The Wutz Up in the Philippines!

HACIENDA LUISITA, the Philippines — Like his father before him, Buenaventura Calaquian worked the sugar cane fields at Hacienda Luisita, a plantation owned by the family of former President Corazon C. Aquino. In the long-running, sometimes bloody battle over control of the land here, Mr. Calaquian, 58, has come out better than most.

For the last few years, he has illegally occupied 3.7 acres on which he cultivates rice and vegetables. He spends most days watching his fields from a makeshift shack whose thatched roof is patched with flattened cardboard boxes. Small profits from tomato sales have allowed him to buy 50 ducks that now swim in a nearby creek.

“I never want to go back to sugar cane,” Mr. Calaquian said as his wife, Maria, 46, used a single bucket to carry water from the creek over to several uneven rows of tomato vines. “This is better.”

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Brownouts in Mindanao worsening

MANILA, Philippines — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo plans to declare a power crisis in Mindanao in the next few days to give the government more leeway in dealing with the worsening supply shortage on the island, Malacañang announced Thursday.

The announcement came as the power supply in the Luzon and Mindanao grids further worsened on Thursday. Since Monday, Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon have been suffering from rotating brownouts.

Ms Arroyo said she concurred with Energy Secretary Angelo T. Reyes on his proposal to declare a crisis and allow the government to contract for generation sets for Mindanao.

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The El Niño dry spell has been causing losses in agriculture and tourism across the country, from farmlands up north to poultry farms and tourist destinations down south.

In Benguet in northern Philippines, water sources for mountain farmlands planted to potato, cabbage and other temperate vegetables have began to dry up due to El Niño, threatening huge agricultural losses for the country’s “Salad Bowl” and a rise in the prices of vegetables.

“There will be changes in the characteristic of plants. Pests and diseases are also possible,” said Lolita Bentres, provincial agriculturist of Benguet.

In Ilagan, capital town of Isabela province also in northern Philippines, the Pinsal Falls in the Ilagan Sanctuary, a popular tourist attraction among locals, has begun to dry up also due to El Niño.

“Kung dati ang lapad niya isang buong kurtina, ngayon siguro kalahating kurtina na lang siya. Parang kalahati po ‘yung tubig na nawala po (If before it was as wide as an entire curtain span, now it’s probably just half a curtain wide. It’s like half of the water has been lost),” said Billy Perez of the Ilagan Sanctuary.

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Shaken but not stirred. President Arroyo endured Tuesday a powerful earthquake in Cagayan while visiting the El Niño-hit province on the second day of her North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle tour.

The President was delivering a speech in Florencio Vargas College in Tuguegaro City when a magnitude 6.1 quake suddenly struck the northernmost region shortly before lunch, forcing her to pause for several seconds until the ground stopped shaking.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the epicenter of the quake was located at 130 kms. north of Tuguegarao, Cagayan with a depth of 21 kilometers.

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President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was in the middle of her speech in Cagayan when the earth suddenly shook Tuesday morning.

She immediately stiffened, then paused during her speech which dealt with the government’s agriculture projects in the said northern Luzon province, according to radio dzMM.

What Mrs. Arroyo felt beneath her feet was a magnitude-6.1 earthquake that struck the area at 10:51 a.m., according to the government-run Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).

The tremor’s epicenter was traced some 130 kilometers north of Cagayan province’s Tuguegarao City, Phivolcs said.

It was the third significant quake of tectonic origin that hit the Philippines since the magnitude-8.8 shook Chile last February 27.

A magnitude-5.1 quake rocked parts of Batanes in extreme northern Luzon shortly after midnight Sunday. On Monday, a magnitude-5.0 tremor jolted parts of Davao Oriental province.

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One person died and at least 400 more were infected with anthrax after eating double-dead carabao meat in Cagayan province last week, a provincial health officer said Tuesday.

Dr. Danilo Alonzo, Cagayan provincial health chief, said the fatality was the first case of anthrax they recorded in Lasam town. He said the man died of a heart attack, which they suspect was aggravated by the effects of the anthrax disease.

“The first case was recorded in a hospital in Lasam. He died [of a heart disease], but the doctor saw blisters and the man had skin infections,” Alonzo said, adding that these area signs of an anthrax infection.

Earlier reports said more than 50 people were infected by the bacteria, but Alonzo said there were actually 400 cases.

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MANILA, Philippines - Activists assailed the move by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to grant medals to 2 military officers who were involved in the allegedly illegal arrests of 43 people in Morong, Rizal last February 6.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary-general Renato Reyes Jr. said the “citations send the wrong message that human rights abuses committed in the name of counter-insurgency will be rewarded under the Arroyo government.”

“This simply reinforces the climate of impunity that has resulted in numerous abuses in the recent past,” he added.

Reyes said complaints will be filed before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) this week against the arrests of the 43 people, alleged by the activists as health workers engaged in a medical training program when they were arrested.

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Using power barges is the “only viable solution so far” to the energy crisis in Mindanao caused by a dry spell spawned by El Niño, one of the co-chairs of the Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC) said Monday.

Letting go of Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes and repealing the law deregulating the power sector could also help address the country’s power shortage, said Satur Ocampo, a guest senatorial candidate of the Nacionalista Party.

Sen. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, JCPC co-chair, said power barges, including those used in the Beijing Olympics, could be tapped to supply power to brownout-stricken areas in the country, particularly in Mindanao where the power deficit reached 183 megawatts (MW).

“The only viable solution so far that has been presented has been the power-barge solution,” Honasan said after the JCPC held a hearing on the energy crisis Monday morning.

“We are getting a better view of the availability and capacity of power barges, including the power barges used in Beijing Olympics that are now in Australia,” he added.

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2M election papers useless, says watchdog

MANILA, Philippines—The security of nearly two million ballots for voters in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) may have been compromised after they were printed without the security markings of the National Printing Office (NPO), the Inquirer has learned.

An NPO source confirmed that the ARMM-bound ballots for the May 10 general elections had no NPO security features. The autonomous region consists of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz and Fr. Joe Dizon of Kontra Daya and sources from two groups the Inquirer interviewed said they had received reports from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the NPO that the ballots for the ARMM did not have the government-mandated markings of the NPO.

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Brownouts hit South; red alert situation

MANILA, Philippines—Mindanao is suffering from a serious power shortage as a result of a dry spell, raising fears that the shortfall could imperil the conduct of automated elections on the island.

The island accounts for 12 million or about a fourth of the country’s 50 million registered voters.

Since Wednesday, National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) has placed Mindanao under red alert because the power situation on the island continued to worsen. A red alert status means that the grid has no reserves.

The Mindanao grid recorded a power supply deficit of 218 megawatts (MW) two days ago, prompting authorities to implement two-hour rotating brownouts.

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