Classroom chairs, desks seen from seized hot lumber

By Ernesto A. Delgado

MASBATE CITY, Oct. 4 (PIA) -- The 5,229 board feet of lumber seized in Baleno town and this city in recent months would be used to make classroom armchairs and desks to help address the shortage of school equipment.

Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer Tito R. Migo said in a radio interview Thursday that instead of just letting them rot, the timber products, which were seized during separate anti-logging operations by police, would be turned over to the administration of the Department of Education (DepEd).

Migo said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would forge an agreement with DepEd which would bind the latter to craft the seized lumber into much-needed classroom furniture for use in public schools.

He said the strict enforcement of the log ban ordered by President Aquino is on top of the priorities of the newly installed DENR Regional Executive Director Gilbert Gonzales.

Aside from hot logs, wood flitches and lumber, wood charcoals which have been blamed for the massive felling of trees in Ticao and southern part of Masbate mainland, would be confiscated by DENR personnel, he added. (MAL/EAD-PIA5 Masbate)


Peace group seeks bloodless polls in Masbate

By Ernesto A. Delgado

MASBATE CITY, Oct 4 (PIA) — Masbate Advocates for Peace (MAP) kicked off the second wave of its peacemaking campaign last week in Mobo town.

Like what it did in 2010 elections, MAP is taking its campaign from town to town, to gather the people for a community-based discussion on how to deal with the partisan armed groups that may be reactivated by politicians who handle them.

MAP banded with a special task force of the Philippine National Police Armed Forces and Philippine National Police in 2010 to stand between feuding candidates from political clans in Masbate.

The 2010 balloting went on with fewer election-related violent incidents after rival political camps laid down the weapons of their supporters to the task force and MAP. (MAL/EAD-PIA5/Masbate)


Ban in the catching of ‘lawlaw’ eyed for Bicol

By Ernesto A. Delgado

MASBATE CITY, Oct 4 (PIA) -- Fishermen will be prohibited from catching sardines in Burias Strait for three months beginning December to allow the favorite fish species to reproduce and ensure supply for the coming year, a plan of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources said.

BFAR Provincial Officer Jesus Badillo said the fishing moratorium from November to January next year will allow mature sardines (known to local fisher folks as law-law) to breed freely during their spawning season.

Burias Strait—the fishing ground between the island of Burias and the western coasts of Camarines Sur, Albay and Sorsogon—is a major source of sardines, which are canned for domestic and exports markets.

Badillo said the bureau is talking with several stakeholders to ensure the success of the temporary closure, noting that discussions held with sardine processors and fishermen in Zamboanga where a similar moratorium successfully replenished sardine stocks made it possible to win compliance.

Taking note also of the steady increase in catch of sardines in the seas off the Zamboanga Peninsula since the ban was lifted in March, Badillo said it would be to the lasting advantage of fishermen to agree to such a temporary closure.

A BFAR study obtained by Publiko indicated that for every ton of fish left to spawn, a three-fold increase in the quantity of the fish is expected.

The Bureau of Agricultural Statistics’ data for 2010 show that sardines represents about 26 percent of the 1.24 million metric ton (MMT) catch from commercial fisheries and 11 percent of the 1.18 MMT municipal fish catch.

In 2011, however, the total catch went down by 24 percent to 109,000 MMT. (MAL/EAD-PIA5 Masbate)