New Bicol police chief to stick to 10-point agenda

by Ed de Leon

LEGAZPI CITY, Jan 18 (PIA) -- Newly installed police regional director for Bicol chief Supt. Jose Arne M. Delos Santos said that he will aggressively pursue the 10-point agenda of police national chief Nicanor A. Bartolome during his almost only one year and four months tour of duty as Bicol regional police chief.

During his inaugural speech during last Monday's turn-over ceremonies, presided over by Bartolome, Delos Santos stressed that he will be guided by the 10-point agenda of the PNP chief in the pursuit of the efforts of PRO 5 towards realization of making our communities safe to live, work, and do business in.

He pointed out that the 10-point agenda call for: 1) sustaining the Integrated Transformation Program and Performance Governance System; 2) periodic performance audit; 3) enhancement and specialization of skills; 4) one police per barangay supervisor; 5) promotion of Rights-Based Policing; 6) accounting of Wanted Persons and Service of warrants; 7) enhancement of Procurement, Financial, and Logistics Management Systems; 8) continues build-up of police equipage; 9) strengthening the Reward and Disciplinary System; and 10) enhancement of Moral and Welfare Projects.

The new police regional director said that he will ensure the accountability of all levels of his command and encourage a culture of integrity, excellence, and commitment as pillars of his leadership and as a way of life.

Delos Santos further stressed that the efforts towards genuine peace and order can and will only be achieved with the active support of a well-informed, responsible, and highly-mobilized community, without which no amount of talent, skills, and resources dedicated to law enforcement will ever succeed. “Thus we harness community support in our law enforcement efforts by earning the people’s trust, faith, and confidence,” he added.

He said that he will also work for an active partnership with local chief executives, heads of national and government agencies, leaders of non-government organizations, people’s organizations, the business sectors, the academe, church, and the media ensure solidarity and unity of efforts as "we push forward the frontiers of genuine community-based policing.”

Meanwhile, police director General Nicanor Bartolome urged the men and women of police regional office 5 to support their new director Chief Supt Arne Delos Santos and said that additional resources will be made available towards enhancing their skills and provide additional equipage.

Bartolome disclosed that the PNP will now go technical with the E-Blotter, E-Warrant, and E-Rogue.

He explained that E-Blotter will now be computerized while the E-warrant and E-Rogue will improve the data base to be accessible to all police units so that they could be updated on the crimes being committed anywhere. They would also be updated on outstanding warrants of arrest and photos of wanted will be placed in the E-Rogues for easy access to all police agencies.(MAL/EDL-PIA5)

BAS conducts local survey on small farmers

by Edna A. Bagadiong

VIRAC, Catanduanes, Jan 18 (PIA)-- The Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) started yesterday, January 17, a Survey on Characterizing Small Farmers of the Philippines through the funding support from the government of Japan (GOJ) and in coordination with the National Agricultural and Fishery Council.

The said survey is the third component of the project dubbed as, "Enhancing Farmers' Capacity to Access, Analyze and Utilize Statistical Information," with an objective of improving farmers' productivity, efficiency, and income through institutionalization of improved and sustainable capacities on operational and financial farm management and planning.

The survey is intended to generate benchmark statistics on the socio-economic characteristics of farmers that will support the prioritization and development of agricultural programs and projects. Specifically, it aims to characterize Filipino Farmers and determine who they are, how many they are and where they are located in terms of level and sources of income, expenditure pattern, farm investment, living condition, assets and liabilities, and other related variables.

It shall also address the gap on statistical information regarding the socio-economic characteristics of farmers in the Philippines.

The survey covers agricultural households across the country covering 16 barangays in the province. The sample barangays were determined from those with households declaring crop farming, livestock raising or poultry raising as main occupation of at least one member, based on the results of the 2007 Census of Population of the National Statistics Office (NSO).

On the other hand, the sample households were drawn from the list of agricultural households prepared for each sample barangay through interview of key informants.(EAB/BAS/PIA Catanduanes)