DOUBLE TREAT IN DAGUPAN: KAPUSO AND KAPAMILYA. Popular TV reporter Macky Pulido of GMA –7’s Reporter’s Notebook, exchanges notes with Pangasinan mediamen (left panel photo) in yesterday’s press conference at the Dagupan Astrodome. Daughter of Board member Alice Pulido and Anda Mayor Nestor Pulido, the Pangasinense lady reporter was with the rest of GMA7 top staff and stars in the network’s weekend grand extravaganza in Dagupan. Almost at the same time, ABS-CBN talents Arnel Ignacio, Bayani Agbayani and other TV hosts (right photo) were holding court at the Star Plaza before launching their own television network’s entertainment extravaganza at CSI The City Mall. (PStar Photo by Butch F. Uka)

CITY Mayor Benjamin S. Lim disclosed a three-tiered approach in yet another attempt to reinvigorate business at the Malimgas Market even as he encouraged the vendors to stay put as the “ber” months are just around the corner.

Lim said that the city plans to divert the route of some jeepney groups and make them pass through the modern market to increase its accessibility to the public.

He said they have also invited national agencies to set up satellite offices inside the market to increase human traffic in the area. Among those who have expressed interest were the National Bureau of Investigation and the Land Transportation Office.

The third approach, according to Lim, is to allow new tenants, including established firms, to set up shop to improve “mix” of products offered at the market for more shopper excitement and wider array of product lines for the marketgoers.

Lim pointed out that the renovated market had given first priority to previous tenants of the old market and those who are bonafide residents in the city.

“As planned, all the previous stall holders were able to get a space in the new market,” the mayor said, sadly noting that some of these merely speculated and sold their stalls to other interested tenants.

An almost similar statement was earlier issued by City Administrator Rafael Baraan who sweepingly labelled those who have closed shop at the Malimgas as being the old tenants who had wanted to sell their rights to the stalls the way many of them have done in the past, but found they could not do so now in the new market.

“We are making corresponding adjustments to the plight of the stall holders who are having a hard time to earn enough income,” Lim said.

He said that the anti-hawking task force has also intensified its drive to stop ambulant vendors selling at the side of the market. Lim discouraged those who are buying from illegal stall holders since most of them, he said, cheat buyers with tampered weighing scales. (CIO)

ANTICIPATING possible outbreak of dengue here and in various parts of the country, city officials have called for blood donation from among able-bodied citizens to be used by patients needing replacement of their lost blood platelets.

Acting Mayor Alvin Fernandez initiated the campaign for blood donation in his meeting Thursday with the city’s 31 barangay captains even though the dengue situation here is not yet quite alarming.

Fernandez’ call was supported by the city council which passed a resolution calling on all able-bodied citizens to donate blood for ready use by any dengue patient here.

The blood to be donated by the citizens would be processed by a blood separator in order to separate the vital platelets from the mass of blood.

Doctors said the dengue virus carried by the day-biting aedes aegypti mosquito, once it is in the body, destroys the person’s blood platelets.

The Region 1 Medical Center reported that it has adequate supply of blood platelets since it is the only hospital in the Ilocos equipped with a blood separator.

Dr. Jesus Canto, R1MC chief, however expressed fear that because of the increasing number of dengue cases in the country, their supply of platelets could run out unless replenished soon.

This is because they are now the region’s chief supplier of blood platelets and representatives of various hospitals from as far as Ilocos are coming to buy these from them.

The city health office however stressed that there is nothing to worry about because to date, there are only a few cases of dengue recorded in some areas of Dagupan. Two deaths however have been recorded in the city.

By Sarah Perez-Oballes

LIVELIHOOD projects of tobacco farming families in Ilocos Sur and La Union received P300,000 from the Department of Labor and Employment – Region 1 under its Eliminating Child Labor in the Tobacco Industry (ECLTI) Project recently.

The Balaoan ECLTI Beneficiaries Association of La Union (BEBALU) in Balaoan, La Union; the San Juan ECLTI Beneficiary Association of Ilocos Sur (SJEBAIS) in San Juan, Ilocos Sur; and the San Emilio ECLTI Parents Association (SEEPA) in San Emilio, Ilocos Sur were each awarded a livelihood assistance of P100,000 during simple ceremonies held recently in these towns. Present at the awarding ceremonies were local executives of the respective municipalities; DOLE-RO1 personnel led by Dr. Ma. Concepcion Garna, OIC of the Workers Amelioration and Welfare Division; representatives from the Bureau of Women and Young Workers; and other LGU personnel.

A goat-raising project will be undertaken by the 17 project beneficiaries of BEBALU in Balaoan. The municipality and the provincial government provided counterpart funding for the purchase of materials such as electrical wire, cyclone wire, and drinking palls, while the association provided the project site and contributed the labor requirement.

Similarly, 25 beneficiaries of SJEBAIS in San Juan, Ilocos Sur will have goat and hog raising as livelihood project. Counterpart funding of the municipal government included the construction of the animal corral and the feeds worth P26,000. Renato Aguilar, president of the association, accepted the cheque awarded by DOLE on behalf of the organization.

Twenty-five beneficiaries will also engage in goat and poultry raising project of the SEEPA in San Emilio, Ilocos Sur. The municipal government provided counterpart assistance through the construction of corrals and chicken coops. SEEPA President Lonarda Go received the cheque for their organization. The provincial government is also set to give its counterpart assistance to both organizations in the form of livestock medicines and vitamins, feds, and other construction materials.

The livelihood grant is a continuation of the assistance given by the ECLT Foundation, a Swiss-based funding agency which initiated the project in Africa, Latin America and Asia, to 100 tobacco child laborers in the Ilocos Region who were earlier granted a two-year educational assistance each for studies in either the primary or secondary level or for a vocational/technical course.

Two more associations in Pinili, Ilocos Norte and Alcala, Pangasinan will be awarded the livelihood assistance. The municipalities are the selected pilot areas in the region for the implementation of the ECLTI Project.

The livelihood assistance is given to families of the scholars in a continuing program of assistance aimed at keeping the child laborers off the tobacco farms.

SOME doctors are themselves abetting the proliferation of counterfeit medicines which are being marketed clandestinely by a syndicate.

Dr. Reynaldo Jacinto, chief of the Standards Regulation Division of BFAD in Region 1, said if doctors are not buying counterfeit medicines to be sold to their patients at higher margin of profit, there would be no demand for these.

Jacinto and Renato Padilla, Food and Drugs Regulation Officer III, were in Dagupan since Sunday to help the National Bureau of Investigation inventory the P3 million worth of counterfeit medicines seized from an Indian national and his driver along the road in barangay Tapuac, Dagupan City last Saturday.

There were at least 84 items of pharmaceutical products seized from Ramchand Dayaldas, 46, of Lubao, Pampanga: and Reynaldo Lozano, 41, of Guagua, Pampanga, all originating from the United States, Canada, China, India, Thailand and Pakistan, and possibly smuggled through the country’s backdoors.

Lawyer Jose Doloiras,, chief of the NBI in Pangasinan, said the suspects will be charged with violation of Republic Act No. 8203 as these were imported, unregistered medicines with counterpart brands in the Philippines; and violations of RA 3720 for selling/distributing pharmaceutical products without license to operate as drug distributors and for selling/distributing pharmaceuticals that are adulterated and unbranded.

They will also be charged with violating the anti-drugs law because among the items seized were several vials of valium which is a restricted and unregulated drugs and use or possession of the same is legal only through doctors’ prescription.

Jacinto said couriers of the syndicate are selling the counterfeit medicines to the doctors at a much, much lower price. In turn, they sell these to their patients at a price almost the same as the genuine ones that can be sourced from drugstores, thus raking in huge profit from the transaction.

“The modus operandi is, the suppliers first offer the counterfeit medicines to doctors. And when these are already being widely used, that is the time they put their products in the drugstores for the patients’ succeeding purchases,” he said.

Jacinto said this is the reason the BFAD decided to seek the assistance of municipal and city governments so that they will pass ordinances banning local medical clinics from selling counterfeit medicines to their patients.

“This is because we are in a peculiar situation wherein a medical clinic is not licensed by the department of health. The drug store is licensed by the DoF through the BFAD whereas the medical clinic is not,” he said.

He clarified that what is licensed by way of a business permit issued by the mayor is the treatment service of the medical clinic. Such clinic, he said, is not supposed to sell drugs and neither is the doctor allowed to sell drugs.

As embodied in the Generic Act enacted by Congress during the term of Health Secretary Alfredo Bengzon, doctors are prohibited from selling or dispensing medicines except prescribing the same to their patients after they had diagnosed the ailments.

The prescription should be brought to the drug store where the medicine can be bought. A person can be charged under Republic 8203 if he can not show any prescription, invoice or receipt for counterfeit medicines found in his or her possession, Jacinto emphasized. (PNA)

SAYAN INDIO
Nen Mario F. Karateka

NO agkayoni manisian malet tan malaknab so “laban” daraniay duaran higanten kompanyay telebisyon ed bansa, say GMA 7 tan ABS-CBN, nengneng yo labat so impanpalyagan daranian dua ed sayay impansampot na simba.

Asobraan balet amo nen Jaime so abilidar to – tan nian pati saray mamaestros to et papalampasan to lara ed popularidad natan. Anggapomet lanti so makaamtay batik na nonot na sakey a too, awa?

THE Department of Health thru the Bureau of Food and Drugs may not realize it but it is actually doing a disservice to the public if it insists in withholding the identities of the doctors listed in that “blue book” confiscated from two women couriers of counterfeit drugs in Calasiao two weeks back.

Until now, the public – and even the media – is being left guessing on whether or not their own doctor is among those unscrupulous medical practitioners who are selling their soul to the counterfeiters for profit. The innocent ones among the physicians are also unfairly put under a cloud of doubt; we have heard as much in public comments in coffeeshops the past days since local tabloids reported the story absent the names of the doctors patronizing the illegal activity.

If these doctors are, as the BFAD and NBI authorities claim, suspects only, so be it. Let them be called suspects but their names must be out – in the name of public alert. By insisting that there is no evidence yet against them and that they are only being monitored, the NBI itself may be unwittingly abetting the crime it wants to prevent by not naming the “suspects.”

There are supposedly 10 of the doctor-clients of the counterfeiters in Pangasinan and two in Ilocos Sur. How many of their innocent fellow doctors’ reputation and credibility now hang in doubt, all because of the refusal of authorities to tag those involved in the shenanigan?

There is an even more sinister implication of the continued non-disclosure of the 10 doctors’ identities – that the agencies involved in the investigation, going by prevailing public notion on matters of this nature, could so easily engineer a whitewash one way or the other and the public will never know.
That, we say, is a more compelling reason than any for DOH and NBI to now spill the beans. Out with the names, gentlemen!

AFTER ALL
By Behn Fer. Hortaleza Jr.

THOSE afflicted in Pangasinan are only in the hundreds, with just three recorded deaths as of August 15 tally, so our local healthmen tell us, by way of assuring the public that the situation is still manageable. Worried relatives are bringing in their sick to the hospitals and clinics, but blessedly most of the victims are recovering. Meanwhile, the fogging and larvicidal tests by government health teams continue in most parts where the culprit, the day-biting aedes aegypti mosquito, may be in hiding.

With so many reports on dengue fever, a scourge of the century in Asian countries, filling newspapers and airlanes the past couple of months, you’d think there should have been some automatic, voluntary public mobilization by now to clean surroundings of stagnant water and live, as Gov. Victor Agbayani loves to mouth it, the neighborhood “4 o’clock habit.”

But we see none or little of that effort at backyard cleanup in many places. People just seem to be busy with so many other things except cleaning canals or tidying up the areas of stagnant water.

It’s painful to say this but it’s true: People of Pangasinan are taking the dengue threat lightly, compared to say that time when SARS “came” to Pangasinan (oddly, it was just the poor woman overseas worker from a fifth district town who fell from the fatal disease and yet everyone here went helter-skelter, grabbing the nearest surgical mask and swallowing whole capsules of vitamin C and antibiotics) a few years back.

That dengue seems to have become a seasonal affliction, coming during the wet months, and disappearing like magic by October or thereabouts seems to have given most local folk a false sense of security , especially if they or their nearest relatives have remained free of the disease by September’s end.

This mindset, of course, is dangerous.

As Health Secretary and kabaleyan Francisco “Pincoy” Duque stressed in a media interview, the seasonal run of the disease (July-September) could yet be drastically upturned or changed as had happened in Thailand where at one point dengue went nearly the full route of the year, downing so many and killing several in its deadly run. In other words, and against our better wishes and hopes, we might not be seeing the worst of this mosquito-carried virus yet.

Sure, everybody loves to hear reports of a decrease in the percentage of cases over that of the previous reckoning period (soothes the frayed nerves, doesn’t it?) anytime. But graphs and statistics, like presidential popularity surveys, can change overnight, and drastically too.

For now, what we should do is to clean, clean and clean some more those darn dirty yards and premises, even the house interiors. And, to pitch for Dagupan Vice Mayor Alvin’s current crusade: Bleed for Dengue. Donate blood if you’re strong and healthy enough. The platelets they separate from it (to transfuse the blood of dengue victims with) could one day save your life – or that of your loved ones.

The PEN SPEAKS
By Danny O. Sagun

“IPASADIYOS ko na l;ang ang kanilang ganti.”

Dagupan City Mayor Benjie Lim made this remark, or words to that effect, on the possible adverse effects of his calling on President Arroyo to step down to save the country from further political turmoil. He said he was firm in his stand and ready to face any reprisal that may come as a result of his unwavering position.

The mayor, we suspect, has been dismayed by the very slow bureaucratic grind particularly on fund releases, which he, even way back when he was yet a full-time businessman, had hated so much. He had a big vision for his city, one that will rival the big ones like Manila, Cebu or Davao. If he was able to make his family business grow in just a decade or two, he thought he could do it for the city. Alas, his dream now appears to have been snagged.

Big projects supposed to lift Dagupan ahead of the others like the planned bangus processing plant in Bonuan is yet to be realized, if it could be realized at all. Funding is the biggest problem.

The city, thru the generous lending assistance of the Land Bank, got to see its mall-like modern market. The timing might have been bad however as seen in the economic activity going on at the second floor. Just take note of the small number of people hanging around there, hardly buying anything, and the many stalls that have already closed due to low daily sales.

Aggressive advertising has been done but of little effect. Obviously, there is something lacking in that market that could attract mall-goers. Well, the two malls beside it – CSI and Magic – remain bullish in their business despite the prevailing economic crunch. Which gives rise therefore to some fears among the present occupants that the market may in the end fall into private hands despite assurances from the city government that this would not happen.

Back to that unimplemented bangus processing plant project, the mayor has squarely blamed the Department of Agriculture for dragging its feet on it. Told by the President to coordinate with the DA for the release of the counterpart fund from the national government, he obediently did so. “Pinaiikot-ikot tayo,” he said in frustration.

“Nagsawa na rin ako sa kapa-followup,” he added.

Now we wonder. Was the local executive prompted to give up on the President over her apparent failure to make good her word on the bangus plant? He was not an original GMA fan. He might have only supported her due to party affiliation and perhaps because of FVR. He was even accused by some quarters in the Lakas that he was pro-FPJ in the last elections, which charge he strongly denied.

Whatever, the mayor, a businessman by nature or profession, must have been really so discouraged by the bureaucratic red tape, thus he took the path of the anti-GMA forces. In a way, GMA might also be partly blamed for practically leaving BSL to fend for himself after so grandly announcing to Dagupenos her help in the highly-ambitious bangus processing plant. BSL believes in his heart GMA could have pushed for the release of funds, if she really intended to help Dagupenos realize their dream – and live their pride.

Acting Mayor Alvin Fernandez shows the biometric-based timekeeping machine being used by the Sangguniang Panlugsod of Dagupan since November 16 last year to delegates of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo led by Vice Mayor Belbin Biñas (second from right) during their Lakbay Aral to Dagupan last August 16. (CIO Photo by Edwin Palaganas)