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LEGAZPI CITY- A NEW DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS AND HIGHWAYS (DPWH) Bicol director has formally assumed as head of the public works agency on Thurs. (July 30), after turn-over ceremonies held at the regional office here, led by DPWH Sec. Hermogenes Ebdane Jr.

Former DPWH central office Bureau of Design Director Danny Manalang has taken over the post of regional director Orlando Roces, who  has opted  for an early retirement at 63, years-old and with 41-years of service in the public works agency.

TIWI, Albay, July 31- A total of 1,400 residents of this small town that plays host to a vast geothermal energy field have signed up as volunteer forest stewards under the Lingap Kalikasan (care for nature) Movement (LKM) organized as a forest conservation project by the municipal government.

LEGAZPI CITY, July 30 (PNA) -- The Department of Health (DOH) regional office in Bikol has declared the entire province of Sorsogon as malaria and filariasis free province.

Dr. Noli Arevalo, team leader of the Department of Health-Provincial Health Team (DOH-PHT), said the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control (NCDPC) has conducted thorough validation and evaluation regarding the control program on malaria and filarial in Sorsogon.

LEGAZPI CITY July 30(PNA) -- The Commission on Election (Comelec) in Bikol has successfully purged close to 200,000 voters' names considered by the poll body as double registrants or commonly called "flying voters" from the official voters lists across the region.

Lawyer Zacarias Zaragoza, Comelec regional director, said some 172,463 dubious names were removed from the official voters lists as part of the agency's continuing cleansing process.

He said the cleansing process is in anticipation of the automated 2010 national and local election.

IRIGA CITY ---  Students of the Graduate School of the University of Northeastern Philippines (UNEP) doing research works can now avail of the unlimited trial access to unlimited reference materials through the online services of the Philippine eLib  aside from those already available in the school library, the UNEP librarian bared recently.

MILAOR, Camarines Sur, July 28- The Department of Agriculture (DA) had recently completed the construction of a 15.4-kilometer farm-to-market road (FMR) in this farming town that would benefit over 2,000 hectares of farmlands and about 2,000 households.

MANILA, July 28 -- President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo has signed the Executive Order imposing the Maximum Drug Retail Price (MDRP) on five drugs not compliant with the recommendation of the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

The President signed yesterday (July 27) Executive Order No. 821, "Prescribing the Maximum Drug Retail Prices for Selected Drugs and Medicines that Address Diseases that Account for the Leading Causes of Morbidity and Mortality."

MANILA, July 27, 2009-The head of the Catholic bishops' leadership expressed dissatisfaction at President Arroyo's State of the Nation Address (SONA) Monday.

Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo said the SONA did not stick with the truth when Arroyo described the state of the nation.

After battling with advanced colon cancer since March 2008 and being hospitalized for more than a month, former President Corazon C. Aquino has succumbed to her illness and passed away August 1. She leaves behind, not only a family grieving the loss of their mother, but also a nation mourning the death of a person whose moral leadership came to symbolize hope and change in Philippine politics. Cory's death leaves us, among others, lessons in public service as well as in nation building.

On August 1, 2009, at 3:18 AM, Cory Aquino passed on to immortal bliss. We condole with her family, even as we grieve their loss as our own and for the entire Nation-and even the world.

Cory was the renowned icon of People Power. She was the symbol of democracy for the Filipino People and even among peoples across the globe then struggling for freedom.

Allow me to share below my homily for the Sunday Mas on August 2:

An plano nin Dyos mas halakbang kisa sa plano nin tawo. An pangiturugan nin Dyos mas mahiwas kisa pangiturugan nin tawo.

In 1909, an American teacher was assigned to Laguna; her name was Lucetta K. Ratcliff. In 1911, she was, in her own words, "engaged in teaching for the United States government in the Camarines High School, Nueva Caceres." Like what she did when she was stationed in Pagsanjan, she asked also her students in the first and second year to write "about their lore."The stories became part of the paper that she submitted to the journal called Western Folklore in 1951.

The commemorative sticker of his car's rear window is still there. The years have paled its color but one can still read its message: Diamond Jubilee of the Coronation of Our Lady of Peñafrancia, 1924 - 1999.

MANILA - Gauging from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's ninth State of the Nation Address, it is going to be business as usual. She would not veer away from the economic policies that she has implemented in the past. These are the very same policies that made the Filipino people vulnerable to the world economic crisis and to price manipulations and speculative attacks by corporations wanting to pass on the burden of the crisis to the people.

Essentialy Gloria Macapagal -Arroyo’s last State of the Nation Address (Sona) was nothing but a compendium of lies, half-truths and attacks on her critics. She did not even mention anything that is really beneficial to the Filipino people, the passage of the so-called Cheaper Medicines Law notwithstanding.

IGLESIA NI CRISTO TURNS 95: President Arroyo's declaration of July 27, 2009 and every July 27 of every succeeding year as "Iglesia Ni Cristo" day, is well-founded and should be hailed by all Filipinos.

July 27, 2009 represents the 95^th year that the Iglesia shall have been in existence in the Philippines and in the whole world.

It is summer time in Germany. June and July are the hottest months here in central Europe and gradually all the German countries have entered their summer break. Some, like Niedersachsen, Thüringen and Sachsen-Anhalt started it on June 26 already and Bayern being the last country in the line will be off duty after August 2.

Flaunting their bodies and flesh on stage under the glare of spotlights  in front of a crowd of strangers, is probably one of the shallowest aspirations that women could ever have. Beauty pageants, as universally accepted as they are, do nothing but insinuate that women's primary goal in life is to make themselves beautiful, sexy and attractive - with voluptuous body, large breasts and hips, small waist, long and shapely legs, smooth skin, shiny hair, white perfect teeth - so that when the day of judgement comes, they will be pronounced the most beautiful of all. Pageants promote the petty, small-minded belief that women should beat other fellow women in their physical looks, and therefore perceive fellow women not as allies for a greater cause but as competitors of their temporal youth and beauty. Women should get the attention of the judges, most of whom are men, and some women who believe the same way.