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The Negros Occidental provincial government will continue to operate on a 100 percent workforce, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said Tuesday, April 6.“The province will continue under a 100 percent workforce, we will not adopt a skeletal force, we don’t see any need so far,” he said.Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia on Sunday, April 4, issued Executive Order No. 17, Series of 2021 strongly advising all government and private offices to implement a skeletal work force system amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases.Diaz said the provincial government employees remain healthy, except for some who are recovering at the Mambukal Resort in Murcia.“We are good to go for another year…Everybody is motivated to work, we will deliver our targets for this year and there is no ne...

Bacolod PIO photoMore Sinovac vaccines arrived in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City Tuesday, April 6, but it looks like it will take some time before the general populace can be vaccinated.Dr. Ernell Tumimbang, Negros Occidental provincial health officer, said of the about 31,000 health care workers (HCWs) in Negros Occidental belonging to Category 1A for vaccination against COVID-19, less than one-fourth have been covered so far.As of April 4, only 4,590 hospital HCWs had been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Negros Occidental.On Tuesday 7, 200 Sinovac vaccines arrived for 1,000 health frontliners in Bacolod City and 2,600 in Negros Occidental.The new vaccines will be used for a few more hospital personnel, and the rest will be distributed for local government unit HCWs...

Calls for Alfredo “Albee” Benitez, former Negros Occidental third district representative and now Capitol consultant, to run for mayor of Bacolod City have surfaced on social media.The calls came weeks after a campaign for the former lawmaker to run for senator in 2022 also surfaced on social media.Benitez earlier said that running for senator in 2022 has not crossed his mind.But “Run, Albee, Run” and “Bacolod City, it’s time, let’s smile again!” posts have spread on Facebook, recently.Tarpaulins urging the former congressman to run have also been spotted in some parts of the city.Rep. Stephen Paduano (Abang Lingkod party-list) in a Facebook post said, “Bacolod for Albee, Albee for Bacolod!”It was also shared by Benitez’s allies, including former board member Patric...

Residents of Bago City have come up with solutions to stop the joint venture agreement between the Bago City Water District (BACIWAD) and PrimeWater Infrastructure Inc., which is owned by the Villar family.In a position paper issued Tuesday, April 6, by the Alliance of Concerned Christians (ACC) of Bago City, an ecumenical and multi-sectoral alliance, that was signed by its chairman, Carlo Guevarra, the group laid down their recommendations to address the locality’s water problems, as they strongly oppose the privatization of the local utility firm.The group said that the Local Water Utilities of Bago must have its up-to-date short-term and long-term plan for the improvement of its facilities and improvement of its services.They also said that BACIWAD must step up its efficienc...

HOAX. Employees at the Hall of Justice in Bacolod City return to the building after a bomb scare Tuesday morning, April 6, turned out to be hoax.*Romeo Subaldo photoA bomb scare that turned out to be a hoax disrupted work at the Hall of Justice in Bacolod City Tuesday morning, April 6.Executive Judge Raymond Joseph Javier of the Bacolod Regional Trial Court said at 8 a.m. Tuesday an employee of the Bacolod City Public Attorney’s Office received a cellular phone call through the PAO hotline number from an unidentified male instructing them to immediately vacate the building as a bomb was about to explode.The PAO office is located on the third floor of the Hall of Justice.The PAO member immediately informed Vincent Solis, the Hall of Justice building administrator, of the cal...

Bacolod City Emergency Operations Center executive director Em Ang said "because of the new guidelines under Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) Resolution 101 - eliminating the COVID Shield, the City Health Office (CHO) will no longer issue medical certificates for travel purposes."This is to comply with and fully implement the provisions of the IATF-EID Resolution 101, Series of 2021, a press release from the Bacolod Public Information Office said Tuesday, April 6.The resolution, issued on February 26, approved the uniform travel protocols for land, air, and sea of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG). It provides that the travel authority issued by the Joint Task Force COVID Shield and health certificates sh...

Bacolod DRRM photoNinety-eight passengers from Metro Manila and Cebu bound for the Negros Occidental failed to depart Monday, April 5, with the start of the enforcement of the moratorium on travel to Western Visayas.Negros Occidental Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said 63 passengers from Manila and 35 from, Cebu had to deplane.Diaz said the provincial government had requested the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines to allow the two Philippine Airline flights to fly to Negros before the moratorium started but it was denied.“We made the request with the assurance that the incoming passengers would be tested and quarantined,” he said, but Resolution 108 of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases had taken effect, he said....

Mayor Renato Gustilo (2nd from left) informing a Barangay Guadalupe resident that he needs to be quarantined for COVID-19.*Contributed photoCOVID-19 cases in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, soared to 140 Monday, April 5, with 16 members of a Church choir and five lay leaders testing positive, Joe Recalex Alingasa Jr., head of the city’s Emergency Operations Center, said.Fourteen San Carlos City Hall employees, 19 from the Department of Education and three from the San Carlos City Hospital have also tested positive for the virus, he said.“The situation is alarming,” he said, adding that of the 140 cases, 123 are local transmissions.The members of the choir at the Barangay Guadalupe Catholic Church in San Carlos City went to Manapla to sing at an anniversary of a priest a...