Category: News

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/04 July) – Safety measures notwithstanding, two workers of Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI) were rushed to a hospital in South Cotabato late Monday afternoon for treatment of injuries.Rolando Doria, SMI project coordinator, said the workers, belonging to a commissioned firm, were working on a drilling project to determine a water table study the mining firm is presently pursuing. “We are still investigating the incident. However, I’d like to assure you that there was no explosion and that it was just accidental,” he said. The incident took place in remote Bongmal, a hamlet of Barangay Kimlawis in Kiblawan, Davao del Sur. It was the first time in three years that a work-related accident happened at the firm, Doria said.

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/03 July)– The challenge posed by an Army official in North Cotabato to the New People's Army to show proof that the military was behind the recent killings of two development workers here was a mere 'alibi' and a 'diversionary tactic,' the rebel group's Magtanggol Roque Command Front-51 said.

DAVAO CITY   (MindaNews/02 July) —  Personnel from local government units (LGUs) topped the list of government workers facing the most number of  cases before the Deputy Ombudsman for Mindanao, senior graft investigator Gay Maggie Violan told some 30 mayors who attended the 1^st Conference on Integrity and Good Governance.

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/02 July) — The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) here said Mount Apo, the country’s highest peak, is a “potentially active” volcano but assured the public there is no cause for worry.

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/02 July) — Operatives of the North Cotabato police raided the house of a suspected manufacturer of illegal firearms in Matalam, North Cotabato on Friday.

Chief Insp. Leo Ajero, chief of the intelligence division, identified the suspected gun manufacturer as Winsip Dalmacio, 38, resident of Santo Cano, Barangay Linao, Matalam.

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/02 July) – Armed clashes in at least seven of 28 towns in Maguindanao following the June 23 ambush on Governor Andal Ampatuan in Shariff Aguak town are driving more investors away.

Ma. Lourdes Lim, director of the National Economic and Development Authority in Region 12 (Southwestern Mindanao), has called on government and MILF forces to cease fighting and observe the ceasefire agreement once again.

TILL DEATH. Killed together, buried together. Relatives and friends chant "Hustisya para kay George," and "Hustisya para kay Macel" on Saturday, July 1 at the Cotabato Memorial Park in Kidapawan City. MindaNews photo by Carolyn O. Arguillas

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/01 July) –Kidapawan Bishop Romulo Valles urged the killers of development workers George and Maricel Vigo to “be afraid now” and “repent” because “God has finished His investigation and punishment is ready.”
“We may not see it right away, but certainly, surely, the justice of the Lord will be done, be assured of that,” Valles said during the homily of the funeral mass for the Vigos Saturday morning at the Cathedral.

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/01 July) — The new impeachment case filed against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will only prosper if the people will get actively involved in it, even to the point of "boycotting the establishments that support the administration and perhaps consider slowing down in the payment of their taxes as an expression of their disgust with the corruption and abuses of the administration," Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr. today said in a statement.

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/01 July) – An outpouring of grief, admiration and sense of loss marked Friday night's vigil for couple George and Maricel Vigo, at the Our Lady Mediatrix of All Grace Cathedral here.

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/01 July) – The first phase of the construction of the Mount Kitanglad Cultural Heritage Center will start this month as the World Bank has released the full amount of the grant that it had approved early this year, according to the Kitanglad Integrated NGOs (KIN).

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/19 June) – At least 300 farmers, their wives and children were forced to evacuate last weekend after government gunships pounded a communist rebel camp in the mountains northeast of Malaybalay City, Bukidnon.

Virginia Flores,  Malaybalay City social welfare officer, said 77 families or 335 persons living in the mountain village of Busdi, some 50 kilometers northeast from Malaybalay City,  were displaced by the fighting. Many of the displaced villagers are children, she said.

“They fled on foot. Sometimes they hid in the forest to avoid being caught in the middle of the fighting,” Flores told MindaNews by phone this morning.Fr

M19news (DAVAO CITY) – Of five ARMM provinces, only Maguindanao has remained in the country’s “top 10” poorest as of 2003 while three other ARMM provinces – Sulu, Lanao del Sur and Tawi-tawi – are now out of the list, records from the National Statisitcal Coordination Board (NSCB) showed.

Maguindanao ranked second among the country’s poorest in terms of poverty incidence among families, but the increase in its poverty incidence among families was only 1.1%, from 59.3% in 2000 to 60.4% in 2003, compared with Zamboanga del Norte’s 17.5%, from 47.0% in 2000 to 64.6% in 2003. Zamboanga ranked first of the “poorest”  nationwide.

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/19 June) —  Two motorcycle-riding men shot dead a couple actively involved in NGO work at around 5:15 p.m. today along Barangay Singao. 

Killed were George Vigo, 33, project officer of the Mindanao Youth Leadership Program of the Community and Family Services, International (CFSI), a Cotabato City-based NGO dealing with rehabilitation of internally displaced persons, and his wife, Maricel, 36, part-time media relations officer of Rep. Lala Talino of North Cotabato’s first district and since early this year was area coordinator of an NGO delivering solar services to villagers in remote areas.

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/18 June) – Malacañang’s P1-billion budget for an escalated war against the New People’s Army will mean more extra-judicial killings, forced “disappearances” of government critics and dislocation of farmers in remote areas, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan – Southern Mindanao today said in a statement. Bayan spokesperson Ariel Casilao said President Arroyo “is pointedly ignoring calls to increase the social services budget and to stop the political killings and intensified military operations in the countryside” and “her latest move to augment the counter-insurgency fund by a billion shows proof of the vindictive and even more fascist bent her regime is taking.” Casilao said more than 600 leaders and members of militant groups have been killed since Arroyo assumed power in 2001.

COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/18 June) – What’s in a name?  Certainly a lot, especially since regions compete with each other in enticing investors.  Region 12, however, has been suffering from an identity crisis. It is the only region out of six in Mindanao that is known by at least six names: Region 12, Central Mindanao, the tongue-twisting Soccsksargen, South-Central Mindanao, Cotabato region and Southwestern Mindanao. The confusion has affected everybody, including media. In fact, the title of the summit where Hadja Sittie Marian Lim, regional director of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), was asked late Saturday afternoon  to clarify how the region should be referred to, is “Central Mindanao Media Summit.”  Lim, however, refers to the region simply as “Region XII.”

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/04 June) – Mindanao’s Bayan Muna Rep. Joel Virador has called for the “immediate scrapping of all confidential and intelligence expenditures of the Arroyo administration as an initial step to curb the continuing killings of political activists, journalists, lawyers, youths and church people.”

In a press statement, Virador said the scrapping of these “Confidential and Intelligence (COIN) Funds” must be done “immediately”  as it is “very plausible that these government funds are being used by the Macapagal-Arroyo administration to fund operations of death squads to murder Bayan Muna members, leaders and supporters nationwide.”

COLUMBIO, Sultan Kudarat (MindaNews/03 June) – Relatives of a B'laan who was killed in an alleged indiscriminate firing perpetrated by government soldiers in a remote village here want justice for his death.

Relatives of Rogelio Lagaro, 35, also demanded that the Army's 25th Infantry Battalion assigned in this town indemnify the victim.

Lagaro, a hunter, died when soldiers reportedly fired shots towards him and five of his friends on June 1 while they were hunting wild animals in Sitio Gosmolo, Barangay Datal Blao.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/02 June) – When the church and churchgoers scrimp on candles, times must really be hard.

 

Candles lit on the candelarias of churches have steadily become fewer and vendors blame this on the economy.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/02 June) – The country’s first index survey on living standard, a set of baseline economic and social indicators, would have to delay its awaited presentation and early use in the city’s budget allocation and delivery of social policies. 

Dr. Samuel Cruz, administrative officer of the City Health Office (CHO), said the living standard index (LSI) survey already finished the major requirement of field survey and data have been inputted into the main computer system. 

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/02 June) – Distributors of various lines of large format inkjet printers, and marketing officers of advertising agencies outside the national capital, have found a comfortable and profitable niche in the country’s rich advertising industry. 

Despite competition, money poured into advertising has been tremendous and has kept them going, a widespread perception of a general letdown in the economy notwithstanding.

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/31 May) — Two days after the surrender of some 25 former Moro rebels in Tacurong City, another batch of Moro renegades yielded to the Philippine Army, reports from the 75th Infantry Battalion said. Lt. Col. Paul Atal, commander of the 75IB, said the group of Commander Bagibagi, whose real name is Boy Palangan, surrendered to his office on Monday, two days after the laying down of arms of Commander Michael Pompong and his group. 

KIDAPAWAN CITY  (MindaNews/30 May)– A notorious leader of an armed group operating in south and central Mindanao surrendered to authorities in Sultan Kudarat province last week. Commander Ocok Polinas Epek, leader of a Manobo tribe in Palembang, Sultan Kudarat, surrendered last Thursday to Supt. Teng Mamalinta Tocao, chief of the Sultan Kudarat provincial police command.But the police in Sultan Kudarat has yet to determine as to how they would handle the surrender of Commander Epek.Tocao said that Commander Epek has so many pending cases in court, including robbery with homicide, murder, and cattle rustling.