Some 1,500 traders from various parts of the country are participating in the trade festival at the Exhibition Hall of the Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan, Metro Manila featuring the 13th National Furniture, Furnishings, and Fashion Festival backto-back with the 2nd Philippine Folk Arts and Crafts Festival.

The 24-day trade show, which ends April 2, offers quality products made by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) such as tribal, ancestral, turn-of-thecentury, modern furniture and furnishings, artworks, paintings, sculptural pieces, woodcrafts, wrought iron, ivory and wooden Christian icons, lamps, jars, ceramics, chandeliers, precious and semi-precious stones, and novelty items.

There is also an exhibit and sale of various cellphones and accessories and related services, ready-to-wear clothes, garments, leather goods and merchandise, Philippine sweets and delicacies, fashion accessories, sporting goods, housewares and appliances, office supplies and equipment, computers, pets and animals, and exotic flora and fauna.

The government hopes that the sale of two sequestered television stations will push through next month, despite reports that say otherwise, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) said.

PCGG Commissioner Ricardo Abcede, chief of the PCGG Assets and Management division, in an interview with reporters, said "hopefully," the sale of International Broadcasting Corp.-Channel 13 (IBC-13) and Radio Philippines NetworkChannel 9 (RPN-9) will push through this April, as long as the CLSA Exchange Capital Corp., the financial group which bagged the right to be the financial adviser to RPN and IBC, "does its job of ensuring that the concerns of the employees of the two broadcast firms are addressed."

"Hopefully, it will push through. Unahin lang siguro ang concerns ng employees," Abcede said.

The PCGG official said certain adjustments should be made to address the IBC and RPN employees’ unpaid benefits and claims, as well as its back taxes and debts.

Abcede said the two state-run television stations will be sold separately. IBC is priced at P3.2 billion and RPN-9 at P1.3 billion. RPN-9, he said, is cheaper than IBC-13 because it has no assets. (JC Bello Ruiz)

The Department of Science and Technology (DoST) launched the first web portal in Philippine Science and Technology (S & T) to provide the public a centralized and easier access to S & T information in the country.

At its launching at the PAGASA Science Garden in Diliman, Quezon City, DoST Secretary Estrella Alabastro said the web portal, which can be accessed online, "integrates all the database not only within the DoST system" but also with other institutions in the Science community.

Undersecretary for S & T Services Fortunato dela Peña added that through the web portal, the DoST hopes to respond to the needs not only of researchers but also the public who need information on S & T.

Jayjay Esguerra, team leader of the science.ph project, the web portal aims to establish a "responsive database for fast and accurate retrieval of S & T information."

There are 33 database currently available in the web portal, including 20 database representing the 20 agencies under DoST. (Madel R. Sabater)

Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer (CENRO) Forester Reynaldo Astudillo denied reports saying that illegal logging is back in Dingalan, Aurora.

In an interview, Astudillo emphasized that due to the lessons learned from the calamities in 2004 that claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed millions in properties in Aurora, residents and communities deeply condemn illegal logging.

"Unscrupulous persons who still try to undertake this abuse to the remaining standing forest resources in the area have failed and will continue to fail and get apprehended," he said.

Also, Astudillo, in his report to Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office Benjamin Mina and DENR 3 Regional Executive Director Regidor de Leon, said that the confiscation of a truckload of lumber flitches recently in Barangay Paltic, Dingalan is an isolated case.