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Bacolod City remains a moderate risk area for COVID-19 and Negros Occidental a low risk area, the Department of Health reported Monday, June 28.The risk classification of the entire Western Visayas is low, the DOH also said.Also classified as moderate risk areas were Aklan, Guimaras and Iloilo City, while low risk areas are Antique, Capiz and Iloilo province.Generally, the health care utilization rate in Western Visayas is still at moderate risk, the DOH added.However, the Western Visayas positivity rate from June 17 to 27 increased from 8 to 8.4 percent indicating increased transmission of COVID-19, it added.Negros Occidental had 137 new COVID-19 cases and Bacolod City had 130 on Monday, the DOH said.Bacolod City has 1,859 active COVID-19 cases and Negros Occidenta...

Victorias PNP photoA suspected top drug personality was gunned down at Angeles Street in Canetown Subdivision, Brgy. 19-A, Victorias City in Negros Occidental Monday morning, June 28.Killed was Danilo Toreña, 59, of the subdivision.The victim, onboard his motorcycle, was on his way home from the market when he was waylaid by unidentified riding-in-tandem suspects, who shot him to death, a police report said.The victim died on the spot.Recovered from the crime scene were five fired cartridges of .9mm pistol, two deformed slugs, and a slug.Lt. Col. Eduardo Corpuz, Victorias City police chief, said they are looking at drugs as the motive of the killing.*

Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said Monday, June 28, that the new Negros Occidental provincial agriculturist will be an outsider.Provincial Agriculturist Japhet Masculino is set to retire on Thursday, July 1.Lacson said he has asked Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz to talk to the person being eyed to be the new provincial agriculturist and to make his recommendation.He will not come from the ranks of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA), he said.The governor, however, did not name the person. “We don’t know if the person will even agree so that’s why he will be interviewed first by Atty Diaz,” Lacson said.They have also not decided who the officer-in-charge of the OPA will be in the meantime, he said.Diaz said a recommendation for an OIC will be submitt...

President Rodrigo Duterte has declared Thursday, July 1, a special non-working day in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental.San Carlos City will mark its charter day on July 1, Proclamation 1171 said.It is but fitting and proper that the people of San Carlos City be given full opportunity to celebrate and participate in its charter day rites subject to community quarantine, social distancing and other public health measures, the proclamation said.San Carlos City had 45 active COVID-19 cases on Monday, June 28.It has had 1,791 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic last year, with 1,669 recoveries and 77 deaths.*

The participants at the mass for former president Benigno Aquino III at the San Sebastian Cathedral in Bacolod City, Saturday.*Archie Alipalo photoBacolod residents joined a thanksgiving mass for the life of former president Benigno Aquino III at the San Sebastian Cathedral in Bacolod City Saturday morning, hours ahead of his funeral in Metro Manila.He was laid to rest at the Manila Memorial Park in Paranaque City beside his parents, Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. and former President Corazon Aquino, at about 1:44 p.m. Saturday after a funeral mass at the Church of the Gesu at Ateneo De Manila University in Quezon City.Aquino, 61 , died peacefully in his sleep on Thursday morning. He succumbed to renal disease secondary to diabetes.In Bacolod City, 150 residents wearing yellow ...

Bacolod City has been hit with its highest number of COVID-19 cases in a single month this June, City Administrator Em Ang said Sunday, June 27.There have been 3,223 COVID-19 cases recorded in June, with three more days before the end of the month, Ang, who is also the Bacolod City Emergency Center executive director, said.Bacolod had 134 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday and 60 on Sunday, Ang said.There have also been 43 COVID-19 deaths recorded in Bacolod City in June, for a total of 320 since the pandemic started, she added.Bacolod City had the highest COVID-19 deaths in September 2020 at 76, she said.Ang said Bacolod City has had 12,870 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic last year.Meanwhile, Negros Occidental had 123 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday and 1...

Senate Majority Floor Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said Sunday, June 27, that an additional P200 million will be added to the budget for the Bacolod City General Hospital.This will bring the total expected allocation for the hospital to P800 million, he told DIGICAST NEGROS.Zubiri expects the hospital construction to begin in 2022. President Rodrigo Duterte signed House Bill 6731 authored by Bacolod Rep. Greg Gasataya and Senate Bill 1647 authored by Zubiri into Republic Act No. 11564, an act establishing the Bacolod City General Hospital and appropriating P600 million for it, on June 24.Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia, in a press release Sunday, said he called Zubiri to thank him for his sponsorship of the bill in the Senate.“And it is happy news that Senator Migz informed me ...

Councilor Elmer Sy and his daughter, Psyche, during the recent Independence Day rites.*When Bacolod Councilor Elmer Sy, 66, tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted at the Bacolod Adventist Medical Center on June 17, his family never expected that he would die.Sy and his wife, Mary Glor, were admitted at the hospital after they tested positive for the virus along with a caregiver, their daughter Psyche Marie Sy said.The councilor seemed okay in the beginning but his condition gradually worsened and he developed pneumonia. When he died on Friday, the doctors said it was due to cardiac arrest, she said.Psyche said her father was a kidney patient undergoing dialysis twice a week and such patients are prone to pneumonia. He was planning to have a kidney transplant, she add...