By Villamor Visaya Jr., Philippine News Agency stringer and Philippine Daily Inquirer correspondent

TUGUEGARAO CITY––The local government has relaxed its COVID-19 restrictions, allowing minors outdoors and lifting the curfew for adults.

But Mayor Jefferson Soriano said Wednesday, Dec. 15, that their parents or guardians must accompany the minors.

He said minors would be allowed outside their residences only from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Special occasions, such as birthdays, weddings, and baptisms, have also been allowed but only at 70 percent of the venue capacity. Festivals remain prohibited.

Local health data show that the number of the city’s active COVID-19 cases had dropped to 10 as of Wednesday.#

By Felix Cuntapay Jr

TUGUEGARAO CITY-Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Wednesday has pushed for an immediate inquiry of the Senate Committee of the Whole as an offshoot of his privilege speech to probe the alleged “large-scale smuggling” of agricultural products across the country.

Speaking before Cagayan Valley reporters including this correspondent in an online news briefing on Wednesday (Dec. 8), Sotto said smuggling and corruption have been reigning across the nation “which kill and destroy the local agriculture industry and robbing farmers a decent living.”Sotto said the laws that legislators make in an effort to “to modernize the agricultural sector in the hopes of uplifting the lives of our farmers” would be futile if smuggling and corruption continue to reign.” 

 He noted that the large-scale smuggling of agricultural products amounting to less than P1 million or a minimum of P10 million in the case of rice is “economic sabotage” under the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016 (Republic Act 10845). 

He said the members of Congress, with its oversight function, would look into the issues of corruption and smuggling as these are the ones “putting us into suffering and extreme poverty.”

He noted that billion-peso smuggled goods in 25 operations were documented by the Bureau of Customs from May to November 18.

“We will never achieve our agricultural independence because some scrupulous individuals are in cahoots with the smugglers,” he said.He described port congestion, red tape, extortion, and under the table ways that continue to beset the Bureau of Customs and “burden the businesses,” he added.#

TUGUEGARAO CITY—A janitor of a shopping mall here on Tuesday (Nov. 30) returned the P35,900 he found while cleaning the hallways.

Rio Billiones, a utility worker of SM Downtown, immediately turned over the cash he found to the staff Customer Relations Service Office who immediately reviewed the security cameras to trace the owner.

It was later found out that Loreto Sammy Cabbuag accidentally dropped the money, which came from the sales at their bicycle stall.

Cabbuag was supposed to deposit the money to a bank when he accidentally lost it.

The owner of the money and the management of SM lauded Billiones for his “act of kindness and honesty.”#

CITY OF ILAGAN, Isabela – A resident of this city received good news on her birthday — topping the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) which she took last September.

Roslyn Vea Damasco, a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Education-Major in Special Education and Minor in Mathematics, topped the LET, besting 17,863 examinees with a 93.40-percent rate.

Damasco was a consistent honor student during her elementary and high school years and graduated magna cum laude at University of the Philippines-Diliman in 2019.

“I have mixed emotions: happy, blessed, grateful, overjoyed. Sometimes I want to cry out of joy and of gratitude to God. Sometimes, I still can’t believe it,” she said in an online interview on Tuesday.

Damasco said her mindset since she entered UP was “I want to top the LET. I will top the LET,” which she nurtured through the years.

“I found the exam, especially my major which is Mathematics, very difficult. From ‘Lord, please help me top” to ‘Lord, please help me pass’ because I thought that it’ll be a miracle if I passed. There was a thought na baka hindi po ako pumasa (I might not pass), but God is so great. I thank Him for this miracle. I know that He has a reason why He gave this to me and I want to fulfill His plan,” she said.

She admitted she got depressed when the LET was postponed for almost two years due to the pandemic and when her grandmother died, and thanked her family for the all-out support they gave her.

Her fellow Cagayan Valley-based LET-taker, Czendra Faye Compares of Tuguegarao City in Cagayan, got a 93.20-percent rate.

Compares finished her Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education Major in Biology degree at the Cagayan State University-CSU Andrews. She is teaching high school students at the St. Louis University-Tuguegarao.

“I am surprised. I did not expect to be among the topnotchers,” Compares said in a Facebook post, adding that her father and siblings first learned of her being the second-ranked topnotcher when the results were released on Monday night.

She feared not flunking the examination but of possibly being positive for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) when they were required to take an antigen test prior to the examination.

Meanwhile, another LET taker from Region 2, Devin David Despe Dumlao of Jones, Isabela, garnered a grade of 92.4. He is a product of the Our Lady of the Pillar College in Cauayan City. (PNA)

Topnotcher si Roslyn Vea Damasco, taga- Ilagan City, Isabela, nakakuha ng passing rate na 93.40% at Top 1 sa kabuuang 17,863 examinees para sa September 2021 Licensure Examination for Teachers.

Nasa Top 2 naman si Czendra Faye Compares, tubong Tuguegarao City, Cagayan, na nakakuha ng passing rate na 93.20%. Nasa Top 4 si Devin David Despe Dumlao – Jones, Isabela, nakakuha ng passing rate na 92.40%.

Umani ng papuri ang mga taga-Lambak ng Cagayan sa pangunguna sa LET.#

By Vince Jacob Visaya, Manila Times Correspondent

TUGUEGARAO CITY: A sustainable funding for infrastructure and anti-flood projects will prevent a repeat of the devastation from last year’s Typhoon “Ulysses,” said Cagayan Third District Rep. Joseph Lara, head of the Technical Working Group (TWG) on the massive flooding in Luzon.

“It does not matter if the funding will be a ten-year or 20-year budget. As long as we can address the problems and spend funds for ‘urgently needed’ anti-flood projects to prevent soil erosions, among others,” the lawmaker said shortly after he led the day-long House of Representatives’ Technical Working Group consultation with stakeholders on Friday at the Pulsar Hotel here.

Lara said they will finalize the outcome of the hearing soon as “the committee is identifying needed infrastructure projects and government intervention programs to prevent a similar disaster from happening again.”

“The TWG’s end goal of the inquiry has been to determine and adopt appropriate interventions that will prevent similar disasters from happening in the future,” he explained.

Lara said the House of Representatives will act on the proposals and address the problems emanating from the massive flooding. The hearings were postponed many times because of the pandemic.

He noted that the discharge of water from the Magat Dam during Typhoon Ulysses was only one of the factors that caused the massive flooding in Cagayan and Isabela.

The committee has identified other factors in the massive flooding as the excessive and continuous rain causing the saturation of soil in large areas, massive siltation of the Cagayan River basin, denuded mountains in the watershed areas as a result of illegal logging, mining and quarrying, and soil erosion due to deforestation.

An updated protocol system on dam management, Cagayan River basin and tributary rehabilitation plan, and replication of the plan in other river basin areas with similar flooding problems to prevent similar disasters have been proposed, National Irrigation Administration acting division manager Carlo Ablan said during the hearing.

Members from the Office of the Civil Defense, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, and National Water Resources Board have proposed structural and vegetative measures to ease water flow in the Cagayan river such as the removal and dredging of sandbars, desilting of Magat Dam, construction of riverbank protection structures, channel widening and realignment, opening of secondary channels, and construction of dams, dikes and small water impounding projects.

The establishment of buffer zones such as tree lanes and vegetation shields, further strengthening of the National Greening Program, and promotion of agroforestry and sloping agricultural land technology to control soil erosion have also been proposed.

The Magat Dam, which was built to last for 100 years or more, has been tagged as one factor in the flooding “but it is just one of the factors, not the main factor,” Lara added.#

Kabilang na ngayon sa mga bayan na wala ng kaso ng Covid-19 ang bayan ng Tuao matapos gumaling ang kahuli-hulihang kaso nito Martes, Nobyembre-23.

Nauna nang Covid-19 free ang mga bayan ng Pamplona at Isla ng Calayan.

Ito ay base sa pinakahuling datos ng Provincial Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (PESU) ng Cagayan.

Samantala, may 19 naman na naidagdag sa aktibong kaso ng virus mula sa siyam na lugar sa probinsya, habang 32 naman ang gumaling dahilan para bumaba pa sa 287 ang aktibong kaso ng lalawigan.

Wala namang naitalang nasawi sa virus ngayong araw base sa datos ng PESU, ngunit bahagya namang umangat sa 19 ang bilang ng mga naka-home quarantine sa lalawigan kung saan 11 dito ang naitala sa Tuguegarao City, tatlo sa Claveria at Sta. Ana, habang dalawa naman sa bayan ng Baggao.(Cagayan Provincial Information Office/Kane Manaoat)

Ngayong araw ay nasa 71 na ang aktibong kaso sa lungsod kumpara sa bilang na 70 kahapon. Sa datos na mula sa City Health Office, 7 ang naidagdag na bagong kaso at walang re-exposed habang 6 ang bilang ng mga naka-recover at walang naitalang nasawi.

Bagama’t bumababa na ang kaso ng COVID-19 sa ating siyudad, mariin pa ring pinaaalalahan ang lahat na sumunod sa itinakdang guidelines sa ilalim ng ALERT LEVEL 2. Patuloy pa rin na obserbahan ang minimum health standards sa lahat ng oras.#

A total of Php 10,025,000.00 worth of marijuana plants were discovered by PROCOR cops in separate operations conducted in the mountainous area of Tinglayan, Kalinga from November 15 to 17, 2021.

Based on the reports submitted to PROCOR Regional Director, PBGEN Ronald Oliver Lee, joint operatives of Kalinga PPO, RID PROCOR, RMFB15, and PDEA Kalinga, conducted separate marijuana eradication operations that led to the discovery of two (2) marijuana plantation sites in a communal forest in Brgy Loccong and another plantation site in Brgy Tulgao West.

From the two (2) sites in Brgy Loccong, operatives were able to discover 20,000 pieces of fully grown marijuana plants with Standard Drug Price (SDP) of Php 4,000,000.00 cultivated in an estimated land area of 2,000 square meters and 625 pieces of marijuana seedlings with SDP of Php 25,000.00 cultivated in a land area of 25 square meters.

Meanwhile, in Brgy Tulgao West, operatives discovered a total of 50 kilograms of marijuana stalks and dried marijuana leaves with SDP amounting to Php 6,000,000.00.

All discovered marijuana plants were uprooted and burned on-site by the operatives. Further, an investigation is ongoing to identify possible cultivators. (PROCOR-PIO)