Iloilo Views http://www.iloiloviews.com Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:51:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 en ‘Doctora non grata’ http://www.iloiloviews.com/%e2%80%98doctora-non-grata%e2%80%99.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/%e2%80%98doctora-non-grata%e2%80%99.html#comments Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:51:30 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/%e2%80%98doctora-non-grata%e2%80%99.html I am really wondering why Secretary Francisco Duque III of the Department of Health (DOH) seems afraid to act against Dr. Lydia Depra Ramos, the very controversial regional director of Region 6, who is persona non grata to almost everybody in the DOH-R6 office.

Depra Ramos has been lording it over in Region 6 for the last nine years. Has Secretary Duque given Depra Ramos a Torrens title for that position, notwithstanding the many cases filed against her? Rumors have it that Depra Ramos is being protected by Rep. Art Defensor because they are said to be distant relatives. I talked with Representative Defensor, and he agrees that if Dr. Ramos has committed grave abuses since her occupancy of her current position in the DOH, she really must go.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/%e2%80%98doctora-non-grata%e2%80%99.html/feed GSIS and city college http://www.iloiloviews.com/gsis-and-city-college.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/gsis-and-city-college.html#comments Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:09:02 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/gsis-and-city-college.html We were correct from the very beginning: the GSIS is only pulling our legs in the aftermath of typhoon Frank. It is only out to score pogi points when it announced a window for calamity loans.

Provincial employees have countless woes to tell how GSIS duped them. One spent an entire Saturday waiting in a long line. She went home happy that afternoon because her application was granted.

However, she turned sour that same day because she got a text message from GSIS apologizing. Her application was rejected.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/gsis-and-city-college.html/feed Two faces of distress http://www.iloiloviews.com/two-faces-of-distress.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/two-faces-of-distress.html#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:41:55 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/two-faces-of-distress.html Two faces of economic distress confronted the Filipino people during the second quarter of 2008. The first was the opinion poll result showing that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s public satisfaction rating had sunk to a record low for two decades, making her the most reviled Filipino president since the end of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in 1986. The second, which was of more direct consequence to the poor segments of the population, was the finding in the same survey with different frameworks (by the poll group Social Weather Stations) that more Filipino families experienced hunger due to lack of food between April and June than during the first three months of 2008. The two findings are somehow intertwined in that hunger translates into rising public discontent over the availability of food.

These findings pose a challenge to administration to roll back the slide of its net public satisfaction rating and to reduce the incidence of hunger. These specters confront the government as the President prepares to deliver her State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, her second to the last, assuming nothing eventful cuts short her term. One can never be certain, given the volatility engendered by heightening economic distress.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/two-faces-of-distress.html/feed Yes to population control http://www.iloiloviews.com/yes-to-population-control.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/yes-to-population-control.html#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:38:39 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/yes-to-population-control.html SMALL but terrible! This cliché may well describe our country. Though a mere dot in the world map, the Philippines today – home of more than 89 million Filipinos (August 2007 national census) – is the 12th most populous nation on earth. We have advanced two steps since ten years ago, 1998, when we were 14th with 75.3 million.

Coupled with the rise in prices of oil, rice, meat, vegetables and other basic necessities, the population problem is apparently aggravating the poverty problem.

The exodus of Filipino laborers abroad for greener pasture seems their only way to rise above runaway inflation, officially recorded at 11% (no thanks to EVAT), that belies President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s “nararamdaman na ang kaunlaran” claim.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/yes-to-population-control.html/feed Disaster preparedness http://www.iloiloviews.com/disaster-preparedness.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/disaster-preparedness.html#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:44:21 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/disaster-preparedness.html IN 1996, Iloilo City had its first taste of floods engulfing more than one-third of its land and dislocated 150,000 people. That was not its last. The clown Jerry Treñas, then councilor, seized the opportunity for a media blitz by forming the “anti-flood coalition” to rouse the government to action.

The coalition itself is suspect as some members should have been pilloried for being contributors to floods like subdivision (mis)developers, fishpond owners, mangrove deforesters, furniture shop owners, lumber dealers, etc.

June 21, 2008 a bigger and more destructive one brought by typhoon “Frank” swept the city submerging villages and homes that had not seen any flooding before. Iloilo Province sustained 126 dead, 925 injured and 82 missing presumably killed by the torrents.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/disaster-preparedness.html/feed Pauperizing the poor http://www.iloiloviews.com/pauperizing-the-poor.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/pauperizing-the-poor.html#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:44:13 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/pauperizing-the-poor.html THE common scene we see after a flood are people with tickets lining up to exchange these for plastic bags of rice, noodles and sardines from politicians, celebrities, civic clubs or other do-gooders that cone to town.

We have witnessed on several occasions this kind of aid distribution. We do not see happy faces or pride among the people lining up to get food packs; they are herded to fall in line inside a roped area, tickets in hand, supervised by barangay tanods or policemen.

Now we have succeeded in highlighting the tragedy by pauperizing the poor! We have seen many faces and we felt that we have stripped them of dignity and shame.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/pauperizing-the-poor.html/feed Middle, upper classes’ discontent political TNT http://www.iloiloviews.com/middle-upper-classes%e2%80%99-discontent-political-tnt.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/middle-upper-classes%e2%80%99-discontent-political-tnt.html#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:18:53 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/middle-upper-classes%e2%80%99-discontent-political-tnt.html PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has smashed her own record as the most unpopular leader that Filipinos ever had in the past 22 years that span four administrations.The plunge in Ms Arroyo’s net public satisfaction rating to negative 38 points from 26 three months ago, as tracked by Social Weather Stations in its 2008 second quarter poll survey, represented a 12-point dive.

It surpassed her previous low of negative 33 points in May 2005, when her administration was rocked by political turbulence sparked by her intervention in the Commission on Elections count of results of the 2004 presidential election.

The SWS’ June 27-30, 2008, survey result marked the fourth consecutive quarterly drop in Ms Arroyo’s net rating since June 2007.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/middle-upper-classes%e2%80%99-discontent-political-tnt.html/feed Corporate farming: Part of agricultural renaissance http://www.iloiloviews.com/corporate-farming-part-of-agricultural-renaissance.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/corporate-farming-part-of-agricultural-renaissance.html#comments Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:27:40 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/corporate-farming-part-of-agricultural-renaissance.html IT’S heartening to read reports about two giant business organizations engaging in agricultural production amid the food crisis affecting all countries of the world today.

San Miguel Corp. and the Hong Kong-based Kuok Group of Companies, two of Southeast Asia’s biggest food companies, have just launched a P1-billion joint project to cultivate 1 million hectares of suitable land for the production of grains, sugar and other basic staples, or for livestock and poultry production.

The San Miguel-Kuok initiative, dubbed “Feeding Our Future,” reflects the concept and rationale of corporate charity, known as corporate social responsibility in improving the lives of people in the community where companies operate.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/corporate-farming-part-of-agricultural-renaissance.html/feed Rotten officials and rotting rice http://www.iloiloviews.com/rotten-officials-and-rotting-rice.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/rotten-officials-and-rotting-rice.html#comments Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:25:29 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/rotten-officials-and-rotting-rice.html I BELIEVE this is the best time for me to thank Chairman Bayani Fernando of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) for the invaluable assistance they have given to the city and people of Iloilo after the devastating Typhoon Frank hit us.

The MMDA personnel did a yeoman’s job in clearing the debris, the silt and the mud and in helping to revive the rhythm and the tempo of our beloved city. This was timely because the city does not have the needed equipment and know-how in undertaking this tedious operation, and the MMDA extended to us their helping hand and their expertise, declogging the city’s drainage system and keeping the streets dry.

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]]> http://www.iloiloviews.com/rotten-officials-and-rotting-rice.html/feed The Pulahanes of Passi, Iloilo http://www.iloiloviews.com/the-pulahanes-of-passi-iloilo.html http://www.iloiloviews.com/the-pulahanes-of-passi-iloilo.html#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:14:58 +0000 admin http://www.iloiloviews.com/the-pulahanes-of-passi-iloilo.html The Pulahanes de Passi in the north-central part of Panay was a socio-religious group that reacted to the harsh conditions of the Spanish rule during the revolutionary period and, later, to American imperialist ambition. It must be pointed out that the voice of freedom came from both the middle class and the poorer sector of Philippine colonial society, although the voice of the latter was, oftentimes, downplayed or not heeded by the former. Thus, the poorer class resorted to their own way of addressing their grievances against the political and religious establishments giving birth to messianic-millenarian movements in many parts of the country such as the Pulahanes.

The Pulahanes de Passi has survived the passing of time and its home today is Barangay Gemumua-Agahon, also known as Lamunan, in Passi, Iloilo. The barangay is suited for upland farming, as it is with the rest of the municipality which is mostly rolling hills (more than 25,000 hectares). The terrain of this now site of a component city is also perfect in launching a resistance movement against the tyranny of colonial rule.

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