Uplift the beleaguered coconut industry --- ENKONIZE!
By
VANESSA DIORES
March
4, 2005
MANILA, Philippines -
Food, unemployment and air pollution are some of the major problems
confronting the country today. The economic crisis in the
Philippines
was caused by the non-upliftment of the ailing coconut industry, that was
once the gross national product (GNP), were 75% of our populations were both
directly and indirectly dependent to this miraculous tree of life.
Hunger, never absent in this
imperfect world. In this time of crisis we are ask to save. The paradox of
trend with regards to austerity measures is - the more people will save
their money the more manufacturers will not produce. Thus, the more
manufacturers will lay off workers. In a nutshell, the result will be
unemployment. Majority of our population is suffering from hunger, who do
not have the income nor means to purchase enough food. These people live in
the countryside and in the urban centers mostly in the squatter areas. And
these were the same people that were tempted to migrate in exchange of their
desire to land a job in the city.
In the face of accelerating
prices in our country and the economic difficulties across the globe, it is
pertinent to inform our selves of the primary causes of the ailment that
beset humanity. Aside from uncontrolled population, unemployment, food
crisis and here comes the pollution! Mineral oil the black monster that
emerged from the bowels of the earth and engulfed with its tentacles entire
nations and succeeded to control the economic and diplomatic destiny of the
world is behind this tremor that is precipitating, excruciating poverty to
billions of people. In any country, any upward change in the price of
petroleum sends its people to hardship and turmoil---Oil is an invisible
government. This is not to mention that this monster is the culprit in the
deterioration of our environment.
Why
not grow vegetable energy?
The Philippine coconut
industry as it is today did not come about by an overnight decision of any
single policy makers or a body of policymakers. Through the years, the
government approaches, all intended to establish and maintain a strong and
viable coconut industry. Since 1916, law after law has been passed, each
with a different approach. Government policy from Spanish regime up to 1980
or a span of more than three centuries, could be characterized as
fragmented, with no specific vision. Government policy during the seventies
particularly during the martial law period, up to 1992 or mere 20-year span,
has one vision - vegetable energization. Now that we are in the millennium
year, still the vision is for vegetable energization. Most of all, the
recent implementation of the Republic Act 8749 otherwise known as the Clean
Air Act of 1999, the government has to adopt eco-dynamics energization, not
only to save the air pollution but to save as well the millions of
two-stroke motorcycle units, believed to be the cause of carbon monoxide
emission from the incomplete combustion of petrol fuel.
The newly created National
Council on Food Security and Job Creation, headed by Secretary Jose
“Peping”Cojuangco was task by President Gloria Arroyo to materialize the
longtime dreamed plan of the country to embarked vegetable energization and
to immediately construct a 30 million Vegetable Energy plant, one for each
province.
Because of this long over
due planed alternative clean and renewable source of eco-dynamics
energization, a cebuano veggie energy expert was topped by the Arroyo
Administration to produce his 1974 invention - Enkoco Diesel-like,
Gasoline-like Fuel Oil and 2-ST Doubly Stroke Coco Motor Oil this is to
offset the expensive cost of the petrol-base fuel oil. The expert is to
produce also the coconut by-products to food and feed stuffs.
According to Vick Anthonio
Lucero Medel, what a petroleum-base crude oil can produce into fuels and
lubricants, Enkoco Eco-Dynamics Energy have the same product lines to
produce, using various vegetable, botanical and oil plants as the raw
materials. Enkoco 2-ST Motor Oil is high performance coconut-base two-stroke
motor oil and is designed to meet Premium Quality Standards. It is
formulated from a blend of high quality Coconut Natural Oil (CNO), botanical
viscosifier and superior fluorine-base catalytic additive from oil plants to
provide good protection against acid deposits, ring sticking, piston
tightening and pre-ignition. It has excellent resistance to oxidation and
thermal degradation thus giving good protection against wear and corrosion.
Enkoco 2-ST Coco Motor Oil is pre-diluted to ensure rapid mixing when added
to fuel, Medel said. No wonder after the latest laboratory and actual
retesting of Enkoco, by a multi-partite agency, headed by the Department of
Environment & Natural Resources last May 2003, the retesting results, (sec)
all the tricycles incurred a reduction of CO and HC emission. The average
reduction is 54.59% and 51.52% for CO and HC respectively. (sec) This is
according to the written report submitted.
While the first world’s
Vegetable Energy Plant is to be constructed in Tiaong, Quezon Province,
UNIVALM the acronym of the inventor, Vick A.L. Medel, is now reentering the
market for the Enkoco 2-ST Doubly Stroke Coco Motor Oil, since this product
was in the market together with the other Enkoco product lines
(gasoline-like and diesel-like fuels) last 1983 until the popular Edsa
Revolution took over.
(send your comments to this article)
A call for unity and reconciliation
By CPT. CROMWELL I.
DANGANAN, (INF) PA
February 9, 2005
CAMP LUKBAN, Catbalogan, Samar - Compassion, instead of
persecution, is what the recently captured NPA Amazon Sunshine Eulalio has
been receiving from the 8th Infantry Division, Philippine Army. No less than
a free hospitalization at the Command’s Camp Lukban Station Hospital (CLSH)
has been provided. Since her “rescue” by elements of the 19th Infantry
Battalion during an encounter in Albuera, Leyte from the hands of the
Communist Terrorists who are harassing and extorting from the civilian
populace in the area, where Sunshine has been wounded, care and sympathy has
been given to her in the form of free hospitalization initially in Ormoc
City hospital then to the Eastern Visayas Medical Center in Tacloban City
and to her new “home”, here in Camp Lukban Station Hospital.
Her “rescue” is credited to
the unflinching observance of the 8ID troops of the Rules of Engagement and
International Humanitarian Law governing armed conflict, where wounded
personnel, including the people’s enemy, should be given care and
compassion, as they are also human beings, with a family also waiting for
them. She has been particularly abandoned in vain of her former comrades who
have left her “Naalala ko pa and sabi ng mga kasamahan ko noon sa kilusan,
hindi kami mag iiwanan, noong na wounded ako sa engkwentro at nahospital,
wala man lang ni isang dumamay at tumulong sa akin na kasama sa kilusan,
mabuti na lamang at mababait at disiplinado ang mga sundalong nagligtas sa
akin. Tunay na walang kinabukasan sa kilusan”, Sunshine laments.
From her confinement in
CLSH last February 2, 2005, she went a series of surgical operations. Four
blood donors from among the soldier students of the 8th Division Training
Unit donated their blood for her sake as she has to undergo a major
application of External Fixator under General Anesthesia operation on her
right arm as a result of her wound inflicted during the encounter with NPA
Terrorists last January 29, 2005.
Camp Lukban Station
Hospital initially caters to the military personnel and their dependents but
has been providing health care to Sunshine during her pre-operations phase
and later on recuperation. Despite limited Command resources, substantial
amount has been set aside to cover for her medicines and other expenses
while she is on the road to recovery.
Thus, Sunshine’s mother,
Cristita P. Eulalio, has been very vocal and proud of the 8ID’s support to
Sunshine’s hospitalization that she became emotional when asked of what she
thinks of her daughter’s present condition. “Nagpapasalamat kami ng
marami sa Philippine Army sa pagbibigay ng bagong buhay saaking anak
gayundin sa lahat ng mga tulong na naibigay nila sa aming pamilya. Tunay na
mababait at disiplinado ang mga sundalo na totoong pinahahalagahan ang
buhay ng mga kapwa natin Pilipino.”
After Sunshine’s
recuperation, she shall be turned over to the Department of Social Welfare
and Development where she will be given a chance to recover her “lost life”
while with the Communist movement. Skills training would most probably be
provided to her, enough for her to live a normal and happy way of life with
her family.
Brig. Gen. Bonifacio Ramos,
the 8ID’s General Officer-in-Charge, in his statement said, “Now is the time
to heal and the time to unite, we are calling on our lost fellow Filipinos
who have been deceived into believing their futile cause to open their minds
and let the spirit of reconciliation and unity be instilled in their hearts
and minds as the only solution to our nation’s problems cannot be achieved
through force of arms or revolution, but rather by the collective efforts of
not only the government agencies but also the non-government entities and
most importantly the civilian populace, in our quest for a lasting peace and
prosperity for our country. That is the hope of every freedom loving
Filipino.” (see related news)
Kins
of slain Iloilo journalists air gripes in int’l fact-finding probe
By Alex P. Vidal/ PNS
February 1, 2005
ILOILO CITY
-- Family members of Ilonggo journalists murdered since 1985 have decried
the authorities’ failure to solve the slayings even if most of them were
“high profile” cases during the Iloilo leg of the International Fact-Finding
and Safety Mission in the Philippines spearheaded by the International
Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and National Union of Journalists of the
Philippines (NUJP) held at the Amigo Terrace Hotel here last January 27.
Emily Ureta, wife of DYKR-Kalibo reporter Rolando, lamented to the panel
headed by Gerard Noonan, senior writer of Sydney Morning Herald and IFJ Asia
Pacific representative that “justice is very elusive” in her husband’s case
which was dismissed by the prosecutor’s office recently for “insufficient of
evidence.”
Helen Suede, sister of DYFM Bombo Radyo anchorman Eddie, who was gunned down
together with trainee reporter Noel Teneso on July 1, 1985, said she lost a
“brother, provider, mentor and father in the person of Eddie” with her
brother’s killing.
She said her brother was “silenced” because of his expose involving a
Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) scandal. The suspect, Helen said,
was also murdered inside the jail when he was about to name the mastermind.
“But I don’t believe that justice delayed is justice denied,” said the
teary-eyed Helen.
Tess Arcones, wife of DYFM Bombo Radyo area manager Severino, said when her
husband was killed in 1989, “I thought I could not survive because my
husband left me with three young children.”
Tess was administrative officer at the University of the Philippines in the
Visayas (UPV) when Severino was murdered.
“I want justice for my husband because when he was alive, he also gave
justice to those who were in need,” Tess told the panel which also included
Rustam Fachri Mandyun of Indonesian Journalists Association and NUJP
secretary general Carlos Conde, correspondent of New York Times.
Chilling
It was Jose Marte Nava, son of Life Today publisher Josef , who provided the
most “chilling” testimony in the morning session which was also attended by
Iloilo Press Club president Eduardo Jalbuna, DYFM Bombo Radyo area manager
Jenil Demorito, Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP) Iloilo vice
chair John Paul Tia of Aksyon Radyo, and KBP-Kalibo chair Augustus Tolentino.
Nava was only 17 when his father was gunned down beside him in a trisikad by
unidentified perpetrator evening of Oct. 30, 1988.
“The murder of my father hit me a lot; it was a great trauma on my part and
I had to consult a psychiatrist in order to overcome the trauma,” narrated
Nava, who is now publisher of his father’s paper.
Nava protested that the police failed to follow up the case of his father.
He learned that there was no formal blotter report about the murder when he
tried to dig the records in the Criminal Investigation Detective Group (CIDG)
recently.
A week before the killing, Nava said a certain Capt. Arguelles had warned
his father about the plot to kill him. Nava said he believed his father, one
of the most fearless broadcasters in Iloilo City at that time, was killed by
a hired killer.
Document
Noonan said they will document the data and information gathered during the
fact-finding, which started in Gen. Santos City last January 26, and collate
them with their records in their headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Noonan said they held the fact-finding in the country after it was reported
that the Philippines was ranked number two next to Iraq in the number of
journalists killed in line of action last year.
“The figure is not good for the Philippines since there has been no single
conviction since 1986,” said Noonan, who had been warned by his colleagues
in Australia from conducting a probe in the Philippines.
Noonan said they also considered as “unacceptable from the point of view of
the IFJ the tolerance of mayors (in
Davao
and Cebu cities) of the vigilante killings.” He was referring to the series
of summary executions in the two cities involving criminals which have been
hogging headlines in the country along with the spate of media killings.
Noonan said the killing of journalists “has become a matter of increasing
concern to the IFJ” which has a 500,000 membership worldwide.
Frustration
Conde, meanwhile, said they uncovered a “sense of frustration” among family
members left behind by martyred journalist during the fact-finding.
“Most of the complaints aired by the kins were the slow pace of
investigation and the impact to their lives which have been shattered,”
Conde said.
Colleagues of slain mediamen also felt a “chilling effect” because of their
close relationship with the victims, he added.
“We want to put an end to the culture of impunity that’s why we are here to
find out what really is happening, and eventually pressure the government to
prosecute and solve all the cases involving murdered journalists,” Conde
said.
Samar’s Role In Leyte Landing
By
CHITO DELA TORRE
October
27, 2004
CATBALOGAN, Samar - Not going serious about celebrating
Leyte Landing, just because you are a Samarnon? Think again.
What about changing the
apocryphal title of the event, from Leyte Landing to simply Liberation?
After all, in Philippine history, there has been only one world-recognized
liberation, and that was the Philippine Liberation from the Japanese
Imperial Army or the Japanese Occupation. Moreover, since the Liberation,
books and songs and street corners and even foot trails in Philippine
barrios and sitios had been accustomed to the glorious days after World War
II - although it happened already in 1945 and Independence under the
auspices of the United States of America waved its flag of freedom on July
4, 1946 already - as the Liberation.
Perhaps via that change in
the event’s designation, Samarnons would realize that General Douglas
MacArthur did actually care for Samar and the
Samarnons when he “invaded” Leyte on
October 20, 1944 (October 19!, according to the people of Dulag,
Leyte, because
MacArthur’s boots were left in Dulag to dry for six decades now).
Samar Island did have a
role. Specifically, its southern towns.
General MacArthur
recognized and knew beforehand that without the southern towns of Samar
Island, his reprisal attacks on the Japanese forces would fail his
objectives.
Samar’s role was just as
important as Australia, New Guinea and the Halmaheras, all routes to the Philippines
taken by the famed general. At one moment, Samar had to be “secured...to
keep the enemy from building up a preponderance of strength...and to prevent
enemy naval craft from attacking shipping in the beachhead area,” as he
said.
In “THE RETURN TO LEYTE,
PHILIPPINES”, By General Douglas MacArthur, the penman himself wrote the
following lines (italicized below for allusion) which are extracted for this
current article (of which the bolder emphases are supplied by the current
author to point out the vintage references in appreciating Samar’s role):
Operational Plan
“The plan for the ground
operations in the capture of Leyte comprised
four main phases. Phase one covered minor preliminary landings to secure
the small islands lying across the entrance to Leyte Gulf. Phase two
included the main amphibious assaults on Leyte from Dulag to Tacloban, and
called for the seizure of the airstrip, an advance through Leyte Valley, and
the opening of San Juanico and Panaon Straits. The
third phase consisted of the necessary overland and shore-to-shore
operations to complete the capture of Leyte and the seizure of southern Samar. Phase four
contemplated the occupation of the remainder of Samar and the further
neutralization of enemy positions in the Visayas.”
Implication
Under phase three, southern
Samar had to be “seized” - meaning, grabbed, taken away, from the Japanese
occupation forces.
To do that, MacArthur’s
Liberation Forces had to employ weaponry, firepower, naval assault, air
attack, and foot soldiers.
All such strategies could
only be properly coordinated, to avoid unnecessary deaths to civilian
Samareños and Samareñas who were surrounded or held by the enemy Japs.
There would be bloodshed, smoke from burning buildings and homes.
Coordination had to enlist the participation of local ground forces -
Filipino guerillas (certainly not the Japs’ allies, the Pulahanes!, although
since early the 1900s, while camping in the mountains of the now Western Samar province, were popularly fighting against the United States’ rule over
the Philippines, but the guerillas led by Bataan war veteran Lt. Manuel
Valley who hailed from Guiuan, the southermost town of now Eastern Samar -
whose group stayed around the area from Lawaan town to Guiuan, Philippine
Constabulary Colonel Luciano Abia whose men all came from his native town of
Basey which is just across Tacloban City and participated in the last stage
of clearing the coastlines of southern Samar, and three others, those of
Samar’s ex-governor and former Manila lawyer Gen. Pedro Arteche whose units
operated in the Sta. Rita to Zumarraga zone, those under ex-Phil. Army Capt.
Pedro V. Merritt who were assigned at the northwestern area of the Island of
Samar, and those of Lt. Col. Juan Causing - later combining for a total
strength of 10,000 armed men, plus members of the Pulahanes who in 1943
joined the anti-Japs campaign while keeping themselves together in the
so-called “Bolo Battalion” of the 93rd Infantry Division following the
landing of guerilla supplies brought to Samar by the US Army led by Major
Charles Smith) and armed government forces and personnel then in the employ
of the puppet local government units (dummied political governing structures
under the direct control of the Japanese soldiers) in the different towns of
the southern Samar area. The Japs had to be tricked so as to disable them
from leaving this “area” about to be seized. They had to be surrounded, and
captured. To achieve that, civilians and guerillas had to be told to do
their share, to do exactly as planned by MacArthur.
The success of that
“coordination” in southern Samar contributed to the successful invasion of
Leyte by MacArthur’s Liberation Forces. Had not the strategies worked, his
invasion would have failed. Had not the people of southern Samar cooperated, had they not acted exactly as planned by
MacArthur, there could have been no invasion of Leyte at all.
Of course, the uncaring
Samarnons could have ignored MacArthur’s phase three calls. They could have
thrown defenses around the Japs. They could have simply retreated for cover
in the thick tree forests high up in the mountains or in the cavernous
recesses that surround the dwelling communities. Or, worse, they could have
instead fought side by side with the Japs, and even pummeled down the
advancing assault powers of MacArthur’s! But, they did not do that!
Even children could have
put up defense lines of bamboo cannons - lantaka, or luthang, which children
in Samar up to now use for producing loud blasts out of a holed and shelled
short-sized, and tilted (about 10 degrees) dry bamboo pole fed with kerosene
oil that ignites and explodes when fire is placed on the small slit towards
the ground end of the pole after puffing an air through that hole - and
reared them with sharp objects at assaulting Liberation soldiers. But they
did not do that!
Cooperation was manifest.
All Samarnons in that “area” acted accordingly.
Coordination could have only been made possible through
intelligence networking, passed on through radio and through channels. Of
course, to avoid interception by the Japs, the Voice of America radio
broadcasts were not availed of for the highly confidential intelligence
information passage. These had to be done through the manpower of
fishermen, merchants, teachers, and ordinary barrio people who could lest be
suspected, if ever, of being information gatherers or passers. This could
have taken place for one year or more, while MacArthur was arguing his
points for his “Reno”
plan.
Furtherance
Phase four pushed through.
The Liberation Forces combed all villages along tactical routes around Samar
Island. That could be the meaning of MacArthur’s “occupation of the
remainder of Samar.” Also, the Liberation Forces could have gathered local
fighters and combatants, as well as volunteers - women among them! - to set
up visible fronts under orders to pump bullets into enemy Japs in sight, and
to continue providing food rations and water supply to both the alien
liberators and their local counterparts.
“Further neutralization of
enemy positions in the Visayas” could have meant keeping the allied and
local forces visible and mobile, as if in endless day-and-night patrols, to
convey their readiness to shoot down or capture and take into prison the
enemy Japs still straggling or conducting ambuscades from undetermined nooks
and corners. That would be alarming to the enemies. The Japs would
therefore be forced, to save their own pants, to head for caves and forests,
there to hide indefinitely.
The “further
neutralization” strategy could also have meant deployment of forces along
beaches and on piers, wharves, ports and harbors, to keep the Japs from
escaping en route to the sea or from going ashore if being chased away from
another shore. Native Samarnons more familiar with the seas and movements
in waterways could only be employed and deployed to do this war mission.
Which Towns?
Gen. MacArthur did not name
the places comprising “Southern Samar”.
Until lately, since year
2001, particularly during the leadership of Representative Antonio Eduardo
Nachura, there was a cascading move to create from out of the existing
province of Western Samar another province to be known as “Southern Samar”.
It was supposed to be composed of the towns of from Calbiga down to Marabut,
including the faraway coastal towns of Villareal, Talalora and Sta. Rita.
At about the same time, a similar move was brewing in Eastern Samar, with such towns as Lawaan, Balangiga, and a few more to the
southern tip of the
Island of Samar, annexed to a “Southern Samar” new province. Could
MacArthur have referred to all these towns? Or, did he refer merely to
towns that could fall south of Samar after drawing a demarcation line
northeastward from the San Jose airport in Tacloban City through Samar
Island? If the latter were the actual case, then all those towns, including
Basey and Marabut in Western Samar up to Maydolong and down south in Eastern
Samar could have participated in MacArthur’s “Reno” intelligence and coordination activities.
Donald Chaput wrote (SAMAR
in WW II) about the presence of Japanese soldiers only along the western
coastlines of Samar Island, from Allen (in Northern Samar now) to Guiuan.
These enemy troops were mostly support and service units, with a few
assigned to some combat companies.
And so? Samarnons’ in this
“southern” area should be proud that they had played a very crucially
important role in the so called “Leyte Landing”. In a way, they had
helped save Leyte and the Leyteños. In a way, they had helped liberate the
Philippines from the Japanese. In a way, they had helped put an end to the
classic World War II. Therefore, they have a reason to celebrate, yearly,
as elaborately as Leyteños do.
Otherwise
If these were all not so,
by implication, then Samarnons could simply remain on their shores, watching
Leyteños and clapping their hands for the celebration in Leyte. Or, they
could travel to Leyte and join at Red Beach (now also known as Macarthur
Landing), where more than life-size statues of Gen. MacArthur, Gen. Carlos
P. Romulo who was MacArthur’s old aide who joined him on Bataan in 1942, and
“an old stalwart of the Quezon camp” and the “resident commissioner for the
Philippines in Washington”, President Sergio Osmeña and Philippine Army
chief of staff Basilio Valdez stand to remind every visiting WWII veteran
from Samar that at their back is a memory hankering for its own
recognition.
Sunshine Eulalio being attended to by the nurses of the Camp Lukban
Station Hospital in Catbalogan, Samar