SOME 20 illegal fishpens in Dagupan City are up for demolition in various rivers here within this week, the city agriculture office said.

City Agriculture Officer Emma Molina said the owners of these contraptions were already given three notices by her office to remove their structures but they have not complied yet.

These structures are simply extended paraphernalia of registered and legally operating fish pens, some others are visibly oversized and others were built in prohibited areas or those along existing navigational lanes, she said. Read the rest of this entry »

LINGAYEN – Provincial government officials will hold a business forum with senior managers of the Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines this month to hopefully hammer out strategies that could make Pangasinan as an attractive point of investment.

Alex Ferrer, head of the Provincial Employment Service Office (PESO), said the forum will seek to determine the reasons for the slow turnout of investors in the province despite its vast natural and human resources as well as trained manpower.

Pangasinan also has the built-in advantage as the nearest province among the rest in the Philippines to the economic tigers of Asia, like China, Korea and Japan. Read the rest of this entry »

PANGASINAN poet Santiago B. Villafania launched his second collection of poems in the Pangasinan language in Urdaneta City on November 9.

Malagilion: Sonnets tan Villanelles was launched after atwo-day conference on “Revitalizing the Pangasinan Language and Cultural Heritage” recently held at the Urdaneta City Sports and Cultural Center. Read the rest of this entry »

By Norman C. Caguioa

THE Virgen Milagrosa Medical Center (VMMC) in San Carlos City will mark another milestone in its history during a grand celebration of its 50th Golden Anniversary on November 27 and 28, this year.

VMMC Medical Director Dr. Angelo B. Juan said that one of the major highlights of the annual celebration is the selection of the Mr. and Miss VMMC 2007 on November 28 with hospital and medical staff vying for the coveted title. Read the rest of this entry »

THE livestock market in Mangaldan town is now the biggest and cleanest in the province, according to district veterinarian Marissa de Vera.

De Vera said that the market conforms strictly to health and sanitation rules to ensure that livestock being sold there do not pose health risks both to animals and humans.

She said that Pangasinan has been free from foot and mouth disease (FMD) for years now because of strict policies on the transport and entry of livestock. Checkpoints have been set up in boundary areas to prevent entry of infected animals from other provinces. Read the rest of this entry »

SAN FERNANDO City, La Union – A massive campaign to urge people to use natural and indigenous materials, instead of plastics and styropors as receptacles and food containers is now being pushed in the city and the rest of La Union, the Philippine Information Agency reported.

This is consistent with a memorandum of agreement signed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the city government, in cooperation with the Department of Trade and Industry.

The MOA actually seeks to encourage the people of La Union to use “bayong”, paper bags and or boxes made from cartoons, instead of plastics and or styropors, considered as non-environmental. Read the rest of this entry »

SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union – A task force has recommended manual unloading of coal from an Indonesia barge that ran aground on November 6 near a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in barangay Lingsat, San Fernando City at the height of typhoon “Kabayan”.

Task Force Nava Ratna 3 is a multi-agency crisis management committee led by the Cost Guard Northern Luzon Command created when the barge B/Nava Ratna3 ran aground in an area about 200 meters away from the shore of barangay Lingsat, near Poro Point. Read the rest of this entry »

MOUNTING consumer complaints reaching City Hall and the media about cheating vendors in the city who rampantly use tampered weighing scales has prompted City Administrator Alvin Fernandez to order an operation against the vendor violators.

A joint operation conducted on Wednesday by elements of the city’s Task Force and the Dagupan Police caught some 30 vendors at the city market red-handed using defective weighing scales.

Those arrested were vendors selling goods in their respective stalls as well as in the streets. Read the rest of this entry »

THE city fiesta in Dagupan coinciding with Christmas will be spiced up for the first time with a “belen-making contest”, to be participated in by all of the city’s barangays.

“Belen” is the Tagalog term for Bethlehem, a place in Judea where St. Joseph and St. Mary, then an expectant mother, went. Since there was no available space at the inns, they had to find a place where Mary can deliver the baby Jesus, at a manger where sheep eat grass and hay. Read the rest of this entry »

By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

POLICE investigators are pursuing some leads on the motive and possible identity of the mastermind behind the shooting of local broadcaster Allan Sison late Friday evening outside his residence along the De Venecia highway.

Sison, a controversial figure in Pangasinan media circles who has had violent scrapes with other people and only recently with a fellow mediaman, has been pronounced by doctors as having good chances of surviving despite suffering two gunshot wounds believed fired from a .45 caliber pistol at close range. Read the rest of this entry »