TACLOBAN CITY – The Public Employment Service Office (PESO) has announced that it will start the deployment on April 20, 2020, of the Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES) workers to the different departments of the city government.
This year’s program has 143 slots.
PESO started accepting applications for the program last January to facilitate the processing time required by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
Aside from being assigned regular office work, SPES workers will also undergo several activities like life skills training, advocacy orientations, tree growing and nurturing activities and clean up activity as part of the holistic approach of the City Government to the program.
The SPES workers will work for 20 days and will be paid a minimum wage. Sixty percent of the total wage of students is shouldered by the City Government while the other 40% is paid by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
The program is mandated under RA 7393 and intends to develop the potentials of poor but deserving students to finish their education by being employed during school breaks.(HENRY JAMES ROCA/CITY INFORMATION OFFICE)
PESO sets deployment of SPES workers on April 20
500 ‘Yolanda’ housing beneficiaries stand to lose their units due to non-occupancy
TACLOBAN CITY-At least 500 housing beneficiaries from this city stand to lose their units if they could not justify why they don’t occupy their houses, more than five years after they received them.
The beneficiaries totally lost their houses after this city was pummeled by super typhoon ‘Yolanda’ on November 8, 2013.
But Leonard Tedence Jopson, chief of the City Housing and Community Development Office (CHCDO), said that despite awarding to them their units, these 500 beneficiaries are not actually occupying their units.
It was learned from Jopson that since last month, their office wrote a letter to these erring beneficiaries asking them to explain why their units would not be taken away from them.
He explained that these families were given the houses for reason that they have totally lost their houses due to Yolanda’s onslaught and they should occupy these units.
“They are staying in danger zones. What is the use of giving them their own house at the resettlement sites if they will not occupy these houses given to them by the government,” Jopson said.
Allowing these beneficiaries not to actually occupy their units would defeat the purpose of giving them a safe and secure houses, the official added.
According to him, the 500 beneficiaries were among the more than 11,000 families who received the housing units.
The government, through the National Housing Authority (NHA), is tasked to construct 14,433 housing units to families whose houses were completely destroyed due to Yolanda.
Jopson said that since they have notified these erring beneficiaries, about 200 of them came to their office to personally explain their reasons.
These beneficiaries decline to occupy their units claiming that removables like doorknobs are damaged or they continue to live at their previous villages which are mostly located along the shores, which have been tagged as no build or danger zones, due to economic reason.
Jopson said that they will observe due process before they would remove these beneficiaries from their units within the year.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)
DOLE asks employers to follow 2nd tranche increase under Wage Order 21
TACLOBAN CITY- The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reminded the region’s private business owners on the second tranche adjustment for their workers as approved under a wage order earlier approved effective Tuesday (Feb.18).
The P10 additional pay on the daily minimum wage for the region’s 1.8 million workers is contained under Wage Order Number 21 approved by the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) last July 22,2019.
Under the said wage order, which took effect on August 18,2019, workers of the region are to receive an additional P20 both in the agriculture and non-agriculture sector for their daily wages.
This means, those in the agriculture sector are to receive P325 as their daily minimum wage while those in the non-agricultural sector, they are entitled to a P295 daily rate.
However, under the same wage order, the increase would be received by the workers in two tranches.
The first P10 increase took effect last August 18,2020 while the second tranche of the increase took effect on Tuesday (Feb.18).
Centi, who chairs the RTWPB-8, thus urged the employers to observe and comply the second tranche as imposed under Wage Order 21.
“We will monitor the compliance of the employers on this second tranche under (Wage Order 21) by deploying our labor inspectors,” the DOLE regional director said.
Failure of these employers in not complying the second tranche would be dealt by them accordingly. He, however, said that due process would be observed by allowing non-compliant employers to explain.
Still, Centi said that he is confident that the employers would comply the second tranche increase considering that based on their monitoring on the compliance of the employers on wages and other labor standards, they are hitting the compliance rate at 94 percent. (JOEY A. GABIETA)
13 towns fail to pass the GFH standard
All provinces and cities in EV were recognized
BY: LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA
TACLOBAN CITY- Almost all local government units in the region were recognized by the Department of Interior and Local Government under its good financial housekeeping (GFH) award for 2019.
All the six provinces and seven cities of the region got the passing rate from the DILG.
Meantime, 123 municipalities also received same recognition.
This means, out of the 149 local government units of Eastern Visayas, namely, provinces, cities and municipalities, only 13 local government units failed to receive the recognition annually given by the DILG to all LGUs.
Of the 13 towns which failed to pass the GFH award, seven were from Leyte; two each from Eastern Samar and Northern Samar and one from Samar.
The GFH is one of the requirements for the seal of good local governance (SGLG).
LGUs that received recognition we’re given access to DILG’s programs and capacity development assistance and can avail of the Performance Challenge Fund in terms of financial assistance that they can use for their selected projects.
The six provinces of the region, Biliran, Leyte, Southern Leyte, Samar, Eastern Samar, and Northern Samar managed to get the award.
Same is true with all cities of the region- Baybay, Calbayog, Catbalogan, Borongan, Ormoc, Maasin, and Tacloban.
All of the eight towns of Biliran province, Almeria, Biliran, Cabucgayan, Caibiran, Culaba, Kawayan, Maripipi, and Naval also got the DILG nod.
In Eastern Samar, only the towns of Balangiga and Lawaan did not receive the seal.
The towns that got the recognition were Arteche, Balangkayan, Can-avid, Dolores, General Mac Arthur, Giporlos, Guiuan, Hernani, Jipapad, Llorente, Maslog, Maydolong, Mercedes, Oras, Quinapondan, Salcedo, San Juan, San Policarpio, Sulat and Taft.
Meanwhile, seven towns of Leyte failed to get the recognition: Albuera, Babatngon, Dagami, Matalom, Pastrana, Tolosa, and Villaba.
The 33 towns which received the DILG honor were Abuyog, Alangalang, Barugo, Bato, Burauen, Calubian, Capoocan, Carigara, Dulag, Hilongos, Hindang, Inopacan, Isabel, Jaro, Javier, Julita, Kananga, Lapaz, Leyte, MacArthur, Mahaplag, Matag-ob, Mayorga, Merida, Palo, Palompon, San Isidro, San Miguel, Sta. Fe, Tabango, Tabon-Tabon, Tanauan, and Tunga.
Out of the 24 towns of Northern Samar, only two failed to receive the recognition: Rosario and Silvino Lubos.
Getting the recognition were the municipalities of Allen, Biri, Bobon, Capul, Catarman, Catubig, Gamay, Laoang, Lapinig, Las Navas, Lavezares, Lope de Vega, Mapanas, Mondragon, Palapag, Pambujan, San Antonio, San Jose, San Isidro, San Roque, San Vicente and Victoria.
In Samar, only the town of Almagro failed to receive the recognition while the rest of its towns, Basey, Calbiga, Daram, Gandara, Hinabangan, Jiabong Marabut, Matuguinao, Motiong, Pagsangjan, Paranas, Pinabacdao, San Jorge, San Jose de Buan, San Sebastian, Sta. Margarita, Sta., Rita, Sto. Nino, Tagapul-an, Talalora, Tarangnan, Villareal, and Zumarraga, were bestowed of the same recognition.
Meantime, all the 17 towns of Southern Leyte, Anahawan, Bontoc, Hinunangan, Hinundayan, Libagon, Liloan, Limasawa, Macrohon, Malitbog, Padre Burgos, Pintuyan, Saint Bernard, San Juan, San Ricardo, Silago, Sogod, and Tomas Oppus were recognized.
New facilities to spike up visitors to Lake Danao Natural Park and Ormoc City
ORMOC CITY-The tourism industry is increasingly becoming one of the economic pillars that provides the needed revenue to the government’s coffers. And taken as a whole, it is ecotourism that tops them all. It can be considered as a poverty alleviating industry as it creates jobs in remote parts of the country which is composed mostly of fisherfolks and farmers.
While it is a common, yet unfortunate occurrence that urban development usually overshadows and even neglects the peripheral communities, a different trend may be happening in the City of Ormoc – a bustling city by the bay with its long coastal communities and large swaths of lands with sugar cane plantations.
But where nature is allowed to thrive, it sustains and makes communities productive.
Ormoc City is one such place. All it takes is a local government unit in convergence with other national agencies, the private sector and the communities to come up with plans to provide economic opportunities to the underprivileged sectors of society. One such effort is the promotion of ecotourism in the area.
The once barren mud flats along the coastal barangays of Naungan, San Juan and Lao of Ormoc City became a thriving mangrove forest with the intervention of the DENR through its Community-Based Forest Management Project (CBFMP) and the National Greening Program (NGP) coursed through the Naungan-San Juan Mangrove Planters Association (NSJMPA).
The success of its plantation project led to the infusion of funds from the private sector to what is now the Ormoc City Mangrove Eco Park that offers a place for visitors to stay, relax and commune with nature while they indulge on its aquatic resources and other local delicacies.
Not to be left behind, a proclaimed protected area under the National Integrated Protected Area System (NIPAS) Act, the upland part of Ormoc City has its own ecotourism area which is the Lake Danao Natural Park (LDNP). The guitar-shaped lake with cool atmosphere, offers a serene and relaxing escapade for nature lovers.
While both were damaged by two separate natural calamities – super typhoon Yolanda of 2013 that destroyed the mangrove plantation and the 2017 earthquake that damaged infrastructure and facilities of the LDNP, these have since been rehabilitated and are making a strong comeback to cater to the visiting public.
Just recently, the Camping Pavilion at Brgy. Lake Danao made possible by the LGU of Ormoc City is a welcome relief to those whose income depends upon tourists of the park. At the Ormoc Mangrove EcoPark, a newly constructed public toilet was also turned-over by the Department of Tourism (DOT) to the Naungan San Juan Mangrove Planters Association (NSJMPA) to cater to the needs of its visitors.
“Let us conserve and protect this EcoPark for it provides us the needed livelihood,” says Hon. Jaime Higano, a barangay official who expressed appreciation to the LGU of Ormoc City, DOT and the DENR for the projects.
“The DENR in Eastern Visayas appreciates the convergence of support from the Local Government Unit of Ormoc City and that of the Department of Tourism for the facilities introduced to Lake Danao Natural Park and the Mangrove EcoPark, both in Ormoc City. This will not only provide convenience to the visiting public but as the number of visitors grow, so also is the knowledge of the need to protect our protected areas and the importance of our wetlands, mangrove forests included,” shares OIC-Assistant Regional Director for Technical Services Eugenia Bautista who represented DENR Regional Executive Director Tirso P. Parian, Jr. at the turn-over rites. (PR)
Parents’ group denounces NPA lies on ‘Tacloban 5’
(PNA photo by SARWELL Q. MENIANO)
TACLOBAN CITY– Parents who grouped together to fight the “deceptive recruitment” of the New People’s Army (NPA) on Wednesday(Feb.12) denounced the left-leaning groups’ misleading information related to the recent arrest of five young suspected rebels in this city.
The group ‘Hands Off Our Children’, in a press briefing, said leftists should not label the arrest as a crackdown against the government’s staunch critics because those detained are former student activists who eventually joined the armed struggle of the NPA in Eastern Visayas.
The group was in the city to talk to the parents of some of the five young activists nabbed in a pre-dawn raid on Feb. 7 for illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
“The death of 14 teens who were killed in an encounter between the military and NPA in recent years is proof that there is deceptive campus-based recruitment. It all started with student activism that leads to armed rebellion. Their victims are as young as 16 years old,” said Gemma Labsan, Hands Off Our Children founder.
She was referring to the number of documented deaths of young rebels from 2002 to 2019 based on the record of Hands Off nationwide.
Labsan asked militant groups to stop labeling those arrested as human rights advocates or journalists since they are actively engaged in “deceptive recruitment” on campuses and online.
This was their reaction to various social media campaigns by left-leaning groups to free the so-called “Tacloban 5”, which they identified as “political prisoners.”
Anabelle Sabado, the organization’s secretary questioned the militant group’s fundraising drive every time a young NPA member is arrested.
“Why are they asking for donations? They never helped the family of young recruits. Their intention is to raise funds for the communist terrorist group,” said Anabelle, the mother of Christian Sabado, 22, who was captured by government troops in Northern Samar last year while conducting extortion activities for the NPA.
Christian was an accounting student at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Manila when he joined the communist terrorist group through student activism.
“They never care about the feeling of a mother whose child’s mind is poisoned by NPA. It’s hard to see my child in jail, but it is better to see him behind bars than to see him die fighting the government,” Anabelle told reporters.
The group was in the city to talk to the parents of some of the five young activists nabbed in a pre-dawn raid on Feb. 7 for illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Government forces arrested Frenchie Mae Cumpio, Marielle Domequil, Alexander Philip Abinguna, Marissa Cabaljao, and Mira Legion at the alleged communist terrorist group’s safe houses here.
The suspects yielded two .45-caliber pistols, two magazine assemblies and 14 live ammunitions for .45-caliber, two fragmentation grenades, a red flag with Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA symbol, and PHP557,360 in cash.
Those arrested are active members of militant groups linked to the NPA.
On Tuesday, the Tacloban City Prosecutor’s Office found probable cause in filing charges against those arrested. Two of those arrested were charged for violation of Republic Act 10591 or “An Act Providing for a Comprehensive Law on Firearms and Ammunition.”
The three other activists are now facing raps for violating Republic Act 9516, the “Unlawful Manufacture, Sales, Acquisition, Disposition, Importation or Possession of an Explosive or Incendiary Device.” (SARWELL Q. MENIANO/PNA)