Cebu jeepney drivers to benefit from gov’t’s fuel assistance program

by Fayette C. Rinen

CEBU CITY, Apr. 26 (PIA) --- Jeepney drivers in Cebu can soon heave a temporary sigh of relief from their plight amid spiraling fuel costs as government will soon launch its transport fuel purchase assistance program otherwise known as the 3Ps or the Pantawid Pasada Program.

A nationwide undertaking spearheaded by the Department of Energy (DOE), the 3Ps which takes in the form of a card similar to an ATM has a cash value for fuel purchase of P1,050 that can assist the jeepney drivers from escalating oil price hikes, especially this summer period when volume of passengers is low due to the school break.

“We want to stress that the Pantawid Pasada Program is not a government subsidy. Rather, it is a government assistance program designed to help the jeepney and tricycle drivers who are mostly adversely affected by the oil price hikes,” Energy Secretary Rene Almendras told over a hundred regional directors and infocen managers from the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) coming from the various regions and provinces throughout the country in a recent 3Ps briefing in Quezon City.

The 3Ps will initially take off in Metro Manila on Monday, May 2 where the bulk of the public utility jeepneys’ sector in the country is based.

Around 220,000 cards are ready to be distributed nationwide as Almendras said “we will soon be hitting the provinces after two weeks from May 2.”

The National Government is allotting P450M for the program as a short-term measure to help cushion the identified sectors from the increasing oil costs. Since January this year, the total increase on prices of gasoline has reached over P7 and over P8 for diesel fuel, this is learned.

In Central Visayas, around 12,591 jeepneys with franchise and duly registered with the Land Transportation Office (LTO) -7 will benefit from the program.

About 90 percent of the public utility jeepneys in Cebntral Visayas is found in Cebu as the popular mode of transport in the other three provinces of Negros Oriental, Bohol and Siquijor is tricylcle.

Almendras said that though the program is designed to help jeepney drivers, those than can avail of the 3Ps are those jeepneys that have a franchise from the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) with LTO registration.

For the jeepneys, the distribution of the cards in the provinces will be at the LTO regional offices care of DOE, LTO and LTFRB, this is said.     

“Government is allotting P300 million for the transport fuel assistance to the jeepney drivers,” Alemendras claimed.

For the tricycle sector, one million tricycles all over the country can benefit from the program as a tricycle driver can receive a fuel cash purchase aid of P150 each, DOE Director Zenaida Monsada said in the same briefing.

But the tricycles should be duly registered by their respective local government units before they are eligible for the fuel assistance program, Monsada added.

The DOE will still come up with a definite schedule on the distribution dates for the tricycle sector.

President Benigno S. Aquino III issued Executive Order # 32 signed on April 1 on the Transport Fuel Assistance Program that will assist the jeepney and tricycle drivers at these times when oil prices are quite high largely brought about by the unrest in the Middle East.

Pres. Aquino has expressed hopes that the situation in the Middle East such as Libya will settle down soon as the domestic conflicts within the oil-rich producing countries have sparked agonizing increases in the prices of oil in the country due to the global market prices.

Almendras said the 3Ps will not only help the identified sectors but will also lower down the inflation rate which could spike as fuel price hikes drastically affect the transport sector that can largely impact on prices of basic commodities and services. (PIA 7-Cebu)

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PHL needs more BHWs as State’s primary health protectors

By: Minerva BC Newman

CEBU, April 26 (PIA) --- There is an urgent need to provide every barangay in the country with more Barangay Health Workers (BHWs) to strengthen the community’s health defenses.

It has been noted that at the onset of summer, people especially children, are more prone to acquire diseases such as sore eyes, measles, dengue, malaria and water-borne diseases including typhoid, diarrhea and cholera.

The Department of Health (DOH-7) observed that these diseases may not cause alarm to residents of cities and urban areas because they have immediate access to hospitals and can easily obtain the needed medication.

However, the situation is different for those living in rural and far-flung areas where access to hospitals, medical workers, and medicines is always a crisis at hand, the DOH said.

A simple diarrhea can even cause death and can spread throughout the community with thelack of proper medical services and health education as what had happened in Palawan where at least 19 people died of diarrhea in the past month, this is noted.

The Barangay Health Workers federation members in one of their assemblies in Cebu last year reiterated their call for the mandated plantilla position of the BHWs in all local government units.

Barangay officials confirmed that the job of barangay health workers is crucial to the nation’s health care delivery system.

They assist public doctors and other health workers in mass vaccination, family planning lessons and monitoring of disease outbreaks.

They are also involved in dissemination of health information and the posting of health advisory bulletins and many other things are now part of the duties of barangay health workers, this is learned.

To reiterate this need, senator Loren Legarda recently pushed for the immediate passage of a bill seeks to mandate the Department of Health to provide at least one health worker in every barangay.

The bill also wants to mandate that the monthly salary of the BHWs must be equivalent to Salary Grade 10 and shall be entitled to Christmas bonus, in addition to all the benefits granted to other barangay employees within their city or municipality.

“It is essential that we have health workers in every barangay because poor Filipinos deserve to be administered affordable and accessible healthcare,” Legarda said.

The barangay health workers, the State’s primary health care protectors, deserve to be given with just compensation and an adequate health insurance program, the senator added.

This bill is supported by another proposed measure under SB-1340 that would provide adequate health insurance program for barangay health workers that is still in the senate floor. (PIA-7/MBCN with reports from the Office of Senator Legarda)

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MCWD pushes for a regulated extraction of ground water
By Eli C. Dalumpines

CEBU CITY, Apr. 26 (PIA) --- The Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) is pushing for a regulated drilling of ground water in Metro Cebu to avert a possiblewater crisis from occurring in the future.

MCWD General Manager Armando Paredes, in the weekly KAPIHAN SA PIA this morning, informed that incidents of illegal drilling of wells in Cebu are very rampant threatening the area’s supply of clean water.

“Illegal drilling of water is getting widespread in Metro Cebu which will impact on our supply of clean and safe water for human consumption,” Paredes disclosed.

Paredes said the illegal drilling of wells, particularly within Metro Cebu, continues to go unmonitored that prompted his office to partner with the Lapu-Lapu City government, through a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), in conducting an inventory of wells in the city.

Metro Cebu covers the cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Lapulapu, Talisay and the City of Naga in the south and the municipality of Compostela in the north.

This, he said, is in line with their effort to come up with a data that they can use to urge government authorities to regulate water drilling.

Paredes cited there were only 100 wells registered way back in 1992 but the partial data they gathered recently based on their unfinished inventory in Lapu-Lapu City alone already showed some 10,000 wells in the city.

If such trend continues, the sustainability of water supply for Metro Cebu will surely be affected, Paredes stressed.

The task of monitoring and regulating of both ground and surface water falls under the mandate of the National Water Resources Board (NWRB), according to Paredes.

The NWRB however, does not have enough manpower to enforce their mandate, Paredes claimed as he said this is where the local government units should come in. 

“The role of LGUs is very critical in regulating illegal drilling of water in their respective areas,” Paredes said.

Meanwhile, MCWD-Environment Division Senior Project Planning and Development Officer Ma. Dianne B. Rallon noted that sea water intrusion to ground water is averaging 1 kilometer a year, based on a study conducted by the University of San Carlos Water Resource Center (USC-WRC)

Rallon warned that if the drilling of wells continues to be unregulated, this will eventually cause water shortage since the main source of water for Cebu is ground water. (FCR/ECD/PIA 7-Cebu)