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iSIQUIJOR Information is our business.

THE OFFICIAL E-NEWSLETTER OF THE PHILIPPINE INFORMATION AGENCY - SIQUIJOR | WWW.PIA.GOV.PH and the DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - SIQUIJOR | WWW.DOST.GOV.PH VOL. 3 | NO. 27 August 1-10, 2015

Larena, Siquijor towns bag POPCOM award

August 10 (PIA) – Larena and Siquijor towns are among the six local government units (LGUs) in Central Visayas that won the Regional Rafael M. Salas Population and Development Award (RMSPDA) from the Commission on Population (POPCOM-7) on August 7.

The LGUs were awarded for their excellence and innovation in Population and Development programs, said POPCOM-7 Information Officer II Sheryl Mary Villarta-Ygay.

Declared first place winners for City and Municipality categories are the City of Lapu-Lapu in Cebu and the Municipality of Larena in Siquijor.

R e g i o n a l w i n n e r s r e c e i v e d P50,000 each and plaques of recognition.

Cebu City was awarded second place while Carcar City in Cebu bagged third prize in the same category.

The municipalities of Compostela in Cebu and Siquijor got the first place and second place for the municipality category, said Ygay.

The award is named in honor of Rafael M. Sales, the first Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund.

It is given to LGUs which continuously pursue the vision and ideals of Rafael M. Salas in achieving a better world for present and future generations through high quality programs for POPDEV.

Ygay said the 2014 RMSPDA is intended to continue the legacy of Rafael M. Salas, the first Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, who is known as “Mr. Population” in the international community.

He was considered as the founder of the holistic population management program who advocated the importance of understanding the links between population and development and the need to take population factors into account in development planning.

POPCOM 7 Regional Director Atty.

Bruce Ragas said the criteria for giving the awards were based on the selected indicators in the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Department of Health (DOH) with subcategories like the amount of budget allocated by the local government unit for health services; health facilities with maternity health care package; the number of physicians/nurses/midwives in relation to their population, among others.

The City of Lapu-Lapu and the Municipality of Larena, Siquijor will be entries of Region 7 to the national award this year.

“The welfare of the populace should be everyone’s concern much more if you are a person with a mandate to serve,” said Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz C. Radaza in her speech.

S h e s a i d t h a t t h e p e o p l e w h o e l e c t e d t h e m i n t o o ff i c e expect them to deliver what they promised during the election time.

“What is expected of us, elected officials and even government executives is to ensure that our people benefit from the progress and development that we all are working on when we were given the mandate and authority,” Radaza added. (rmn/jsme/PIA7-Cebu/POPCOM-7 report)

Commission on Population Regional Director, Atty. Bruce N. Ragas personally awarded the Plaque of Recognition and cash prizes to LGU-Larena, represented

by Hon. Mayor Dean S. Villa and Municipal Health Officer Dr. Susan Jojie O. Villa (above) and LGU-Siquijor represented

by Mayor Mei Ling Quezon (below) as the Regional 1st and 2nd placers for the Rafael M. Salas Population and Development Award (RMSPDA), municipal category.

iSIQUIJORGOVERNMENTNEWS

DOST turns over check to 2 food entreps

by Engr. Reinhold Jek Abing

In 2 separate events, DOST Siquijor thru P S T D E n g r. de la Peña handed over the check to Ms. Camille Vi Calibo of Sweet Sensations Cakes and Pastries (left photo) and to Marilou Pabinguit of M’s Place (below) as recipients of DOST SETUP.

SIQUIJOR, (PIA) - - The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) here in Siquijor handed over checks worth P429,500 and PhP663,790 to Marilou Pabinguit, proprietor of M’s Place, and. Camille Vi Calibo, proprietor of Sweet Sensations Cakes and Pastries, respectively.

The turnover was spearheaded

by Provincial Science and Technology Director Engr. Mario E. de la Peña and witnessed by DOST Siquijor PSTC staff.

The amounts will be used to implement two separate projects entitled “Technology Introduction for the Production of Vegetablebased Breads and Noodles of M’s Place in Siquijor, Siquijor” and “Improving Production Capacity and Efficiency, Product Appearance, Quality and Processing of Sweet Sensations Cakes and Pastries”.

M’s Place plans on making vegetable breads and squash noodles as addition to their existing services.

The proprietor who is a licensed nutritionist, wanted to promote nutrition in the province by incorporating it in the breads which is one of the most sought-after snacks and foods in the province.

On the other hand, Sweet Sensations Cakes and Pastries is availing the assistance for the second time.

This time, the money will be spent to further upgrade its cooking facilities in the manufacture of breads and pastries.

During the turnover ceremony, both recipients thanked the agency for the project and expressed optimism and cooperation.

DA-7 intensifies pest control after long drought

CENTRAL VISAYAS, August 14 (PIA) – The Department of Agriculture (DA-7) here intensified its efforts to prevent the severe damage on crops and vegetation caused by a possible attack of pests after a long drought.

In the recent Association of Government Information Officers (AGIO-7) forum, Bienvenido Acabal Jr, agricultural center chief III of Regional Crop Protection Center of DA-7, said that they are closely monitoring the occurrence of pests in the current dry spell.

Pests that are likely to exist include army worms, grasshoppers, and rats in farmlands.

Acabal added that DA-7 has been monitoring areas in the

region that might be affected, mostly farmers of corn and rice crops.

“Since last year we have been conducting caravan in Central Visayas and informed the farmers on El Niño and its possible effects to agriculture,” Acabal stressed.

He also urged farmers to be vigilant as pests will not directly attack crops as they will settle first in grasslands.

He added that in July this year, there are reports of the occurrence of army worms in some areas in Central Visayas that affected 56.3 hectares of the total 5,041.53 hectares of land being monitored by the department.

Most of these are in some areas in Bohol and Cebu and a big portion

of it is reported in Negros Oriental.

Acabal clarified that this is not alarming as the case in Negros Oriental is still manageable and can not be considered as an outbreak.

He added that liquid insecticide, pesticide, and herbicide are already distributed in these areas to prevent its multiplication into huge volume of pests that might attack farm crops.

Farmers, LGUs and DA-7 j o i n e d e ff o r t s i n t h e a p p l i c a t i o n of these pest control to farms.

In this regard, DA-7 intensified its monthly monitoring to prevent the spread of army worms to large parts of the region and in preparation for a possible occurrence of other pests following the long drought. (rmn/ays/PIA-7/AGIO-7 Forum)

iSIQUIJORGOVERNMENTNEWS iSIQUIJOR GOVERNMENTNEWS

Report good performing civil servants -CSC

(PIA) – Civil Service Commission (CSC) calls on public to report good performing government agencies or individuals.

CSC7 Chief Human Resource Specialist Prolaine Daclan said, it will be inspiring the rest of the civil servants when they hear also of reports of fellow civil servants works being appreciated.

Daclan in today’s Kapihan sa PIA said, the Commission is now receiving thousands of reports of various agencies since the start of the more accessible feedback and complaint mechanisms.

“However only one percent of these reports are positive ones, the rest are complaints,” Daclan said.

Here in Central Visayas, the CSC received around 50 reports and in 2015, in the last six months, the figures had already tripled.

Most of these complaints she said are from those agencies with higher density clients like Land Transportation Office (LTO), National Statistics Office (NSO), Registry of Deeds (ROD) and many others.

“That’s why we call on those who catch government employees doing a good job to please tell us because we will document them,” Daclan said.

Recognizing good performances of civil servants are highlights of next month’s 11 5 t h y e a r c e l e b r a t i o n o f the Philippine Civil Service.

CSC7 information officer Myra Fortuna said, they will give out Honor Awards and Seal of Excellence for government agencies.

For this year in the regional awards, they will recognize five front line services.

These include LTO Siquijor, Pagibig Ayala Cebu, Philhealth and Government Service and Insurance System Tagbilaran.

There will also be a fun run and a chorale competition. (mbcn/fcc/PIA7-Cebu)

iNFOBYTES

Municipal health officer Dr. Susan Jojie Villa checking the heartbeat of one of the persons with disabilities present during the launching of Free Clinic for PWDs held at the Larena Municipal Lobby. The activity is in line with the celebration of the 37th National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week with the theme “Health and Wellness Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities Toward Inclusive Development for All.”

Enrique Villanueva Police Station distributing APEC 2015 flyers to students and townfolks.

In support of PNP P.A.T.R.O.L 2030: DPDO, PSupt Crisaleo Tolentino presided the Operations Review on Tactical Dashboard at SPPO Conference Hall where Siquijor PS and Larena PS presented their stations Tactical Dashboard. The TWG from Siquijor Police Provincial Office (SPPO) Hqs serve as the panelist.

iSIQUIJORGOVERNMENTNEWS

LGUs are major partners in Pantawid Pamilya

August 10 (PIA) – Local government units (LGUs) are among the major partners in the implementation of the PantawidPamilyang Pilipino Program by providing the supply-side support, including monitoring, and grievance resolution.

This was stressed by Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD-7) Regional Information Officer and Head Social Marketing Unit Leah Quintana.

However, she said that DSWD’s engagement with LGUs does not include the identification of beneficiaries.

This is done to maintain impartiality and to avoid the perception of possible political influence, she added.

This developed as Senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos raised that the PantawidPamilya would have been less prone to leakage if the DSWD tapped LGUs as partners instead of exclusively implementing it.

Sen. Marcos, however, did not elaborate the extent of his proposed DSWD-LGU partnership.

Quintana said the entry of the program to an LGU starts with the conduct of the Pre-Supply Side Activity where a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)is drawn between DSWD and the LGU to formalize partnership regarding program implementation.

Under the MOA, the LGU will commit to provide infrastructure like health stations and educational facilities to enable the beneficiaries to comply with the health and education requirements said Quintana.

Apart from this, advisory committees at the provincial and municipal levels are organized headed by the governor and the town mayor, respectively, added the social welfare and development official.

The advisory committees oversee the over-all implementation of PantawidPamilya in the Provincial and City/ Municipal. They are also responsible in ensuring that the commitments of the Local Government stipulated in the MOA are fulfilled. In addition, they are also tasked to facilitate and address complaints and requests endorsed to the committees.

DSWD emphasized that the beneficiaries were taken from the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction or Listahanan, a database of poor families which explains further why LGUs are not involved in the selection of beneficiaries of PantawidPamilya,

Quintana said DSWD is now winding up the second assessment of poor families which will update the 2009 database.

The updated database will then become the basis for the identification of government social protection programs and services including the PantawidPamilya.

For the second assessment, DSWD has enhanced the targeting system and is now implementing quality control measures such as random re-interviews and spot checks, to ensure that the assessment will produce accurate and reliable results.

PIA-Siquijor representative with the Municipal Link and parners of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) in Maria LGU, in one of the meetings to discuss issues and concerns in the program implementation and to plan for schedule of Family Development Sessions in \barangays.

Among the enhancements made to the targeting system is the development of new proxy means test (PMT) model.

The PMT is a statistical model that estimates income of poor households based on household characteristics such as housing materials, education attainment and livelihood of each household member, among others, she said.

Improvements in the new model such as inclusion of barangay characteristics as among the determinants of poverty status and installation of a second stage screener to weed out possible inclusion errors, resulted to the decrease in model-based error rates, from having an inclusion and exclusion error rates of 22-35% in the 2009 model to 6.9-19.3% in the new model.

An inclusion error is when a non-poor family is classified as poor, while an exclusion error is when a true poor family is classified as non-poor.

With Sen. Marcos bringing up the issue on leakage rate in PantawidPamilya, DSWD emphasized that the issue has long been resolved.

The issue of the alleged leakage stemmed from an article published by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) using 2009 data which has been used to incorrectly calculate that P19 billion of current program funds did not go to intended beneficiaries.

The ADB has already clarified this and expressed that it continues to support the DSWD on the implementation of PantawidPamilya.

“DSWD has resolved the leakage problem and that this is no longer the current situation of the program,” the ADB press statement said.

DSWD maintains that it continues to address leakages in the program through the Beneficiary Updating System (BUS)

and the Grievance Redress System (GRS).

To d a t e , t h e B U S a n d the GRS has already delisted more than 77,000 ineligible beneficiaries.

The GRS provides a platform for addressing concerns and complaints.

Majority of the cases recorded and responded were issues on the exclusion of qualified families and the inclusion of ineligible families. Other issues involve erring beneficiaries.

Moreover, the GRS received 51,557 complaints through the GRS. Of this, 30,670 have been resolved as of June 2015. The complaints include issues on eligibility, misdemeanor, and payment, among others.

The GRS also sanitizes the database of beneficiaries by removing cases of double entry or duplication, fraud, missing beneficiaries, waived membership, to the program, and unregistered beneficiaries, among others. (jsme/PIA7-Cebu/DSWD-7)

iSIQUIJOR

is the Island of Siquijor’s first electronic newsletter produced by the Philippine Information Agency-Siquijor Information Center and the DOST - Provincial Science and Technology Center.

It contains snippets of information about Siquijor, Central Visayas and the Philippine Government.

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