DESPITE opposition by mayors and governors, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) is seeking to devolve jail management and fire protection functions from the national to the local levels, a department official told the Senate Monday.

DILG Undersecretary Marius Corpus, DILG undersecretary, revealed this during a hearing by the committees on public order and illegal drugs, local government, and finance.

Len Sicat of the League of Cities of the President however said municipal and city mayors were opposed to the proposed devolution if it would not be funded by the national government.
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THE red tide scare is wreaking havoc on the livelihood of producers as well as traders and vendors of shellfish products in Pangasinan. Thousands of people dependent on the province’s shellfish industry are ruing the red tide scare which has badly affected sales of the product.

“We eat what we could not sell and nobody among us had ever been hospitalized,” said Gemma Quinto, 41, an oyster vendor of barangay Lucao, hoping to disprove there’s red tide toxin in Pangasinan waters.

Quinto said even if they kept on telling customers there is no red tide in the Lingayen Gulf, particularly in Bolinao where her oysters come from, still many people refuse to buy oysters, mussels, “kampis” and other shellfish products. Read the rest of this entry »

SAN JUAN, Ilocos Sur – A four-kilometer sleeping mat made from a local palm called “buri” (silag to the Ilocanos) will be paraded on Dec. 27 during the celebration of the town’s “Buri Festival”.

Mayor Benjamin Sarmiento said in making the four-kilometer mat, the people would like the name of their town to be etched in the Guinness Book of World’s Record. Read the rest of this entry »

LINGAYEN – The police are closely monitoring the reported recruitment of boys and girls in the Ilocos region into the ranks of the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

Police Regional Director Chief Supt. Leopoldo Bataoil cited the case of a certain ‘Ka Gina’, a 17-year old lass from Bagulin, La Union, who surrendered to the police after only more than a month with the NPA. Read the rest of this entry »