LIMAY CITED

LIMAY, Bataan — The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Seal of Good Housekeeping (SGH) for transparency and full disclosure has been awarded for the second year in a row to the municipality of Limay. The citation was given at a ceremony held at the Bataan People’s Center in Balanga City recently, coinciding with the graduation of the Community-based Risk Reduction and Management training conducted by the DILG Provincial Office. Along with Limay, the SGH award was presented to Balanga Mayor Joet Garcia and Samal Mayor Gene Dela Malibiran Fuente. (Mar T. Supnad)

NEW CHIEF

DAGUPAN CITY, Pangasinan — The formal change of command for this city’s police force held yesterday with Mayor Benjie Lim witnessing the installation of Supt. Cris Abrahano as the officer-in-charge (OIC). Supt. Romeo Caramat, the outgoing city police chief, expressed thanks to the support given to the police force by the local government. Abrahano vowed to continue the good works of Caramat, who was known for his crackdown on the illegal drugs trade which resulted in the arrest of 100 drug personalities in the city. He said he will also strike hard on organized crime and street criminals. (Liezle Basa Iñigo)

SOUP KITCHEN

RODRIGUEZ, Rizal — The feeding program of the police in this town continues with their chicken soup meal warming the stomachs of hundreds of children at a poor community here yesterday. The police station’s police community relations project dubbed as “Pospas ng Pulis Para Sa Kalusugan ng mga Kabataan” has reached Montalban Heights of Barangay San Jose here with more than 400 kids partaking of the warm bowl of soup. Supt. Arthur Masungsong said the community outreach project here was participated in by the police personnel’s private individual friends who took their time out of their busy schedules just to make sure that they could personally see the kids happily enjoying their snacks. (Nel B. Andrade)

PHILHEALTH M.O.A.

ANGELES CITY, Pampanga — The city government here recently forged a memorandum of agreement (MOA) entered into by suppliers and providers of medicines and medical supplies in Central Luzon in order to hasten the process of acquiring medicines to complement  PhilHealth’s “No Balance Billing” (NBB) policy. The NBB is a new PhilHealth policy mandating that no other fees shall be charged or paid for by the PhilHealth patients who availed of any of the identified 22 medical and surgical cases under the case rates package payment scheme and to provide optimal financial risk protection for all its members, especially the most vulnerable groups, including the poorest of the poor. (Franco G. Regala)

GUN POLICY

CAMP GEN. GARCIA, Cavite — The Cavite Police Provincial Office (PPO) will impose the gun ban strictly in the seven districts of the province once the election period gets going tomorrow. Supt. Dionicio C. Borromeo, PPO deputy director for administration, said that police checkpoints would be installed and operations conducted to check residents carrying firearms, as well as private armed groups (PAGs), in the province's six cities and 17 municipalities. “At the stroke of 12 midnight (of Jan. 13) we will go all-out against firearms and PAGs. There will be checkpoints and operations in strategic areas,” said Borromeo. (Anthony Giron)