ILOILO CITY (PNA) – Construction of a P352-million rice processing complex will start in Pototan, Iloilo province before the end of the year. This was announced by Agriculture Regional Executive Director for Western Visayas, Larry Nacionales who disclosed that the project is already good as approved and that, in fact, the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has already released funds for the implementation of the project. Nacionales said that a similar project has already kicked off in Pangasinan and the one in Iloilo is expected to follow next. Two other such projects will be put up eventually in Davao and Bohol, he said. The complex will house rice-processing equipment, a top-of-the-line rice mill, a dryer and trucking service equipment using Korean truck brands. Nacionales added that the project has national government counterpart funds. The provincial and municipal government of Iloilo and Pototan respectively has also committed to comply with their own contributions, to include the site and access road for the project. Earlier, Jose Tomungha of the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) expressed doubts that DoLE 7 can implement the wage increase considering that only 33 percent of establishments in the region has complied with the previous P267 minimum.

LEYTE SOLON’S BILLBOARD REMOVED 

TACLOBAN CITY – The Tacloban City Sub-District Engineering  Office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) here said billboards of Leyte First District Rep. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez have all been dismantled by the agency in compliance with a directive from DPWH Secretary Rogelio Singzon banning the installation of billboards of politicians in government infrastructure projects.  Engr. Arnaldo R. Bonifacio, District Engineer of the TCSDEO-DPWH, said they dismantled 74 billboards with the picture and name of Romualdez installed in all of his insfrastructure projects in the city. Singson is scheduled to arrive in Tacloban City on his way to Eastern Samar soon.  Bonifacio said he did not receive any complaints from either Romualdez or anyone from the latter’s camp after the billboards were turned over to the solon’s Tacoloban City’s office.  (Nestor L. Abrematea)

RAPE VICTIM ASKS FOR JUSTICE

BACOLOD CITY – A married woman, 29, a resident of Sipalay City, is wondering about the missing suspect who allegedly raped her several times and burned her house when she reported what befell her to the police. The victim said that last January 3, 2010, she was walking to church when she was suddenly accosted and dragged from the road to the middle of a sugarcane field where suspect, Nilo Cordova, allegedly raped her at gunpoint. Cordova, who is also married, resides some distance from the victim’s house. The victim said she did not tell her husband about the incident because she was warned by Cordova that he will kill her and her family if she reveals what happened to either her family or the police authorities. According to her account, Cordova subsequently repeated the same vile act against her, the last of which occurred on July 8, 2010. Harassed by gossips about her which allegedly were spread by Cordova himself, she finally reported the incidents to the police, which resulted to the burning of her house, with witnesses saying they saw Cordova and his wife perpetrating the crime. The victim has filed a case against Cordova at the fiscal’s office in Sipalay last August 17, 2010, but the suspect has since been missing. (Edith B. Colmo)