PILI, Camarines Sur, April 5 -- The Department of Agriculture (DA) is promoting among rice farmers in Bicol the use of technologies developed by its Bicol Experiment Station (BEST) and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) that are seen as effective tools toward increased production and income.

MANILA, April 1, 2010-Intermittent web performance problems plagued a number of websites of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) this Holy Week.

MANILA, March 29, 2010-The long-awaited coffee table book about the Bikol region's icon of Our Lady of Peñafrancia will be launched on Easter week, April 8, 2010, at the Yuchengco Museum in Makati City.

I am sincerely happy and grateful to be celebrating this Chrism Mass with you, especially with you, my brother priests. Up until this morning when I vested for our Mass, I was not sure I could make it. But the Lord is kind...and I stand here before you.

LEGAZPI CITY, Albay, April 4, 2010-Young Filipinos, whether eligible to vote on May 10 or not, should make an active participation in the upcoming election as a concrete way of responding to the message of Christ's Resurrection, according to Legazpi Bishop Joel Baylon.

Mga tugang, patapos na an banal na panahon nin Cuaresma. Napapanahon na hapoton niato an satong sadiri: Ano na an naginibo niato tanganing makapuli kita sa Mahal na Dios?

I spent the whole Good Friday struggling with the sounds of karaoke out in the field, near our home, in the subdivision in Concepcion Grande. I was expecting the chanting of the Pasyon to commence after the rituals of drinking and eating. But from early evening of that day till dawn and from sunrise of Good Friday until sunset, the tunes coming from that shack were a mix of pop tunes and ballad and rock music.

Have you ever taken a pill against fever? Have you listened to heartwarming piece of music? Or looked at a breathtaking painting or read an outstanding piece of literature? Have you yet enjoyed the conveniences of pleasant gadget or merely taken advantage of how food is processed? We all have experiences like that and we easily praise the good results, the turnouts and the final, well working product we consume or make good use of. In fact we are obsessed with good results but oftentimes fail to look beyond the surface.

MANILA - The campaign for local posts has just begun. And the fanfare surrounding the presidential and senatorial campaigns are nothing compared to that of local campaigns. Even before the local campaign period had officially begun on March 26, every secondary and side street is already full of campaign posters, banners, and banderitas (small banners tied across streets) not only of candidates for national posts but also that of local candidates, minus the position they are running for. With the start of the local campaign period, walls and posts in secondary and side streets would surely thicken with all these campaign paraphernalia, with that of one candidate pasted over another's over and over again. But beneath the clutter lies the violent nature of local elections.

MANILA - Makabayan senatorial candidates Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza have filed a petition before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) seeking to disqualify Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel 'Mikey' Arroyo as a nominee of party list group Ang Galing Pinoy (AGP).