Lito Labra of DXWM-Sunrise FM said he received his threat via text message to his mobile phone minutes after he went on air last May 10. His commentary program airs from 7-8:30 a.m., daily.

“Dapat ikaw and namatay, dili si Nestor nga bootan (You should have been the one who died, not Nestor who was good),” the message read, referencing radio reporter Nestor Libaton of the church-run DXHM who was shot dead last May 8.

Broadcaster Nathaniel Quiñones, for his part, made known the threat he received by scribbling a post on his Facebook page. He intimated that the threat, received a day after Libaton’s murder, wasn’t his first from the same person.

“Natatawa ako sa taong ito, pero may suspek na po ako. Ito siguro ang hindi nabigyan ng share nya sa illegal mining (This person is beginning to amuse me, but I now have a suspect. This person is probably the one who didn’t get his share from illegal mining),” he wrote.

Labra said he has already reported the threat to the local police and has taken other precautionary steps. He said he’s been cautious since last February when his commentaries against illegal mining and logging began to get negative feedback.

Although unable to identify a suspect, he speculated that it might have come from former rebel fighters who are now in the employ of a mining company that is reportedly operating illegally here. He claimed to have confronted a company official over reports that the management has ordered him killed and the official supposedly denied it.

“Sige ka balik-balik sa mining kay wala kay SOP, sige lang ug dili ka namo mabaslan naa man kay pamilya (You keep harping about mining because you don’t get SOP. Remember, even if we can’t get back at you, you have a family),” the message to Labra read.

SOP is short for Standard Operating Procedure or the usual way of doing things. In more colloquial use, it refers to money paid so regulators, or in this context, the media, will look the other way.

Quiñones’s Facebook post, on the other hand, indicates that the person threatening him was the same person who earlier asked him to expose another individual for constantly trying to extort money from a mining company.

It is not known if the city police are actively investigating the threats.

They are, however, continuing to investigate the May 8 Libaton murder, having previously created a special task force for this purpose.

The Mati City police director, Chief Insp. Dominador Cruda, said they are in the process of obtaining a composite sketch of the assailants’ faces, based on eye-witness accounts.

Libaton was with another journalist, Eldon Cruz, when he was killed by two men riding tandem aboard a motorcycle.

Authorities recovered six empty shells from the crime scene and Cruda says the number of shots fired could indicate that, among other motives, Libaton’s killing, had an emotional component.

Libaton’s colleagues had previously said the broadcaster had no known enemies because of work. He reported business for the station – mainly the prices of local commodities at the local market. (Ben O. Tesiorna for Pecojon.PH)

Yet, at around 3 p.m. last May 8, two motorcycle-riding persons shot him in the upland barangay of Tarragona in Davao Oriental as he and a fellow broadcaster were coming home to the city proper from a barrio fiesta in Barangay Ompao.

“We hope and pray that the authorities will act on it and that justice may be pursued,” said Archbishop Jose Palma, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, at a Radyo Veritas broadcast. Veritas is DXHM’s Manila-based sister station.

In response, police in Davao Oriental province created Task Force Libaton and ordered it to solve the crime that, while a mere fraction of the number of unsolved murders all over the country, is the third media killing in two weeks.

The first was Michael Calanasan, a columnist for the local daily Laguna Courier, who was shot dead in San Pablo City, Laguna last April 24. Six days after, Rommel Palma of DXMC-Koronadal City, a station owned by Bombo Radyo Philippines, also got shot.

Calanasan was shot in the face while he was on his way to the San Pablo City Hall with his wife. Authorities, according to a May 7, 2012 Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility bulletin, have yet to identify a suspect despite a P350,000 reward offer for anybody with information.

Palma, on the other hand, was shot outside the South Cotabato Provincial Hospital while waiting for another reporter to finish gathering news inside. The police detained two persons – a certain Bobot Cabrido at Hagibis Kukos – but later released them for lack of evidence.

Like Libaton, who covered business and the prices of products and produce at the local wet market, neither Calanasan nor Palma, who was known on air as Bombo Jojo, wrote scathing commentaries or aired bombastic exposes.

Calanasan, whose main job was as traffic enforcer for the city, culled what residents said about local issues in his column and Palma, whose main station duty was driving the news patrol car, aired weather reports and traffic updates.

Palma was reportedly in conflict with some people over a parcel of land in Koronadal City and sources say Libaton was embroiled in a similar conflict here in Mati City.

Per police investigation, Libaton was with another journalist – Eldon Cruz – when he was shot. The two were on their way to Mati aboard a motorcycle when one of two persons riding tailing them aboard another motorcycle began firing shots in the air.

The shots reportedly prompted Libaton and Cruz to stop and for Libaton to flag down the other motorbike. He was met with a volley of handgun fire in the face and body. Cruz was left unharmed.

Mati City Mayor Michelle Rabat assures that the city will support efforts to identify and arrest those responsible for the killing.

On June 14, 2010, Mati broadcaster Desiderio Camangyan was also killed during a fiesta celebration in Manay, Davao Oriental.

A police officer, PO 1 Dennis Jess Lumikid, has been charged for the murder and is now on trial. (Ben Tesiorna O. for Pecojon.PH)

No suspects have yet been identified but witnesses claim seeing a maroon van without a numbered plate speeding away from the El Centro Bar just after the explosion that also peppered an electric post, a passing SUV and other establishments in the vicinity of Roxas and Quezon Avenue with shrapnel.

Iligan City Mayor Lawrence Cruz immediately warned against finger-pointing, particularly at the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), saying its peace talks with the national government has been at its most positive point in many years.

El Centro KTV Bar is a popular hangout especially among young people in Iligan City. It is at its fullest on Saturdays, the night live bands play.

Cruz asked that police investigators be given ample elbow room to determine the perpetrators and the motive behind the blast and for people to remain indoors unless absolutely necessary. He also wants the city’s police and the number of soldiers assigned to the area be augmented.

The two fatalities were immediately identified by family members as 21 year old Jay Jangad and 24-year old Junel Dumalagan, both Mindanao State University fresh graduates who were returning here from a National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) seminar in Marawi City.

According to Nelson Dumalagan, Junel’s father, the two were close friends.

Senior Supt. Celso Regencia, Iligan City’s police director, said those injured, including those with minor wounds and those on board the passing SUV, were brought to three hospitals here – the Iligan City Hospital, the Mindanao Sanitarium and Hospital, and Doctor Uy Hospital.

Those at the Iligan City Hospital have been identified as Christel Cabahug, Ric Manego, Albert Gongob, Jancy Dumalagan, Marylou Alegno, Joel Abreol and Jay Siton. A seventh patient, John Paul Ponce, was transferred to Mercy Hospital.

Those at the Mindanao Sanitarium and Hospital have meanwhile been identified as Dennis Corbera, Aldren Magsayo, Liezel Lubguban, Dianne Gacus, Rey Suong, Danilo Gadrinab, Elmilita Ebarat, Sonny Mendez, Don Mae Kristin Gacus, Aliah Barami, Jenife Delos Santos, and Abdul Gafar Maruhom.

Eleven more were brought to Doctor Uy Hospital but only three – Michael San Felipe Gonzales, Sheeralen Jurban Repueto and Maribel Paquingan Cabanlit – needed to be admitted. The eight others – Leila Lamila Candog, Earl Russel Rafanan, Luigi Tanjo, Mahali Rose Tanjo and Princess Irish Tanjo – were treated as out-patients. (By Merlyn T. Manos for Pecojon.PH)

Francisco Pagayaman said the speech, delivered at a tripartite meeting in Malacañang Palace, confirms that Aquino never really supported labor. Anakpawis is the party-list group of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) labor organization. It has one seat in Congress.

Aquino, Pagayaman commented, is “betraying the trust of the Filipino masses that have placed him where he is right now.” People in the labor sector, he stressed, should consider the speech a “wakeup call”, join KMU and get organized.

Pagayaman criticized the tripartite meeting that became the backdrop for the President’s speech, saying those representing labor and management in the three-way meeting were actually “yellow unionists and capitalists.”

In justifying his opposition to House Bill 357, which aimed to legislate a P125 across-the-board wage increase nationwide, Aquino told the Employer’s Confederation of the Philippines that a wage increase now would force a lot of firms to close.

Too much

“About 527,000 Filipinos could lose their jobs” in the next two years,” Aquino said, adding that the amount the private sector would need to raise in order to satisfy the wage increase would almost be one fourth of the national budget.

Besides, the President pointed out, existing wages already has the Filipino salary-man earning more than his counterparts in other Southeast Asian countries, particularly Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.

In announcing his opposition to a legislated wage increase, President Aquino also expressed his reservation to a consolidated bill that seeks to amend the Philippine Labor Code to prohibit labor-only contracting.

While benefiting 1.8 million people now doing work on the basis of a contract and without the protection a regular employee would otherwise have had, House Bill 4853 may also displace 10.3 million others as businesses are forced to close due to burgeoning overheads.

The President’s position on a legislated wage increase is borne from a fear that Ibon Foundation believes isn’t supported by research.

Ibon Foundation is a non-profit research, education and information-development institution founded in the 70s to provide socio-economic research and analysis and confirm or deny development claims made by the government during Marcos years.

Higher growth rates

In a recent study, Ibon Foundation said a wage increase would not be “a substantial factor” in increasing unemployment or even reducing growth.

The study – its abstract was posted online last April 25 – points out that basic pay was increased by P73 during the presidency of Cory Aquino, President Aquino’s mother. Yet, the country’s Gross Domestic Product in the six years she was in office was 3.9 percent on average.

This growth rate, according to the study, is higher than what was experienced during the Ramos administration, which posted a GDP of 3.8 percent, and the 2.4 percent GDP experienced during the abbreviated Estrada presidency.

During his tenure, Ramos raised salaries by P6. Estrada, P23, and Arroyo, P9.

The Ibon Foundation study indicated that the president who salaries the most also produced a GDP that was the “second highest growth in the post-Marcos era”; second only to the Arroyo administration’s GDP of 4.5 percent. But Arroyo’s term lasted 10 years.

Celebration

As the incumbent president announced his opposition to the proposed legislated wage increase, labor groups like Anakpawis, children of sweat in Tagalog, were organizing events that highlight the needs o the labor sector.

They held a march from the Provincial Capitol to Magsaysay Park in D.V. Soria St. An estimated 1,000 people attended from the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and Gingoog and the provinces of Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon.

Government agencies also had activities of their own.

The regional Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) office, together with the Tripartite Industrial Peace Council of Western Misamis Oriental-Cagayan de Oro, held a parade, a jobs-fair and a program that had Cagayan de Oro 2nd District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez as the keynote speaker.

Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Vicente Emano also joined the calls for wages that are more responsive to current needs, calling the labor sector as crucial in the development of a society. (By Cong B. Corrales for Pecojon.PH)

And after the complainant, GMA 12 reporter Nef Abdul Malik Luczon, posted online a copy of the resolution that freed Barangay Tuburan Councilor Ray Obsioma Yañez from any liability, the prosecutor’s office is getting criticism from netizens and an internet group as well.

Save CdO Movement, an online forum that began when residents went online to protest the Cagayan de Oro City Government’s “inadequate” response to Tropical Storm Sendong last December, raised their “indignation at such ignorance of the law and jurisprudence”.

Tito Noel Mora, the movement’s spokesperson, said they are bringing their sentiments from cyberspace to real space on May 9 via a press conference to be held at the city’s Press Freedom Monument.

Personally, Mora said, he was “stunned by disbelief (of) how the prosecutor justified the dismissal of the case.”

It’s a sentiment that is shared.

Nixon Baban of the city’s Junior Chamber International (JCI) Senate and Bangon Kagay-an, another online group, called Prosecutor Julieta Buhat-Piloton’s reasoning “bizarre and objectionable.”

Meanwhile, Rolly James Esling, an administrator of another online forum, Pulso sa Kagay-an (Pulse of Cagayan), condemns Yañez.

Piloton threw out the complaint Luczon lodged against Yañez in a three-page resolution dated April 2, 2010.

In his affidavit, Luczon had accused Yañez of shouting invectives at him and his cameraman and of threatening to strike them with a burak, a kind of machete or bolo. This, Luczon said, was while they were about to interview Loresa Gaupan over mining in Barangay Tuburan.

Luczon said his cameraman was able to record the entire incident. He attached a recording of the footage to his complaint along with an affidavit from a Higaonon tribesman who was also present.

“I personally heard Yañez say to Luczon and his crew, ‘Panghawa mo diha! Laparohon ta hinuon mo og burak’ (Leave or I will strike you with a burak),” Peldo Villaverde claimed.

But Piloton said the presence of other people actually negated any actual grave threat on Luczon.

“Ordinary human experience dictates that no one would dare commit a crime such as slapping someone with a burak at the risk of being readily implicated because of the presence of possible witnesses,” her resolution read.

And even if Yañez did say what Luczon accused him of stating, the ruling intimated, the act does not constitute grave threats.

“There is nothing in the video coverage submitted by complainant that will show that the latter was in fear or in a state of danger at the time of the incident. Under these circumstances, the undersigned, therefore, holds that there is no sufficient ground to warrant the filing of Information for Grave Threats against Yañez,” he ruling added.

“I may not be a lawyer but I am not dumb to not know what grave threat means,” JCI and Bangon Kagay-an’s Baban stressed on his Facebook page.

“Nef Luczon was in a remote village in Tuburan with most folks sympathetic to the ongoing mining activities,” Baban added.

“A threat is a threat, wherever it happened. The more the Prosecutor’s Office should consider the case because there were witnesses who saw and heard the threat of a councilor to a journalist,” Arnold Abelardo of Pulso sa Kagay-an , for his part, stressed.

But State Prosecutor Graeme Elmido said there are elements which need to be present for something perceived to be threatening to be Grave Threats under the Revised Penal Code.

“Some words might be threatening but it might not be grave at all,” he explained.

He declined to comment on how the complaint was resolved, adding that he didn’t want to be unfair to both the complainant and the assigned prosecutor.

Elmido however pointed out that a motion for reconsideration can still be filed to get Piloton’s office to re-evaluate its findings or a petition for review before the Office of the Regional State Prosecutor so that the facts can be revisited.

“These are all remedies under the law,” he explained.

Luczon, who also hosts GMA Cagayan de Oro’s Ang Isyu Karon program, is leaving any future developments of his complaint to the lawyers at GMA’s corporate legal department in Manila.

He nevertheless admitted that he found “quite odd but not surprising” the way the Office of the Cagayan de Oro City Prosecutor ruled.

“The consolation about this decision was that somehow, nakita na sa public ang nawong sa sistema sa atong syudad, if not, the system of our nation (the public has seen how the system in the city, if not the nation, works),” said Luczon.

Notwithstanding remedies available to Luczon and his GMA lawyers under the Rules of Court, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines Cagayan de Oro chapter has already issued a statement assailing the resolution.

They vowed to raise the issue before Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. (Cong B. Corrales for Pecojon.PH)

The document, signed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last April 24, intends to “further guide discussions on the substantive agenda of the negotiations” and has been met with varying reactions. Judge Soliman Santos, an author and peace advocate, calls it “a bit quaint or crudely formulated.”

“The document is definitively a positive step forward but it is also indicative that there is really still a long way to go,” Santos, who wrote such books as The Moro Islamic Challenge: Constitutional Rethinking for the Mindanao Peace Process, said in a statement.

But the Kuala Lumpur Accord has made anxious three of seven Lumad or indigenous communities living in ancestral lands that comprise 55 of the 81 towns in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) province of Maguindanao and the Region 12 territories of Sultan Kudarat, North and South Cotabato and Sarangani.

This is because a portion in the 10-point document indicates that both peace panels have agreed that the ARMM, as it stands now, is an “unacceptable status quo.” Santos says this more than hints the possibility of a new autonomous political entity being created in its place.

Out in the cold

At a gathering in a small hut in Kibukay in the town of North Upi, Maguindanao, Timuay Labi (Supreme Chieftain) Sanie Bello said they are afraid that subsequent developments between the MILF and the government, particularly in the creation of this new autonomous political entity, might leave them getting chased out of their ancestral lands.

“We don’t know where to place ourselves,” he said in Tagalog, adding that they felt the same way when the eventually ill-fated Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) was signed by the peace panels years back.

They objected to that too, Bello lamented, but their collective voices could not be heard above that of landowners in places like Zamboanga City who feared that a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity would reduce their land holdings.

As Timuay Labi, Bello heads the Timuay Justice and Governance, the indigenous political structure of the Teduray and Lambangian tribes.

In an official letter intended for both peace panels, the Teduray, the Lambangian and a third tribe, the Dulangan Manobo, now want to be part of the process that will create the new political entity being referred to, if it pushes through.
“Among other things, it should be guaranteed that there are provisions recognizing the role of indigenous political structures in governance within the new autonomous entity through a form of power sharing,” the paper added.

This, they said, will insure a more equitable power sharing scheme between two supposedly co-equal government-recognized entities – the Bangsamoro and the indigenous peoples of Mindanao.

Ancient domain

The indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands claim is vast. For the Teduray and Lambangian alone, it totals 201,850 hectares and covers nine municipalities within the Maguindanao area of ARMM and the province of Sultan Kudarat.

But both the claimants and their claim have rarely been the subject of media stories, unlike the MILF’s struggle. Also unlike the MILF, Mindanao’s indigenous population have never taken up arms.

“We did not get consulted with this expansion of the ARMM and our ancestral land claims have not progressed,” Bello said, explaining that having their claims surveyed requires that they raise over P3 million, something that the tribes cannot afford.

The ARMM, for its part, is not going out of its way to help the tribes, Bello stressed.

While the Indigenous People’s Rights Act, officially known as Republic Act 8371 and implemented under a 1998 administrative order from the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP), only the law is recognized in ARMM.

Lack of implementing rules

The NCIP itself does not have jurisdiction inside ARMM, said Matet Norbe of the Mindanao Peoples’ Peace Movement. It only has a policy desk that provides technical assistance to the Office of the Regional Governor and the legislative assembly.

The legislative body did pass Muslim Mindanao Act 241 on May 2008. The ARMM law sought to recognize the traditional governance and customary laws of the indigenous peoples within its jurisdiction.

However, the legislative assembly did not draft and pass a set of implementing rules and regulations for Act 241.

And it cannot be done now because the ARMM is in an interim state following the Nov. 25, 2009 sacking of the former regional governor, Zaldy Ampatuan, for his alleged participation of the Maguindanao Massacre.

President Benigno Aquino III, after assuming office in June of 2010, did not reconstitute the ARMM’s executive and legislative assemblies by letting it hold an election. Instead he appointed Mujiv Hataman as acting governor.

Rush job

Representatives of the Timuay Justice and Governance and a leader from the Dulangan Manobo met with Prof. Miriam Ferrer in Koronadal City, South Cotabato last May 3 to present their position on the Kuala Lumpur Accord.

Ferrer, a member of the government’s peace panel, came with Carlos Sol, head representative of the government’s contingent to the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities, and Santos Unsad, NCIP Central Mindanao commissioner.

“(The) creation of a new autonomous entity will revolve around the issue of territory and governance. This is a fundamental issue among IPs on the basis of the universally accepted rights of IPs to self-determination and empowerment,” read the paper presented by Timuay Alim Bandara, the immediate past Timuay Labi.

Ferrer urged the Timuays to hasten the processing of their Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT), stressing that this should be done independent of whatever further discussions happen between the government and the MILF.

Money for the survey can be secured from the Office of the Presidential Adviser to the Peace Process under its Pamana Program.

Long ways to go

There is time enough to place the plight of the indigenous communities in the agenda of the talks, Ferrer hints.

Moreover, no less than the chairman of the government’s panel, Atty. Marvic Leonen, said the document signed in Kuala Lumpur was nothing more than a “preliminary listing of common points, which the parties have mutually identified.”

His counterpart from the MILF, Mohagher Iqbal, agrees.

While Iqbal calls the 10-point document “a tremendous huge plus factor” he points out that the “substantive part of this (peace) negotiation leading to the signing of the comprehensive compact is practically untouched.” (Special to Pecojon.PH)

The city government began transferring them to Barangay Calaanan last April 25, where quadruplex homes built with government funds await. The houses are a far cry from the tents they used to be sheltered in.

But the beneficiaries are a mere fraction of the 720,000 people the storm left in the cold.

“At present more than 5,000 evacuee families are still living in transitional shelter arrangements in our city as they await the construction of permanent housing units,” read a statement jointly signed by leaders of the four large religious denominations here.

City Mayor Vicente Emano wants the transfer of the beneficiary families completed by the time President Benigno Aquino III visits the city with Vice President Jejomar Binay for the April 27 turnover ceremonies, as tentatively scheduled.

Emano was heavily blamed for the 1,257 lives lost in Sendong. He allegedly ignored flood warnings raised months before the storm hit and failed to evacuate people from the low-lying areas he used as the city’s socialized housing site.

So much so that Aquino allegedly berated Emano in public and then told Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman to exclude him from rehabilitation programs.

Much of the criticisms against Emano come from non-government organizations and civil society groups who, last April 22, launched a three-day mass action in commemoration of the 42nd Global Earth Day.

They held a program of “prayers and songs for the Earth” at D.V. Soria Plaza here and then marched to Gaston Park to link up with groups attending a prayer rally led by Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, SJ.

The Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, together with the three other large religious denominations here – the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente and the United Methodist Church – then issued a jointly-drafted ecumenical statement on the need to protect the environment.

The ecumenical statement, read during homilies and sermons, spoke against logging and mining, calling the “man-made malpractices.”

“Aerial photographs and first-hand reports by residents in the more remote areas attest to the extensive damage already done to the environment,” the church groups declared.

They cited the prevalence of hydraulic flush mining, dynamiting of hillsides, and massive excavations of the topsoil.

“There are also confirmed reports that the unprocessed soil is then shipped to another country – a stark example of how our country compromises its own territorial integrity, leaving the landscape scarred and depleted,” their statement said.

They demanded the creation of a multi-sectoral monitoring body that will be composed of representatives from civil society, upland and lowland communities and the academe and given the power to inquire into “the actual state of mining and logging activities in the watershed areas of Cagayan de Oro.”

They also called for a “comprehensive scientific study of the river basin and watersheds of Cagayan de Oro River and adjoining tributaries.”

“Could the loss of so many lives and extensive damage to property (after Sendong) been avoided with proper foresight and planning? Should “disaster risk reduction” not start with a moratorium on mining and logging activities that have a direct impact on the environment?” the statement posed.

The church groups also want certain regulation changes.

Firms wanting to secure logging or mining concessions should be required to get Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) not only from the upland or upstream communities where their concession areas are but also from the lower-lying communities, they pointed out.

“In some areas, the FPIC process has reportedly only served to divide the indigenous communities and adversely altered their way of life,” their statement read.

They also want government agencies, including the local government unit, to get their acts together and be clear on the roles they play in environmental governance. (Cong B. Corrales for Pecojon.PH)

City Vice Mayor Vicente Emano however said he’s asked the would-be operators to present their case before the church first.

“I told them to talk to the church. If the church will agree then we will put up the casinos,” Emano revealed in an interview, Monday.

Cagayan de Oro City, which lies in the northern coastline of Mindanao island and is the principal city of Misamis Oriental province, has a predominantly Roman Catholic population – an estimated 87 percent of its 602,088 people.

Fr. Nathaniel Lerio, director of the Social Action Center of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, welcomes Emano’s move.

“The church has a long history of opposing any form of gambling especially casinos. But I will bring this to the attention to the Archbishop so we can discuss this matter thoroughly and will come up with an official statement on the issue,” Lerio, interviewed separately, declared.

Emano’s assurance contradicts earlier reports quoting him as supporting the proposals and appealing to the local diocese not to object.

“The casino will only be for businessmen and tourists,” he was quoted as saying.

“If the casinos get built, we can limit patrons to businessmen and tourists who have passports. We can also charge expensive entrance fees so only those who can afford it can enter,” he said in Bisaya.

But in the interview, Monday, Emano said letting the Catholic Church have its say on the casinos issue is not “interference on the part of the church” or a violation of the doctrine of the separation between the church and the state.

“They are trying to help us find the way,” he added.

“Although there is such a doctrine, but certainly we know that it is the government that works with the church,” Emano said. (Cong B. Corrales for Pecojon.PH/knr)

“Those in charge are to come up with their own programs and take an inventory of all PWDs in their area,” Provincial Board (PB) member Arleigh Jay Sitoy said in an interview. He chairs the PB’s committee on PWDs, whose creation last year he was the proponent of.

The immediate focus, he explained, is for the people in these offices to mobilize and insure that all PWDs in their area of operation register and vote in the May 2013 elections.

Cebu Province is a signatory to the Fully Abled Nation campaign, an initiative to insure that PWDs’ right to vote is observed in the midterm elections next year. It hosted the campaign’s launching in Cebu last March 28.

To date, 35 of the 53 local government units under the Province already have functioning PWD affairs offices.

This level of compliance has been satisfying, Sitoy said, given how the PB only approved the setting up of its own Provincial PWD Affairs Office at the Capitol last February by passing ordinance 2011-1. It is administrated by the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office.

“The PWD Affairs Officer shall manage and oversee the operations of the office pursuant to its mandate under this ordinance. Priority shall be given to qualified PWDs to head the said office,” the ordinance provides.

Closer to the people

But the creation of a PWD Affairs Office at the Provincial Capitol is not sufficient, said Sitoy, adding that municipalities and component cities must have their own because they are more proximate to the PWDs in the area.

Moreover, Republic Act 10070 also mandates the creation of PWD affairs offices in “every province, city and municipality.”

“The local chief executive shall appoint a PWD affairs officer who shall manage and oversee the operations of the office, pursuant to its mandate under this Act,” the law, passed in April 6 last year, provides.

Memorandum Circular No. 2010-103, which Local Government Sec. Jesse Robredo issued last Sept. 23, 2010, gives fourth, fifth and sixth class municipalities the option of appointing a “focal person” for PWD concerns instead of establishing a full office.

Sitoy however believes town mayors in Cebu can do better.

Besides, he stressed, the physical office that will be created goes hand in hand with the campaign to get PWDs in the municipalities and component cities to go out to register and vote because it can be where the registration and even voting will take place.

“I have discussed this with Atty. (Lionel Marco) Castillano and this addresses his concern that their offices and voting centers aren’t barrier free,” Sitoy added. Castillano is the Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor.

Large number

As in elsewhere, the Commission on Elections continues to hold special registration for PWDs in Cebu Province, which the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction of the social welfare department says has the 20th largest concentration of PWDs nationwide.

Sitoy said he wants a more concrete inventory, adding that apart from the campaign to have them register and vote, the inventory is important in determining what interventions can be sponsored to allow PWDs to “help themselves and discover that they remain valuable to their society.”

The Cebu City Government, through its Department of Social Welfare and Services, continues with its inventory and, to date, has listed some 7,000 PWDs in its registry. This is up from the 5,757 it gave cash assistance of P2,000 to last February.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama signed an executive order which increases by P1,000 the city’s financial assistance for all PWDs in the registry last April 16.The amount is scheduled for distribution by June, following the mayor’s appointment of City Councilor Jose Daluz III as focal person for PWD concerns.

“We have a budget of P25 million this year,” explained City Social Worker Virginia Piccio, adding that the amount, which one percent of the city’s Internal Revenue Allotment or national tax share, has been set aside in compliance with Republic Act 9442 or the amended Magna Carta for Persons with Disabilities of 2006.

The allocation will also be used to finance projects such as the procurement and distribution of white canes and wheelchairs as well as to defray the legal costs of PWDs who sue for discrimination or abuse and livelihood programs.

Importance

“Having the PWD affairs offices is very critical,” Sitoy stressed.

Opening PWD affairs offices across the province is also in line with his committee’s recommendation to Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia that PWD rehabilitation centers be established in some if not all 16 of the Province’s district hospitals.

He is optimistic this will be carried, adding that the PB and the governor supports the plan.

Physical therapy and rehabilitation equipment secured through a combination of funding sources are ready for turnover to the Mandaue City Hospital for the purpose, he said. Once set up, the Mandaue City facility can serve as a pilot area of sorts.

The Mandaue City Hospital used to be a district facility run by the Province. It was turned over to Mandaue City and is now considered a “center of quality” by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

Mandaue City, with neighboring towns of Consolacion and Cordova, comprises the 6th district. Sitoy was Cordova mayor for nine years before a stroke in 2009 left him bed-ridden for two months. In rehab for close to a year, he re-learned to walk with the help of a cane and returned to public office.

“This (rehab center) will help PWDs in the district because they don’t have to come to Cebu City anymore to undergo rehab. But we need more of this because those from the other districts do have to travel that distance,” Sitoy said.

Observing the pre-July deadline for the establishment of the PWD affairs offices is crucial.

Citing the partisan nature of the Cebu Provincial Board, Sitoy fears that political realignments may happen among those seeking re-election in May 2013 and certain programs and projects may be put on hold as a consequence of who gets aligned with whom.

He recalled that as the lone Liberal Party member of a board dominated by members of ex-president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s¬-Lakas-Kampi CMD, which Gov. Garcia leads locally, his proposal for the creation of a committee on PWDs met with resistance in the first few months of office.

“Everything has its price. You have to pay a real price for a real service. There are only two choices. Pay a little more for energy, or live with the rotating brownouts,” Aquino said.

Aquino was here for the April 13 Power Summit that was organized by Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras’s office to supposedly allay fear that running privatized power barges and the planned privatization of Mindanao’s existing hydro-electric power plants would jack up power costs.

Among those opposed is Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) president Miguel Varela, who warned that employing power-crisis solutions that involve drastic increase in power costs would be “disastrous” for Mindanao, which needs “a blend of strategies uniquely crafted.”

Cheap electricity, he observed in an earlier forum, is what keeps Mindanao’s business stable and stability in business is a “strong platform in achieving peace in the area.”

Opposition

Mindanao’s power problem could also be artificial.

Mindanao Development Authority chair Lualhati Antonino suspected that the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines facilitated the artificial crisis to enable the national government to better sell the idea of privatizing Mindanao’s hydropower plants.
Mindanao local leaders urged President Aquino during the summit to revisit the Expanded Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), saying the privatization of all power plants in the country, including Mindanao, opens the doors for cartels.

Davao del Norte Governor Rodolfo del Rosario said “there is already a semblance of control by some private power companies” as early as now.

“We ask you, Mr. President, to certify as urgent for Epira Law to be revisited and look into the privatization of the two government-owned power plants,” del Rosario said of the Agus complex and Pulangi. The Governors League of the Philippines supports his call.

ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman said that power generation, especially here in Mindanao must never be left alone to private companies.

“This is public utility and public service, this must not be privatized,” said Hataman.

Easily solvable?

But Energy Secretary Almendras insists on private power and said Mindanao’s power supply shortage could all be over by next month if private power, like the one which he plans to source from a privatized diesel-powered plant in Iligan City, is brought into the grid.

He wants more of private power, calling the initiative to tap the Iligan City plant a stop-gap measure because the power crisis will return next year, he said, unless new power generators come in and be able to invest with confidence that they can turn a profit.

“If everybody cooperates, there’s a good chance that we could solve (a) significant portion of the shortage by end of May. Next year, if we don’t bring additional (supply) generators and there is no contract to buy what’s generated, then we will be back to power shortage,” he said.

He insisted that finding other power sources, even private ones, is necessary in Mindanao, especially when the Agus power plants in Marawi City and Saguiaran in Lanao del Sur, Baloi in Lanao del Norte and Ditucalan and Fuentes in Iligan City, and the Pulangi plant in Bukidnon Province undergo their scheduled repairs.

Almendras said it will take about 30 months to rehabilitate the six Agus plants and one month for Pulangi but, once complete, the total combined output can reach 982 megawatts from the 646 megawatts produced during its prime.

Agus 6, the oldest of the Agus units was constructed in 1953 while the newest, Agus 1, began operating in 1992. The Pulangi plant began commercial operation in 1985.

Based on National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) records, all seven plants are only able to provide 53 percent of Mindanao’s electricity requirements, which averages at 1,300 megawatts daily, resulting in four-hour rotating brownouts since January.

At an average demand of 1,300 megawatts, given the estimated 982-megawatt output of the Agus and Pulangi plants once rehabilitated, Mindanao will still suffer a deficit of several hundred megawatts, says the NGCP.

Sustained supply

Almendras said there are several power generation facilities in Mindanao that can be tapped now and be made to run when the Agus and Pulangi complexes are individually taken off-grid and then made to keep running even after that.

The privatized diesel plant in Iligan City, he said, is readily able to generate 20 megawatts of power per day and gradually increase its output to 100 megawatts in less than a year.

The Mindanao-based power firm Alsons Consolidated Resources Inc., has reportedly allocated over a billion to complete its P300-million purchase of the formerly National Power Corporation (Napocor)-run plant and the estimated P650 million to have it in running order.

President Aquino said putting the planned privatization of the Agus-Pulangi plants further on hold can be considered.

He nevertheless expressed worry through over Napocor’s existing P P928-billion debt that is being shouldered by the national government at present. It was learned that in 2003, Napocor was P1.24 trillion in debt.

Aquino said that the national government only has P400 billion to spend for all the needs of the country. He said it is impossible for them to be spending it all to address the power crisis in Mindanao thus there is a need for private entities to come in.

Mea Culpa

Almendras admitted fault over the power crisis being felt in Mindanao. In his presentation during the Power Summit, the secretary said his office failed to execute their plans to avert the power problem here in Mindanao.

He shielded the president from blame.

But Aquino nevertheless announced his support for the energy secretary, saying he was doing a good job to address the problem on power supply in Mindanao.

“Sec. Almendras has become the favorite whipping boy of many people but it’s not fair to be blaming the secretary,” Aquino said.

The President said they were made aware of the looming power crisis in Mindanao the moment he became President and that they’ve been working on the solution since then. (Ben Jason O. Tesiorna for Pecojon.PH)