Former President Fidel V. Ramos approaching the finish line at Sunday’s 2008 Philippine Marathon for the Pasig River held at Luneta Park, Manila. Intended to boost awareness on the continued efforts to rehabilitate the Pasig River, this 42-kilometer marathon was participated by foreign and local marathoners. The former president’s wife Amelita “Ming” Ramos is the chairman of Clean and Green Foundation. (PDN PHOTO BY ERIC ISAAC)

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – Representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) are in Pangasinan to monitor pilot sites for the project Safe Water Systems (SWS), an intervention against upsurge of diarrhea, which the United Nations agency co-sponsored with the Department of Health.

Dr. Ana Ma. Theresa de Guzman, assistant provincial health office, said the WHO representatives are set to visit the towns of Basista , Bayambang, Sta. Barbara, Bolinao and San Carlos City, chosen pilot sites for SWS.

The WHO-DOH project is being waged for one year now in these pilot sites with the use of hypo-sol solution produced by an accredited manufacturer from Sta. Barbara, Dr. Rocky Doctor. Read more

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – Malaris is now under control in Pangasinan with only 11 persons afflicted by the disease last year, a report of the Provincial Health Office on Tuesday stated.

Dr. Ana Ma. Theresa de Guzman, assistant provincial health officer, said records show that those afflicted came from only four towns that are still affected by malaria, namely Infanta, Mabini, Aguilar and Mangatarem, all in the western part of the province.

The province of Pangasinan comprises 44 towns and four cities.

“Actually, malaria is a disease which we can consider s totally controlled in Pangasinan as of today,” Dr. De Guzman said.

She said there are two kinds of malaria – the falcicarum malaria and the plasmodium malaria, such as the type found in the province of Palawan before. Read more

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

DAGUPAN CITY - An official of the city agriculture office appealed to the public here to be extra-careful in their consumption of shellfishes as the advisory on red tide affeting part of the shoreline in Bani, Pangasinan has not yet been lifted.

City Agriculture Officer Emma Molina was referring to the advisory or bulletin issued by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Department of Agriculture dated April 4 this year showing high leverl of toxicity of samples of shellfishes harvested by fishermen from barangay Wawa, Bani. Read more

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – Gov. Victor Agbayani congratulated the residents and community leaders of Barangay Lucero in Bolinao headed by barangay captain Domingo del Fierro for being the national finalist in the 2^nd Nationwide Search for Model Barangays for Eco-Waste Management System.

Regional Director Victor Ancheta of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources told the governor that Barangay Lucero made it to the national competition.

Ancheta said Barangay Lucero shall be competing against 14 regional finalists form other parts of the country.

The other regional entries competing in the national level are barangays Poblacion, Caba, La Union; and Lingsat, San Fernando City, La Union. Read more

by P. JULIAN

FREAKY weather is upon us, and the Philippines is facing the violent forces of a climate change.

And like other low-lying coastal cities, Manila will be at the forefront of rising seas, terrible typhoons and frequent floods.

Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Jakarta, Tokyo, Bangkok, Karachi, Mumbai and Dhaka - all share the fate of Manila, according to the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), because strange weather will be common at the end of this century.

There will be heat waves, heavy rains and - in temperate countries - snow storms. The number of extremely warm nights and the length of heat waves for land areas around the globe will increase significantly. Read more

DAGUPAN CITY - This city will implement the “Sustainable Sanitation in East Asia” project of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the World Bank water and sanitation program.

The project will be funded by the SIDA and co-funded by the World Bank, which is also the project implementor.

The city, which will receive about $300,000 fund support for the four-year project, has been chosedn as one of the six recipients of the program in the Philippines.

City health officer Leonard Carbonell said the project aims to address sanitation problems and concerns in urban and rural areas. Read more

DAGUPAN CITY - Following the death of a more than 10-foot long rare Rissos dolphin caught by fishermen from San Fabian last week, an awareness campaign on how to properly handle beached cetaceans will soon be conducted by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources along the coastal areas of the Lingayen Gulf.

Dr. Westly Rosario, interim director of the BFAR’s National Fisheries Research Technology Development Institute, said the campaign would be waged using the protocol for the proper handling of cetaceans developed by thte Ocean Adventure of Subic. Read more

BINMALEY, Pangasinan - The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) has confirmed that the proposed Agno River Irrigation Project (ARIP) is one of the priority projects to be built by the Arryo administration in order to create a strong agro-industrial economy.

This was disclosed on Saturday by NIA Administrator Arturo Lomibao when he opened a calling center for relatives of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) under his own Project Compassion, the 10th of its kind in Pangasinan, except those in Legaspi and Davao. Read more