World Bank team reviews agrarian reform community projects in NegOr
by: Rachelle M. Nessia
DUMAGUETE CITY, April 15 (PIA)-- A team of representatives from the World Bank together with the Department of Agrarian Reform is in Dumaguete City to conduct a review of the Second Agrarian Reform Communities Development Project (ARCDP2) from April 4 to 19.
The team led by World Bank Senior Operations Officer Ma. Theresa Quinones is conducting the implementaton completion review mission to finalize the ARCDP2's Implementation Completion Report, said Provincial Agrarian Reorm Officer II Stephen Leonidas in a statement.
The report will focus on the degree of the project's achievement of its development objective and outputs, the project's sustainablity, World Bank's and government's performance and lessons learned during the implementation.
Leonidas said the original ARCDP2 loan was closed on June 30 last year while the additional financing loan ended on December 31, last year.
The team's findings and recommendations will be outlined in a draft version of a document known as Aide Memoire, which will serve as the main reference during the Wrap-Up Meeting on April 19, 2011.
The final Aide Memoire and the World Bank Management letter will be issued thereafter, including the updated draft ICR for the Government’s review and comments. (RMN/PIA Negros Oriental)
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Visayas Football regional finals kick off in Dumaguete
by: Rachelle M. Nessia
DUMAGUETE CITY, April 15 (PIA) -- Football fever grips Dumaguete City as the Visayas regional finals of the Suzuki Under 23 Football Tournament kicks off today at the Silliman University Ballfield.
Five teams from Iloilo, Bacolod, Cebu, Dumaguete and Leyte will face off at the ballfield from April 15 to 19 from which two winning teams will earn the honor to represent Visayas during the Suzuki Under 23 National Cup on May 13 to 15.
The soft opening game saw the Cebu and Iloilo teams battling it out in the field at 8:00 am today.
In the afternoon, five members from the Philippine Azkals team will join the local players during a motorcade that will go around the city.
The participating Azkals players are Jason de Jong, Ian Araneta, Roel Gener, Yannick Tuason and Paolo pascual.
The second game will be at 3:00 p.m. today between the teams from Leyte and Dumaguete City.
All the games are free for the public.
Five provinces have earlier expressed interest to host the Visayas leg of the national tournament but the organizers picked the Negros Oriental Football Association (NORFA).
"NORFA is not a stranger to hosting events of this kind and they have a track record of hosting them successfully," a member of the tournament organizing committee said. (RMN/PIA Negros Oriental)
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EDC scholars complete energy camp
by: Jennifer Catan-Tilos
DUMAGUETE CITY, Apr 15 (PIA) A total of 48 Energy Development Corporation (EDC) scholars are graduating from an eight-day Energy Summer Camp on April 18 at the Southern Negros Geothermal Production Field (SNGPF) in Valencia, Negros Oriental.
Thirty-two of these scholars come from EDC’s host community schools in Valencia while the other 16 students from the company's geothermal site in Northern Negros.
The camp’s culminating activities are its Amazing Race and campers’ Martial Arts graduation rites to be held on Monday at 5:30 p.m.
On its seventh year, the Energy Camp organized by EDC-Green Core is a summer recreational event for incoming fourth-year high school students who were immersed in a flurry of activities – treks through the forest, lessons in martial arts, and rapelling, and the camp's own version of "The Amazing Race," EDC’s Corporate Communications Officer Frances Ariola said
Amazing energy race and martial arts highlights the weeklong camp where the campers underwent a battery of physical and mental challenges as they competed for the coveted survivor champion award, Ariola added.
The campers also learned the importance and benefits of geothermal energy, not only to their communities but more so to the entire country and the correlation of geothermal energy and the environment.
EDC provides funds for the education of several scholars that mostly come from depressed areas in the country, under its Health Education Livelihood Environment program. (PIA NegOr/JCT)
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Entrance fees on protected eco-tourism tourist spot not "discriminatory"- DENR
by: Rachelle M. Nessia
DUMAGUETE CITY, April 15 (PIA) -- The Department of Environment and Natural Resources(DENR) here has stressed that the entrance fees being collected at the protected natural parkTwin Lakes in Sibulan town, Negros Oriental are not discriminatory in the wake of allegations from a foreign tourist who cried foul over the varying fees imposed for locals and non-locals.
Viernov Grefalde of DENR said the P100 fee is a general admission fee and is imposed not only on foreigners but for all non-Negrense residents who wish to step inside the preserved eco-tourism park.
A local weekly paper published in its March 20 issue a letter from a male Australian tourist named Allen White who, after a visit to the Twin Lakes in Sibulan town with his Filipina wife during Christmas last year, described the fees as “racism”. “My issue is with the principle of a policy that sets a precedent for charging foreigners more based upon the fact that they appear foreign,” White wrote in his letter.
Grefalde said that White may have been “misinformed” about the fees during his visit to the lake as there are no special fees for foreigners. "The 100-peso fee is the general admission cost, it is not exclusively for foreigners but for all visitors who are not from Negros Oriental," he told the Philippine Information Agency in an interview.
Residents of Negros Oriental are given a discounted fee of P10 called the “local privilege fee” which they can only avail of if they show an ID, he said.
Grefalde explained that the fees were formulated by the Protected Area Management Board(PAMB) and are being collected since year 2000 to cover the expenses needed to run the 8,000-hectare stretch of natural park, which is thrice the size of Dumaguete City.
The board only recommended said fees to DENR and the Environment Secretary at that time approved them, he said.
PAMB is a 23-member board chaired by DENR which oversees the operations of the Twin Lakes. Among its members include the Provincial Planning and Development Office, the Sibulan mayor, barangay captains, representatives from non-government organizations, academe, Center for Tropical Studies (Centrop) and former DENR Secretary Dr. Angel C. Alcala.
The creation of PAMBs are provided for under Republic Act 7586 or the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS). The board is tasked to manage and supervise the protected areas in the country.
Grefalde explained that the fees collected by PAMB go to the lake's operational and upkeep expenses such as salaries for its 11 personnel and efforts to control or minimize kaingin or slash-and-burn farming around the lake and its environment.
He said that although the fees collected from visitors are augmented by DENR's monthly budget of P60,000, these still are not enough to cover the costs needed to oversee the vast park.
"For salaries alone, we spend P50 thousand a month. Our budget is not enough to pay for the operations of the lake. The actual yearly expenses totals to P900 thousand," said Grefalde.
Lake Balinsasayao is one of two deep-crater freshwater lakes rising 300 meters above sea level located 12 km west of Sibulan, a town six kilometers away from Negros Oriental's capital Dumaguete City. (RMN/PIA Negros Oriental)