Crime volume in C. Visayas declines by 25 percent in last four mos.
By Fayette C. Riñen
CEBU CITY, May 25 (PIA) – Crime volume in Central Visayas from January to April, this year decreased by 25.40 percent compared to the same period of last year.
A presentation on crime statistics by the Police Regional Office (PRO)-7 during this morning’s ‘Talakayan sa Isyung Pulis’ (TSIP) Forum showed that both index and non-index crimes registered a decline in the last four months of the year vis a vis the same period of 2010.
“We credit our efforts to the pro-active measures on anti-criminality being implemented by our police on the ground,” according to Villacin.
P/Supt. Audie Villacin, chief of the Regional Investigation and Detection Management Division of PRO-7, bared that for index crimes or crimes that are frequently committed such as robbery, theft, physical injury, rape, homicide, murder, or commonly known as crimes against persons and properties went down from 8,628 cases in 2010 to 6,412 cases for this year or a decline of 25.68 percent.
Villacin said they have added carnapping and cattle rustling under the index crimes.
Cases on non-index crimes or violations against special laws like illegal drugs, illegal logging and illegal fishing, these also registered a downturn from 3,418 incidents from January to April of 2010 to 2,574 of the same period, this year or an overall decrease of 24.69 percent, this is revealed.
“Cebu City registered the highest rate in crimes but this is understandable being a highly urbanized city and the center of commerce in the region where the bulk of the population is concentrated,” Villacin said.
The presentation however, showed that despite its highest crime volume in the region, Cebu Cityregistered an overall decline as based on the past four months this year, index crimes in the city recorded a total of 2,211 incidents compared to the 3,170 incidents last year.
“Street crimes in Cebu City decreased by 6.4 percent due to their organized approach in the integrated patrol system,” Villacin disclosed.
Villacin also said the monthly average crime rate in the region likewise went down from 42.84 percent from January to April in 2010 to 31.96 percent, of the same period this year. (PIA 7-Cebu)
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DBM reminds agencies on catch-up plans
By: Minerva BC Newman
CENTRAL VISAYAS, May 25 (PIA) ---The Department of Budget and Management reminded government agencies, especially those with infrastructure projects to fulfill their catch-up plans.
Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad said, “Agencies have a lot of catching up to do.” Abad reminded them of the President’s directive to accelerate program and project implementation.
Abad also said the President has called for a Mid-year Budget Execution assessment and review in July to ensure that budget spending and project implementation proceeds according to schedule.
The Budget secretary further said, that based on the agencies’ catch-up plans, allotments and cash allocations that BM released, “we expect spending to further pick up in the next few months.”
DBM already noted that it has released P1.09 trillion in allotments or 66.3 percent of this year’s P1.645-Trillion budget.
Abad said that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has already conducted a review of its cost assumptions. They should have already bid-out and awarded over 300 projects, that cost P50M or more each, by June 2011.
On infrastructure spending, the year-on-year decrease worth P39.2B in January to April can be attributed to non-recurring accounts payables last year.
Project implementation delay can also be attributed to the influx of requests from district and regional offices for realignments of more than 40 percent of the line-item projects already released, the DBM explained.
The Social Welfare department’s conditional cash transfer program on the other hand is proceeding faster than programmed, with 1.47M household-beneficiaries or 63 percent of the targeted 2.34M in 2011 already starting to receive the cash grants.
In January to April, year-on-year under-spending on maintenance and other operating expenditures amounted to P15.9 billion, DBM reported.
Non-recurring items last year included election-related activities and assistance to farmers and fisher-folks affected by the dry spell.
Abad also said DBM will no longer allow agencies to propose huge lump-sum for 2012. They should flesh-out their budgets into specific programs and projects.
So far this year, a number of lump-sum funds for infrastructure have yet to be released as of April 30.
The Department of Agriculture’s Farm-to-Market Road projects worth P2.5B; the Military and Police Modernization Programs of P7B; Department of Education - Basic Educational Facilities Fund of P11.3B Department of Health – Health Facilities Enhancement Program at P7.B; DPWH Flood Control and Drainage Projects of P1.6B; and Infrastructure Support Fund for Public-Private Partnerships worth P12.5B.
Abad called on agencies to fast-track the submission of special budget requests and supporting documentation to DBM for the release of lump-sum funds for infrastructure; as he already instructed DBM to facilitate the release of compliant requests. (PIA-7 with reports from the DBM)
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NFA-7 says rice stocks in CV is enough for about 5 months
CEBU CITY , May 25 (PIA) --- The National Food Authority (NFA-7) here said that there is enough rice stocks in Central Visayas at 1.4 million bags of rice inventory estimated to last for about 4 – 5 months.
NFA-7 information officer, Ma. Lucia Rosales bared this during the AGIO-7 Forum at the PIA recently.
Rosales added that stocks of government rice are expected to increase for the next few months because of the 2011 rice importation from Vietnam .
“This year, the government rice importation from Vietnam is much lower compared to the previous years,” she said.
For 2011, the supply of rice importation for the entire Philippines is 200,000 metric tons while the 18,000 metric tons which is equivalent to 360,000 bags are allotted to Central Visayas .
Meanwhile, officials from the Department of Agriculture in the region (DA-7) said, rice and corn production has increased for the first quarter of the year.
DA-7 Sr. Agriculturist Jorge Paculba said, the rice production from January to March is 85, 250 metric tons compared to last year which was 83,990 metric tons while the corn production is 25,719 metric tons for the first quarter.
“Last year’s production reduced due to the effect of El Niño or dry spell,” Paculba added.
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Promotion of MSME Law will expand employment opportunities for Filipinos
By: Minerva BC Newman
CENTRAL VISAYAS, May 25 (PIA) --- The promotion of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) law will likely expand employment, work and livelihood opportunities for more Filipinos.
The MSME Law or Republic Act-9501 is being vigorously pushed in the senate provide more assistance to entrepreneurs by requiring lending institutions to allocate at least eight percent of their total loan portfolio to micro and small businesses.
The law also calls on concerned government agencies to provide access to new technologies and regular entrepreneurship training programs for workers.
It also wants to establish a comprehensive development plan that would ensure the viability and growth of MSMEs in the country.
Senator Loren Legarda, principal author and sponsor of Republic Act 9501 or the MSME Law, said that self-employed workers constitute 40 percent or 14 million of the 36 million Filipinos currently employed in the country today.
The MSME law will provide viable employment alternatives such as self-employment, particularly on micro enterprise activities, Legarda said.
It will strongly complement the overall provision of jobs for the growing workforce that is so dependent on wage employment,” the senator explained.
The growth of wage employment opportunities has always been difficult owing to a lot of domestic as well as global problems.
Legarda called on the MSME Council, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA), labor organizations and even employers to get together and promote the self-employment alternatives to successfully provide not just jobs but also better earnings to the growing labor force. (PIA-7 with reports from the Office of Senator Legarda)
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| Sec. Robredo urges local officials to practice full disclosure out of responsibility, By Eli C. Dalumpines CEBU CITY, MAY 25 (PIA) – Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jesse Robredo urged local government officials in Central Visayas to practice transparency not out of obligation but out of responsibility. Sec. Robredo, during the recent dialogue on Full Disclosure Policy held at the Radisson Blu Hotel here, said such policy will revolutionize governance as it will make people learn to trust the government. “But before we can earn the trust of the people we should first come up with tangible measures, something that we termed the ‘seal of good housekeeping’” Robredo stressed. The DILG chief said a local government unit displays the “seal of good housekeeping” if it has a clean Commission on Audit (COA) report and if it conforms to the rules of full disclosure. Under the full disclosure policy, he said, the local government will continue to keep the people informed of what it is doing. According to Robredo, people tend to show willingness to make sacrifices for the government if they saw that government officials keep them informed of the programs the government is undertaking and if they saw that government officials are spending public money prudently. He recounted his experience as mayor of Naga City where he proposed to the business people to raise property taxes and the market value of properties which got the nod of the local business community because they saw that he is transparent to them. Robredo, meanwhile, informed that he had signed an agreement with the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) and the Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB) to make adherence to the Full Disclosure Policy a requirement before LGUs can access loans. He admitted that it is a difficult requirement but that the finance department expressed an interest in this move. The official informed that this policy is a way of translating the present government’s “Kung walang kurap, walang mahirap” slogan. Under this policy, LGUs are mandated to post public documents and transactions including budget report, debt services, statement of receipts and expenditures and bidding results in public places so that people will see them. (FCR/ECD/PIA 7-Cebu) |