by admin | Nov 13, 2015 | National News
With the growing demand for the raw material and its potential for job creation, the Department of Trade and Industry is supporting the revitalization of the local Cacao Industry.
On November 17, the DTI will hold a Cacao Industry Techno-Investment Forum, from 9:00 a.m to 4:30 p.m., at the Cebu Grand Hotel, Cebu City.
Topics for discussion during the activity include sharing of industry updates, National Cacao Industry Roadmap, Investment Opportunities in the Global and Domestic Market, Government interventions in support of the Industry, experiences of the private sector with regards to Intercropping, and Basics of Cacao Production.
Our country is well placed to supply the world with the chocolate it needs. The Philippines in general is a good place to grow cacao because it is on the Equator, the only part of the world where cacao can grow, DTI says
The department believes that with the country’s perfect climate and soil conditions for cacao cultivation, not to mention a ready global market, the Philippines’ potential stands to benefit many growers, retailers and chocolate makers.
Right now, Mindanao accounts for around 90% of the Philippine cacao production. Davao Region is the biggest local player producing 78% of the country’s total production, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority – Bureau of Agricultural Statistics.
Though the country’s contribution to the global market is miniscule, the Philippines is already exporting cacao to the United States, Singapore, New Zealand and Europe.
For more information on the forum, contact DTI Cebu at (032) 253-2631 local 204 or 0928-7825092.
by admin | Nov 12, 2015 | Local News / Bohol Balita
PASAY CITY, Manila November 11 (PIA)—A doppler radar which would be put in southeastern Bohol would immensely bolster the weather bureau’s forecasting capacity especially in accurately tracking storms entering Mindanao sea.
Bohol officer in charge of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAG-ASA) Leonardo Samar said the Department of Science and Technology is now ironing out the details of the proposal to erect Bohol’s first and possibly only Doppler radar in Basac, Alburquerque.
A Doppler radar is a specialized radar that uses the bouncing targeted microwave signals to a desired target and computing or analyzing how the object’s motion has altered the frequency of the returned signal. This variation gives direct and highly accurate measurements of the radial component of a target’s velocity relative to the radar.
The soon to stand Bohol Doppler radar forms a redundant system that peeps through the interlacing circles of coverage which practically leave no areas in the eastern Philippines blind from approaching weather disturbances which spawn at the Pacific.
Comprised of 6 operational radars now, each one covering some overlapping 400 kilometers, these radars, all located in vantage and strategic points across the country are in Baguio, Subic, Tagaytay, Mactan, Hinatuan and Tampakan.
Typhoon Yolanda has effectively opened a blind spot in the country’s weather vigilance with the Tacloban radar ruined.
With an area remaining the country’s blind spot, a radar set-up in Bohol effectively covers that empty area as well as lend an eye to weather forecasters as soon as a storm passes over Surigao and descends into the Mindanao sea, which the Tampakan and Hinatu-an radars can’t see owing to the tall Mindanao mountains.
Recalling what happened to Seniang, while the PAG-ASA predicted good on the typhoon path after it entered the Philippine area of responsibility, the radars could not accurately pinpoint the storms location as it descends into Mindanao sea, Leonardo Samar of the PAG-ASA Dauis said.
While it becomes a redundant system, the Alburquerque Bohol Doppler, which is now opening its bids could be completed next year, the weatherwatcher said.
This system could enhance weather monitoring in the Visayas, Samar stressed. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)
PAG-ASAs Leonardo Samar says a Doppler radar set up un Bohol immensely helps the weather bureau based in Dauis release more accurate forecasts on storms entering the country and descending into the Mindanao sea. (PIA-Bohol)
by admin | Nov 12, 2015 | Editorial
There is always nothing wrong with generosity, especially when there is this expansive knowledge that people are not getting decent measures of what they need.
That generosity however, to be called such, must be only for that sole reason of charity or compassion and its breed of reasons other than getting something in return.
A few days ago, President Benigno Aquino recommended a bill that would start jacking up state workers pay to about 45%, for congressional approval.
The pay-out would be implemented in 4 rounds of annual increases, beginning January 2016.
The increase, which would benefit 1.3 million government workers would cost the government P226 billion, according to sources.
Almost at the same time, a Senate Bill was passed on third and final reading, a move to increase the country’s Social Security System pension by P2,000.
Packaged in an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1997, the Senate Bill passed on a 15-1 vote.
The dissenting cross-out comes from Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, who said the move could lead to the SSS bankruptcy.
Of course, for people who do not look hard, this is good news: a salary increase that would alleviate the purchasing power of state workers and one that moves them a bit nearer their counterparts in the private companies.
For those getting social pensions, P2,000 more is 2000 reasons to be happy that the government has finally appreciated their work.
The next question: where would the government get the money it would bankroll in the pay-rise?
Tax, most certainly.
In Asia, the Philippines and India have the highest corporate income tax tare based on taxable profits at 30%. Add up to that the 12% value added tax.
For VAT, other than China and India, the Philippines continue to be among the heavily taxed consumers.
Experts have said that it there was an efficient tax collection system in the Philippines, the tax we collect can already keep the country out of this dire situation of economic depravity in less than a decade. But with the inept system that we have, the government loses over half of its collections to corruption, the rest by irrational spending by government.
With the state of economy the Philippines is having, the only reason for the government to be gallantly generous is the upcoming elections.
What will the salary increase approval do? It would make people look at the executive as that who sides with them and this tends to create a division in government: the executive and the legislative.
Legislators who would vote against the increase would be hated, while the executive would bank on a no-reasonable vote but for the shine of money, the ploy works.
This early, talks are already circulation in the barangays saying that the loss of Administration candidate can mean the total scrapping of the social benefits program, the stopping of the raise and the withdrawal of social security pension increase.
Or the plan pushes through and effectively puts the burden of upbringing a bankrupt economy back on its feet.
Either way, this rather untimed generosity will have people always losing.
by admin | Nov 10, 2015 | Headlines, Local News / Bohol Balita
TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol November 9, (PIA)—The option for organic agriculture could be hard and tedious but, when done right, will produce the same harvest as that of the farms with chemical fertilizers, but puts premium on the environment.
Marissa Tuazon, of the Pambansang Kilusan nga mga Magsasaka (PAKISAMA) pointed out that in farms, the experience of lessening the use of chemical inputs in the farms to save a little on will always have ill effects on the harvest, so they would have to bombard inputs to produce.
This ultimately produces that vicious cycle that would be endlessly binding the farmers to inputs and fertilizers to be able to produce, of a failure in cropping happens, she explained.
We are into local developments in the towns, using the old ways, considering that we have proven it; an organic farmer is now able to harvest 150 cavans per hectare, which, according to Tuazon is equal to the harvest of a farm using chemical fertilizer.
Themselves striving to effect asset reforms in the farms, PAKISAMA starts from issues in social justice to social enterprises, are now into building agri-based social enterprises in Carmen Bohol.
The plan is to help farmers wane themselves from the shackles of inorganic farm inputs so that the investments can be saved for the family.
PAKISAMA as well as other organic agriculture advocates in Bohol, relentlessly push for the return to the adoption of the more environment friendly fertilizers and pesticides or herbicides to make a statement on helping the campaign for climate change mitigation.
It is always survival of the fittest, so when farmers use synthetic herbicides to weed the farm and pesticides to rid the farms of pests, much of the chemicals are retained in the food, which is eaten, or are being washed out during rains, contaminating other farms and the water systems.
Zen Darunday, member of the Bohol Nature Conservation Society (BONACONSO) and a key officer of the Bohol Initiators of Sustainable Agricultural Development (BISAD) shared research that showed that of the 60% of the greenhouse gasses come from agriculture.
These gasses include methane from rotten leaves and animal wastes, nitrous oxides from chemical fertilizers and other soil demineralizers.
She said nitrogen-based fertilizers are 300 times more potent in racking heat, contributing to the climate change.
With chemical fertilizers clearly contributing to climate change despite the fact that it also leads to serious pollution issues which compound environmental destruction, groups like BISAD, PAKISAMA, Hugpong sa mga Mag-uumang Bol-anon (HUMABOL) and BONACONSO push therefore, for a serious organic farming adoption in Bohol.
We need to make true to our adopted green-development agenda, this time, it should not just be a mouthed promise but translated to reality, they urged.
In the advent of ASEAN integration, Tuazon picks on the edge for organic products which would be highly competitive when products from other countries start to flood the local markets.
Organic agriculture is our economic edge, and this helps the environment, so this must be seriously implemented by Bohol, who professes to be a province whose development is guided by the considerations of a sustainable environment, the groups said. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)
by admin | Nov 10, 2015 | Headlines, Local News / Bohol Balita
TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol November 9, (PIA)—Either Bohol goes for organic agriculture or it does not.
Organic agriculture advocates in Bohol slam the local implementation of the organic farming here noting that officials are doing a chacha.
Bohol Island State University’s (BISU) Professor Jose Travero, a revered organic farming initiator and known pillar of the Bohol Initiators of Sustainable Agricultural Development (BISAD) bemoaned the current state of the local implementation of the organic farming and agriculture.
Himself into keeping an organic farm and mentoring one that produces Bohol’s only organic papaya from a farm in Sagbayan, Travero picks on Bohol’s forward and backward as to its stand on organic agriculture, thus chacha.
Travero and the members of BISAD, also said they are wondering why Bohol promotes sustainable agriculture through the use of organic agriculture and yet be blunt in promoting hybrid rice.
Moreover, former BISAD executive director Zenaida Darunday, who is a staunch supporter of the move to really make Bohol genetically modified organism free (GMO-free) also added that the introduction of hybrid rice necessitates inorganic fertilizer inputs.
Salvio Makinano, another organic agriculture promoter, pointed out that he was hopeful Bohol would be true to the promise of organic farming promotion after the provincial government put up an annual organic agriculture budget of P1 million under Gov. Erico Aumentado.
By the following years, Bohol allocated under Governor Edgar Chatto some P3 million annual organic agriculture budget, Makinano added.
But, what have we got to show on organic farming? he asked.
He said much of the budget allocated for organic farming is going to research, which he claimed is never a production accomplishment.
“We already have an organic farming technology, so there is no need to do much more research,” professor Travero noted.
“In fact, what is needed is not research but implementation of the technology,” Travero, who teaches and models sustainable agriculture at the province’s only state university divulged.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel, he said even as he, along with BISAD hopes Bohol leadership could finally decide what to do with the move that can slowly wean Bohol farm from the burdens of environmentally destructive chemical fertilizers. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)
