ORMOC CITY– A fish vendor who sell illegal drugs was arrested in a buy-bust operation in Calbayog City on Friday(Nov. 25).
Arrested in the sting operation in Barangay Aguit-itan was Jimmy Sorio,45 who is from Brgy. Anomon, Lope de Vega in Northern Samar.
Taken from his possession during the operation conducted by the members of the City drugs Enforcement Unit were nine sachets of suspected shabu weighing 1.5 grams with a street value of P10,200, said Lt. Col. Ericsson del Rosario, Calbayog chief of police.
Charges of violations of RA 9165 or the Comprehensive Law against Illegal Drugs of 2002 has been filed at the City Prosecutors Office against the suspect here on Saturday (Nov. 26) thru inquest proceedings.
He is now detained at the locked up cell of the Calbayog CPS. (ROBERT DEJON)
ORMOC CITY – Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) – Leyte 4th District Engineering Office (DEO) led by District Engineer Allan D. Eway conducted the Annual International Coastal Clean-up (ICC) on November 25, Friday. Said event is observed from September 1 until December 31, 2022.
Leyte 4th DEO selected Anilao River in Ormoc City, as rivers are the main source of ocean plastic pollution and are the arteries that carry waste from land to the ocean. In addition, it is surrounded with neighborhood and establishments, thus, it is important to keep the riverbank free of unsightly debris, tall grass and trash.
This activity is in line with public and private sectors campaign to administer activities and raise awareness on the extent of the marine debris problem. Further, such activities will promote people around the world to clean up waterways in their community, thus, keeping the environment and oceans healthy. (PR)
TACLOBAN CITY – The Philippine Army has renewed its call to the New People’s Army (NPA) to stop engaging minors in their armed struggle against the government.
Maj. Gen. Camilo Ligayo made the appeal on Thursday after a rebel who recently surrendered disclosed there are minor combatants recruited by the communist group.
“Our young people should be in school and protected from all kinds of abuse. Imagine the trauma of a minor engaged in fighting, going hungry for days, lack of sleep and endless hiking for the ideology that has not helped even one NPA to succeed in life for almost 54 years,” Ligayo said in a statement.
NPA surrenderer Anthony Encinas, 19, told soldiers he had two colleagues, both 17 years old.
Encinas, who yielded on Nov. 19, was a member of Bugsok Platoon, sub-regional committee Sesame for a year.
“If he was with 17-year-olds, they were probably recruited by a younger person. This is a clear violation of the International Humanitarian Law,” Ligayo added.
Rule 136, Protocols I and II of International Humanitarian Law states “children must not be recruited into armed forces or armed groups”.
Ligayo also appealed to the public to support and protect the welfare of children and help stop the recruitment of child combatants.
The military has been holding dialogues with parents and village officials living in vulnerable communities to help prevent recruitment activity among minors.
Ligayo said they are trying to identify parents of minors recruited by the NPA and will be tapped to convince their children to surrender.
The local task force to end local communist armed conflict has been meeting with school officials and teachers to protect the youth from the deceptive recruitment and radicalization by the Communist Party of the Philippines -NPA – National Democratic Front and their front organizations.
“While parents are working hard for the good future of their children, these rebels are still rampant in stealing children from parents who I think are now looking for and worried about the condition of their children,” Ligayo added.
The army official’s call is part of the Children’s Month celebration this November.
Republic Act 10661 or the National Children’s Month Act commemorates the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on Nov. 20, 1989. (SARWELL Q. MENIANO/PNA)
ORMOC CITY-An alleged drug den was dismantled by the elements of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency(PDEA) and the provincial police’s drug enforcement unit in Calbayog City on Saturday (Nov. 26).
The operation also resulted in the arrest of four individuals, including the alleged maintainer of the drug den in Purok 2 of Barangay Bagacay in the said city.
PDEA 8 Regional Director Edgar Jubay identified the arrested suspects as Elmo Valuis, the illegal drug maintainer, 49; Susan Senilla,48; John Edsel Valuis, 25; and Edilberto Senilla, 26.
Jubay said one of the companions of the suspects, identified as Boknoy Tambis managed to elude arrest.
Both Valuis and Senilla are listed in the drug watch list of PDEA as high-value targets.
PDEA recovered five sachets containing the illegal drug weighing 15 grams with a commercial value of P102,000.
Charges of violations of RA 9165, the Comprehensive Law against Illegal Drugs of 2002 are being readied by the PDEA against the arrested suspect including the one who eluded arrest. (ROBERT DEJON)
TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has prepositioned 34,458 family food packs (FFPs) in strategic areas of Eastern Visayas in preparation for the “rainy days”.
PREPARED. Volunteers load family food packs stored at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) regional resource operations center in Palo town, Leyte on Nov. 19, 2022. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has prepositioned 34,458 family food packs in strategic areas of Eastern Visayas in preparation for the rainy days. (Photo courtesy of DSWD)
The stocking of PHP22.74 million worth of food supplies as of Wednesday will ensure faster delivery of relief goods in case of severe flooding and other disasters, said lawyer Jonalyndie Chua, DSWD 8 (Eastern Visayas) information officer in a phone interview.
Of the total, 918 FFPs are in Catbalogan City, Samar province; 1,109 in Naval town, Biliran; 14,634 in Allen, Northern Samar; 1,400 in Santo Niño, Samar; 600 in Almagro, Samar; 163 in Giporlos, Eastern Samar; 1,000 in Biri, Northern Samar, and 14,634 at the DSWD regional resource operations center in Palo town, Leyte.
The food packs in Catbalogan are stored at the Philippine Army 8th Infantry Division headquarters while in Allen town, the Office of Civil Defense warehouse has been designated as a storage area.
“If there are disasters, we will produce more as the need arises. We have volunteers to help us repack goods,” Chua told the Philippine News Agency.
Each FFP contains six kilos of rice, four cans of corned beef, four cans of tuna flakes, two cans of sardines, five sachets of coffee, and five sachets of cereal drinks.
The DSWD has also prepared PHP10 million in standby funds for emergencies and 11,332 non-food items worth PHP20.78 million.
Non-food supplies include hygiene kits, kitchen sets, sleeping kits, collapsible water containers, and laminated sacks. (SARWELL Q. MENIANO/PNA)
THAT beautiful gospel story of a centurion who approached Christ on behalf of his dying servant, importuning Christ for a miracle to happen, that is, for his servant to survive, (cfr. Mt 8,5-11) tells us precious lessons about how our faith in Christ should be.
It should be a faith that is so strong and deep that we would not hesitate to go to Christ for ask for a favor. And it should also be a faith that is so strong and deep that without asking Christ for a direct, face-to-face encounter with the persons concerned, we know that the favor would be granted.
As the gospel narrated, the centurion boldly told Christ the now famous words, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.” To which, Christ responded, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” And the servant was healed.
We have to remember that it is faith that would let us enter into the spiritual and supernatural world. It enables us to receive God’s favor, and brings us to share in God’s wisdom and power. Remember those stirring words of Christ: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove from there, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.” ((Mt 17,20).
Without faith, in spite of our keenest intelligence, we will miss much of the more important aspects of our life as we would only be restricted to the here and now, the material and the temporal.
To those leading Jews who refused to believe in spite of the clearest evidence at least of his special powers, Christ has these strong, intriguing words to say: “They who see not, may see, and they who see, may become blind.” (Jn 9,39)
Especially in our special needs and persistent human miseries, we need to follow the example of the men and women, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the sick, etc., who did all to get close to Christ and to beg. Some even had to climb to the roof and cut a portion there to be able to be near Christ.
This is the pattern we have to follow. We have to eagerly seek Christ and importune him with all our might, accompanying our pleas with external signs of our fervent faith and love for him.
We need to understand that as the very beginning of our life with God, our life in the Spirit which is a supernatural life more than just a natural life, our Christian faith has to be taken care of, nourished and developed to full maturity.
We need to be more aware of this duty and develop the appropriate attitude and skill to carry out this responsibility effectively. We have to go beyond mere good intentions or being merely theoretical in order to be truly practical and vitally engaged with this obligation.
Faith is a tremendous gift from God who starts to share with us what he has, what he knows about himself and about ourselves. It gives us the global picture of reality, covering both the temporal and the eternal, the material and the spiritual, the natural and supernatural dimensions of our life.
Faith contains the medicine and the remedy to all our spiritual inadequacies and illnesses. It is what is required for miracles to happen, as attested many times in the Gospel.
