DAGUPAN CITY – The police on Monday destroyed in public 27 video gambling machines it confiscated from various parts of the city to prove its sincerity in wiping out this form of illegal gambling affecting the youth.

With members of the media watching, Supt. Edgar Basbas, chief of police, and Supt. Ricardo Tamayo, police deputy provincial director, used  hammers to pulverize all these gadgets, including their respective mother boar5ds, into pieces.

Basbas said the gadgets were seized in canteens and residential houses near schools where they are again mushrooming as soon as the classes opened last week.

Parents called on the local police to get rid of these video gambling machines because it is in these gadgets where their children are betting their allowances instead of buying food for their snacks. Read more

BAGUIO CITY - Many students around the world consider an American education as the way to a better job back home. This doesn’t seem to be the case with Filipinos.

Philippine nationals enrolled in US colleges and universities for the school year 2005-06 rose by 6.4% to 3,758 over the previous school year. But they are the fewest among Asians.

Only about 0.3 % of college students from the Philippines - or between 5,500 and 6,000 - study overseas.

About six out of 10 go to the United States, the rest study in Britain, Australia, Japan and Germany, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE) in its annual report “Open Doors 2006″.

Thailand, which has the biggest number of Southeast Asia, has more national studying in the US, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and even Vietnam have more students than there are Filipinos studying in the US.

Higher education is the fifth largest service sector earner in the United States, according to the US Department of Commerce. Read more

MANGALDAN, Pangasinan - The topnotch examinee of the 2006 Nursing Licensure Examination (NLE) hailed the order of the Court of Appeals for the selective retaking of Tests III and V in the NLE by 1,678 examinees.

Twenty-year old Gringo Sandiego, a graduate of the University of Pangasinan and a native of barangay Amansabina here, said he was satisfied by the order which means he can finally take his oath, get his license and move on.

The 1,678 examinees who will take Tests III and IV, according to the CA order, were those whose names were merely added to the unaltered list of 41.24 percent who actually passed the June 11 and 12 NLE. Read more

DAGUPAN CITY - Some 58,000 scholarships were allocated by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo throughout the country to enable the youth to enroll in technical-vocational courses that will earn them jobs right after graduation and a chance to finish college in a shorter period of time.

This was revealed by Technical Education Skills Development Authority Director General Augusto Syjuco who spearheaded a Career Caravan that arrived in Dagupan on Thursday.

Each scholar is entitled to P5,000, he said, as he announced that the scholarships are already valid during the second semester of the school year this October, during summer or at the start of the new school year, 2007-2008. Read more

MANGALDAN, Pangasinan - The number one examinee of the 2006 Nursing board examination that was marred by an alleged leakage branded as unfair the decision of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that he and the rest of the passers will retake the examination.

“This is most unfair to all of us who worked so hard to pass the examination,” said 20-year old Gringo Sandiego who did his alma mater, University of Pangasinan, proud by topping the examinations.

Sandiego, son of an accountant who turned taxi driver/operator in Manila, was sad with the decision because that will invalidate the result of the examination and put to naught his accomplishment as topnotcher for which he worked hard.  Read more

BAYAMBANG, Pangasinan - A public school teacher is in hot water after he locked up 12 pupils inside a classroom for two hours last September 8.

The parents of the Grade VI pupils of the Bayambang Central School all trooped to the police to complain agaisnt the teacher, Von Ryan Cayabyab, for illegally detaining their children.

Cayabyab is now facing a complaint for illegal detention and violation of Republic Act 7610 or the Child Abuse Law before the city prosecutor office in San Carlos City, filed by parents of the pupils.

The pupils were identified as Maika Mae Buttong, Ana Marie Reyes, Rollie Coincina, Glen Basada, Nikki Isabelle Buizon, Benjie Bulatao, Ramil Eslabra, Solfrino Ignas, George Tucker Gonzales and three others.

The parents of the pupils told the police that they were constrained to file the complaint because they can not let the injustice committed by the teacher agaisnt their children to pass.

The pupils were locked inside the room from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and only got out when they called a passing teacher to open the door which was locked from the outside.

The pupils said they had no class beginnig at 8:00 a.m. but Cayabyab, who was not their teacher, put them into a room and locked it, with no chance for them to get out to take their snacks or to answer the call of nature. (PNA)

DAGUPAN CITY - Jamaica Marie S. Clata, a junior high school student of Pangasinan Universal Institute (PUI) and a resident of Rivera Street this city, emerged as winner in the 2006 China Middle School Olympiad held in Qingdao, China on August 5-10, 2006.

Jamaica, along with other Filipino math wizards, settled 3rd place during the international Math competition, besting more than a thousand math wizards who competed from all over the world.

She is the only representative from the entire Dagupan City and Pangasinan who represented the Philippiine team through the Mathematics Trainers’ Guild (MTG). Read more

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan - There is now an urgent need to reset the opening of school classes from the month of June to September.

This is  the view of Board Member Nestor D. Reyes (second district, Pangasinan) who filed a resolution supporting the growing clamor of parents, teachers and school officials to transfer the opening of classes in preschool, elementary, high school and college levels to September of each year effective school year 207-2008.

In filing Sangguniang Panlalawigan Resolution No. 1623-2006, Reyes observed that the present opening of classes in June coincides with the onset of the rainy season which is usually accompanied by typhoons and floods. Read more

DAGUPAN CITY - Mayor Benjamin S. Lim extended his congratulations to the two universities in the city for producing top board passers in the recent Nursing Licensure Examination given last June 2005.

“I commend the University of Pangasinan (UPang) and Lyceum Northwestern University (LNU) for upholding the sterling quality of education in their respective institutions as proven in the recent nursing board results,” Lim said. Read more

DAGUPAN CITY - False report destroys all presumptions.

With this statement, the City Prosecutor’s Officer here on Monday (July 31) determined that the Lyceum Northwestern University was a victim of an untrue and unfair publicity and gave due course to a libel case filed by LNU president Gonzalo Duque against high-ranking officials of the Commission on Higher Education and a reporter of a national daily.

In a resolution, City Prosecutor Pelagio Palma indicted for the crime of libel Dr. Catherine Q. Castañeda, assistant director, Office of Programs and Standards (CHED); Dr. Fely Marilyn Lorenzo, chairman, Technical Committee on Nursing Education (CHED); and Jonathan M. Hicap, reporter of the Manila Times.

CHED chairman Dr. Carlito S. Puno and Dr. William Medrano, executive director of the Office of Programs and Standards, were earlier included as respondents but Duque withdrew the complaint against them for insufficiency of evidence.

The Manila Times publisher and editor-in-chief Fred dela Rosa, escaped indictment after Palma found no sufficient evidence against him.

The case stemmed from the publication of a news story in The Manila Times last March 15, 2006 that quoted CHED officials as saying LNU was among the 37 “very low performing nursing schools and among those whose nursing courses will be gradually phased out. Read more