Baguio City partners with other Ilocos cities for “Sabsabong ti Mayo”

The city government of Baguio, through the City Tourism Office, extends an invitation to tourism officers, local officials, and the muses of 10 key cities and municipalities here in Northern Luzon for the 2011 staging of ‘Sabsabong ti Mayo’ (Flowers of May).

In the Kapihan sa Baguio forum Wednesday, City Tourism Officer Benny Alhambra bared that they have invited the cities of Laoag and Batac of Ilocos Norte; Vigan and Candon of Ilocos Sur; San Fernando, La Union, and Dagupan, San Carlos, Urdaneta, and Alaminos of Pangasinan to join Baguio City and Tabuk City of Kalinga for this year’s staging of Sabsabong ti Mayo.

Alhambra explained that Sabsabong ti Mayo’ is a cultural and eco-tourism program and as a new product that they would like to develop to be a major tourism event, they are now partnering with other cities and key municipalities in this northern part of the country.

“We are converging here in Baguio to showcase the cultural and eco-tourism products especially the eco-fiber of the different places here in the north,” Alhambra said.

As the highlight of the event, a Santacruzan will be held on May 26 inside the SM City Baguio, which will be participated by the invited tourism officers as well as their cultural bearers or muses of their respective areas. An eco-fiber designer gown fashion show cum competition will also be held.

On Friday, the city guests will also join some of the city barangays for a ‘Santacruzan’, which will start at Session Road to the Baguio Convention Center wherein the Sabsabong ti Mayo will be culminated by an ‘anido’ (bonfire) for an informal meeting of the minds and gathering through bonfire, accompanied by dance, music and food.

Alhambra also disclosed that they will also be holding a participative development forum with their fellow tourism officers, to have an assessment of the ‘Sabsabong’ activity.

“Very briefly we would like to make an assessment, on what Sabsabong is all about and in line with our vision towards establishing it to be a major program of the city for the second quarter, after Panagbenga.

In partnership with eco-tourism officers and leaders on the North, we want to make this as a major event and to come out with programs on how we can also promote each other,” Alhambra said.

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Pangasinan’s Religious Heritage

A MUSEUM and what may be considered a spacious reception hall, with a replica of the Blessed Mother, have been added to the Nuestra Señora de Manaoag Shrine, arguably Pangasinan’s most famous religious shrine because of the many miracles attributed to Our Lady of the Holy Rosario.

One account, worthy of Gabriel García Márquez’s magic realism, says that during the drought of 1706, Mama Mary produced miraculous downpours which lasted for days.

The Dominican church, with its impressive interior, dates back to 1772 and was partially destroyed by fire during the 1898 Revolution. When the Dominicans returned in 1901, they rebuilt the transept and the dome, a task which was completed only in 1932.

The exterior of the church has lost its Old World charm, for the bell tower and façade now sport a modernist look. And some portions of the brick walls on the side have been cemented over. We ignore this, and just enter the church to converse briefly with Our Lady of Manaoag.

Our Lady calls

Years ago, on a similar pilgrimage to the shrine, I met a friend of happy memory, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, who shared: “I am a devotee of Our Lady of Manaoag because she has always granted all my wishes. But one has to have faith.”

Another parish in Pangasinan worth visiting is the church of Labrador, with its new patina of pastel colors. But again, we are confronted with a new belfry out of sync with the Neoclassical style of the façade.

The St. Joseph Cathedral-Parish, under the Diocese of Alaminos, is decked out with the official colors of the province, pastel yellow and gray, and the façade showcases a pantheon of saints: San Juan, San Lucas, San Mateo…

The cathedral has an imposing chocolate-colored retablo (altar backdrop).

Alaminos is one town which has managed to hold on to its heritage despite the onslaught of modernity and tourism (it is home of the Hundred Islands). One can see many ancestral houses in front of the church and plaza.

The high point of the tour organized by the Provincial Information Office, headed by Orpheus M. Velasco (075-542-7030; kokaok77@yahoo.com), on the occasion of Pangasinan’s 431st founding anniversary, was the St. James the Great Church in Bolinao, constructed in 1609 by the Augustinians.

This historical church is now undergoing reconstruction, and one hopes it is that and not renovation. Already, some portions of the façade, with coral stones, have (again) been cemented over. This has happened to many Spanish-era churches in the Philippines, and one wonders if our parish priests are really heritage-conscious.

First Mass?

In front of the church is a marker which pays tribute to Blessed Fr. Odorico, an Italian missionary who, early in the 14th century, traveled to China and, the ship encountering a storm, sought refuge in Santiago Island, Bolinao, the northernmost tip of Pangasinan.

“O glorious Father Odorico,” the monument plaque declared, “you touched our country in your journey to China. May that great nation and all nations open the door to Christ.”

Interestingly, the marker added: “In 1324, Blessed Odorico, after landing in Bolinao, celebrated the first Mass in the Philippines. He also indoctrinated and baptized many of the Malay immigrants in Bolinao.”

(Ambeth Ocampo and Church scholars Fathers Pedro Galende, OSA, and Rene Javellana, SJ, please check this out. I was told that the source is a travel memoir written by Father Odorico, a copy of which is somewhere in the province.)

The pilgrimage made me recall an earlier visit to another grand shrine, the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, now a National Cultural Treasure, in Calasiao. It is Baroque-Romanesque in style, pyramid-shaped like the Bolinao shrine, with castle-like finials on the side and a state-of-the-art computerized musical system.

Also well-preserved is the convent house, with its sense of space and scale, redolent of a bygone era. “I met Padre Salvi in the corridor,” quipped SV Epistola, another friend of happy memory.

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Hundred Islands draws 140,425

ALAMINOS CITY, Pangasinan, Philippines — The tourist arrivals at the popular Hundred Islands National Park (HINP) this year has reached 140,425. Reynaldo T. Livara, Jr., HINP technical consultant, revealed Monday that as of November 8, a total of 131,959 local visitors and 8,466 foreign tourists have visited the 1,800 hectare-park. By these figures, the HINP expects the tourist arrivals to top 160,000 by the end of the year, said Livara. He said this was a big jump in tourism not only for the Hundred Islands but for the country as well, noting that in 2005, there were only 63,656 tourists who visited the national park with only 3,733 of them foreigners. (Liezle Basa Iñigo)

Source: Hundred Islands draws 140,425
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HUNDRED ISLANDS FISHPONDS :Provincial officials to go after DAR, PTA, DENR

LINGAYEN -The provincial government cleared the city government of Alaminos of responsibility of allowing fishponds at the Hundred Islands National Park, and has trained its guns at the different agencies which allegedly allowed the structures to operate in the country’s first national park.
Provincial Administrator Rafael Baraan said the fishponds were established long before the city government took over the management of the HINP in 2004 through Executive Order 436.
He said, “It is admitted that the (structures) were there before Alaminos took over, so Alaminos has nothing to do with allowing structures to be constructed in Hundred Islands.”
“ (But) we wanted to dig deeper into problems such as how the structures came about, and why such activities were allowed in an area supposedly protected under the national integrated protected areas law,” he said during a press conference on Thursday.
Mayor Hernani Braganza said the city government could not act on the structures because they are covered by titles and are therefore private properties. But they still had to conform with the environment laws of the city for them to be granted permits to operate, he said.
Provincial officials last week held a press conference on November 4 announcing that new structures have proliferated inside the Hundred Islands, but later backtracked and said the structures were actually the 46-hectare fishpond of the Bolo Development Cooperative (Bolodeco).
Several agencies are responsible for the establishment of fishery structures inside the park. It was the Philippine Tourism Authority that granted a contract of lease to the Bolodeco on November 3, 1980, for 25 years and renewable for another 25 years.
The Department of Agrarian Reform granted the Bolodeco a certificate of land ownership in 1993. The PTA asked the DAR adjudication board to nullify the CLOA in 1999.
The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources also issued fishpond lease agreement to private persons covering 45 hectares since 1973, while 70 hectares are operated without any tenurial instrument issued by the government, he said.
“How come over a very long period these structures are still there? Why are they being operated as fishpond concessions, and why they look more improved than before?” Baraan said.
He said the provincial government is going to ask the Department of Agrarian Reform’s adjudication board (DARAB) why after more than 10 years, it has not decided yet on the petition to nullify the CLOA.
It will also inquire from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources why it allowed fishpond operation in the park which is a protected area.
In another press conference, Braganza said he welcomed the investigation of the problem which “has been here even when I was still a college student.”
“So nagtataka ako why biglang pumutok ang’ hundred islands vandalized’, as if it only happened during my watch as mayor,” he said.
A press release of the provincial government quoted an official of Bolodeco saying four Braganzas own fishponds at the islands. It also quoted an Inquirer story dated September 9, 000 that mentioned two Braganzas as fishpond operators.
“Not true. My relatives are not bad people. They own fishponds but these are located at the mainland, not at the HINP, and they have been operating those fishponds for decades already,” he pointed out.
He claimed that even a member of the provincial government’s Task Force Kalikasan, retired police office Tommy Cabigas, owns a fishpond in the city, but outside of the islands.
Braganza also showed an ortho-photo map of Alaminos showing the positions of the private fishponds. “I know the map of Alaminos by heart. I know where the problems are, including balding mountains.”
“There is no way you can see the fishponds when you go to the Hundred Islands, so yong sasabihin nila na mabaho ang Hundred Islands, imposible yon,” he said
A media tour at the Bolodeco site showed that there were no activities there, and a dike has been breached where water freely flows in and out of the pond.

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Gov’t agencies accused of sleeping on their job for Hundred Islands

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan, Nov. 13 —Different government agencies that have oversight function over the Hundred Islands National Park (HINP) have been accused of sleeping on their job in the face of continuing existence of a 47-hectare fishpond right in the heart of the reservation area.

“Either some government agencies are doing something against the law or they are not doing their job or sleeping on their job,” said Pangasinan Provincial Administrator Rafael Baraan in a press conference on the Hundred Islands issue on Thursday.
The fishpond is owned by the Bolo Development Cooperative (Boledeco), a group of more than 200 fish farmers who petitioned and were granted Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) by the Department of Agrarian Reform in 1993.
Baraan said that the Alaminos City government took over the jurisdiction of the Hundred Islands from the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA) by virtue of Executive Order 436 issued by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on June 21, 2005.
He said that the city of Alaminos had nothing to do with the construction of the fishpond structure as these were built long before it took over the islands from PTA.
Records showed that the 47-hectare fishpond was segragated from the the national park in favor of the DAR during the administration of the PTA and which conveyed the same to Bolodeco by issuing CLOA to the same.
Considering that there are government agencies having an oversight function over the national park, Baraan wondered what these entities may have done when they saw the fishpond rising as they know this was already inconsistent with the current uses of the place as tourist spot.
He singled out the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) which, by virtue of the National Integrated Protected Area System (NIPAS), has regulatory control of the HINP, especially on matters which pertain to protected areas.
Baraan asked: How come that over a period of years this structure is still there, how come it is still operated and how come this become improved more than before?
Mayor Hernani Braganza of Alaminos City told newsmen there was a time some DENR officials were selling some fore shore lands of the HINP, near the Lucao wharf, to private individuals although the same was not yet segregated from the park and proclaimed alienable and disposable.
At the same time, Baraan chided the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB) where a case seeking the revocation of the CLOA issued by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Bolodeco had been filed since 1999.
But sadly, he said, DARAB has not issued any decision on the matter despite the fact that the body, which is a special court for settling agrarian dispute, terminated the hearing case way back in February 2000.
“DARAB is already sleeping on this case. . There is no reason for it (DARAB) to allow this thing to remain hanging, Baraan said in that press conference also attended by Provincial Information Officer Orpheus Velasco and Paterno Orduna, head of the province’s Task Force Kalikasan.
Asked on what the provincial government can do to facilitate the decision of the case since the parties already ended presenting their evidence way back 10 years ago, he said Governor Amado Espino Jr. may write the DAR to demand and early resolution of the case.
DARAB is under the supervision of the Department of Agrarian Reform where the three-term Mayor of Alaminos City (Braganza) was once a secretary but said he adopted a hands-off policy on the issue at that time, lest he be accused of being biased since he is from Alaminos.
“We all know that the case was submitted for decision 10 years ago and there is no reason that DARAB has not resolved or cannot make a decision on the matter,” he said.
Baraan said that the issues on the Hundred Islands just surfaced when provincial officials came across aerial photos of the Hundred Islands taken by a Palistani student pilot whose plane was landing regularly in the Lingayen Airport.
But somebody should act so that all unanswered questions about the Hundred Islands could be answered, adding that this was actually what the provincial government did. (PNA) RMA/Lvm/lvmicua/rma/jsd

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PSU bats for green environment

PSU bats for green environment

by Venus H. Sarmiento

Lingayen, Pangasinan (28 July) -- The Pangasinan State University embarked on a tree planting activity yesterday and today, as part of its social concern to help protect the environment.

PSU President Victoriano Estira said the commemorative tree planting activity forms part of the 31st anniversary celebration of the school to develop awareness and participation among the students.

"We would like to show the way and lead the way in caring for the environment. We exemplify tree planting as an immediate concern and translate in the form of the participation and more involvement of faculty members and students," Estira said.

The initial tree planting activity was conducted in the nine campuses of PSU located in the towns of Asingan, Binmaley, Bayambang, Infanta, Lingayen and in the cities of San Carlos, Urdaneta and Alaminos. It was capped by the university celebration in the main campus in Lingayen where the planting activity was spearheaded by Estira together with the university's three vice presidents- Dr. Lydia Buduhan for Administration and Planning, Dr. Manolito Manuel for Academic Affairs and Dr. Honorio Cascolan for Research and Extension.

Thousands of forest tree seedlings like mahogany and gimelina were planted to provide shade and recreation area within the vicinity of the school campuses, not to mention their aesthetic value and contribution to filtration of carbon dioxide in the air.

Incidentally, the nature-loving Estira revealed that he just planted 500 seedlings last weekend in his farm located in Bugallon town as it is "always the people's responsibility to sustain and care about the trees and the environment not only for themselves but most importantly for the future generations to come."

A short program honoring the loyal PSU faculty members, retirees and board passers was held after the greening activity. Marcelo Casillan of the PSU Board of Regents, was the event's guest of honor and speaker (PIA-Pangasinan)

http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=12&fi=p100728.htm&no=23

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