves constantly con-nected through Sun Cellu-lar’s special Mother’s Day offer!

Why not give your mom a new Nokia Asha 200 which comes with a Sun Cellular Plan 350, and you will not just get a free phone with your sub-scription, you will get free movie tickets for two (2) for a blockbuster movie of your family’s choice. The plan, by the way, comes with an unlimited Sun-to-Sun calls and texts, and 250 texts to other net-works.

Would you like a brand- -new Blackberry phone? If you say yes, then certainly mom will, too! Get her the Black-berry Curve 8520 that comes with Sun Cellular’s Plan 600 and let her en-joy unmatched connec-tivity with unlimited Sun calls and texts, unlimited Blackberry Messenger,

unlimited Facebook and Twitter, and unlimited access to the Blackberry browser! Mom’s sweet new Blackberry Curve 8520 also comes with a leather handheld cover – perfect for keeping mom’s new phone safe from the careless hands of your little brothers and sisters!

For more information on how to avail of Sun Cellular’s Postpaid plans and hassle-free services, log on to www.suncellu-lar.com.ph. You can also check for updates on oth-er services that Sun Cel-lular offers by logging on to their official Facebook page: facebook.com/sun-cellularph or on Twitter: twitter.com/suncel lt-weets.

Sun Cellular is a mem-ber of the PLDT Group.

Get that PostPaid plan for mom this Mother’s day!

OUTSTANDING PRESIDENT. UP Mindanao Professor and Architect Jean Marie v. Juanga (holding trophy) was awarded “Outstanding Chapter President”, for her service as United Architects of the Philippines Davao

Chapter President, at the 38th United Architects of the Philippines National Convention, held on April 20, 2012 at the SMEX Convention Center, Mall of Asia, Pasay City, Metro Manila.

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 201212 NATION/WORLD EDGEDAVAO

NATION BRIEFS WORLD TODAYReady

THE defense team said they are now ready to discuss

the dollar account issue and present Chief Justice Renato Corona himself as witness before the im-peachment court.

“We are ready to meet this issue head-on. We will confront the $10 million alleged account,” defense counsel Jose Roy told the senator-judges.

Apology

THE Tulfo brothers are sorry for mak-ing remarks per-

ceived as threats against actor Raymart Santiago and his wife Claudine, ac-cording to a report.

Broadcast journalist Erwin Tulfo has apolo-gized, on air, in behalf of his brothers Raffy and Ben, a day after they spewed tirades against the actor who figured in a brawl with their elder brother Ramon.

Assured

MALACAÑANG on Tuesday assured the public that it is

intensifying programs to ad-dress incidents of hunger in the country.

In a text message, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said the Department of Social Welfare and De-velopment “is intensify-ing our supplementary feeding program and ex-panding the 4Ps (Panta-wid Pamilyang Pilipino Program).”

Nullify

MAJORITY of sena-tors filed a joint resolution nulli-

fying voters’ list of the Au-tonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to ensure clean and honest elections in the region.

The resolution signed by 18 senators also tasked the Commission on Elections to immediately conduct a new general registration of voters in all the municipali-ties and cities in the ARMM.

Disgusted

VICTIMS of human rights abuses during the Marcos dictator-

ship in the Philippines are disgusted.

Former first lady and now Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos has emerged as the second richest in the House of Representatives, while thousands of the victims are still awaiting govern-ment compensationfor their sufferings.

IT may be more fun in the Philippines for tour-ists, but apparently not

for mothers?U.S.-based children’s

welfare advocacy group Save the Children urged Congress on Tuesday to pass the Reproductive Health Bill, saying the Phil-ippines has already become a bad place to become a mother.

On Save the Children’s latest State of the World’s Mother’s Report, Philip-pines slipped to 52nd from 49th last year. The index is based on maternal health, education, economic status, and child health and nutri-tion.

“The new ranking is evidence of the continued deterioration of women’s and maternal health in the Philippines. There is a lack of investment on family planning education and ef-fective contraception, as well as inadequate access to affordable reproductive and maternal health ser-vices, all of which needs immediate attention,” said Anna Lindenfors, Save the Children’s country director in the Philippines, said.

She said around 40 percent of Filipina women give birth without the assis-tance of a skilled attendant

BAD CONDITION. A mother and her children tries to gather their belongings after their home was removed by government demolition men during an eviction oper-

ation at a community near Nueve de Pebrero Ave. corner Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong City. 

PHL a bad place to be a mother?

while just half use “effective contraceptives.”

Save the Children also urged government support for breastfeeding programs, saying Filipina mothers can help ensure their children’s nutrition that way.

“Our report shows that a single nutrition interven-tion can help prevent stunt-ing in children. Policies and programs must be put in place in to ensure all moth-ers have the support they need to choose to breast-feed if they want to,” Lin-

denfors said.Save the Children said

their statistics suggest mothers who grew up mal-nourished will likely also have babies who are under-weight.

Save the Children said that if things go unchanged, the Philippines will fail to meet the Millennium Devel-opment Goal to reduce ma-ternal deaths by 75 percent in 2015.

“The passage of the RH Bill will also ensure that the government will invest in

having adequate number of midwives, community health workers, emergency obstetric care facilities, mo-bile health services and ma-ternal healthcare benefits,” it said.

Versions of the RH Bill have yet to hurdle debates in Congress. Senate Major-ity Leader Vicente Sotto III, who opposes the bill, has said debates will have to be moved to July to make way for other legislation. He also said senators still have questions about the bill.

U.N.-Arab League me-diator Kofi Annan and the U.N. peacekeeping

chief gave a bleak assess-ment to the Security Coun-cil on the situation in Syria, where fighting continues and fears of full-scale civil war are increasing, U.N. dip-lomats said on Tuesday.

“Troops continue to press against (the) popula-tion, yet more discreetly,” a council diplomat said in a summary of Annan’s re-marks to the 15-nation council. “(Annan cited) lim-ited progress on the military front. The onus remains with the government to prevent further militarization of the conflict.”

The comments from An-nan and U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous added further doubts about Da-mascus’ commitment to An-nan’s peace plan, which is aimed at ending a 14-month assault on opposition pro-testers calling for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They were also likely to deepen doubts among Western powers that Annan’s plan has any chance of success.

Annan told the coun-cil via video link from Ge-neva that his six-point peace plan is not an “open ended commitment (but) a pos-sible last chance to avoid

UN hears bleak assessment of Annan’s Syria peace push

DEMONSTRATION. Female anti-government protesters display their hands, painted with the colors of the flags of Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, during a demonstra-

tion demanding that relatives of Yemen’s former presi-dent Ali Abdullah Saleh be dismissed from senior army and police posts. [REUTERS]

civil war,” said another of the four council diplomats who spoke to Reuters on condi-tion of anonymity.

Ladsous told the council that there has been a “no-ticeable reduction in the use of heavy weapons, a decline in the conduct of large scale military, but now more dis-creet military operations continue, large scale ar-rests,” an envoy said.

“Syria still resorts to heavy weapons,” a diplomat said, adding that Ladsous

said there was still an “intru-sive presence of Syrian secu-rity” in cities.

Annan told the council that he was especially con-cerned human rights viola-tions might be intensifying, with more arrests and tor-ture.

“People known for ad-vocating non-violence have been arrested,” Annan said, according to one of the dip-lomats.

Annan also told the council that “a reduction in

(military) operations is not meaningful if replaced by other forms of violence,” an-other envoy said.

A U.N.-backed cease-fire was announced for April 12 as part of Annan’s peace plan, along with the deployment of an unarmed U.N. observer force of up to 300 monitors. While there was an initial reduction in violence and U.N. observers have been gradually deploy-ing, a full ceasefire has yet to take hold.

Flesh capsules

SOUTH Korea has intensified a crack-down on the smug-

gling of capsules from China containing the powdered flesh of dead babies, taken by some as a cure for disease or a way to boost sexual per-formance, a customs of-ficial said Tuesday.

The gruesome prac-tice came to light Sunday when Korea Customs said it had uncovered 35 at-tempts to import a total of 17,451 such capsules since last August.

Prepared

CHINESE vice foreign minister Fu Ying said Beijing was ful-

ly ready for an escalation of a drawn-out maritime standoff with the Philip-pines, as a tense row over a disputed shoal contin-ues.

“The Chinese side has... made all prepara-tions to respond to any escalation of the situa-tion by the Philippine side,” she told a Philip-pine diplomat in Beijing Monday, according to a statement posted on the foreign ministry website.

Inauguration

THOUSANDS of Rus-sian soldiers on W e d n e s d a y

marched across Red Square watched over by newly-inaugurated Pres-ident Vladimir Putinto mark the 67 years since the victory over Nazi Ger-many in World War II.

Over 14,000 service-men in all were to march across the famous cob-bles in the annual Victory Day parade which was to also include Russian missiles and other mili-tary hardware in a dis-play of Moscow’s mili-tary might.

Bombing

SUDANESE war planes have launched renewed

air strikes against South Sudan, violating a UN Security Council resolu-tion to end weeks of a bitter border conflict, the South’s army said Wednesday.

“The Republic of Su-dan has been randomly bombarding civilian ar-eas,” said Southern army spokesman Kella Kueth, who said the air strikes hit the border states of Upper Nile, Unity and Western Bahr el-Ghazal on Monday and Tuesday.

Racists

TEN alleged mem-bers of a white su-premacist group

training near Orlando and Disney World for a “race war” have been rounded up in a series of arrests in central Flori-da, authorities said.

The arrests were based on evidence from a confidential informant who infiltrated the neo-Nazi organization known as the American Front 17 months ago, accord-ing to an arrest affidavit.

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in order to focus on their studies.

A few meters from the new school is the Homito-ri at Bangoy Street Corner Sta. Ana Avenue, owned by the Toehio couple. It is an appropriate dormi-tory for AISAT students where rooms are air-conditioned; with inter-net connectivity and a gym. Homitori offers free breakfast to dormers.

Courses offered in AISAT include two-year aircraft maintenance technology; two-year aviation electronics tech-nology; two-year airline computer science major in airline operation and management; 720 hours aircraft structure main-tenance course; 45-day flight attendant train-

ing course; private pilot flight course; private pilot ground course; commer-cial pilot flight course; flight instructor course; and, flight attendant training.

“Aviation is the mode of transportation of the future, if not already at present kay nagsulod na-man ta sa future. And it’s a game changer, because it will change the way people think about travel, about doing business, and about lifestyle,” said Pin-goy.

A pilot, physician, en-trepreneur and sports en-thusiast, Pingoy said “Like in surfing, we are riding the right wave that drives our economy, so that we can advance faster.”

cy (PNA) that the remains of 17 store workers were so far found by his fire-fighters and members of the Butuan Search and Rescue Team (BUSART) of the city government.

Timonera and Gomez identified 12 of the dead workers as Bella Rose Du-magpit, 26, married, who is six months pregnant; Princess Grace Sari, 19, of Tangub City; Judilyn Ori, 23, of Dipolog City; Pinky Disipulo, 19, of Tandag City; Jessie Duyu-han, 25, from Agusan del Sur; Marites Morgado, 30, of Santiago, Agusan del Norte; Mylene Larasan, 26, from Zamboanga del Norte; Liezl Dalaygon, 21, of Ozamis City; Gladys Saavedra, 24, from Oza-mis City; Maribel Buyco, 22, married, from Bukid-non; and Junalyn Amor, 27.

One of the fatalities was a Novo store super-visor who hailed from Surigao City. He was only known with her nick-name Krang-Krang.

Gomez said three sales ladies were able to escape from the third floor of Tan Building which served as their sleeping quarters but suffered burns. The three are now confined at the Elisa R. Ochoa Memo-rial Maternity and Gen-eral Hospital here.

The sales ladies were identified as Vicky Velez,

21, from Tangub City; Grace Canoy, 22, a resi-dent of Pagadian City; and Marilyn Tulo, 24, from Aurora, Zamboanga del Sur.

Novo Department Store is owned by Chi-nese nationals, according to Amy Deligero, one of the assistant store super-visors in their branch in this city.

Deligero, a stay-out personnel, told the PNA at the fire scene here, that there are 21 sales ladies who were staying in on the third floor of Novo Department Store. She said most of the stay-ins were not residents of Bu-tuan City.

Gomez said they re-ceived a fire alarm around 3:55 a.m. Wednesday. Fire trucks from nearby towns in Agusan del Norte also arrived to help.

“The fire was put out after more than two hours with the involve-ment of 15 fire trucks from Butuan City, Cabad-baran City and other towns in Agusan prov-inces,” Gomez said PNA at the fire scene Wednesday morning.

Of the 10 towns and one city of Agusan del Norte, only four towns have fire trucks.

Butuan City has four fire trucks but only three are serviceable at the moment. [PNA]

May 8.Quitain, the city le-

gal officer before he ran for office in 2010, said the ban is provided in the Davao City Ecological Solid Waste Management Ordinance of 2009.

The ordinance states that “the use [non-biode-gradable materials] shall be completely banned in Davao City starting June 28.”

“Only recyclable, biodegradable or reus-able containers are al-lowed to be used as food and beverage contain-ers,” Quitain said in his privilege speech during council session.

City Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) head Jo-seph Felizarta said his office conducted semi-nars on the matter at-tended by food retailers during the renewal of business permits early this year.

“Cenro also distrib-uted letters last month April,” he said in a text

message.City Planning and

Development Office (CPDC) head Robert Ala-bado said the city is con-sistent “in its drive to be a green city.”

“By using reus-able plastics and ban-ning very thin plastics and styro which can be used only once, we can partly solve our urban floods caused by clogged drains,” he said.

“With this we’ll be reducing the amount of residual wastes dumped into our sanitary land-fill,” Alabado added.

However, street ven-dors but aired their dis-satisfaction with the or-dinance.

“Wala man untay problema kung kwek-kwek lang ang istoryah-an kay among gamit kanang stick man ug pa-per plate. Ang problema kay ang sa buko juice. Ambot unsaon kay bawal na man kaya ang plastic cellophane. Ang cups basi dili pud pwede,”

for the two health sta-tions cited the militaryon-tribution.

“We appreciate the initiative of Lt. Col. Leop-oldo Imbang in providing us manpower support. The delay in implemen-tation was only due to insufficient funding to meet the labor cost,” Dra. Sanico said.

Thirty house-holds are beneficiaries of the 28th IB’s Peace and Development Outreach Program (PDOP), said Al-dren Daganato, barangay chief of New Visayas in Lupon.

“1Lt. Francisco Lin-gat and 1Lt. Montelibano, their soldiers in my ba-rangay together with my people, were able to com-plete the Rehabilitation and Improvement of the Water System at Purok 4, New Visayas, Lupon,” he said.

Other barangay chiefs who expressed their thanks were Sani Hanani of Barangay Ilangay and Arnel Guadalquiver of Ba-rangay Maag for the mili-tary’s support and con-tribution to community development.

modelling. The Spotlight Stars

also acted in a music video featuring the song “Beau-tiful” by Group 1 Crew, a chart-topping hit on 104.3 The Edge Radio.

The SPOTLIGHT PER-SONALITY EMPOWER-MENT WORKSHOP is the only workshop in Davao City that offers this com-plete and well-rounded program designed to help young people build their confidence by encouraging them to embrace their body shapes and sizes, by open-ing their hearts and minds to the world around them, by coaching them how to speak well and think cre-atively, and by nurturing their talents to bring out the finest traits of their “real” personalities. It’s all about polishing diamonds in the rough!

Open to all girls and boys aged 8-16, the work-shop will be conducted at the SouthSpot studios. Batch 2 sessions will run from May 14-29, Monday to Friday (10AM to 5PM), with a Grand Finale Workshop on May 30 at NCCC Mall. Tu-ition fee is Php 7,000 which is inclusive of all materials, handouts, and DVD copies of all their video recordings and photographs. Students

will receive a printed port-folio of their fashion photo shoots. They will perform on stage for a fashion and talent showcase. They will also act in a music video, and star in their own TV show to be produced by SouthSpot. There’s definitely no other workshop in town that of-fers the same experience and value for money.

Enrolment for Batch 2 is now going on. Limited slots only so register at South-Spot Studios, 59-B Aala Bldg., F. Iñigo St., (formerly Anda), Davao City. Look for Jill Palarca or Lucille Saniel. For inquiries, contact 0922-8384981 or 271-8905. Or visit the website www.spot-lightworkshop.blogspot.com for more details.

This workshop is pro-duced by SouthSpot Enter-tainment Network, and co-presented by NCCC Mall and The Edge Radio Davao. And supported by The EDGE Business Paper, Well Ants, Dimsum Diner, Scrumble Rumble, Andy’s Cupcakes, Cubiyertos Catering, Almans Pastries, Plaza del Carmen, Whistle Top, Matina Town Square, Philippine Women’s College of Davao School of Fine Arts and Design, Re-naissance Haute Couture, Kasuotan, Wedding Bells, and Wedding Channel.

said Rael Mangayan, 21, a kwek kwek and buko juic vendor.

Mangayan said he may violate the law so long as he does not get caught.

“Ang tao mauhaw man gyud na. Mangita ug mainom. Kung di ko makitan nga mugamit ug plastic cups padayon lang ko,” he said.

Other street ven-dors said they have not heard of the provision but reckon this could be because they’ve only started vending last year.

A couple with two booths, one for fishballs and another for maruya, said the ban will affect their small business.

“Mumahal ang gasto kay bawal na ang plastic. Naa may uban nga gusto take-out ang softdrinks. Among ginatransfer sa cellophane. Ang juice namo amo pung ginabu-tang sa plastic cups. Maapektohan gyud ang among negosyo kung ang dapat namo paliton katong mga papel nga cups. Mas mahal man to,” said Lita Donayre, 34.

THE committee on ways and means of the House of Repre-

sentatives on Wednesday approved House Bill 5727 or “An Act Restructuring the Excise Tax on Alcohol and Tobacco.”

With a vote of 46-14, the House ways and means body, chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, ap-proved in its committee hearing HB 5727, which seeks to impose a unitary excise tax on tobacco and alcohol products.

Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, author of the proposed measure, said the passage of the bill would not only increase government revenues but also result in a higher revenue share for tobacco farmers while actually financing the universal health care program of the government.

The bill has been iden-tified by President Be-nigno S. Aquino III as one of the priority measures of the administration and included in the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) agenda.

“The first full year of the implementation of the bill alone will lead to more than P60 billion in additional revenues to the government, half of which would come from tobac-co,” said Abaya.

He said total revenues in the implementation of the new sin tax were projected to reach almost P140 billion by the fifth year, the bulk of which would fund the universal health care program.

The Cavite solon said a shift to a unitary system would simplify tax admin-istration and would be less prone to corruption.

“Foregone revenues due to price/brand clas-

sification are estimated at P35.5 billion for tobacco and P11.39 billion for fer-mented liquor for the year 2010 alone,” he said.

“A unitary system would lead to greater rev-enues for the national gov-ernment,” he said.

Malacanang earlier endorsed the passage of the unitary excise tax that would give the govern-ment additional revenues.

Palace Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the present rules had created practically a monopoly, where one company had controlled a market share of more than 90 percent.

“The sin tax reform will provide competition among the other play-ers. In fact, that would in-crease the productivity or purchasing power of the tobacco industry,” he said.

Aside from removing a monopoly in the tobacco industry, Lacierda said, the proposed measure

aimd to rationalize the col-lection of sin taxes in the country to get more rev-enues for the government.

On the other hand, Quezon Rep. Danilo Su-arez, in a press briefing, said he was surprised by the timing in the passage of HB 5727 as there would be elections next year.

Besides, he said “there was very little or no time was given to the players, the various stakeholders (to hear their side).”

“In the event that this measure will be made into law, I just would like to in-form you that there will be increase of (prices) of dis-tilled spirits and cigarettes by next year,” he said.

For his part, Chris Nielson, president of Phil-ippines Manufacturing Inc. and Fortune Tobacco Corp. (PMFTC), said they were not satisfied with the way the House committee ways and means approved the new sin tax measures.

House body okays unitary excise tax

‘IN any transition, there will b a lot of changes relating to the ways of doing things. And, therefore, we in Asia should continue to focus on the funda-mentals so that we can adapt to our changing role.’

--Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima. BM

Quips

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 201214 SPORTS EDGEDAVAO

Pia Cayetano remembers Palaro

WITH three days to go before the biggest football

festival in Davao City takes centerstage this weekend, several teams from Visayas and other parts of Mindanao have confirmed their partici-pation in the Davao Sum-mer Games Football Fes-tival.

The two-day football competition, sanctioned by the Davao Football As-sociation and organized by the Duaw Davao Fes-tival Foundation in part-nership with the host Davao Crocodile Park FC,

offers cash prizes and trophies in 16 categories.

Don Bosco of Cebu is sending two teams in the Boys 11 and Boys 12 cat-egories while OLLES of Bukidnon will be taking part in Players 6, Players 7, Players 8, Players 9, Players 10, Boys 11, Boys 12, Boys 13 and Boys 16. Digos City is entered in Boys 12, Boys 14 and Girls 14 and Cagayan de Oro’s MAPFRE has two teams in the Boys 11 and Boys 12 divisions.

Black Knights of Davao City has entered teams in Players 8, Play-

ers 10, Boys 12, Boys 14, Players 9, Boys 11, and Boys 16.

In the men’s division, Cotabato City has already confirmed their partici-pation while Solido FC has a team in the wom-en’s division along with Team DDS.

Match Commissioner Ching delos Reyes said more teams are set to register late Wednesday to catch the deadline for registration.

A total cash bonanza of P284,000 has been al-located by the city gov-ernment of Davao for

the tournament serving as one of the core events of the Davao Summer Games, the competition side of the 2nd Davao Summerfest.

12 football fields will be used for the tourna-ment at the Davao Croco-dile Park which formally kicks off Saturday with action in the Players 6,8,10, Boys 12, Boys 14, Girls 14, Boys 18 and Women’s Open. On Sunday, competitions in the Players 7,9, Boys 11, Boys 13, Boys 16, Girls 13, Girls 16 and Men’s Open take place.

Cebu, CDO, Bukidnon, Cotabato teams in Davao Football Festival

WINNERS. Winners of the recent 1st Tony Garcia Caddies Golf Tournament pose with Baby Garcia and children Teddy and Imee, and grandchild Johan.

THIS time, the bag-toters took over at the course they

normally walk with the game’s bosses in a tourna-ment dedicated to a man whose love for the sport and the game’s unsung heroes is unparalleled.

Mario Labajo emerged as the biggest winnerby pocketing the Class A Di-vision of the first ever An-tonio “TonyGars” Garcia Caddies Tournament at the Davao City Golf Club on Monday.

Labajo tamed the Ma-tina layout to beat even-tual runner-up Tonge Labajo for the title. Larry De Asis finished third. In Class B action, To-tong Turbela routed the field besting Jojo Ebaclas and Bobon Echavez who would up second and third, respectively.

Mel John Salebat showed a lot of promise in the Junior Golf 12 years old and under which he ruled over second placer Yuon Bisera and third

placer Samantha Beltran. Ronel Tagaan won the title in the 13-15 years old class over Marvin dela Cerna and C. Lajera.

The Ladies division title for caddies, umbrel-la girls and tee girls went to Michelle Bugwat who topped her class over Mi-chelle Abatay and Anna Lou Mendoza.

A total of 64 male cad-dies, 34 female caddies/umbrella girls/tee girls, 18 kids ages 13-15 yrs old, and 11 kids ages 12 yrs old and below joined the tournament held in celebration of the late golf patron’s birthday.

Garcia was a topnotch golfer who suited up for several editions of the PAL Seniors Interclub and long-time regional president of the PGAP and the NGAP before he succumbed to illness.

Baby Garcia and chil-dren Imee and Teddy and grandson Johan gave away the prizes to the winners.

Labajo wins TonyGars caddies golf tourney

THE Mobil 1 Fun Run For a Crippled Child is set on May

27 at 4:30 a.m. in an out and back course at the Roxas Avenue in Davao City.

“This is for the ben-efit of the crippled chil-dren age 12 years old and below in the Min-danao Nobles Founda-tion Inc. of the Southern Philippines Medical Cen-ter Orthopaedic ward,” said organizer Randy Cadiogan Tuesday at the weekly SCOOP at the Royal Mandaya Hotel.

“We intend to put up our own hospital for the crippled children and burn victims here in Mindanao,” said Ca-diogan, who added that they have been helping 300 victims every year.

Also present were Er-leneCastillon and Crystal Joy Lamique, regional sales manager and mar-

keting head, respectively of the Mobil 1.

“We’re targeting at least 2,000 runners to join,” Lamique said.

The race will have the 3K and 5K for an en-try fee of P300 and 10K for P450 only with free singlet, race bib, snacks and finishers certifi-cate. Free Mobil utility tool will also be given away to the first 250 registrants of the 10K run. Trophies, medals and gift certificates are up for grabs to the top three finishers.

“There are also lots of raffle prizes at stake,” Castillon said.

The race will be managed by the Vantage Sports Promotion under Kenneth Sai.

The registration has started at Adidas in Gai-sano Mall and Flying V gas station in Bankero-han. (LDR)

Mobil 1 Run set May 27

LET me share with you a memoire written by our good friend Sena-

tor Pia Cayetano, a certified athlete and sports-loving legislator, of her memo-rable experience in the Palarong Pambansa. As the country’s top student ath-letes converge this week in Lingayen, Pangasinan for the 2012 Palarong Pam-bansa, Senator Pia recalls her own time when she was a young spiker playing for NCR.

Here is Pia’s story:“In the school year

1982-83, I was 16 years old, a sophomore in the University of the Philip-pines (UP) and a varsity volleyball player. That year, my UP team won the Uni-versity Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) volleyball championships.

We were on the moon.Next on our list was

the Palarong Pambansa. But first we had to beat the same teams we played against in the UAAP for the chance to represent the National Capitol Region (NCR).

Unfortunately, we lost to Far Eastern University (FEU).

But as it turned out, the FEU team wanted to put up a really strong team and in-vited three of us from UP – me, Lyra Resurreccion and Patty Inocencio-Ortega, and another player from UST to join their team. Pat-ty reluctantly begged off due to the demands of her vet med classes. But Lyra and I went on to join the NCR selection.

The FEU team trained in the mornings. The UP team trained in the eve-nings after class. So my UP teammates and I worked out a schedule where we trained with the FEU team 2-3 days of the week in the mornings and the other days, we played with our UP team.

I had never been to the Palaro, but some of my UP teammates were Palaro veterans. I had heard their stories and dreamt of playing one day. This was enough reason for me to take on the extra training load.

Finally, it was time to head to Tacloban City, Leyte. The NCR team was led by no other than Mi-chael Keon, the Gintong Alay head.

‘Starry-eyed’ at Pala-ro

The NCR team was housed together in a public school. I loved the energy and the thought of living and breathing sports.

Each team was as-signed a classroom that would serve as their sleep-ing quarters. The class-rooms were filled with cots with mosquito nets that protected us from mosqui-to bites so long as your net didn’t have holes.

When I arrived at the Sports Complex, I was as starry-eyed as any first time athlete would be.

On the opening day of the games, they were an-nouncing the names of some known athletes who were participating and one of them was track star Lydia de Vega. I remember running up the bleachers to get a good view of the track when she was about to compete.

She was mesmerizing..she was grace in action. On our second night,

I woke up with a horrible sore throat and a fever which I knew meant I was

coming down with a mean case of tonsilitis. For this reason, our coach and Lyra, my UP teammate decided I would be better off stay-ing at a friend’s house so I could rest and possibly re-cover in time for the games.

When the volleyball games started, I wasn’t fully recovered but insisted that I was well enough to play. I didn’t come this far to miss playing with teams from all over the country in a complex full of other ath-letes and supporters.

Memorable competi-tion

The games were held in the BR Sports Complex. Our first game was in an outdoor court with gravel in the days when beach volleyball did not exist yet.

The whole stadium was filled with people.

We played against a number of teams includ-ing three very tough teams, the teams from Regions 6, 7 and 4. Some of the best Philippine National team players were from those regions and were playing on those teams - Thelma Barina, Grace Antigua, Joji Maranga, and the Jao twins from Cebu.

I already knew them as I had trained with them over the summer when I was invited to train and try-out for the national team.

Our team played really well.

I remember the shock on the faces of our oppo-nents when many of my spikes went in and scored points. I was a relatively new face. I was less experi-enced than most but I was tall, a lefty and had been through serious training under my UP Coach Su Ar-rastia Rojas.

A lefty is always a team’s secret weapon because there are not that many left-ies, so it’s harder to predict our play. We played hard, won some and lost some. In the end, we finished third.

But I felt like a win-ner after playing my best against the very best.

‘Time of my life’What is forever etched

in my memory is the deaf-ening cheers of our sup-porters, jumping in the air at sunset, diving in the sand at the height of noon.

I had the time of my life playing against the best of the best in the country, liv-ing with my teammates and on one particular night, wit-nessing a midnight raid as my teammates painted the face of another teammate with nail polish.

To this day, I always ask people going to Leyte to bring me back the two local delicacies I first discovered during the Palarong Pam-bansa - chocolate moron and binagol.

So that’s what I took home with me -- the experi-ence of playing against the best in my sport, meeting amazing athletes in other fields, making new friends, and a lifetime of unforget-table memories.”

By Carlo P. MalloPhoto by Ariel Balofinos

AND that is exactly how finished my slice of carrot cake – swiping my finger on the last traces of cream cheese on the plate and lick-ing it off. The carrot cake was so good that I almost forgot to eat for the rest of the day. You may ask my friend, Ariel, who also happens to be our photographer that day, and he’ll tell a similar experience with the blue cheese cake in this quaint patisserie along Legaspi Street. The same can be said for the dashing chef behind all the finger-licking good in-dulgence, Joel Rodriguez, who aptly called his patis-serie, Osvaldo’s. “When I looked up for names, I saw Osvaldo’s and it means divine power,” Joel said. The cake shop, which also doubles as the kitchen, has a fridge-full of cakes that can make anyone grow a couple more of sweet teeth and your stomach grumble in hunger. While there may be a handful of patisseries in town, what sets Osvaldo’s apart is the integration of local flavors into the cakes and pastries. “From pomelo, passion fruit, durian, chocnut, and ube, I have used these fla-vors with my products,” Joel said. Also, the cakes at Osval-do’s are how cakes should

be. “I do not shortcut. I do not use substitutes as I want people to taste cake as how cake should taste like,” Joel enthuses. His love for baking, be-lieve it or not, started with a turbo broiler. Joel re-members that he used to watch his sister bake cakes. “I got inspired. I remem-ber baking my first cake, which was a yellow cake. The inside of the cake was raw while the outside was burnt,” Joel said. In high school, Joel started selling his cakes to his classmates. His passion for cakes just continued growing that when he went to the United States, he studied cake decorating at

Wilton. “I just love the feel, the texture; baking cakes ex-cites me,” Joel said. Just last October, Joel and his sister, opened Osvaldo’s to formally introduce the finger-licking indulgence to the people of Davao. Just a few months later, Osval-do’s Cakes are on everyone mouth and lips. “Word gets around pret-ty fast here in Davao, and people here know what they want, especially now that the taste of Dabawe-nyos have greatly evolved into sophistication,” Joel said, while handing me an-other slice of cake, which I’m sure I’ll finish with a swipe of my finger.

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012

EDGEDAVAOPEOPLE

His passion for cakes just continued growing that when he went to the United States, he studied cake decorating at Wilton.

Finger-licking indulgence!

INdulge!

THE massage indus-try is piling on John Travolta all of a sud-den. The movie star was hit with a second NSFW sex-ual-battery complaint  in five days, this one filed by an unidentified masseur who claims that Travolta exposed and touched himself while being given an in-room massage at an Atlanta hotel. Both plaintiffs are rep-resented by the same attorney, Okorie Okoro-cha, who filed the origi-nal complaint on behalf of John Doe No. 1, and then filed an amended complaint today adding John Doe No. 2 that now charges Travolta with sexual harassment in ad-dition to assault, sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. “This second ‘anony-mous’ claim is just as ab-surd and ridiculous as the first one,” Travolta’s attor-ney, Marty Singer, tells E! News. He said yesterday that Travolta wasn’t even on the West Coast on Jan. 16, when John Doe No.

1 claims an incident oc-curred. As for John Doe No. 2... In the amended com-plaint first  obtained by Radar, the second plain-tiff states that he was booked to do an in-room massage for a “Mr. White” on the 15th floor of an Atlanta-area resort and, when he asked a cowork-er to do it instead, saying he didn’t like in-room ap-pointments, the cowork-er declined and told him that the guest in question had been banned from the spa he used to work at in Los Angeles. John Doe No. 2 claims that Travolta had a “strange demeanor” and his eyes were bloodshot when he walked into the room, undressed and climbed on the table. The actor then, per the suit, pushed the sheet away, complaining that it was “sticky.” The complaint states that Travolta then pro-ceeded to ask the mas-seur to pay special at-tention to his buttocks during the rub-down. The plaintiff claims that

Travolta had an erec-tion and “spread his butt cheeks open.” Plaintiff No. 2 then claims that Travolta flipped over on the table and started to “grab, rub and caress” the masseur’s

upper thighs and but-tocks, and then tried to put the masseur’s hand on his scrotum. Travolta then wanted the masseur to rub his ab-dominals, the suit claims, but he refused to cover his penis and the masseur objected. John Doe No. 2 then alleges that, with about 15 minutes left in the massage session, Tra-volta began masturbat-ing and the plaintiff “said he had to go.” John Doe No. 2 is ask-ing for at least $2 million in damages, as is John Doe No. 1. And they’ll get noth-ing, as far as Travolta’s lawyer is concerned. “The attorney who filed the lawsuit on be-half of his second anony-mous client...was notified that his first client’s claims were totally false and fabricated, since our cli-

ent was not in L.A. when anonymous ‘Doe No. 1’ claims he interacted with John Travolta,” Singer said. “Significantly, although the same attorney made the fabricated claim for Doe No. 1, there was never any claim made by anon-ymous Doe No. 2 before he filed his specious law-suit. Before the attorney for the two anonymous plaintiffs filed the claim on behalf of the second person who refuses to disclose his identity...it is obvious that he checked media reports that my cli-ent was in Atlanta work-ing on a movie.  “However, the claim by Doe No. 2 is just as fabri-cated as the claim by Doe No. 1,” Singer concluded. “Our client will be fully vindicated in court on both of these absurd and fictional claims.”

YES, it’s a scent for a wom-an, but if ever there was a man pretty enough to ren-der that particular point moot, it’s Brad Pitt. Proving yet again that his musky appeal knows no bounds, E! News has ex-clusively learned that  An-gelina Jolie’s better half is shooting a commercial for Chanel’s signature No. 5

scent. Reps for neither Pitt nor the perfume house have commented on the new partnership, but a source tells E! News that the ac-tor will be shooting his first perfume ad in Lon-don sometime this week (the superstar family has set up  their most recent homestead in the UK).

And for his endorse-ment troubles, Pitt will be bringing home some seri-ous bacon for the Jolie-Pitt clan, with his paycheck for the spot somewhere in the seven-figures. The Chanel No. 5 ad will be released overseas sometime later this year. Makes scents to us. (E! On-line)

ENTERTAINMENTENTERTAINMENT

John Travolta accused of sexual battery by two masseurs

Brad Pitt models Chanel No. 5!HOT NOTor

A2 INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012EDGEDAVAO

A3INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012EDGEDAVAO

NOT too thick. Not too thin. Dangerously crunchy. Generously smothered with melt-ed cheese. That is what you get with every serving of Pizzacca-demia’s pie. This new concept pizzeria in Davao City is owned and managed by the heir appar-ent to Davaoeno Pizza roy-alty. Jordan Cuison, son of the former proprietor of Pa-pa’s Pizza-- the benchmark of simple, no-nonsense piz-zerias in Davao-- together with his friends Karla Pil-lerin and Franz Ong opened Pizzaccademia last April 14, 2012 with a strong albeit si-lent bang. Since then, the pizzeria has been carving a name for itself by catering to new pizza lovers who enjoy old school tastes. Of course, they also cater to the crowd that still craves for good old Papa’s Pizza. So what is the difference between Papa’s Pizza and Pizzaccademia? Not much, really. They still serve their comforting pies and other menu favor-ites but present it with new flair. As the name suggests, Pizzacademia is the school of pizza.... and they run with the idea. In fact, when you enter their quaint shop, you are greeted by a black board with their full menu on it. The place is peppered with school-time memorabilia like old yearbooks, iden-tification cards, and grade school text books that we all used to hate. The good news

is, at Pizzaccademia there is little to hate. Especially when it comes to their food. So what do I  recom-mend?  I know it is a little odd to start with a sandwich rec-ommendation when I’m writing about a pizza place, but Pizzaccademia’s version of a great sandwich is hard to pass. The Pop Steak Sand-wich delivers more than just a pop; it is an explosion of savory goodness in your mouth. This sandwich, made of perfectly cooked slices of premium tender-loin strips smothered in a silky mushroom gravy, em-braced by two moon-shaped buns, is an experience in it-self. The taste is perfect. The salty mushroom gravy that is counterbalanced by the slightly sweet bun makes for a perfect appetizer or meal in itself. And at a mea-sly seventy-five bucks per pop; this is easily the most affordable piece of culinary heaven. Among their Pizza’s I would recommend the Beer Drinker’s. This piece of pie is topped with tapa, a tradi-tional breakfast staple in the

country that is made of thin slices of salty and sweet beef. Together with capsicums and onions; this pizza fla-vor definitely goes well with some cold beer. And yes, they serve that too. If you want more variety on your plate, you may also try the JB’s Quatro Stag-ione. Also known as “Four Seasons” this pizza flavors comes with two slices each of your  preferred  Pizzaca-demia offering. Yup. You get to choose all the four flavors that go in it. I sug-gest you try a combination of Jordan’s Pizza Primav-

era (The Vegetarian Pizza. Light, crunchy, and fresh), Polynesian Pizza (An inno-vative twist to the Hawaiian Pizza. This one comes with anchovies, pineapple, and ham), Beer Drinker’s, and Sicilian Pizza (Ground beef and vegetable pizza) Also, Pizzacademia al-lows you to pick two flavors in one pie when you order from the Regular Pizza items on their menu.  Try out these gorgeous pizza offerings at Pizzacca-demia at Door 1 Tiffany’s Place Building Loyola Street Obrero Davao City.

ENTERTAINMENTFOOD

Pizzaccademia: School of Pizza

by: Bai Fauziah Fatima Sinsuat Ambolodto, MBA

“I’d give up choco-late, but I’m no quit-ter...” -Anonymous

GOING through a heartbreak is nev-er easy. One either sleeps like sleeping beauty, shops like “le heiress Paris” or eats like there is no to-morrow. Me? I crave for Dark Choco-lates -- the darker the better. Further, Dark Chocolate is said to be good for the heart, the brain, helps control blood sugar, is full of an-tioxidants, contains theobromine(has been shown to hard-en tooth enamel thus lowering the risk of cavities) and is high in vitamins and minerals (potas-sium, copper, mag-nesium, iron). This simple yet addic-tive recipe came up during my recent meltdown. I was trying to cheer my self up so i ended up with a no-brainer no bake chocolate brownies that became an instant hit to my nephews Datu Rashid and Datu Norms. Give it a try and see the magic of chocolate unfold before you. Happy Cooking! NO BAKE CHOCO-LATE BROWNIES ALA DATU NORMS (makes 26)

Ingredients:400 g digestive biscuits (I used Marks & Spencers)300 g chocolate buttons (I used Goya DARK CHOCOLATE easy to

melt chocolate buttons)100 g nuts, roughly chopped 1/2 c dried cherry, roughly chopped 1/2 c dried mangoes, roughly chopped 1/2 c dried papaya, roughly chopped 1 stick butter5 tbsp light syrup 1 pack store bought me-ringue, mashed up

Directions:1. Break the biscuits into small pieces directly into a large bowl. Add the nuts, dried mangoes, dried pa-paya, cherries, mallows and meringue and mix together.2. Put the rest of the ingre-dients into a separate heat proof bowl and put on a low heat over a pan of sim-mering water (DOUBLE BOILER) until the but-ter and chocolate buttons have melted. 3. In a clean bowl, combine the biscuits and the choc-olate mixture. Mix thor-oughly to avoid lumps.4. Line the molder (i used a rectangular brownie molder) with plastic cling film. Dump and pat down the mixture until it sets. Refrigerate for 3 hours and cut into desired sizes.

I would like to thank my 3 year old nephew, Datu Raees Norman, for

helping me come up with this recipe. He was my little chef-taster. Love lots Datu Norms. For the picture, I used a polvoron molder.

NO BAKE EGGELSS CHOCO PEANUT BUTTER AND OATS COOKIES

Another quick, easy to make and fun recipe for after school or playdate snack. Its an eggless recipe which requires no bak-ing at all. If you think you dont like no-bake cook-ies, these will change your mind for sure. Its also a perfect recipe to get kids involved in the kitchen.

Ingredients:2 cups sugar4 tbsp. cocoa powder1 stick butter1/2 cup milk1 cup peanut butter1 tbsp. vanilla extract3 cups oatmeal

Directions:1. In a heavy saucepan bring to a boil, the sugar, cocoa, butter and milk. Let boil for 1 minute then add peanut butter, vanilla and oatmeal. Stir so the oatmeal is coated with the chocolate mixture.2. On a sheet of waxed pa-per, drop mixture by the teaspoonfuls, let it cool completely and harden.

A4 INdulge! VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012EDGEDAVAOFOOD

Let’s go no bake!

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012 15EDGEDAVAO SPORTS

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- JaVale McGee went out with the attitude

that Game 5 was the last game of his life. The other Denver Nuggets played their own mental games, some drawing inspiration from Lakers center Andrew By-num’s comment about how closeout playoff games can sometimes be easy.

The Nuggets went deep into their motivational wells for an impressive win at Staples Center, and not even Kobe Bryant could prevent the Lakers from getting on a plane back to Denver.

Andre Miller scored 24 points, including two free throws with 12.8 seconds left, and Denver survived Bryant’s late scoring bar-rage in a 43-point perfor-mance, avoiding playoff elimination with a 102-99 victory over Los Angeles on Tuesday night and trim-ming the Lakers’ series lead to 3-2.

Die another dayDenver stays alive, beats Lakers in Game 5

McGee had 21 points and 14 rebounds for the sixth-seeded Nuggets, who barely survived a fre-netic finish. Denver had a 15-point lead midway through the fourth quarter against the lifeless Lakers, but Bryant engineered a swift comeback before his final three shots missed.

‘’I was just glad we didn’t go to overtime,’’

CHICAGO (AP) The Chicago Bulls aren’t quite finished after

all. They’re still in a dire situation, though.

Luol Deng scored 24 points, Carlos Boozer added 19 points and 13 rebounds, and Chicago beat the Philadelphia 76ers 77-69 on Tuesday night to avoid a first-round playoff exit.

The top-seeded Bulls finally won without point guard Derrick Rose, build-ing a nine-point halftime lead and staying in con-trol down the stretch to pull within 3-2. Game 6 is Thursday in Philadelphia, and the way Chicago sees

it, maybe, just maybe, some of the pressure is now on the 76ers.

‘’Definitely,’’ Deng said. ‘’We’re in a situa-tion where we know if we lose we go home. After to-night’s game, they’re go-ing to feel a little pressure and try to close it out.’’

It’s been a brutal se-ries for the Bulls.

Rose tore the ACL in his left knee late in the opening win, casting a huge cloud over a team that came in eyeing an-other big run after reach-ing the conference finals a year ago, and things only got worse from there.

In Game 2, there was

a second-half collapse at home. In Game 3, there was center Joakim Noah spraining his left ankle, and in Game 4, the Bulls came up short again.

With Rose out for the rest of the season and Noah sitting out his sec-ond straight game, Chi-cago came in looking like a team that was ready to bow out.

Instead, the Bulls locked down the Sixers, holding them to season lows for points and shoot-ing ( 32.1 percent). And with Boozer and Deng coming up big, Chicago kept its season going.

‘’You can’t let one game

all of a sudden get you spinning in the wrong direction,’’ Sixers coach Doug Collins said. ‘’We didn’t expect to beat the Bulls four straight. This is a damn good team.’’

Deng played more like an All-Star after averaging just eight points in the pre-vious three games, hitting 4 of 5 3-point attempts - three in the fourth quar-ter. He also grabbed eight rebounds. Boozer tied a career-playoff high with six assists, and the Bulls came out on top just when their season appeared to be unraveling.

They still have no room for error.

Bulls bounce back

THIS year’s Race for Life is set on May 20 at 4:30 a.m. in an out and

back course at the Rizal Park in Davao City.

“This is in celebration of the International Thalas-semia Day,” said Dollie Cu-nanan, RN of the organizing Dr. Gerardo Cunanan Mind-anao Heart Foundation Inc. last Tuesday at the weekly SCOOP of the Royal Man-daya Hotel.

Aside from the DGC-

MHFI, the proceeds will also go to the Mindanao Thalas-semia Foundation, Inc. and SCOOP Davao. The race is presented by DMI Medical Supply and Davao Farms and sponsored by Bodiv-ance, Jansenn, Dole-Stanfil-co, Apo Drinking Water, Rei-san Marketing, Mr. and Mrs. Hernani Pascua.

It is supported by the Department of Health and the Southern Philippines Medical Center while the

Vantage Sports Promotion under Kenneth Sai will man-age it.

There will be a 12K, 6K and 3K run which will blast off at 5:15 a.m., 5:25 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. respectively. It will be followed by a 3K walk which will later start at 5:35 a.m. The 3K run will have two separate categories for competitive (14 years old and below) and non-com-petitive (15 years old and above).

The entry fees are P250 for 3K walk and run and P300 for the 6K and 12K.

“We have limited slots only for the 12K. But all en-try fees are inclusive for race singlet, race bib, certificate, snacks plus a chance to win raffle prizes,” said Amarylis Bisnar of MTFI.

The available singlet siz-es are from XXL, XL, Large, Medium, Small and XS on a first come, first served basis only.

Race for Life on May 20

IN LINE with the on-going 2012 NBA Play-offs, Nike Athletic

Club is holding a fun ac-tivity for all basketball enthusiasts by guess-ing the 2011-2012 NBA champion.

“The winner will get a limited edition Lebron James backpack,” said Kae Castro of Nike Ath-letic Club yesterday at the SCOOP of the Royal Mandaya Hotel.

“It is so simple to join. There is no need for any purchase,” she added.

All interested par-ticipants just need to LIKE one of Nike Athletic Club’s Facebook pages and guess the East and West Conferences Cham-pions plus predict who will eventually become the 2011-2012 NBA champion.

Nike Athletic Club will get all the names of the participants with the correct combination. The winner will be drawn on June 26 at 6 p.m. at the Nike Athletic Club Flag-ship Store at the 2nd floor of the Abreeza Mall.

Participants can post their names and guess-es today until 8 a.m. of May 10. The winner will be formed through the Facebook page and can claim their prize in their Athletic Club shop of choice.

For more details call (082) 3210081 or visit Facebook pages: Nike Athletic Club Flag-ship Store Abreeza Mall (http://www.facebook.c o m / n i k e a t h l e t i c -clubabreeza), Nike Ath-letic Club SM City Davao &Gaisano Mall.

Guess the NBA champion challenge

Miller said. ‘’There was too much energy in the build-ing. A veteran team like that will fight their way back, and they know how to fin-ish games. We found a way to contain them.’’

Bryant scored 12 points over the final 4:45, hit-ting four 3-pointers that trimmed the Nuggets’ lead to 98-96 with 59 seconds left. Bryant then missed a potential tying 5-footer and a 3-pointer, but Den-ver missed two of four free throws before Ramon Ses-sions hit a 3-pointer with 12.8 seconds left, trimming the Nuggets’ lead to one point.

Los Angeles had two more chances to tie after the veteran Miller’s free throws, but Bryant and Sessions missed 3-pointers near the buzzer.

‘’It definitely means a lot, but we’re still down, and we still have games to win - in a row, at that,’’ said McGee, who had the best game of his first career playoff series. ‘’It’s really hard to stop Kobe, but if we stop the bigs, then Kobe can do what he does, and we’ll have a really good chance to win.’’

Game 6 is Thursday night in Denver. The third-seeded Lakers are one win from a second-round date with Oklahoma City, but they’ve still got work to do.

Jordan Hill of the Los Angeles Lakers is boxed out by Arron Afflalo and Kenneth Faried of the Denver Nuggets in the second quarter in Game Five of the Western Conference Quarterfinals in the 2012 NBA Playoffs on Wednesday at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

VOL.5 ISSUE 47 • MAY 10, 2012SPORTS16 EDGEDAVAO

SPORTS practitio-ners will get the opportunity to be

updated with the latest sports training with the staging of the Davao Sum-merfest Sports Confer-ence dubbed as SWEAT or Sports Wellness, Exer-cise, Acclimatization and Training on May 14 to 16 at the Davao City Recre-ation Center.

The SWEAT Sports Conference will be open free to all sports enthu-siasts from the academe,

barangays, local govern-ments, and sports asso-ciations. It is one of the major components of this year’s Davao Summerfest.

Former Olympian Elma Muros-Posadas will spearhead a battery of speakers for the three-day conference. Muros, once Asia’s fastest hurdler and best long jumper, will be lecturing on the topic “Women in Sports.”

The other speakers and topics in the three-day conference are Dr.

Alejandro Pineda of the Philippine Center for Sports Medicine who will talk on the topics Sports Medicine, Sports Science and Doping, and Roxanne Narciso who will talk on Sports Psychology. Phil-ippine Volcanoes coach Expo Mejia will picture on Rugby 101 with a demonstration from some members of the Volcanoes.

Another interesting subject is Sports Market-ing.

Interested partici-pants may register with the City Sports Develop-ment Office while onsite registration will open from 8:00 to 9:00 am on May 14.

“This is a good oppor-tunity for all our sports coaches, administrators, and even athletes to up-grade their knowledge and capabilities in sports conditioning and train-ing,” said Orly Escarilla, spokesperson for the Davao Summerfest.

SUMMERFEST. Coach Jose Maria Cabalfin teaches a young boy from Barangay Mandug how to handle the ball during the Davao Summerfest Football Camp held at the Davao Crocodile Park football field. The football camp will run until May 26. (Boy Lim)

SWEAT Sports Conference on May 14-16