Less losses, more profit with cold chain

By Sosimo Ma. Pablico

A continuous refrigerated handling of high value crops and other commodities like fish from the production area like the farm to distant markets could very well extend their freshness and quality, resulting in less postharvest losses and more profit.

Known as the cold chain, this post production system helps farmers and fisherfolks meet the demand of the market for a year-round supply of fresh quality vegetables and fish.

Francis Ching, 54, of La Trinidad, Benguet, who is both a vegetable farmer and trader, attests that indeed the cold chain has helped him meet the requirements of his institutional buyers to deliver his products at a prescribed temperature. 

For three years now, Ching has been using the cold chain in transporting his products to his clients in Metro Manila.  Overall, the technology has generated good results for him and he swears he will continue using it until a better technology is developed.
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“Bagong Nayong Pilipino Manila Bay Integrated City”

By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D.

The very long and complicated title alone is already impressive as well as intriguing. In fact, it does not only sound compound but also appears complicated. Its envisioned grandiosity is precisely what generates its suspicious reality and devious intent. A “Nayong Pilipino” that is new? A City that is “integrated”? A City at the “Manila Bay’? This cannot but be a “Trying Hard” Syndrome. The same can only be a poor cosmetology to cover up something sinister and objectionable.

Such an admittedly negative perception is warranted by the mere fact that the complex titled distinct project is being envisioned by no less than the Philippine Amusing Gambling Corporation (PAGCOR). It was first publicized as a whooping 20 billion US dollars work-in-progress. It was thereafter followed by the avid courtship of foreign gambling partners. It was later on blessed by an accommodating PAGCOR franchise. And Philippine History is now in the making.
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Another milestone for GenVel

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

PANGASINAN sports lovers, especially in the field of basketball, are aware that the town of Sta. Barbara is a producer of sports celebrities.

PBA’s Marlou Aquino and Christian Calaguio are the current luminaries from that town.

Well, if you consider body-building a sport, the first sports celebrity that this place produced was Herminigildo Tigno, the 1961 Mr. Philippines.

Correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I can remember, the macho and mucho guwapito Tigno landed in the top five (I believe he bagged the first runner-up plum) during the 1961 Mr. Universe Body Building Contest. That’s a great achievement by the town as well as our province Pangasinan.
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Gun culture

By Marifi Jara

Two Christmases ago, I remember the big toy rave among the children around here were guns.

Guns of all shapes and sizes, looking almost like the real things.

And these were spewing out pellets bigger than the size and similar to the texture of mung (or mongo) beans. Now imagine how that has the potential to inflict serious injury, perhaps not on the skin but on the eyes.

All Christmas break long, the tots - mostly boys and some girls - had the time of their lives out in the streets playing gang-war games.
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Manners make the man! Or the woman?

By Emmanuelle

It is not mere old folks’ talk. Written records from the earliest centuries had been dug up by anthropologists to give credence to the proposition that people as far back as even before the Middle Ages believed strongly in this popular saying.

There were ceremonies for every public occasion, and there were social behaviors expected to be observed. The standard that a person maintained in the observance of these social behaviors determined his standing or reputation in the eyes of the community. One’s standard can be as loose as the common tart or one can be as strict as the tightest-assed royals.
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FULL-BLOWN TRIAL SOUGHT

THE city government of Dagupan is bent on going to trial on the controversial MetroState case.

City Legal Officer George Mejia has filed an opposition asking the court to deny the petition filed by MetroState Realty Corporation for summary judgment on the civil case for mandamus with preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order.

Mejia, on behalf of defendant City Engineer Ma. Virginia Rosario, sought in his motion that the case be set for hearing for the presentation of evidence.

The case is filed before Regional Trial Court judge Rolando Mislang of Branch 42.
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ALL OVER RP

LINGAYEN—A report on the Financial Highlights of local government units (LGUs) for 2006 issued by the Commission on Audit listed Pangasinan as number nine with Substantial Amount of Cash in Bank, sixth with Highest Gross Income and fifth among LGUs with Highest Net Income.

Former Governor Victor Agbayani, now Second District Congressional Representative, said the report vindicates him from the attacks lodged by his political opponents.

“The COA report is the best evidence that under my incumbency the provincial economy was strong and the provincial government’s financial condition was excellent.” Agbayani said.
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The going has been rough for political neophyte Rep. Rachel Arenas of the Third District.

In an interview with The PUNCH, Arenas said interrelated developments at the House of Representatives have been hampering development programs that she wants to immediately implement in her district.

Arenas said the senate investigation and the subsequent events have resulted in the withholding of funds for their projects supposed to be released by several government agencies on account of the controversy surrounding the House leadership.

The lady House Rep was referring to talks that House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. is under threat of being unseated following his son’s revelations before the Senate of the alleged involvement of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo in the national broadband scandal.
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BURGOS–If you want to see some giant turtles, come visit this town at this time of the year.

During the month of October, various species of giant turtles such as Olive Ridley and Leatherback come ashore at the white sand beach of this scenic coastal town to lay eggs.

Mayor Domingo Doctor said this has been happening over the past several years and residents have been helping out the turtles by enclosing their nests in nets to prevent the hatchlings from prematurely venturing out into the sea.

The baby turtles are kept at bay for about a month and the nets are removed around end-November.
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JOSE Mariano Cuña, a businessman from Dagupan who sold a 30-hectare land in barangay Awai, San Jacinto to the Dagupan City government for P16 million on April 11, 2002 is now on the spot.

City Legal Officer George Mejia said Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr. has directed him to write Cuña to ask him to explain whether the subject property was, indeed, already in the process of being covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) when he sold it to the city.

Earlier, Councilor Jose Netu Tamayo, who was on his first term of office when the controversial Awai land was bought by the city, suggested that Cuña be made to return every single centavo of the P16 million he got from the city government.
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