The Ilocos Times

By Dominic B. dela Cruz Staff reporter Laoag City —Vice mayor and Sangguniang Panlungsod presiding officer Michael V. Farinas has ordered the committee on laws to review the issuance of barangay clearances. Mr. Fariñas issued the order after 53 units of residential building were constructed at Brgy. Zamboanga without barangay clearances. The housing units are located within the vicinity of a subdivision in the area. Laoag councilor Edison Bonoan, committee on infrastructure chairperson, reported that Brgy. Zamboanga chairperson Elmer Lorenzo informed him their barangay has not issued any clearance for the said construction. He added that Mr. Lorenzo said the owners of the housing units should have secured barangay clearances first before they began the construction. During their regular session, Engr. Roy Tomas, the city’s building official said a barangay clearance is not a requirement under the national building code. He explained that it was only during th

IT is in the Letter of St. James that we are told about taming our tongue. It’s just a small part of our body, and yet its effect, good or bad, is great. “The tongue is indeed a little member and boasts great things. Behold how small a fire kindles a great wood,” (3,5) it says. We’re warned that taming it is indeed so difficult that when we manage to dominate it and direct it properly, we can be described as having reached our perfection. And the simple reason for that, to my mind, is that the tongue is the first to express to the outside world what truly is the state of our soul. It practically can reveal our true identity. It’s not our appearance that marks our identity. And our works come only later to show who we really are and what we are capable of. It’s the tongue that first shows where our mind and heart tilt in an abiding way. And so it can also draw immediate reaction from everyone. More than that, our tongue, and the word that comes through it is supposed to reflect the

The mighty lapu-lapu (grouper) has been fingerprinted, revealing new and valuable information on one of the country's most expensive commodities. The first genetic inventory of lapu-lapu was conducted by scientists at the Central Luzon State University (CLSU) using DNA fingerprinting and bar coding which characterized 27 species of commercially important lapu-lapu or groupers. In genetics, DNA fingerprintings isolate and make images of sequences of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). DNA barcoding uses a short genetic marker in the DNA to identify it as belonging to a particular species. The study was conducted by Simon Alcanta and Dr. Apolinario V. Yambot of CLSU's Biotechnology and Analytical Laboratory Project. The biotechnology tool DNA bar coding made possible the identification of grouper specimens at the species-level with a high degree of confidence and efficiency.   Previous studies were based only on morphology or the characterization of the form and

By Dominic B. dela Cruz Staff reporter October 18, 2014 Laoag City— The Laoag City official and department concerned have emphasized that all wastes from the Laoag City General Hospital are properly disposed. The issue stemmed from a radio report that liquid wastes from the hospital are being dumped in a field behind the building. The said issue was later taken up by former Laoag mayor Roger C. Fariñas who wrote a letter to provincial environment officer Juan P. delos Reyes. In his letter, which he wrote as president of consumers’ group Ilocos Norte Consumers Association, Mr. Fariñas said LCGH has no equipment to treat and disinfect liquids wastes from its dialysis machine. Mr. Fariñas added that he learned from an LCGH employee, whom he did not identify, that waste water is siphoned from the septic tank and then dumped in the rice fields behind the hospital. This, the former mayor said, poses a health risk not only for the environment and the people aroun

Embattled   Vice President   Jejomar   Binay   may not believe it.     But there are     concerns more     significant     than the     continuing     steep plunge in his     poll ratings     or his three-hour meeting      with President Benigno     Aquino     midweek. One is how 1.2 billion Catholics, including over 90 million Filipinos, will be affected by decisions the Synod of bishops, which ends Sunday, Oct. 19. The Synod’s   report is “something of a bombshell,” writes the New Yorker’s Alexander Stille. To   anchor the 2015 synod, it   has provoked arguments for   and   against.     As read to the synod, it urges greater openness and understanding toward divorced individuals, remarried couples, homosexuals or mixed couples who practice different religions. It suggests making annulment easier. Traditionalists however refuse to   buckle. “ One may wish Jesus might have been a little softer on divorce, ” says Cardinal George Pell   of Australia — one of eight cardinal

R.A. 9048 Form No. 10.1 (LCRO) Republic of the Philippines Local Civil Registry Office Province of Ilocos Norte Municipality of Pasuquin   NOTICE FOR PUBLICATION             In compliance with Section 5 of R.A. Act No. 9048, a notice is hereby served to the public that GREGORIO C. TAGAVILLA has filed with this office a petition for change of first name from “JEORGE” to “GREGORIO” in the birth certificate of JEORGE TAGAVILLA who was born on May 25, 1954 at Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte and whose parents are Cayetano Tagavilla and Leonida Caalim.           Any person adversely affected by said petition may file his written opposition with this office not later than November 3, 2014.   (SGD) FELIZA C. RATUITA Municipal Civil Registrar Oct. 20-26, Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2014*IT ______________________________________________   EXTRAJUDICIAL SETTLEMENT OF ESTATE WITH SALE           Notice is hereby given that the intestate estate of the late FELIZA GALACGAC and MAGNO AOIGAN who died on May 21, 1980 an

The nation's morale is at its lowest level as every branch and instrumentality of government is under trial for being faithless to the rightness of governance. First, we had impeached the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for criminal offenses unbecoming of his office; then we find three of the senators who impeached him in prison now for offenses graver than what they found him guilty of; then we have the most senior member of the Sandiganbayan, the nation's special court to try corrupt government officials, dismissed from office by the Supreme Court for—what else?—corruption. Not to be outdone, we have the Vice President and innumerable members of Congress and the Philippine National Police (PNP) chief under investigation for plunder and corruption charges too, not to mention that a former chief PNP is now incarcerated due also to plunder and corruption.   With these repulsive deeds of people in high offices of government occurring with regularity , should we wonder why r