NAGA CITY--They came and burned US flags but something was eerily missing amid the fiery speeches and loud protestations calling for the scrapping of the Visiting Forces agreement, the effigy of the commander in chief of the military troops they would not welcome-— Barack Obama. Thousands of protesters from all over Bikol Region had joined last week’s anti-VFA caravan, which culminated in a big rally in Legazpi City. But lost amid the rally was the littlest mention of Obama, even as the loudspeakers blurted out anti-American sentiments.

IRIGA CITY--The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) bestowed the choral group of the University of Northeastern Philippines (UNEP) here with the prestigious “Ani ng Sining” award during the closing rites of the 2009 Philippine International Arts Festival last Feb. 28 at the historic Manila Hotel.

The mass media and the new (Information and Communication Technologies) ICTs have a very important role in the communications mission of the Church. The preferred use of the term, social communications, serves to remind us that there is a communicative dimension to every aspect of Church life and that we must not think exclusively in terms of our relations with the mass media or the new emerging media. It remains true that the mass media -- traditional and new alike -- provides us with a privileged way of bringing our message to ever greater audiences and in a variety of different ways. The voice of the divine word must echo even through the radio, the information highway of the internet, the channels of “online” virtual circulation, CDs, DVDs, podcasts, etc. It must appear on all television and movie screens, in the press, and in cultural and social events.

MANILA --Two prominent Catholic church leaders welcomed the release yesterday of the remaining ten Ninoy Aquino-Rolando Galman convicts following a presidential decision to grant executive clemency last March 2.

MANILA --Dissatisfied with the lawmakers’ handling of the call for agrarian reform, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales is bringing the issue right on President Arroyo’s doorstep. Rosales is seeking a dialogue with Mrs. Arroyo on the issue of extending the life of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) which expired last December.

In a consultation-meeting held on February 24, 2009, the NCF administration through its Vice President for Finance, Ms. Emerita V. Padua, announced that the school will have no tuition fee increase for the coming school year 2009-2010.

The SM Environm ent Committtee’s first major project for 2009, the SM Supermalls Green Bag Project was conceived with the recycling principle in mind. The bag, intended to reduce solid waste as customers shop, was launched simultaneously in all SM Malls and is now available for excited SM City Naga mallers. An environmental sustainability initiative, the limited edition bag features the art of famous Filipino painter, Mr. Manuel “Manny” Baldemor.

LEGAZPI CITY--The Philippine National Police (PNP) in Masbate has filed multiple frustrated murder charges against seven top ranking New People’s Army (NPA) leaders for the ambush of Masbate Governor Elisa Kho last January 11 in Cataingan town in Masbate.