The Ilocos Times

By Dominic B. dela Cruz Staff Reporter Batac City —Batac Vice Mayor Ronald Allan M. Nalupta wants an investigation to trace who falsified the CCTV ordinance the council recently passed. In his chairman’s time in a regular session, he said he discovered that the CCTV ordinance has be falsified by still unidentified persons as all the “whereas” provisions were replaced. This ordinance should have been sent to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan for review. Nalupta said he was surprised to find out that the body of the CCTV ordinance, which was approved by the council, was already different from the ordinance that would be sent to the provincial board. He said all the “whereas” provisions were replaced. What sad to note, he added, was that his signature—along with those of council secretary Gladys Lagura and Batac Mayor Jeffrey Jubal Nalupta—were already affixed on the document. When the process for finalizing its transfer to the provincial board, Nalupta said he disco

Quality of infrastructure in the Philippines is second to the last in the ASEAN region. This was disclosed by Dr. Adoracion Navarro, senior research fellow of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), during the forum "Financing Infrastructure in the Philippines” held at PIDS. “In the Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 of the World Economic Forum, the Philippines is ranked 98 th   among 144 countries in terms of quality of overall infrastructure. Philippine infrastructure is worse than Cambodia’s,” Navarro said. In the ASEAN region, the only country the Philippines overtook was Viet Nam that placed 119 th , the ASEAN nation with the poorest quality of infrastructure. Ranked first in the region is Singapore, which is second overall among 144 countries. Malaysia was ranked 29 th ; Brunei Darussalam, 43th; Thailand, 49 th ; Cambodia, 72th; and Indonesia; 92th. Lao PDR and Myanmar are not included in the ranking. The Philippines got the lowest rank in

An official of the Department of Agriculture had commended the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in the implementation of the National Year of Rice (NYR2013), which had reached about 51.5M Filipinos. Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, undersecretary for special concerns, said NYR2013 has been “successful in raising awareness not only on the department’s initiatives to increase rice productivity and farmers’ income but in uniting all sectors for rice self-sufficiency and export of premium rice.” Puyat, who led the recent CelebRICE: A night for the RICEponsibles in Manila, said that the campaign had built a strong foundation for the agriculture industry, ensuring continuous productivity. However, she admitted that the department’s confidence is dampened by climate change, which she said is also agriculture’s biggest threat. “We may not be able to control when and where typhoons will hit or when droughts will occur. But we have to make sure that production is stable a

When it comes to divorce, who can beat the Philippines as the most hypocritical country on earth? The Philippines remains the only country on this planet which does not have a divorce law. Even Italy where the Roman Catholic pope lives allows divorce. Ay lastima Filipinas, mas papista que el mismo papa . Yet a Filipino citizen can get a divorce by going abroad or having his spouse get one abroad. The Family Code (signed by Corazon Aquino as Executive Order No. 209 on July 6, 1987 when she ruled the country as a dictator between the time she took the oath of office and the adoption of a new Constitution) does not contain any provision on divorce. But a Filipino citizen can go to a Philippine court to have his foreign divorce or his spouse’s foreign divorce recognized. This is not a do-it-yourself thing. Even a number of Filipino lawyers do not know how to do it as exemplified by a Filipino who hired a lawyer to do it but he turned out to be “ineffective” (the politically cor

It’s nice to be back and the quest for unpacking alternative and plausible futures for Ilocos continues. But before I carry on let me share a bit of the wonderful experiences and insights I had when I participated in designing the United Nations Foresight Section and Rockefeller Foundation’s global futures literacy project in Bellagio, Italy and chaired a panel on changing research practices during the 2013 World Social Science Forum in Montreal, Canada. The Bellagio foresight conference explored new ways of using foresight for decision-making and governance. The juice of the event was to design using collective intelligence approach the UKnow Lab Global Futures Literacy project for developed and developing countries. The International Social Science Council, on the other hand, granted me a scholarship fund to write, present and chair a panel on the futures of the social sciences at the Montreal Forum. Here I met a lot of wonderful people and experts from all around the wor

Teen also found dead in dam By Leilanie G. Adriano Staff Reporter San Nicolas , Ilocos Norte—Two-year old Ranhz Angelo was comfortably asleep in a woven mat placed at their living room at Barangay 3 Lusong, in this town while family members were partying outside their bungalow house when he was hit by a stray bullet at about 11:10 pm on December 31, 2013. On January 2, the child passed away at about 2 pm after being in a coma for two days at the Laoag City General Hospital’s intensive care unit. As of press time, police investigators are still clueless on the identity of the person who fired the gun at the height of New Year revelry. Based on police report of a team led by San Nicolas police chief Dominic Guerrero, the stray bullet passed through the Corpuz home’s galvanized roof and hit the two year-old victim’s left temple. His family is still shock of what happened. Luisa Corpuz, the victim’s grandmother said her daughter Aniceta (the victim’s mom

By Dominic B. dela Cruz Staff Reporter Laoag City Mayor Chevylle V.  Fariñas (File photo) Laoag City Mayor Chevylle V. Fariñas said the city government will have education as major concentration for 2014. She stressed that there is a need to give further importance and attention to pupils and students to accelerate their learning in their chosen fields of specialization. She disclosed that she have learned that only pupils and students who are athletes are given incentives whenever they win in regional and national athletic meets. The incentives are sourced from the city’s special education fund (SEF). In view of this, the first-term mayor decided to amend the SEF’s guidelines to also give recognition to pupils and students who excel in arts, music, and academics among others in the regional and national level to motivate them in achieving more. The mayor pointed out that excellence through education is a challenge that must be addressed. And to attain t