The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) has sweetened the pot for its 20-man developmental team whose members will be offered as much as three-contracts to keep them entertaining offers from the country’s major basketball leagues, in particular the PBA and the PBL.

Even with the long layoff, rustiness isn’t a concern for Alaska and Talk ’N Text when they take on separate foes at the start of the KFC-PBA Philippine Cup best-of-seven semifinals series today at the Araneta Coliseum.

ARINGAY, La Union — Ninety-three families, composed of 471 persons, in Barangay Berlin-Alaska, Aringay, La Union were displaced by a storm surge that hit the shoreline of this town last Saturday, a belated report stated.

Abono party-list said yesterday the objective of the corn program is to encourage farmers to plant white corn to areas which cannot be planted to rice especially in elevated places.

CEBU CITY — International hotel chains in Cebu report high occupancy rate early this month as the Sinulog festivities come to its peak.

MANDAUE CITY, Cebu — Policemen arrested a suspect in the killing of an anti-drugs policeman, who was ambushed last October at the Mandaue-Mactan Bridge, during a drug "buy bust" operation at a mall here.

PATIN-AY, Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Northeastern Mindanao (Caraga Region) has cleared the remaining barriers that obstruct the full operation of a multi-billion-peso forest plantation project in this landlocked province of Agusan del Sur, paving the way for the acceleration of economic growth in the area, this was learned yesterday.

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — Officials in Northern Mindanao blamed continuous illegal logging and mining, including permitted logging and mining operations, for the recent flooding that displaced thousands of residents in this region’s capital city and several towns in Misamis Oriental and Gingoog City, this was learned yesterday.