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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. 42 December 1-8, 2015

NFA-Siquijor’s food guardians vow to help prevent rice profiteering

SIQUIJOR (PIA) -- Food guardians of the National Food Authority (NFA) here have recently pledged to help the government prevent profiteering and ensure the stability of rice supply and prices.

NFA provincial manager Hilaria Ganzon said that food guardians play a vital role in the preservation of rice, food p r o d u c t i v i t y, f o o d s e c u r i t y and safety in the province.

Ganzon said food guardians uphold responsibilities such as not to waste rice, help make sure that rice is available, accessible, affordable, and visible in the public markets and that they follow the correct food handling procedures to make sure that rice is safe for consumers.

“They will undergo trainings and seminars on the rules and regulations in the grains business, market monitoring and food handling and safety, among others.

They will also be linked with other stakeholders and industry-related NFA projects, such as Bantay Bigas, in collaboration with the Kaya Natin! Movement,” Ganzon added.

The pledge of the rice food guardians in the province was conducted recently during the observation of the Grains Industry Week which is based on Presidential Proclamation 1058 issued in 1997.

During the event, a sign-up booth was opened at the NFA warehouse at Nonoc, Larena, Siquijor where volunteers registered, took their photos and signed on the Pledge Wall.

Ganzon also said that the one million food guardians shall be identified with the h a s h t a g # 1 f o r 1 0 0 i N FA n t r y on its Facebook page.

The campaign aims to solicit the participation of at least one million volunteers across the country to serve as food guardians of 100 million Filipinos, said Ganzon. (rmn/rac/PIA7-Siquijor w/ reports from I.A.Abatayo)

DSWD Regional Director Mercedita Jabagat giving her message to the 4Ps beneficiaries during the Inter-agency Convergence Caravan in Lazi, Siquior.

4Ps inter-agency convergence caravan held in Lazi, Siquijor

SIQUIJOR (PIA) -- At least 300 partner-beneficiaries from the municipaliy of Lazi have availed of the services offered during the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) inter-agency convergence caravan held recently in Lazi, Siquijor.

This is the fifth leg of the convergence caravan after its kick-off in Madridejos this year.

DSWD7 Regional Director Mercedita Jabagat said the caravan in Lazi was agreed upon during a regional workshop conducted by DSWD.

With more than 1,200 beneficaries, Lazi holds the highest number of program beneficiaries and the longest in terms of implementation in the province.

Some 14 participating agencies offered their respective services that include information on scholarship programs, trainings, assessment and certification and releasing of certificates, among others.

Beneficiaries also enjoyed the free foot and body massage by TESDA graduates and blood typing, Blood Pressure taking, Cholesterol, Sugar/Glucose testing and weight taking by the Department of Health through the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO).

Participating agencies were the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Health (DOH), Population Commission (POPCOM), Department of Education (DepED), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office (PSWDO) , Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), Department of Agrarian Refgorm (DAR) , Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), NACPHIL and the Young Life Foundation. (rmn/rac/PIA7-Siquijor)

iSIQUIJORGOVERNMENTNEWS

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

STARBOOKS now operational in Maria Central ES, San Juan Tourism Center

by Engr. Reinhold Jek Abing

SIQUIJOR (PIA) -- In a bid to bring science and technology educational materials closer to the public, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) here pushed for the operation and turn over of new sets of STARBOOKS or the Science andTechnology Academic Research-based Openly Operated Kiosk Station.

The STARBOOKS equipment was turned over to the municipality of Maria as part of the Community Empowerment Thru

Science and Technology.

This was done following the Information Dissemination Campaign made by the DOST Siquijor recently for the town to avail of STARBOOKS.

The info campaign was held at the DA Training Center.

Training on how to use STARBOOKS also followed where attendees from the different public schools in the municipality and employees of the Municipal Hall had the opportunity to browse through STARBOOKS.

Siquijor public school teachers happily received the Disaster Risk Reduction Management (DRM)-related posters distributed by the Department of Science and Technology provincewide.

The project was turned over to the Maria Central Elementary School through the municipal mayor and DOST- Siquijor.

Maria Central Elementary School teacher Anabelle Sumile and company received the unit from Mayor Meynard Asok and Engr. Reinhold Jek Abing of DOST Siquijor PSTC.

LGU San Juan has also one operational STARBOOK located at its Tourism Center in the Capilay Spring Park where students from nearby schools and walk-in guests can browse through the unit every weekdays.

As of this writing, the province of Siquijor boasts a total of seven units of STARBOOKS located in Siquijor State College, DOST Siquijor PSTC, Quezon Memorial Institute of Siquijor, San Juan Tourism Center, Maria Central Elementary School, and Enrique Villanueva Central Elementary School.

STARBOOKS was dubbed as the Philippine’s first science digital library.

Earlier this year, STARBOOKS was among the five projects to receive the 2015 American Library Association (ALA) Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects.

What sets STARBOOKS apart from the Internet-based S&T sources is that it has a comprehensive collection of digitized reference materials, periodicals, journals and theses from the Science and Technology Information Institute (STII) library, said DOST-Siquijor Provincial Engr.

Mario de la Pena.

Other than that, STARBOOKS is a stand-alone unit which means that the user can access S&T information from its database even without the aid of internet.

This makes STARBOOKS a must for far-flung schools and institutions which lack internet connectivity, he said. (rac/PIA7Siquijor/Engr. Reinhold Jek Abing/DOST)

Unemployment iNFOBYTES rate drops to new record low in 10 Years

The country’s labor market continued to record positive gains in October 2015 as unemployment rate fell to its lowest in a decade and both employment and underemployment figures further improved, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

The Philippine Statistics Authority reported today that the country’s unemployment rate dropped further to 5.7 percent in October 2015 from 6.0 percent in the same month last year, making it the new lowest unemployment rate recorded in the past decade.

“This is also the first time that unemployment rate dropped below 6.0 percent. In fact, for the full year 2015, the country did better than the Philippine Development Plan target of 6.6-6.8 Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino percent for unemployment. This is due Program (4Ps) Inter-agency tofaster employment growth in the services Convergence Caravan held and industry sectors,” said Economic at Lazi, Siquijor where 300 Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan. beneficiaries have availed

The latest round of the Labor of the services offered by Force Survey also revealed that labor force some 14 program partner participation rate dipped to 63.4 percent in agencies.

October 2015, mainly coming from the young working age population (15-24 years old).

“The decision amoung the 15- to 24year-old population not to look for work during the period could be because they chose to pursue higher education or undergo training, as indicated by the increase in tertiary education enrolment rate, as well as the increase in technical vocational engagements among the youth,” Balisacan said.

The latest LFS also showed lower underemployment rate and improvement in employment rate during the period.

The underemployment rate in October 2015 went down to 17.6 percent relative to the 18.7 percent in October 2014. This reflects an estimated 413,000 reduction in the number of employed persons who wanted more work during the period.

“The largest decline in the number of underemployment was among wage and salary workers who worked in private establishments and those Verify the status of your voter’s registration with the COMELEC Precinct who are self-employed without any paid Finder: http://www.gov.ph/services/online-voter-status-verification/ … employee,” Balisacan said. The Cabinet official also noted that the number of part-time workers seeking additional hours of work decreased by 7.9 percent, which is equivalent to 334,000 less underemployed workers who work less than 40 hours per week.

Similarly, employment rate grew by 0.4 percent to reach 39 million in October 2015, owing to stronger employment growth in both services and industry sectors. The number of workers in the services sector grew by 2.1 percent, or an additional 440,000 workers employed; while workers in the industry sector grew by 2.8 percent, or an additional 169,000 Filipinos workers employed during the period.

“This positive trend in the labor market is also reinforced by an improvement in the quality of jobs generated, as majority of the labor force found remunerative work and full-time employment,” said Balisacan, who is also NEDA Director-General.

Wage and salary workers increased by 573,000. In terms of hours of work, the share of full-time employment to total employment increased to 65.2 percent from 63.7 percent. Meanwhile, part-time employment went down to 34.2 percent from 35.4 percent in October 2014.

“For these to continue, the government must ensure that the gains and efforts to focus on quality employment are further sustained. We need to sustain public investments in education and training to improve labor productivity and capacities. At the same time, we need to sustain the momentum of fiscal spending, particularly in infrastructure development, to boost economic growth and employment in agiculture and industry sectors,” said Balisacan

However, as employment growth in the agriculture sector was dampened by weather disturbances, he stressed the importance of proper implementation of the Roadmap for Addressing the Impact of El Niño (RAIN) to prepare affected workers in the sector. Balisacan said that strategies under the RAIN include production support to encourage the planting of high-yielding, multi-stress resistant varieties.

Crop shifting and even work shifting, depending on the likely effect of the El Nino, are also part of the RAIN strategies, he said. (NEDA)

iSIQUIJORGOVERNMENTNEWS

Cebuano News: “Oplan Lambat-Sibat” sa PNP, ipatuman na sa tibuok nasud

(PIA)--Ang “Oplan LambatSibat” sa Philippine National Police (PNP) gitakdang ipatuman na sa tibuok nasud human sa paglusad sa Managing Police Operations sa LambatSibat Manual kagahapon didto sa PNP National Headquarters sa Camp Crame nga gipangunahan ni PNP Chief Director General Ricardo Marquez.

Gibutyag ni Marquez nga nahisulat sa maong manual ang mga protocol ug guidelines sa pagpatuman sa “Lambat-Sibat” sa tibuok nasud alang sa epektibo, episyente ug

hapsay nga pagpatuman sa Managing Operations Patrol sa organisasyon.

Ang “Oplan: Lambat-Sibat” sa PNP minugna ni kanhi Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas nga namatud-ang usa ka major factor sa pagpakunhod ngadto sa halos 50 porsiyento sa mga street crimes sa kaulohan.

Usa kini ka makapaaskil nga crime prevention effort gamit ang “deliberate, programmatic ug sustained” police operations sama sa Checkpoint, Oplan Bakal-Sita, Mobile Patrol, Beat Patrol

ug Oplan Bulabog nga gisuportahan sa scientific crime reporting gikan sa Police Community Precincts (PCPs), ngadto sa mga estasyon, ngadto sa mga distrito ug ngadto na sa National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) ug pagsulbad niini base sa statistics.

Ang “Oplan Lambat-Sibat” usa ka sistema nga naggamit og crime data management ug interpretation nga nakatabang sa PNP sa strategic deployment sa mga police personnel sa mga hilit ug daghang lumulupyo nga lugar sa National Capital Region. (ecb/PIA7-Bohol)

Kapin 2M pensiyonado sa SSS, makadawat og 13th month pension

Dungan sa pagsaulog sa Kapaskuhan, ihatag sa Social Security System (SSS) ang 13th month pension nga mokabat sa P6.34 bilyon sa kapin duha ka milyong pensyonado niini karong buwan sa Disyemre, dungan sa pagdawat nila sa ilang binuwan nga pension.

Matud pa ni SSS Vice President for Benefits Administration Division Agnes iSIQUIJOR is the Island of San Jose, doble ang pension nga madawat sa mga pensiyonado sa SSS karong Disyembre.

Siquijor’s first electronic newsletter

Sugod niadtong 1988, tinuig nga tradisyon na sa SSS ang pagpanghatag produced by the Philippine Information Agency-Siquijor Information Center sa 13th month pension. and the DOST - Provincial Science and

Direktang mosulod sa bank account ang 13th month pension o di kaha Technology Center. ipadala ang tseke pinaagi sa koreyo.

“Ang pondong gigahin alang sa 13th month pension nahatag na sa SSS sa It contains snippets of information about mga partner banks niini niadto pang Nobyembre. Sama sa niaging tuig, madawat Siquijor, Central Visayas and the Philippine sa mga pensyonado ang ilang 13th month pension dungan sa ilang regular pension Government. alang sa Disyembre,” matud pa ni San Jose.

Kapin sa 99 porsiyento sa mga SSS pensioners ang naka-rehistro sa Pension THERE IS GOOD NEWS EVERYDAY. Payment pinaagi sa Bank Program o ang kanhi Mag-Impok sa Bangko Program, diin direkta nilang madawat ang ilang binuwang pensiyon sa ilang savings account.

Samtang adunay 12,500 ka pensyonado usab ang nipiling dawaton ang ilang pensiyon pinaagi sa tseke nga ipadala pinaagi sa koreyo tungod sa kakulang sa mga automated teller machines sa ilang lugar. /Pia Siquijor

Matud pa nga gi-deposito sa SSS ang 13th month pensions sa mga bangko /PIA Siquijor sa mga pensyonado duha ka semana sa wala pa ang buwan sa Disyembre. Samtang gisulod usab sa mga SSS partner banks sa indibidwal nga bank account sa mga @PiaSiquijor pensyonado ang 13th month pension sugod Disyembre. (ecb/PIA7-Bohol)

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