2 Govs, 1 Mayor to light up Tagum City’s famous Xmas Tree Tonight

No less than two governors and one mayor will lead the lighting up of Tagum City'sfamous giant Christmas Tree at 7 p.m. tonight, Wednesday, November 21 at the Freedom Park at the back of Tagum City Hall.

The lighting up, which will also coincide with the 3^rd Food Festival, will be led by Mayor Rey Uy, Davao del Norte Governor Rodolfo del Rosario and Compostela Valley Governor Arturo Uy.

“Tagum City became popular when it built the country’s tallest Christmas Tree in 2006 at 153 feet,” Engr. Nemar Jumarito of the City Engineer’s Office said. The city’s Christmas Tree was reduced to only 113 feet in 2011 but still had an interesting design.

One of the attractions during the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony is the Christmas Medley rendition by the Tagum City Youth Orchestra which is composed of 330 music artists from the groups of Symphonic, Rondalla and Choir of the different schools in the city.

 

He said this year’s Christmas Tree will stand 109 feet in height and will have a different design with 300 pieces of clear raindrops designed to look like beads of rain is falling from the tree. The other decorations consisting of stars, flowers and angels have also been incorporated in the design, he said. The tree has a star design on top with a combination of pig tails and rope lights.

 

Jumarito said the Christmas Tree will operate on two sets of controls, the manual and the automatic control. The tree will be manually lit up during the opening night but will be set to automatic for future and everyday use so that it is turned on every 6 p.m. and turned off every 2 a.m. 

 

The start of the Christmas celebration in the city is expected to be very merry and literally bright, he said, considering that three areas have been set up including the mini-park area with a mini zoo theme with lighted animals.

 

Jumarito said a total of 14 arcs have been constructed within the City Hall area with lanterns and an assortment of rope lights.

(Thanks to Tagum City CIO for the photo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oplan Kaluluwa to ease traffic in Davao City during All Souls, All Saints Day

The Davao City Traffic Management Center (TMC) is all set for the observance of this year’s All Saints and All Souls Day on November 1 and 2.

“We have deployed a total of 154 personnel to the various cemeteries and nearby the vicinity for this year’s Oplan Kaluluwa,” Senior. Inspector Manuel Espaňola of TMC said yesterday during the regular iSpeak Program at City Hall.

Espaňola said TMC has a total of 370 personnel which they hope to utilize to ensure that traffic in the city will be properly managed during these days.

TMC has temporarily suspended the filing of leave of all personnel considering that the observance of the All Saints and All Souls Days require police and traffic personnel visibility.

The TMC has already mapped out the traffic routes for November 1 and 2. Vehicles that intend to proceed to Forest Lake, San Pedro memorial Park, Catholic Cemetery, Public Cemetery and Masonic Cemetery can enter from San Pedro Extension going to the Circumferential Road on a one-way basis.

He said they will also impose a one-way traffic going to the Chinese Cemetery along the Circumferential Road from the Davao medical School Drive to Bacaca. One-way traffic will also be imposed along the roads going to the Buhangin Memorial Park along Cabantian Road.

Christmas comes early for Davao government employees with up P15T bonus guaranteed

Employees of the Davao City government will have more reasons to smile these days after they were assured of their Christmas bonus.

The Davao City government has assured the employees of the early release this November of the remaining portions of their 13th month pay, half of which was already released last June.

“We will start to release the 13th month pay of the local government employees by November,” Assistant City Administrator/Human Resource Management Office Department head Edwin Alparaque said yesterday.

Alparaque also assured the employees that they will be given their Social Amelioration Bonus amounting to P15,000 for regular employees and P10,000 for contractual employees and job orders.

“These benefits are already part of the 2012 annual appropriation so I do not see any reason why they won’t receive these benefits this year,” he said.

The same Social Amelioration Pay has been previously given to the employees last year, he added.

However, Alparaque clarified that this is not yet the signing bonus as both management and labor are still negotiating the Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA). The signing bonus, he added, is given the employees whenever a new CNA has been negotiated and approved.

“Ginatuki pa man ang bag’ong CNA so wala pa’y signing bonus (we are still negotiating the new CNA so there is as yet no signing bonus),” he said

Tagum coop now has P86.66M net surplus

The Tagum Cooperative has grown by leaps and bounds with a previous net surplus of P27.497 million, Latest figures however show that it now has a net surplus amounting to P86.66 million and total combined assets of P1.7 billion as of August 2012.

The Tagum Cooperative topped the list of cooperatives all over the country in terms of net surplus.
Provincial planning and development office supervising cooperative development specialist Humber Cabunoc said the Tagum coop is not only on the Top 20 cooperatives in Southern Mindanao but was chosen as the country’s most outstanding large cooperative during the 11th Cooperative Summit held in Cagayan de Oro City last week.  Cabunoc also said next in line are the Sta. Ana Multi-Purpose Cooperative with a net surplus of P24.97 million and the Agdao Multi-Purpose Cooperative with a net surplus of P22.34 million. Both are based in Davao City.  “The cooperative was previously chosen as the number 1 cooperative in Southern Mindanao in terms of its net surplus,” he said.  “We are encouraging residents of Davao del Norte to become members of the Tagum Cooperative considering that it has shown proof of good governance and an established financial and recording system,” he said.  Cabunoc said with almost 80,000 members the Tagum Cooperative has no external borrowings and relies on its own loan portfolio of P1.35 billion and deposits amounting to P833 million. The Tagum Cooperative, which was previously known as the Holy Name Society of Tagum Parish, was founded in May, 1967 with an P80 capital and several members

SM City Lanang takes malling to a new level with green archi

SM City’s newest premier mall in the Davao City, which is set to open on September 28 this year, takes malling to a new level with the adoption of green architecture components in the construction of the SM City Lanang Premier.

“We have installed a rain-catchment system capable of handling 550 cubic meters of water in accordance with the new city ordinance requiring a rainwater catchment system for all new constructions,” SM City Lanang Premier mall manager Clarice Lapeňa said during a press conference held at SM City Ecoland Monday, in preparation for the September 28 opening of the new mall.

Ordinance No. 0298-09, series of 2009, which mandates the proper harvest, storage and use of the city’s rainwater, was authored by former councilor Leonardo Avila. Establishments that will construct rainwater catchments in their projects are set to receive tax rebates from the government while violators will be penalized.

Avila earlier said that the rainwater catchment system will help mitigate flooding and canal erosion in the urban areas. Lapeňa said the RCS will prevent the overloading of the creek near the area.

The mall has also adopted other green architecture components such as the use of glass pavers in the open parking area. Glass pavers are considered an environment-friendly option as they are recycled from glass bottles. With proper sandblasting, the glass pavers become slip-resistant and provide maximum water absorption characteristics. The use of glass pavers in the mall’s open parking space results to minimum water run-off, Lapeňa said.

LED lights, which are more efficient and cost-effective since they last longer than the ordinary light bulbs, are used throughout the mall. Louvers were also used to deflect and block daylight, making the indoor cooling system more efficient. And to minimize the carbon monoxide emission, SM City has installed park finders in the parking lot. The gadget will help drivers maximize their fuel use as they will easily determine the availability of a parking space when there is a green light, or the red light if it is occupied.

JCI Senate Phils throws in support for responsible mining

Davao City-The JCI Senate Philippines yesterday came out in the open and declared its support for responsible mining in the Philippines even as the Chamber of Mines disputed adverse claims that the country’s mining industry caused the degradation of some areas in Palawan.

“JCI is coming out in the open on its advocacy on responsible mining,” Zamboanga del Sur Governor and JCI Senate Philippines National President said during the JCI-sponsored Forum on Responsible Mining held at the Grand Menseng Hotel in Davao City.

The Forum attracted more than a thousand participants coming from various sectors of society including the pro-mining, anti-mining, government, media, the academe and advocacy groups.

“The falling of the trees in Palawan is not due to mining but the continuing harvest of timber for domestic consumption and the conversion of forest land for agriculture development,” was the declaration made by Chamber of Mines of the Philippines Chairman Art Disini when he gave an overview of Philippine Mining.

Disini also blamed the continuous establishment of human settlements to accommodate the increasing population of the province (which has an annual growth rate of 3.5%) for the degradation of Palawan’s forests.

He also debunked claims made by non government agencies that mining will compete with Palawan’s agriculture saying that “rice and corn farming in Southern Palawan is not commercially feasible due to the lateritic soil” in the area. The high iron and nickel content of laterites, he added, made soil nutrient poor.

Disini said claims that the mining industry will have a great impact on Palawan’s tourism is not true since “the existing large scale mines in Palawan are too far away from the ecotourism sites to have any impact on tourism.” He said there are no large scale mining companies operating inside the key protected areas of Palawan.

Father Joel Tabora, President of the Ateneo de Davao University, however said that when one speaks of responsible mining, it should be discussed in relation to agriculture and this was not taken up during the Forum.  Tabora, who said thousands of hectares of rice farms will be affected by mining because mining activities will affect the hydrology of the area. He also said that any mining forum should tackle its effects on the environment and on the indigenous people.

Chamber of Mines of the Philippines VP for Communications Rocky Dimaculangan said they believe that a mining company is deemed to have subscribed to environment protection once it has complied with the government requirements on Environmental Impact Assessment, Environmental Compliance Certificate, conducts reforestation project, conducts water quality monitoring and similar activities.

It can be recalled that the Ateneo also previously sponsored a mining summit which became controversial because it invited only pro-mining groups. Tabora however said that the Ateneo will continue to hold forums on mining in the future but will surely invite the Chamber of Mines.

DOE conducts public consultation in Davao for safe renewable energy dev't.

The Department of Energy (DOE) conducted Thusday last week a public consultation in Davao City for the proposed new department circular appropriately titled “Renewable Energy Safety, Health and Environment Rules and Regulations (RESHERR)” which will hopefully be approved before the end of the year. 

“The new circular, which is yet to be approved by the DOE Secretary, is part of DOE’s proactive stance in ensuring the safety of the operations of renewable energy sources,” Renewable Energy Management Bureau (REMB) Director Mario C. Marasigan said. There is an existing rules and regulation, he added, but it only covers geothermal energy so the proposed circular will expand on the sale law and will cover all renewable energy sources including hydro, geothermal, biomass, wind, solar and soon ocean energy.

Marasigan said this is a reminder to all those involved in the renewable energy industry to be ready for any eventuality or emergency that may challenge their operations in the long term. He said it is practical to update the old rules and regulations  since geothermal used to be under a different bureau before, but is now placed under the jurisdiction of the REMB.

The proposed rules and regulations comes as a result of the enactment into law of Republic Act 9513 or the Renewable Energy Act in 2008. The new circular aims to “ensure the adequate safety and protection against hazards to health, life and property as well as pollution of air, land and water from Renewable Energy operations,” he added.

The final consultation is scheduled in Manila next week, after which a consolidation of all the concerns and consultation results will be made by the Bureau. After which, it will be submitted to the DOE secretary for approval. Once published, the new circular will have the force of law.