KALIBO, Aklan (PIA) – Smoking areas where government employees could smoke during break times should not be inside office buildings, according to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) office here.

This is in order to protect non-smoking employees from being affected by second-hand smoke, said to be more harmful than first-hand smoke, according to Evelyn Ejar, CSC-Aklan Field Office director.

Government offices are also required to post “No Smoking” posters in their respective areas, to remind employees as well as clients that smoking is prohibited in public offices. Ejar emphasized that there is already an existing law banning smoking in public areas.

Police training

CEBU CITY (PNA) – A senior police official in Cebu said the police needed training on new technologies to fight human trafficking.

Senior Supt. Teofilo Siclot, deputy director of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO), said they will train all town police chiefs to be familiar with how traffickers use the Internet as a medium for illegal activities.

“Their skills are inadequate,” he said.

Last April, a cybersex den in Consolacion town was raided by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7. The CIDG 7 operatives rescued seven persons from two apartments in Barangay Poblacion Occidental.

Unified program

ILOILO CITY (PIA) – The region will soon have a unified regional training calendar for Calendar Year 2011.

The Regional Development Council (RDC) approved during its recent meeting in Bacolod City the Development Administration Committee (DAC) Resolution No. 8, asking the regional line agencies to submit their training programs.

These will then serve as input to the formulation of a unified training calendar which will include in-house training of the agencies, as well as training for their clients and stakeholders.

According to Director Evelyn Trompeta, chairman of the DAC, the calendar will serve as a ready reference for members of the RDC.

Go mainstream

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA) – Efforts to entice underground economies to surface sound anew as Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) authorities in Bohol reveal friendlier business processes to spur more investments.

Go mainstream, urged DTI’s senior Trade and Industry Specialist Blair Panong, adding that at a very measly P200 and P15 documentary stamps, one can already get a name for a business in a village.

In fact, a business name can now be easily had with the processes shortened and lesser signatories after a German-assisted project helped clean the mess up, he said.

P.N.P. project

DUMAGUETE CITY (PNA) – Negros Oriental Department of Education (DepEd) Schools Division Superintendent Dr. Ma. Milagros Velez has high hopes that the “Pulis Ko, Titser Ko at PROTECT Ako” program of the Philippine National Police (PNP) will encourage more teachers to accept assignments in schools in the hinterland villages in the province.

Velez noted that, at present, some of the teachers assigned in the hinterland schools are pulling out because of the insurgency problem.

The DepEd official said she cannot blame the teachers because they are concerned with their safety and security.