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PCSO extends financial assistance to areas hit by typhoons ‘Tisoy’ and ‘Ursula’ in the region

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PCSO ASSISTANCE. The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) provided financial assistance to provinces and Tacloban City hit by typhoons ‘Tisoy’ and Ursula last December in total amount of P15 million. Photo shows PCSO board member Sandra Cam handing a check worth P2 million to Tacloban City Alfred Romualdez on Jan.3. (Mayor Alfred Romualdez Facebook)
PCSO ASSISTANCE. The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) provided financial assistance to provinces and Tacloban City hit by typhoons ‘Tisoy’ and Ursula last December in total amount of P15 million. Photo shows PCSO board member Sandra Cam handing a check worth P2 million to Tacloban City Alfred Romualdez on Jan.3. (Mayor Alfred Romualdez Facebook)

TACLOBAN CITY- The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) has extended financial assistance to four provinces and this city which were hit in successions by typhoons ‘Tisoy’ and ‘Ursula’ last December.
PCSO board member Sandra Cam gave the checks to the officials of Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, Samar, Biliran, and this city, last January 3 in the total amount of P15 million coming from the agency’s charity funds.
The assistance by the PCSO was intended to help these typhoons-ravaged areas help recover from the devastations like procurement of food needs and feeding projects and purchase of medicines and medical supplies necessary for the conduct of health-related activities for disease prevention or treatment for typhoon victims.
The province of Northern Samar received P 5 million for being hard-hit by Tisoy last December 2 and again felt the wrath of Ursula though in a minimal scale.
Meanwhile, the provinces of Eastern Samar and Samar each received P3 million from the PCSO for suffering much devastations due to Ursula which hit Eastern Visayas on the eve of Christmas Eve displacing more than 230,000 families or over 960,000 persons and killing 13 people.
The province of Biliran and the city of Tacloban, each received financial assistance from the PCSO P 2 million each.
Here in Tacloban, the PCSO also provided food package to 400 families affected by Ursula.
All the local government units that received financial assistance from the PCSO are under state of calamity due to the impacts of Tisoy and Ursula. (JOEY A. GABIETA)

DOLE monitors compliance on new wage hike for EV’s kasambahays

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TACLOBAN CITY- The regional office of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will be monitoring the implementation of the new wage hike for the region’s house helpers or kasambahays as the new monthly wage for them took effect on January 1 of this year.
From the previous P2,000, all the house helpers in the region are to receive P4,500 for those working in the cities and first class municipalities and P4,000 for those working in second to sixth class towns as contained under Wage Order Number 2 approved by the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board(RTWPB-8) on November 25,2019.
Norma Rae Costimiano, DOLE regional information officer, said that their office will be monitoring on the compliance of employers on the new monthly wage for their house helpers, reminding them that failure to do so has corresponding penalty.
“We would like to remind all the employers to really comply with the new wage order.Non-compliant employers will be made to pay to their workers what’s due to them,” she said.
Costimiano said that house helpers who have a complaint could just visit their office and to formally file their complaint against their employers for not following the new wage adjustment.
“Our workers can anytime visit our office to report any con-compliance with said labor standards. These rules are prescribed by law and our workers deserve it,” she said.
She, however, stressed that due process will be observed during their interventions with the employers who will fail to comply the new wage order for their kasambahays.
Analyn,26, kasambahay for three years now, was surprised when she learned that there is a new monthly rate for them and has taken effect beginning this month.
“Really? I am not aware that we kasambahays are to receive a higher monthly pay this year. What I am receiving is the same amount since I started my work with my employers,”Analyn, who declined not to give her family name, said.
The house help, who do all house hold chores, receives P2,500 per month.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)

LTFRB restores P2/kms fare rate imposed in ‘07

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Move surprises passengers

By: Joey A. Gabieta

TACLOBAN CITY-Passengers using public utility vans (PUVs) are to shell out an additional P2 per kilometer from their point of origin to their destination starting this week.
This after the regional office of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB-8) agreed on the petition of PUV owners to restore back the P2 per kms which was supposed to be imposed in 2007.
LTFRB Regional Director Gualberto Gualberto, thus said, that it is not correct to say that there will be an increase of fare rate for PUVs plying different routes across the region.
“It is not a fare rate increase but just to restore back the P2 per kms rate in pursuant to Resolution 2007-007, meaning it was intended for 2007. But it was not fully enforced because sometimes in 2009, there was a petition from transport owners not to implement but just to decrease it to just P1.40,” he said.
But on March 14, 2019, the same transport groups sought for the restoration of the P2 per kms rate citing increases on gasoline and spare parts.
The LTFRB regional director said that it was just right to restore back the P2 per kilometer rate as it is only Eastern Visayas region which does not follow it.
“We understand the grievances of the transport operators because of the series of oil price hike and high cost of spare parts,” Gualberto said.
He also said that their office has followed the rules on this matter by conducting public hearings attended by transport operators and riding public with the same resolution publicized in a local regional newspaper in compliance of the LTFRB rules.
“So, there was no such thing as increase but just restoration of the P2 per kms as approved under Resolution Num. 2007-007,” Gualberto said.
Thus, he said, it was just proper to impose the P2 per kms fare rate.
The additional P2 per kms fare rate took effect this week, surprising some passengers.
Among them was Armenia Cabanatan who uses a PUV when she reports for work in Tacloban City from her hometown in Dulag, Leyte.
With the new fare rate, she would not be paying P77 from the previous P45, a huge increase for an ordinary wage earner like her.
“I usually uses a van because its faster compare to using a bus. But with that huge increase, I will be force to take a bus. Otherwise, a big portion of my monthly pay will just be consumed by my daily fare if I will continue to take a van,” she said.
Gualberto stressed that the new fare rate will only involve PUVs and not buses or jeepneys, adding that a fare matrix must be placed prominently inside the van showing the fare rate.
Otherwise, he said, the operators and the drivers would not be allowed to impose the P2 per kms fare rate.
The mandatory discounts for senior citizens, students, and persons with disabilities should be strictly followed by the operators and drivers, the LTFRB-8 says.

Our unfortunate trip

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Web Master
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The new year’s advent was greeted with news reports about gory vehicular accidents that resulted in deaths and injuries among the pitiful victims. For the most part, based on CCTV footages and the accounts of witnesses, drivers are to blame—it’s their fault.
I can’t help then but cite my own, recent experience with such drivers, on my way home from Manila last December 22. In fact, that entire trip could be deemed unfortunate already, but it was made worse by a driver’s carelessness that risked our lives and put us in jeopardy.
As early as December 12, I already sought to book our trip (my daughter was with me) back home. I inquired from airline websites, but the one-way trip would cost us more than twenty thousand pesos. I could afford it, but it was too costly for me. So I opted to scout for bus companies with Leyte-Samar routes. Legitimate bus companies, of course, like Philtranco, CUL, Silver Star, Ultrabus, BLTB, and some others. To my dismay, all their trips were already fully-booked till January.
I was desperate. We needed to get home in time for Christmas, and to make use of my eleven-day break off my work in Manila. I only had one option—to resort to bogus companies whose operations are clandestine, fly-by-night, and partly hidden from honest law enforcers.
They have like secret agents who run to and fro to recruit passengers from the crowds. This was in Cubao. I quickly got in touch with one of them, a young man with superb sales talk ability. He led me to their “ticketing office” as we walked past a few corners. It was but a small office, with pictures of their “buses” but there was nothing in sight. The ticket cost was higher by seven hundred, but I didn’t care. Come travel day, they said, their bus will just pick us up right there.
That day came, but no bus appeared. The man who issued us the tickets hailed an FX taxi and told the driver to take us to a bus terminal in Pasay. This driver obliged and later dropped us beside the ocean of people crowding the terminal. There, we squeezed our way to an old bus packed with passengers. We quarreled to get a couple of seats at the back, for even the center passage was congested with occupants.
Along the way, the bus engine whined endlessly as the driver tossed the passengers left and right due to a lightning speed. We finally reached Matnog safely, but the ferry boat we boarded was the last to be allowed by the coastguard due to typhoon signal number 1. After crossing the strait, our driver engaged in a race with newer, more conditioned buses. Yielding to old age and poor quality, our bus suddenly shut its engine, stopped in the middle of the road, and emitted an air that smelt of gas and fire.
I jumped off the window for fresh air, and for fear the bus might explode into flames. I suffered as a result. The impact to my midsection caused me so much pain we reached home, after several cut trips, with a body bent forward. Had the driver been careful, we would have reached home safely.

Garbage hike

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Web Master
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Normally, the twin holiday revelries of Christmas and New Year are already massive producers of accumulated trash on the streets. With the onslaught of typhoon Ursula, all the more that garbage mounds had proliferated.
This is in Tacloban City and nearby towns that lay along the typhoon’s path. Even before Christmas, the debris and garbage that the storm had scattered were already more than enough for the city to handle. Fallen trees, posts, houses, and other structures had created heaps of garbage everywhere, not to mention the dead bodies of animals that mixed with trash and water. When city residents woke up the next day, they removed these eyesores off their ways and dumped them in corners and along thoroughfares.
Then Christmas came, the day when people prepare plenty of foodstuffs and grocery items that altogether produce plenty of waste materials. In just a few days, new year followed, another big event to celebrate with abundant foods and drinks that eventually yield so much trash. These, plus the massive garbage piles that Ursula brought with it, had choked the city with these foul items from inside out.
Even up to now, piles of uncollected garbage still liter the city, plaguing the residents and passer-by with suffocating and toxic odors. Scavengers, both men and beasts, aggravate the problem by scattering these trash around. The city’s garbage collection task force just cannot grapple with the amounts of these wastes.
We can only blame this situation to the rubbish-producing phenomena earlier mentioned. But people also need to do their share of cleaning the city’s environment. We cannot just watch passively—we must help.

Access road to Leyte hot spring nears completion

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LA PAZ, Leyte – Better roads leading to Calabato Hot Spring, this town, will soon serve the public, the Department of Public Works and Highways-Leyte Second District Engineering Office reported.
According to District Engineer Gerald Pacanan, aside from the completed P46 million for the concreting of 1.6592-kilometer two-lane road and construction of an arch bridge, another P26 million has been poured out for the 2,025.2 square meter Portland Cement Concrete Pavement (PCCP); 320 linear meter lined canal; 110 linear meter retaining wall and 897 cubic meter stone masonry works.
“To intensify local tourism and economic progress in Leyte, the Department of Tourism in partnership with DPWH, has allocated funds for the road development projects of the tourist destinations in the area”, said Pacanan.
Pacanan emphasized that this project will also provide opportunities for residents living in the area through easier transport of commodities and products.
The local government of La Paz is continuously emerging its tourism destination after it was damage by super typhoon Yolanda in 2013.
(GIL A. ACUIN III/PR)

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