Balikbayan holds medical mission in Tabuk City

By Estanislao Albano, Jr.

 

FIRST GRAND ALUMNI HOMECOMING. Tabuk Institute, the first high school in Tabuk City, held its first alumni homecoming since its founding in 1948 on February 11-13 with the theme “Coming together to keep the TI flame burning forever.” In photo is Tabuk Institute Alumni Association President Floydelia Diasen (second from right) receiving the P51,000.00 raffle proceeds from the European-based members headed by Cristabel Bounggick (center). Also in photo are (from left) Martin and Clarita Koller and TIAA Treasurer Daisy Quirino.** Photo by Estanislao Albano, Jr. 

Balikbayan holds medical mission in Tabuk City

 

TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Nine hundred- thirty people benefitted from the medical missions organized by a balikbayan from Minnesota, United States, in coordination with the City Health Office here, conducted in four barangays in the city and in Pinukpuk town recently.
The services offered during the medical missions held in barangays Casigayan, Masablang and Tuga on February 9, 16 and 18, respectively, were medical check-up, advice on women diseases and skin diseases, blood pressure screening and blood sugar screening and free medicines for children and adults.
Verna Agujo, a nurse at the Fairview Southdale Hospital in Idina, Minnesota, who organized the medical missions, informed that 700 of the patients were accommodated at the Casigayan Elementary School from where she graduated in 1981.
Agujo said that bulk of the funds used in the Minnesota-Tabuk Outreach Medical Mission were donated by Mr. and Mrs. F. Janhke, a friend from the Medical Solutions, Inc. who does not want to be named, Dr. G. Ivins and by herself with the balance contributed by other friends and colleagues.
Apart from herself and her nurse sister Cleofe Zerna and nurse mother Natividad Speckhard who also reside in Minnesota, those who served during the medical missions were the following: City Health Officer Henrietta Bagayao, doctors Hazel Sarol, Remedios Sonson and Myrna Valones, nurses Desiree Penetrante, Fritzy Mahoy-Malenab, Joy Alunday, Jandel Taguiam, Rhea Barcellano, Jedah Aquino, Clarence Payaqui and Ethel Diasen-Uy..
Agujo also distributed school supplies consisting of backpacks, pencils, crayons, sharpeners and pad paper to 47 pre-school pupils of the Casigayan Elementary School, the fifth year in a row she has done that.
Agujo said that she earned the money for the school supplies by teaching Latin dance to adults during her spare time.
Agujo plans to continue organizing medical missions in her birthplace.**

SC upholds Tabuk cityhood in another flip flopping decision

By Estanislao Albano, Jr.

TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Officials of this city hailed the recent ruling of the Supreme Court (SC) swinging the pendulum to the other side of the cityhood case this time in favor of the 16 new cities.
Informing that decision which granted the motion for reconsideration (MR) of the 16 new cities was not yet final and does not preclude the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) from filing its own MR, Mayor Ferdinand Tubban had expressed his happiness over the decision even as he said that it was in accordance with Divine Will.
“But the case will still undergo a process. We need to pray more so that in the end, our status as a city will be upheld with finality. We thank God, the justices and the mayors of the other new cities especially Mayor Carmen Cari of Baybay City, Leyte. Even in the aftermath of the second reversal of the decision of the Supreme Court wherein our cityhood were declared unconstitutional anew, she encouraged us not to give up,” Tubban said.
Tubban said that as a three-term congressman of the fifth district of Leyte, Cari was one of the staunchest pushers of the cityhood bills.
For his part, City Legal Officer Edward Kiser has proclaimed the decision as a “triumph of justice and of the affected people.”
“We have really complied with the requirements of the law in the conversion of a municipality into a city,” Kiser said.
Kiser said that what is left to be done after the most recent ruling which reversed for the third time the original decision of the court declaring the cityhood laws of the 16 new cities unconstitutional is for the restoration of the city internal revenue allotment (IRA) of the beleaguered cities.
“In fact, another appurtenant issue is what happens to the IRA of the city which was withheld since June 2009. That’s a legal question which should be addressed in the future,” Kiser said.
Since June 2009, the 16 new cities have been receiving their municipal IRAs.
According to the papers, the SC, in a 7-6 vote with two abstentions, has reversed itself anew as it declared constitutional the laws that converted the 16 towns into cities.
The decision that was handed down by the SC last Tuesday was the fourth ruling issued since 2008 when the issue on the legality of the 16 cityhood laws was challenged by the LCP.
On November 18, 2008, through a vote of 6-5 and in a decision written by Justice Antonio Carpio, the court declared unconstitutional the 16 cityhood laws for violation of Section 6 and 10, Article X of the Constitution that specifies equalities in the creation of new cities. It said the 16 towns did not meet the criteria of a P100 million income to qualify them into cities.
On Dec. 21, 2009, the first decision was reversed with a ruling that the laws converting the 16 municipalities into cities are constitutional. The decision which prevailed through a 6-4 vote was written by Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr.
The 2009 ruling declared that all cityhood laws, enacted after the effectivity of RA 9009 which increased the income requirement for cityhood from P20 million to P100 million in Section 450 of the Local Government Code (LGC), explicitly exempt the 16 municipalities from the said increased income requirement.
The third ruling on the issue was handed down by the SC on Aug. 24, 2010 in a 7-6 vote with two justices inhibiting themselves from the case. The ruling granted the motions for reconsideration filed by the LCP and its member cities as it reinstated the Nov. 18, 2008 decision declaring unconstitutional the 16 cityhood laws.
Also written by Justice Carpio, the third ruling stated that the 16 cityhood laws violate Section 10, Article X of the Constitution which expressly provides that “no city…shall be created… except in accordance with the criteria established in the Local Government Code.” It stressed that while all the criteria for the creation of cities must be embodied exclusively in the Local Government Code, the assailed cityhood laws provided an exemption from the increased income requirement for the creation of cities under Sec. 450 of the LGC.
The 16 new cities appealed the decision but suffered an initial setback when their motion for oral argument was denied by the SC.
Justice Lucas Bersamin was the writer of the new ruling on the issue. Chief Justice Renato Corona and Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo de Castro, Roberto Abad, Jose Portugal Perez, and Jose Castral Mendoza concurred with the ruling.
The dissenters were Justices Carpio, Conchita Carpio Morales, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Martin Villarama Jr., and Maria Lourdes Sereno.
Justices Antonio Eduardo Nachura and Mariano Del Castillo inhibited themselves.**

Rule infractions in Kalinga small-scale mining site rules leads to three deaths

By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
TABUK CITY, Kalinga – A miner who smuggled a fragmentation grenade into the small-scale mining area in Gaang, Balbalan was killed along with two others when the explosive went off 5:30 PM of February 2.
According to the Balbalan police, Mike Calumnag, 23, married, and resident of Mabaca, Balbalan went to the bunkhouse of Bernard Banasan, 22, married, resident of Poblacion, Balbalan, Rolly Gacayon, 31, single, of Mabaca and Ronie Bayongan, 41, single, farmer and resident of Pantikian, Balbalan.
The four who were all miners were having dinner.
Calumnag who was allegedly under the influence of liquor took out a grenade and proceeded to play with it.
After a while, the grenade went off instantly killing Calumnag, Banasan and Gacayon and seriously injuring Bayongan.
Bayongan has been brought to a hospital in Baguio City.
Vice Governor Allen Jesse Mangaoang, former mayor of Balbalan and president of the Banao Bodong Association (BBA), said that the incident would not have happened had Calumnag complied with the policies of the association prohibiting bringing in liquor and deadly weapons into the mine site.
The BBA is the authority and owner of the mines.
Mangaoang said that the Mabaca subtribe to whom Calumnag belongs will now be sternly warned for not following the policies of the Gaang mine site.
Mangaoang said that Mabaca is one of 11 barangays in the entire municipality who only has 40 slots in the mine site. These 11 barangays are referred to as privileged.
On the other hand, the three barangays in the Banao ancestral domain namely Talalang, Balbalasang and Pantikian could send all their menfolk to work in the mines.** 

Kalinga chronically lacks blood

By Estanislao Albano, Jr.

MINNESOTA-TABUK MEDICAL OUTREACH. Doctors Hazel Antoinette Sarol (right) and Henrietta Bagayao (with hair band) were among the four doctors who volunteered their services during the medical mission held at the Casigayan Elementary School, Tabuk City, Kalinga on February 9. The medical mission which offered blood sugar and blood pressure screening, medical examinations, OB-Gyne and dermatology consultations and free medicines for children and adults was funded by residents of Minnesota, USA through the efforts of Nurse Verna Agujo, the 1981valedictorian of the school, who now works and lives in that state.**Photo by Estanislao Albano, Jr.

TABUK CITY, Kalinga – This province is dependent on other provinces for its blood needs.
According to Kalinga Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) chapter administrator Glorina Diaz, at the moment, the chapter which is supposed to be one of the two storekeepers of blood in the province has only one unit type A and two units type B.
In order to serve the province’s population, the chapter and the Kalinga Provincial Hospital (KPH) should have 200 units of 500 cc bags a month, Diaz said.
Diaz explains that because of the chronic lack of blood stock in the province, she has been borrowing from her counterparts in the provinces of Isabela and Cagayan for years now.
“Since I have not been able to replace the borrowed blood stock over many years, it has come to the point when I am ashamed to approach them when we are in need of blood,” Diaz told the Zigzag Weekly.
Diaz blames the problem on the unwillingness of people in the province to donate blood.
“It looks like people here still adhere to the old Kalinga expression ‘maysa a tedted ti dara, maysa a nuang’ (a drop of blood is worth one carabao). The problem is cultural. We have difficulty convincing people here to donate not even when we tell them it will not only save lives but will also improve their blood circulation,” Diaz said.
She informed that for all the massive information campaign for blood donation waged by the PNRC in the province since the Blood Donation Act went into effect in the late 90s, only two of the eight towns of the province conduct regular bloodletting activities. These are Pasil and Balbalan.
Vice Governor Allen Jesse Mangaoang who chairs the newly formed Provincial Blood Council contradicts Diaz insisting that the difficulty of getting people in the province to donate their blood has nothing to do with the culture.
He declared that there is lack of aggressiveness on the part of those campaigning for blood donations and likewise the inadequacy of information campaign on the advantages of donating blood.
He reasoned that the Northern Luzon Blood Zone in the Cagayan Valley Medical Center (CVMC) has penetrated even the most remote Balbalan and Pasil barangays and was able to draw blood donations from residents there
“As mayor of Balbalan, I was a Hall of Famer in the National Sandugo Awards because for three consecutive years, three barangays in the town were able get blood donations of at least 30 units annually. Four of our barangay captains also received awards by conducting at least two bloodlettings and collect at least 60 units a year,” Mangaoang said.
Mangaoang said that the council has already organized an information education campaign committee that will explain to the public that when one donates blood, one does not only save lives but gets his old blood cells replenished.
He is confident that once “prospective donors will understand the meaning of bloodletting,” Kalinga’s dependence on CVMC for three-fourths of its blood requirements will cease. **

 

Announcement: Attn. Barangay Captains

Honorariums of Barangay Captains during the May 2010 Census of Papulation and Housing (CPH) which was conducted by the National Statistics Office(NSO) is available at our Office located at 2nd flr Omengan Bldg, Provincial Rd, Bulanao, Tabuk.

 

This information covers the provinces of Kalinga and Apayao, though most of Apayao's Brgy Chairmans had already get their honorariums only a few from Kalinga had claim theirs.

 

Please note that only those Barangays Chairmans as of May 2010 were provided with such honorarium.

 

Thank you very much.

 

Very truly yours,

 

Delano C. Bolislis Jr.

(Statistical Coordination Officer II)

Officer-in-Charge

NSO Kalinga-Apayao Provincial Office

Solution to dumping of garbage in Chico River in the offing?

By Estanislao Albano, Jr.

AGRICULTURE OFFICIAL VISITS AGROFOOD CENTER. Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Operations Edilberto de Luna (right) is briefed by Mayor Ferdinand Tubban (right) and City Agriculturist Gilbert Cawis on the operations of the Balong Agro-food Center during his visit there January 26. The two officials requested de Luna who came to the city to speak during the foundation day celebration of the Kalinga-Apayao State College for funding for the construction of a training center and the fencing of the agricultural complex engaged in the raising of animals and planting materials. Photo by Estanislao Albano, Jr.

TABUK CITY – If the latest attempt of the town of Bontoc in Mtn. Province to solve its garbage woes which has strained its relations with the province of Kalinga will fail, Tinglayan Mayor Fernando Abay has a solution: a lot in Saclit in Sadanga, Mtn. Province.

According to Abay, Bontoc Mayor Pascual Sacgaca told him on January 20 that the town is currently negotiating for the purchase of a six-hectare lot for garbage dumping purposes.

“If they fail to come to an agreement, Mayor Sacgaca said that they will then study my proposal for the purchase of a lot between Sadanga and Saclit where the towns of Bontoc, Sandanga and Tinglayan can construct and MRF (materials recovery facility) to process their garbage,” Abay said.

The proposed site which is in Sadanga town is 30 kilometers from Bontoc and seven kilometers from the center of Tinglayan. The more or less seven hectare flat land located below the national road is co-owned by several members of the Saclit tribe.

Abay said that he has already talked with Mayor Gabino Ganggangan of Sadanga and the barangay captain of Saclit telling them that the three towns could help each other to buy the lot and then ask government agencies and sister cities for assistance in the establishment of a landfill.

Abay said that he proposed the project not only for Bontoc but also for Sadanga and Tinglayan because the two towns are also guilty of dumping their wastes in the river.

Abay warned that if the dumping of solid and liquid wastes go unabated in the next 10 years, the Chico River will “become a Pasig River.”

Previous to coming up with the proposal, Abay has mulled the possibility of filing charges against the town of Bontoc for pollution of the Chico River and against the Department of Environment and Natural Resources “for sleeping on the job.”

He said that he was led to the plan by the observation that in the last 10 years, Bontoc has not been serious in finding a solution to the problem of dumping wastes in the Chico River and that in the case of the river, the DENR has been remiss in its function to manage and preserve the environment.

Abay said that there had been endless talks on the problem in the district health board and also the Regional Development Council (RDC) in which Bontoc representatives have promised to come up with a solution “but they have not even come up with a plan.”

While the negotiations have been going on, according to Abay, the pollution of the Chico River is becoming worse because in addition to Bontoc, the Mtn. Province towns of Bauko, Sabangan and Sadanga as well as Tinglayan in Kalinga have started dumping their wastes into the river.

But Abay insists that on account of its bigger population, Bontoc is still the heaviest polluter of the Chico River.

“I strongly suspect that even the liquid waste of the hospital in Bontoc find its way to the river. You may add to that the backyard piggeries in the town which flush their waste directly into the river,” Abay said.

Abay said that as a very clear sign of how bad the pollution of the river now is, people in Bontoc no longer sell and buy the ugadiw, a small fresh water fish which is considered a local delicacy, because some people say that they have found hospital waste like gauze and tissue in the stomach of the ugadiw.

Abay said that if nothing happens in the negotiations in two months, his town might be forced to “look for a forum like the court.”

“The lawyers I consulted said that we could go to court against Bontoc. According to them, there are already precedents in Metro-Manila,” Abay said. **

DILG: Status quo for 16 new cities

TABUK CITY, Kalinga – There is no error in the dateline of this news article. Tabuk, along with the 15 other new cities, is still a city.

That’s the clarification made by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) through a memorandum dated November 25, 2010 but which only reached the Tabuk LGU this week.

The memorandum signed by Secretary Jessie Robredo cited a letter from the Supreme Court (SC) stating that the August 24, 2010 resolution of the court which reinstated the November 18, 2008 decision declaring unconstitutional the cityhood laws of the 16 erstwhile towns “has not attained finality.”

According to Robredo, the clarification from the SC meant that the latest resolution could not as yet be enforced.

Robredo further said that on that basis, “all the affected local government units shall still be referred to as cities and the two (2) additional members in the Sangguniang Panlungsod may still validly discharge their duties and functions appurtenant to the position.”

During the last elections, the Commission on Elections allowed the 16 new cities to elect 10 councilors because of the December 2009 ruling declaring the constitutionality of the cityhood laws of the 16 erstwhile towns. As towns, they only had eight councilors.

The DILG sought clarification from the SC on the issue due to a lot of queries on the legal implications of the latest resolution of the court on the cityhood case.

The 16 new cities have filed a motion for reconsideration of the August 24, 2010 decision of the SC. This has been set for hearing each Tuesday for months now but for some reasons, the agendum has been deferred up to now. **Estanislao Albano Jr.