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Around 46 families in Moises Padilla were evacuated to the town’s auditorium after a flash flood hit the stockyard of Barangay 1 around 10 pm Sunday, October 25.The evacuation and relief operations were led by Mayor Ella Celestina Garcia-Yulo, and other local officials, along with the Disaster Response Office, the Philippine National Police, the Bureau of Fire Protection, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development.As of this writing, the local government is still conducting damage assessment. (Photos from Moises Padilla LGU)

Fastcraft trips between Bacolod and Iloilo cities will resume at the end of the month but those headed for towns and cities of Negros Occidental will be swabbed for COVID-19 tests, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said today.They will be swabbed and quarantined, anyway their test results will be out in three days, he said.The provincial government is also willing to swab those headed for Bacolod City if they cooperate for the good of everybody, Diaz added.However, he said mandatory COVID-19 testing of those headed for Bacolod is up to the city government. Bacolod is a highly urbanized city that is not under Negros Occidental.Travel between Bacolod and Iloilo cities had earlier been halted because of the spike in COVID-19 cases.Jose Venancio Vero, Maritime Industr...

Pope Francis announced today the elevation of Capiz Archbishop Jose Advincula, former bishop of San Carlos in Negros Occidental, to cardinal at a consistory on November 28.The pope announced the appointment of 13 new cardinals, including Advincula, during his Sunday Angelus.Advincula is the ninth Filipino cardinal, following cardinals Orlando Quevedo, Luis Antonio Tagle, Gaudencio Rosales, Jose Sanchez, Ricardo Vidal, Jaime Sin, Julio Rosales and Rufino Santos.Advincula was ordained priest of Capiz on April 14, 1976, appointed Bishop of San Carlos on July 25, 2001 and was consecrated on September 8 of the same year.On Nov. 9, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI elevated Advincula to Archbishop of Capiz.Advincula is 68 and is among the nine new cardinals eligible to vote in a concla...

A baby girl drowned in a creek near her home in Barangay Guinpana-an, Moises Padilla, Sunday morning, October 25.Reynald Horegue, head of the Moises Padilla Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, said the one-year and three-month-old Princess Joy Eustañio was left under the care of her eight 8-year-old sibling, who momentarily left her unattended to get something.When the sibling returned, the baby was nowhere to be found. The child thought that Princess was taken by their aunts. When they found out that nobody took the baby, they searched for her at the creek, since their home was located near the water.Horegue said that their team and the barangay officials immediately responded to the scene.Later, the body of the baby was fished out of the water a few meters from...

BY CARLA GOMEZThe Civil Service Commission has disapproved the appointment of three Sugar Regulatory Administration deputy administrators on the ground that the composition of the Human Resource Merit Promotion and Selection Board (HRMPSB) for 2nd Level Managerial and Executive Officers was not in accordance with the rules.This was disclosed by CSC-National Capital Region Director 4 Judith Dongallo-Chicano in a letter to SRA Board Members Emilio Bernardino Yulo and Roland Beltran following their request for the commission to disapprove the permanent appointments of the three issued by SRA Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica for alleged violation of the Civil Service Law.“We maintain that the appointment of the deputies was regular and the board members, as members of th...

The Bacolod-Silay Airport (BSA) is rolling out a coronavirus contact tracing system for its employees, passengers, and port users as part of its measures to curb the spread of the virus and to ensure the safety of everyone.In a statement Friday, October 23, BSA said it will implement the mandatory use of the mobile application Traze within the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) offices and facilities under the directive issued by the Department of Transportation on October 9.This is not only for CAAP and BSA personnel but for all airport users and passengers, it added.It said that the Traze mobile application is “a nationwide and unified contact tracing app that automates manual contact tracing by using Quick Response (QR) code scanning without the use of Blueto...

Photo courtesy of Frank CarbonThe business community in Bacolod City is calling on the local government to put “more effort” into its recovery action plan to stimulate economic activities.Frank Carbon, Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive officer, said they sought a meeting with the city officials “to ask for an update on where we are in the economic recovery effort and what has been done.”But during the meeting on Wednesday, October 21, it was lawyer John Orola, the city’s special consultant on trade and investment, along with lawyer Jesus Hinlo Jr., Land Bank of the Philippines director, who talked with the business community.The city government was supposed to update the business community on its economic recovery plan, but the latter ended up p...

BY CARLA GOMEZCapitol file photoThe Philippine Coast Guard has been instructed not to allow migratory workers to board vessels for Negros Occidental without prior coordination with the provincial government to ensure that they undergo COVID-19 tests, Zeaphard Gerhart Caelian, Provincial Disaster Management Program Division chief, said yesterday.There are 1,808 migratory workers from Antique who have recently arrived in Negros Occidental for the harvest season, eight of whom were found to be COVID -19 positive, he said.The majority of the migratory workers, , also known as sacadas, work as cane cutters in Negros Occidental that is the top producer of sugarcane in the country.They are swabbed for COVID-19 tests on arrival in Negros Occidental and quarantined in farm quar...

Another 48 residents of Victorias City were swabbed Thursday, October 22, at Victorias Elementary School in Victorias City by a combined team of healthcare frontliners of Metro 3rd Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and Victorias Inter-Agency Task Force.*Photos from 3rd District EOC

BY CARLA GOMEZThe Western Visayas Regional Inter-Agency Task Force has approved the suspension of the arrival of Locally Stranded Individuals into two cities in northern Negros Occidental effective today, October 23.Entry of LSIs into Victorias City is suspended until October 30 and to San Carlos City until November 6, RIATF Resolution No. 50 Series of 2020 issued yesterday said.Victorias officials had requested a seven-day moratorium on the entry of returning overseas Filipinos and LSIs to the city to enable them to decongest and disinfect quarantine facilities.San Carlos City made a similar request but asked for a 14-day moratorium.As of Wednesday San Carlos City had 94 active COVID-19 cases and Victorias City had 63.*