NegOcc, Bacolod visitors boost Region 6 tourist arrivals in 2018

BACOLOD CITY — Visitors in Negros Occidental, including its capital Bacolod City, have boosted tourist arrivals in Western Visayas (Region 6), amid the six-month closure of Boracay Island in Aklan last year.

Department of Tourism (DOT) 6 Director Helen Catalbas said Thursday they have yet to release the final figures, but initial records showed the combined tourist arrivals of Negros Occidental and Bacolod City would surpass Aklan’s for 2018.

A decline of about one million tourists is expected in the region’s top island-destination due to the government’s rehabilitation efforts.

“We can no longer bring back the losses in tourist arrivals of Boracay,” said Catalbas, who was among the officials who attended the Negros First Transformative Agriculture Summit in Talisay City.

She said the slump in the tourist arrivals of Boracay Island does not necessarily mean that figures for the whole region will also decline.

In 2017, Negros Occidental and Bacolod City posted the second highest number of tourists in Western Visayas.

Based on DOT-6 figures, 5.85 million tourists visited the region in 2017, and Negros Occidental and Bacolod City’s combined tourist arrivals of 1.72 million accounted for 29 percent.

Negros Occidental alone had 892,199 arrivals, including 856,511 domestic visitors and 35,688 foreign tourists.

Bacolod registered 831,687 tourists, of whom 756,835 were domestic and 74,852 foreign guests.

Also in 2017, Aklan, which hosts Boracay Island, remained the region’s top tourist destination with about 2.22 million arrivals or 38 percent.

Iloilo province, including its capital Iloilo City, ranked third with almost 1.39 million visitors or 23 percent.

Capiz came in fourth with 229,195 tourists followed by Antique and Guimaras with 162,925 and 128,256, respectively.

Aklan is expected to recover this year, given its newly-rehabilitated island-destination considered to be more attractive to tourists. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1060724

Online English school links with NegOcc state college

TALISAY CITY, Negros Occidental — Online education platform 51Talk has partnered with the Carlos Hilado Memorial State College (CHMSC) in this city for the conduct of training programs for faculty, students, and graduates to become effective online English teachers.

The memorandum of agreement was signed by 51Talk country head Jennifer Que and CHMSC president Renato Sorolla in a ceremony held at the school’s Green Building Function Hall on Monday afternoon.

“CHMSC is very forward looking, forward thinking as an (academic institution). They are going towards university status. I think we are at the right moment,” Que said.

Dr. Renato Sorolla (left), president of Carlos Hilado Memorial State College, and Jennifer Que, country head of 51Talk, show the signed memorandum of agreement for their training partnership during the ceremony held at the CHMSC main campus in Talisay City, Negros Occidental on January 29.
Photo by Nanette L. Guadalquiver

She added that the introduction of electives, seminars, and relevant training programs, particularly for faculty, students with English major and other four-year courses, and graduates, will equip them to become online English teachers who are ready to showcase Filipino teaching excellence in the future.

51Talk, owned by China Online Education Group and listed in the New York Stock Exchange, specializes in providing quality online English language teaching for children and adults across China through highly-qualified home-based teachers.

One of its center-based facilities in the Philippines is located at the Negros First CyberCentre in Bacolod City, which opened in May 2017.

It has more than 17,000 home-based online English teachers in the country, 10 percent of whom are in Negros Occidental.

Que said about 10 percent, or between 130 and 140 of the Negrense teachers, are graduates of CHMSC.

“They are performing very well,” she added.

Que said 51Talk aims to hire more to reach its target of 100,000 home-based teachers in the Philippines in the next five years.

For his part, Sorolla said the CHMSC partnered with 51Talk to fulfill the school’s mission of enabling students to effectively communicate in English to the world.

“In this highly-competitive 21st century, language is very important. This partnership is very relevant and very important to CHMSC,” he added.

Sorolla further said they want to produce graduates who are confident communicators.

“One of the institutional learning outcomes of CHMSC is interpersonal and communication competence, which bodes well with this budding partnership with 51Talk,” he further said.

CHMSC has four campuses, including the main college in this northern Negros city, as well as two in Bacolod City — Alijis, which hosts the Institute of Information Technology, and Fortune Town — and Binalbagan in southern Negros. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1060339

79K bags of NFA rice from Vietnam unloaded in Bacolod City

BACOLOD CITY — The National Food Authority (NFA) in Negros Occidental awaits the completion of the unloading of 79,000 bags of rice from Vietnam, which is the third and last import allocation for the province for 2018.

Frisco Canoy, provincial manager of NFA-Negros Occidental, said as of Sunday, a total of 58,461 bags were already unloaded and stored in warehouses in the province.

The 79,000 bags shipped via MV Han Binh 16 and arrived at the Bredco Port here last December 30.

National Food Authority Grains Operations Officer III Roem Precioso (right) inspects the bags of imported rice from Vietnam unloaded at the Bredco port in Bacolod City.
*Photo courtesy of NFA-Negros Occidental*

Canoy said the vessel started discharging the stocks only on January 19 and on January 27, a total of 14,321 bags have been unloaded.

“If the good weather continues, the unloading of the remaining 20,539 bags will be completed in two days,” he added.

The previous stocks came from Myanmar and Thailand, which delivered the final shipment last November.

Records showed that of the 160,000 bags of rice from Myanmar shipped via MV Tan Binh 79, only 159,739 bags were considered good stocks and fully unloaded on January 19.

The NFA does not accept “bad order” stocks from the supplier thus, unloading activity is suspended during rains as the rice may be damaged if wet.

Canoy said that in terms of distribution, the NFA-Negros Occidental is implementing a “first in, first out” scheme.

They have yet to complete the distribution of all stocks from Myanmar before those from Vietnam could reach the market, he pointed out.

He added that with the present volume of available government rice in Negros Occidental, the weekly allocation for retailers has returned to normal.

During the last two quarters of 2018 when the buffer stocks were limited, the allocation was based on the availability of stocks and the level of need of an area.

For major markets in Bacolod City, the NFA-Negros Occidental is currently distributing 140 bags per week.

Those in markets outside Bacolod are receiving a weekly allocation of 80 bags while those outside markets, like stores in the barangay level, are getting 60 bags every week.

Some 113 “Tagpuan” centers in Negros Occidental with a weekly allocation of 50 bags were also reactivated. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1060228

NegOcc grains retailers urged to renew license, accreditation

BACOLOD CITY — Grains traders and rice retailers in Negros Occidental were urged to renew their license and accreditation with the National Food Authority (NFA) to avoid penalties.

Frisco Canoy, NFA-Negros Occidental manager, said Friday the renewal of license and accreditation is an annual activity of the agency.

“Grains businessmen cannot operate without the license while retailers cannot receive rice allocations without the accreditation,” he added.

Senior Grains Operations Officer Cynthia Luz Chua (right) discusses the license renewal requirements with a rice retailer at the National Food Authority-Negros Occidental Office in Bacolod City.
*File photo courtesy of NFA-Negros Occidental*

Canoy said the NFA has set the renewal period from January to June this year.

Traders and retailers from each city and municipality have been assigned a particular month to renew their license and accreditation.

This January, all grains businessmen and retailers from cities of Bacolod to Victorias are scheduled for renewal.
Those from Bago City to Hinigaran are slated for February; Sagay City to San Carlos City — March; Isabela, La Carlota City, La Castellana, Moises Padilla, Murcia and Salvador Benedicto — April; Binalbagan to Ilog — May; and Cauayan to Hinoba-an — June.

New applications, meanwhile, may be processed anytime from January to June.

Grains businessmen are those engaged in grains trading. The license issued by the NFA also covers the selling of corn grains, and feeds from rice or corn products.

Records of NFA-Negros Occidental showed that for January, 420 renewal applications are expected.

As of January 21, a total of 165 grains businessmen and retailers have already processed their renewals while 16 have filed for new applications.

A total of 1,200 applications for renewal are expected to be filed during the first half of the year.

Failure to renew after a month is equivalent to a surcharge of 25 percent of the capitalization.

After two months, it will double to 50 percent, then 75 percent in three months.

The penalty will further increase to 100 percent, if a trader and retailer fails to renew the license and accreditation after four months and above. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1060039

NegOcc sugar planters ask PRRD to review liberalization plan

BACOLOD CITY — Sugar planters and producers in Negros Occidental are appealing to President Rodrigo R. Duterte to reconsider the government’s plan to liberalize or deregulate the import of sugar amid apprehensions it could cause social unrest.

Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) Board Member Emilio Yulo III, in a press conference here Thursday, said they are opposed to the pronouncement of Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to liberalize the sugar industry.

Sugar Regulatory Administration Board Member Emilio Yulo III in a press conference in Bacolod City on Thursday (Jan. 24, 2019)
*Photo by Erwin P. Nicavera*

Yulo, representing the planters, said any unabated open importation will result in the death of the sugar industry.

Recalling the time in the 1980s, when sugar prices decreased to a precarious level, he said deregulation would also affect the socio-political situation, especially in Negros Occidental whose lifeblood is the sugar industry.

“I am making this statement not as an SRA official but as representative of sugar planters and producers,” Yulo said, adding that the industry has yet to reach a level of being competitive in terms of production efficiency thus, “now is not the time to liberalize.”

Earlier, Diokno said sugar in the Philippines is very expensive compared to global prices, and the government plans to deregulate or relax the industry within the year.

“You have to relax the rules on importation — that puts pressure on the domestic economy to compete with the rest of the world,” the budget secretary added.

Amid the woes hounding the sugar industry, leaders have recognized the need for a long-term plan.

Yulo said they are now lobbying with other industry stakeholders, individuals and groups sympathetic to the industry, and concerned agencies, such as the SRA and the Department of Agriculture.

Sugar producers are set to express their concerns to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, also the chair of the Sugar Board, in a meeting on January 30.

“The government should hear out the industry before making any serious policy statement or proposing such a drastic measure,” Yulo said, adding that they suspect that industry users are also lobbying with policy makers for the realization of the liberalization plan.

As he dismissed claims that sugar importation is needed as prices of the commodity is high, the SRA official said it is not the farm gate or mill site prices of sugar that have remained high, but the retail prices of sugar.

In Negros Occidental, producers are selling their brown or raw sugar at PHP1,470 per 50-kg. bag.

Yulo said that in Metro Manila, refined sugar is sold at PHP60 to PHP62 per kg., which is equivalent to PHP3,000 per bag.

“So, who is making the killing?” he asked. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1060034

NegOcc to obtain DOF loan for employees’ housing project

BACOLOD CITY — The Negros Occidental provincial government is seeking a loan from the Municipal Development Fund Office (MDFO) of the Department of Finance (DOF) to develop a housing sub-project for its employees.

The Provincial Board granted authority to Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. on Wednesday to negotiate for the loan, chairman of the committee on appropriation, budget and finance, said 2nd District Board Member Salvador Escalante Jr.

The total project amount will be determined after the completion of the detailed engineering and development plan, he added.

Facade of the Negros Occidental Provincial Capitol in Bacolod City.
*Photo courtesy of Negros Occidental Capitol PIO*

The housing project, which will rise on a 40-hectare property in Barangay Mansilingan, Bacolod City, will have 400 to 500 lots.

Escalante said the provincial government will implement the project on its own instead of partnering with a developer through a joint venture.

“(This way,) we can make sure the project cost will be reasonable,” he said.

Escalante said the development will include roads and parking spaces, among others.

Also on Wednesday, the Provincial Board approved a PHP50-million supplemental budget mainly intended for local government units (LGUs).

Of the total amount, PHP48 million was allocated as aid for LGUs and the rest, for the repair of a portion of the session hall.

Escalante said the source of fund is the PHP50-million allocation previously intended for the purchase of an aircraft for monitoring and cloud seeding operations.

“The initial plan did not push through so the fund was realigned for the aid requests of various cities and municipalities,” the board member said. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1059934

NegOcc Provincial Board junks sugar industry liberalization

BACOLOD CITY — Negros Occidental’s Provincial Board has approved a resolution opposing the proposal to liberalize the sugar industry, as earlier announced by Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno.

The resolution, passed on Wednesday afternoon, stated that the move would open the floodgate to the unabated massive unregulated entry of sugar being dumped by Southeast Asian neighbors with surplus production.

“The proposal would spell the demise of the local sugar industry, which is the lifeblood of Negros Occidental,” stated the resolution that was sponsored by 3rd District Board Member Manuel Frederick Ko.

It also noted that liberalizing the sugar industry could lead to the economic dislocation of hundreds of thousands of stakeholders, particularly the agrarian reform beneficiaries, small farmers, and sugar farmworkers.

Such economic dislocation would in time foment widespread social unrest, putting to naught all social economic initiatives of the province, it added.

Negros Occidental is considered the Philippines’ sugar capital, producing about 60 percent of the country’s sugar output.

Ko said the exact gravity of the effects of the liberalization of sugar imports could not yet be determined, but they are sure it will have a bad impact on the industry and its people.

“Liberalizing the importation scheme is the same as liberalizing the entire sugar industry. We, Negrenses, should not allow this move,” he added.

Copies of the resolution will be submitted to concerned government agencies, particularly the Sugar Regulatory Administration and Department of Budget and Management.

Diokno had been reported as saying that sugar in the Philippines is very expensive compared to global prices. “We plan to deregulate or relax that industry,” he added.

The proposed deregulation of sugar importation is in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s Administrative Order No. 13 issued in September last year, when inflation was at a nine-year high of 6.7 percent.
However, Ko said that unlike rice and fuel, sugar is not inflationary. “So, no to liberalization of the sugar industry, not now,” he added.

The Provincial Board’s move came after Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. said on Monday that the plan to deregulate government restrictions on imported sugar will be the death of the sugar industry. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1059916

NegOcc ARB leaders sign petition vs. sugar import liberalization

BACOLOD CITY — More than 170 leaders of agrarian reform cooperatives and organizations in southern Negros signed a petition opposing the liberalization of sugar importation.

The manifesto was circulated during a dialogue with the groups involved in sugar production facilitated by Pontevedra Mayor Jose Benito Alonso with Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) Board Member Emilio Yulo III on Wednesday.

Copies were furnished by organizers to the local media in the afternoon.

The dialogue, held at the Pontevedra Gymnasium, came days after Yulo, who represents the planters, and Board Member Roland Beltran, representative of the millers, allayed concerns of industry stakeholders amid the reported plan of the government to liberalize sugar importation because of high sugar prices and restrictive import policy of the SRA.

“We farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) of Negros Occidental are one in calling to oppose the plan of Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to allow unrestricted sugar importation,” part of the manifesto written in the local dialect read.

Among the first signatories is Pedro Ogatis, manager of Hacienda Malaga Cuenca Agrarian Reform Cooperative (Macarben) in La Castellana town, an organization which is implementing the sugar block farming program of the Department of Agrarian Reform.

The manifesto said sugar importation without ample protection for the local industry is a dangerous and wrong move and highly disadvantageous to small sugarcane farmers and poor land reform beneficiaries.

Unrestricted sugar importation will result in lower mill gate price and high cost of farm production, it added.

This would lead to a widespread crisis and deterioration of ordinary families, farmers and ARBs towards poverty and debt, it added.

The manifesto cited that 70 percent of the economy of Negros Island and 55 percent of the livelihood of Negrenses rely on the sugar industry, and more than 250,000 ARBs depend on the industry alone.

It said that the solution should be protection for the sugar industry through the provision of technical and financial subsidy for the farmers; implementation of agricultural modernization program from the farms to the sugar mills; abolition of excise tax on sugar; and implementation of the true meaning of land reform among farms. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1059866

NegOcc guv backs Bong Go, 3 reelectionist senators

BACOLOD CITY — Former special assistant to the President Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go has found a supporter in Negros Occidental Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr.

Marañon, in an interview on Tuesday, said he is endorsing Go’s senatorial bid along with three reelectionists in the May 13 polls.

“Bong Go. He can really help us since President Rodrigo Duterte still has three years left. He’s close to the President so he can tell the President our problems,” the governor said in their vernacular.

Negros Occidental Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr.
Photo courtesy of Capitol PIO

Aside from Go, Marañon said he is also supporting incumbent Senators Grace Poe, Cynthia Villar, and Juan Edgardo Angara as well as former presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II, who traces his roots in Negros Occidental.

In September last year, Go opened the Malasakit Center at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital in this city.

Go also has the support of Silay City Mayor Mark Golez, whom he thanked for the fair implementation of laws and ordinances that resulted in the removal of a tarpaulin bearing his name at the city plaza last December.

The President’s former aide then said he had no idea who displayed the tarpaulin which read, “Maligayang Pasko from SAP Bong Go”, but later learned that the mayor put it up in his (Golez’s) private property to express his support. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1059778

NFA-NegOcc has over 177K bags of rice inventory

BACOLOD CITY — The National Food Authority (NFA) in Negros Occidental has a total inventory of 177,455 bags of imported rice.

Frisco Canoy, provincial manager of NFA-Negros Occidental, said as of Monday, the supply includes the PHP27 per kilogram government rice stocked in NFA warehouses and distributed to local traders and retailers.

The stocks comprise of 159,739 bags from Myanmar, 6,000 bags from Vietnam, and 11,716 bags from Thailand.

Imported rice from Vietnam intended for National Food Authority (NFA) in Negros Occidental being unloaded at the Bredco Port in Bacolod City on January 19.
*Photo courtesy of NFA-Negros Occidental*

“The 6,000 bags from Vietnam actually form part of the 79,000 bags which arrived in the province in the latter part of last month,” Canoy said.

The 11,716 bags are the remaining buffer stock from Thailand which arrived in November last year.

“We can only account as actual inventory those that are already unloaded and received at the warehouses,” the NFA official said.

The unloading of 159,739 bags of rice from Myanmar via MV Tan Binh 79 was completed last January 19.

The shipped stocks totaled 160,000 bags, but some were considered bad order stocks and were rejected.

For commercial rice, the latest inventory totaled 947,600 bags stored by millers, wholesalers, retailers, and households in Negros Occidental.

Canoy said the existing supply of both commercial and government rice in the province is good for 54 days.

Negros Occidental has an average consumption requirement of 20,600 bags per day.

The NFA participation in the entire consumption requirement is only up to 10 percent, and with its current inventory, the imported rice stocks would last for about 86 days, or more than two months.

Canoy said the unloading of the recent importation has been affected by the bad weather. The vessel is covered and it cannot be opened especially when it is raining as stocks might be damaged.

“Based on our contract, the supplier has the responsibility to ensure the quality of the stocks from vessel to pile. We will not accept bad order stocks,” Canoy said. (PNA)

Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1059703