Millions allotted for West Leyte Hospital upgrade

Press Release
By Provincial Media Relations Center (PMRC-Leyte)
March 30, 2007

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte – Through a newly signed Memorandum of Agreement with the provincial government of Leyte, the Department of Health in the region has committed an amount of P12 million to upgrade the facilities of the West Leyte Hospital of Baybay, Leyte.

This as part of Gov. Carlos Jericho “Icot” Petilla’s effort to look for means of improving the medical facilities and services of the different hospitals under the provincial government that includes the West Leyte Hospital in Baybay town.

According to the governor, the province, under his administration is putting much effort in reducing the number of patients being catered to by hospitals based in the City of Tacloban.

Not only are the hospitals in this city get crowded by patients coming from the different towns in Leyte, the medical facilities are likewise wanting, which Gov. Petilla stressed are the problems that really need to be addressed.

Under the newly signed MOA, new infrastructures and equipments will be installed as well as additional needed supply of medicines will be purchased for the West Leyte Hospital.

With these new improvements, the hospital will subsequently be upgraded from a secondary hospital to a tertiary medical facility.

The MOA was recently forged at the Leyte Provincial Capitol with Dr. Minerva Molon, chief of the DOH Technical Division as representative of the health department and Gov. Petilla for the province of Leyte.

It can be recalled that Gov. Petilla has continuously poured in projects to the different hospitals and improvements of rural health units of the different municipalities of the province to decongest hospitals in the city.

Values formation among hospital members and staff were likewise successively conducted by the provincial government to renew and assess the commitment within the ranks of the province-run hospitals.

So far, the Provincial Health Office reports, these projects and undertakings under the leadership of Gov. Petilla has proven effective as positive performance was seen resulting to better services and better revenue among these hospitals under the province.

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Poor students of Eastern Samar to avail government assistance

By SAMMY CANDIDO (PIA Eastern Samar)
March 29, 2007

BORONGAN, Eastern Samar – A sizeable amount of educational assistance awaits some poor but deserving students in the province. Under the Special Program of Employment for Students (SPES), the provincial government of Eastern Samar, through the efforts of Governor Ben P. Evardone, allotted some P250,000.00 for some 130 students-beneficiaries.

According to provincial Public Employment Service Office Manager Crescentia Quitorio, these students will be taken in under the program starting April until May to render various office works at the provincial capitol which will entitle them to compensations. As of this writing, 45 students are already assured of extra income this summer vacation, having passed the screening conducted by respective school administration committees of the Eastern Samar State University Campus of Guiuan, Salcedo, and Can-avid as sanctioned by the provincial government.

Some 85 slots more up for grabs as more student-applicants continue to troop to the capitol to seek admission to the summer jobs project, PESO manager Quitorio stressed that the hiring of additional students, this time, will be opened to applicants coming directly from the 23 municipalities of the province and will be done on a first-come-first-serve basis. Quitorio also revealed that the funding for the program was forged through a sharing scheme wherein 40% will be borne by the Department of Labor and Employment, while the provincial government shoulders the remaining 60 percent.

Meanwhile, Gov. Evardone encourages students to personally apply sans their parents beside them. This, he said, is for them to develop self-reliance and a genuine appreciation of work.

The SPES is anchored on the Arroyo administration’s thrust of providing working opportunities to underprivileged students thereby easing up tuition fees burden.

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Police sees politics behind the Calbayog check point attack

By ELI C. DALUMPINES (PIA Samar)
March 27, 2007

CATBALOGAN, Samar – Police authorities here maintained that the recent attack on a check point manned by four personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to enforce the COMELEC gun ban was not the doing of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) as reported earlier.

Samar Police Chief P/SSupt. Asdali Idja Abah, in a report yesterday, blamed the partisan armed group of a certain politician in Samar’s 1st district for the attack saying the said politician was in desperation that the movement of his men was restricted because of the presence of the PNP check point.

A group composed of six armed men on board a van open fired at the PNP check point in Sitio Talahib, Brgy. Trinidad, Calbayog City at around 8 p.m. Friday (March 23) killing PO3 Valeriano Valenzuela and PO1 Ramil Biso, who was undergoing his Field Training Program.

The group carted away one M16 rifle and a 9mm cal. Pistol which was issued to PO3 Valenzuela and withdraw north immediately after the attack.

Witnesses disclosed that prior to the incident one of the suspects who was standing across the check point made a call through a cellphone and after a few minutes a van stopped at about 50 meters away from the check point where about 6 men armed with assorted firearms got out and opened fire at the police officers on duty.

A witness, however, said that PO1 Valenzuela might have known the suspects as he saw him talking to one of the suspects just a few meters away before the shooting took place.

It was learned that Valenzuela’s older brother and Sta. Margarita Police Chief PInsp. Nestor Valenzuela was tasked by the higher headquarters to make a research on the previous cases filed against the said politician.

Insp. Valenzuela’s effort appears to have been a taking progress as the police was able to file some four other cases against the political leader lately.

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