Media Center, 2nd Flr., Capitol Bldg.

by: Bong Pedalino

by: Rebecca S. Cadavos

September 16-30, 2013 Vol. I, No. 6

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Dis-trict Office No. 90 in this province will have a new head. "By virtue of Revenue Travel Assignment Order of Com. Kim Jacinto Henares I will be transferred to RDO Number 12 in Lagawe, If-ugao. The new RDO who will take my place is Gil Tabanda from RDO number 72, Roxas City, Iloilo," Alexander Laroza, Revenue Dis-trict Officer of the provincial BIR office, said. Asked when the transfer would take place, Laroza replied that by September 27 he is expected to be there in his new assignment. During the recent cable TV Kapihan sa PIA, Laroza already hinted at his impending

BIR-Southern Leyte has a new RDO head

SL sustains filariasis-free status Almost 700 individuals aged two-years-old and above were exam-ined for Filariasis in the border municipality of San Ricardo, the exit municipality in Southern Leyte leading to Mindanao Island.

from the PHSO-Technical De-partment and one each from the rural health units of San Ri-cardo and Liloan conducted the surveillance activity, Malazarte said. They are Yuladia Pan-gilinan, Eunice Aida Batalon and Malazarte from the PHSO and Lydia Soson and Fe Ocon from the RHU of San Ricardo and Liloan, respectively. The surveillance activity aims to sustain the status of South-ern Leyte as a Filariasis-free province. Southern Leyte was the first province in the country de-clared as Filariasis-free since

February of 2009 and was able to sustain the status up to the present. Continuous surveillance among municipal-ity-boundaries was conducted to achieve the target.

For 2012SL ranks lowest malnutri-

tion rate in Region 8

PSC official explains difference of Palaro, Batang Pinoy Games

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Technical Department Medical Technologist Erwin Malazarte from the Provincial Health Services Office said the surveillance activity held Sep-tember 9-13 was conducted from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the border barangays of San Ricardo such as Saob, Bitoon and San Ramon. “It is during these hours that micro-fi-laria known as Wuchereria Bancrofti is seen,” Malazarte said. “Although a fourth barangay, Pinut-an, still in San Ricardo, was also examined because of one positive result last May 2013 mon-itoring, but was already treated and all those tested from the four barangays showed a 100 percent negative result,” he added. Three medical technologists

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(to page 4)

FILARIASIS TESTING: Medical Technologists literally burn the midnight oil in testing700 residents of San Ricardo for the filarial virus that turned out negative, thus maintaining the province’s record as the first in the country declared by the Department of Health (DOH) as filariasis-free since 2008.

The Commissioner of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) used the opening rites of the Visayas-wide sports event in Maasin City, Sept. 24, to enlighten the people on the distinguishing features between the Palarong Pambansa and Batang Pinoy games. "Palarong Pambansa caters to in-school sports of elemen-tary and high school, ages 10-12 and 16-18, respectively. How about the ages in-between?. This is being taken care of by the Batang Pinoy sports," said PSC Com. Atty. Jose Luis "Jolly" Gomez, the keynote speaker during the opening ceremonies of the Batang Pinoy tourney at the city gym. Palaro has been under the Department of Education (DepEd) and players are mostly students enrolled in schools, while Batang Pinoy, also known as Philippine Youth Games,

PSC IN MAASIN: Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Commissioner Atty. Jose “Jolly” Gomez stresses a point in his speech during the opening rites of the Batang Pi-noy in Maasin. Seated in the lead table upstage while listening him speak are, from left, Romeo Maga, repre-sentative of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), City Mayor Maloney Samaco, and Gov. Roger Mercado.

The local government unit of Southern Leyte ranks the lowest malnutrition incidence in the region with the rate of 7.11% of the total population of preschool children weighed while the Department of Education – Southern Leyte Schools Division got 4.6% mal-nutrition rate of all the school-children in the province. According to Assistant Pro-vincial Nutrition Action

by: Bong Pedalino

by: Erna Sy Gorne

Vol. I, No.6

Page 2September 16-30, 2013

The Maternal and Newborn Child Health and Nutrition (MNCHN) program in coordination with the Department of Health (DOH) and the local government units in Southern Leyte conducted a “Competency-Based Family Plan-ning Training – Level 1,” Septem-ber 16-20, 2013. There are at least 30 Rural Health Midwives from the Rural Health Stations throughout the province and four Public Health Nurses participated in the activi-ty held at the Supercha 2 Restau-rant here, Provincial Supervising Midwife Victoria Generan said. The 5-day training aims to ensure the availability of Fam-ily Planning information and

Nurses, midwives trained for Family Planning Info and Services

The Bureau of Jail Man-agement and Penology (BJMP) through the Maasin City Jail (MCJ) slated the 1st ever Friendship Games to be played between the MCJ personnel and its inmates and the Southern Leyte Pro-vincial Jail personnel along with their inmates starting on September 30. BJMP Maasin City Jail Wardress Senior Inspector Arlene T. Barraca said that the activity will be held at the Southern Leyte Provin-cial Jail grounds. It carries the theme, "Panagtagbo, Panaghimamat, Panaghiga-laay, Pinaagi sa Paugnat sa Kausog," Barraca said. She said that the friend-ship game which includes

1st BJMP friendship games

services at health facilities throughout the province, Generan, who was one of the speakers, said. Topics discussed during the said activity include the fol-lowing: The Philippine Family Planning Program; Human Reproductive Anatomy and Physiology; FP Client As-sessment; Infection Preven-tion in FP Services; Fertility Awareness-Based Methods; Hormonal Contraceptive Methods; The Male Condom; Long-term and Permanent Methods; FP for Special Pop-ulations and the Counseling for Family Planning and action

NEWS ROUND-UP

DILG BATS FOR LGU SUPPORT The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) of Southern Leyte encourages local government officials, elected and appointed, to exert more efforts to achieve re-sults in good governance practices to deserve DILG incen-tives and awards for excellent performance. Local government cluster head Fe Thelma D. Cruz led the panel of resource persons from DILG-Southern Leyte to dis-cuss their programs thrusts and priorities during the recent week’s “Action Center television program” at the OSCA me-dia center in Barangay Tagnipa, Maasin City, aired live on DYSL Sogod radio.

(see page 4)

basketball and volleyball is in connection with the National Correctional Consciousness (NACO-CO) Week set on October 21-27, 2013. "This friendship games would foster camarade-rie, humane treatment to respective inmates and bring awareness that correction is everybody's concern, concrete man-ifestation of hope for the inmates, the community as well, and the nation as a whole," Barraca stated. She added that "positive relationships, reactions, reinforcement and rejoic-ing would result to fruitful-ness, and this is what we are aiming to achieve."

CAPDEV Seminar in Cebu:Gov. Roger G. Mercado and oth-er officials in a brainstorming session during the 3-day Capa-bility Development (CAPDEV) Seminar for provincial heads of offices and elected officials held in Cebu which was facilitated by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

The Department of Public Works and Highways-Southern Leyte Engineering District (DPWH-SLED) intensified the recovery of national roads as encroachments have already reached to the point threatening the safe mobility of the rid-ing public. District Engineer Ma. Margarita Junia directed the maintenance section to conduct general inventory of all encroachments and, if necessary, file legal charges against vi-olators. (ESG)

DPWH intensifies national roads recovery

The Department of Education (DepEd)-Maasin City Schools Division gathered the leaders of the local business and indus-try sector as partners of the K to 12 Basic Education program during the Division Education Congress September 23. The public and private stakeholders committed to support the new curriculum, especially in the immersion of Senior High School On-the-Job-Training (OJT) students in their establish-ments for the full implementation in 2016. (ESG)

DepEd partners support K to 12

(see page 4)

Page 2

by: Rebecca G. Cadavos

by: Rebecca G. Cadavos

Vol. I, No.6

Page 3September 16-30, 2013

Cebu City rules Batang Pinoy Visayas leg in Maasin

Maasin city formally opened its doors to visiting players coming from about three doz-en local government units in the entire Visayas who saw ac-tion in 21 sports events for the qualifying rounds of the Philip-pine Youth Games, the Batang Pinoy Visayas leg. City Mayor Maloney Sama-co declared open the five-day sports hostilities Tuesday, Sep-tember 24, at the crowded city gym to the wild cheers of over 1,000 athletes from the three Visayas regions, in fitting open-ing ceremonies spruced with surprising fireworks. In his welcome message, Samaco said he was only in-formed of the city's hosting right after this year's elections,

Maasin hosts "Batang Pinoy" Visayas leg sportsfestbut he accepted it as a challenge inasmuch as one of his key agenda focused on putting the city in the map for sports excel-lence. He also said the games of-fered an opportunity to pro-mote the city through sports tourism. "You can visit our city zoo and our many pilgrimage sites," Samaco said, addressing the visiting contingents. Gov. Roger Mercado, for his part, said he was grateful to the Philippine Sports Commis-sion (PSC) and the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) for choosing the province and the city as the venue of the Visayas round of the national sportsfest. Among the guests who graced the opening ceremonies

were Romeo Maga, POC representative and Atty. Jose Luis Gomez, PSC Commissioner. A colourful rendition of a local, cultural show called "Ajonay festival" performed by students of Maasin City College capped the dazzling open-ing rites. (Photographs by: Rheden Grullo - City Tourism Office)

The city local government unit of Cebu dominated the race for the most number of medals won in gold, silver, and bronze, to grab a convincing victory in the Batang Pinoy sports competition- Visayas qualifying rounds held in Maasin CitySeptember 24-28. The queen city of the south went home with 72 gold medals, 52 silver, 25 bronze for a total of 149 medals in most of the events contested, while coming in for a far sec-ond place was Bohol province with 29 gold, 19 silver, 14 bronze or a sum of 62 medals, the tally based on records

obtained from the Batang Pinoy secretariat. Closely following for a third spot in terms of gold hauled was Iloilo City with 18 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze, or a total of 26 medals, and fourth was neighboring Bacolod City for 11 gold, 5 silver, 7 bronze, or 23 medals in all. The host city, Maasin, landed in the fifth slot, with 8 gold, 21 silver, and 32 bronze, or a total of 61 medals netted, making the city third in terms of overall medal count, just one medal shy of Bo-

sportsfest, four out of 21 sport-ing events were still scheduled to be played, such as Sipak Takraw, Dancesport, Boxing, and Badminton, but results may hardly alter the trend, if at

(see page 4)

by: Bong Pedalino

by: Bong Pedalino

hol province’s 62 total medals bagged. Vying for the fifth place with Maasin City based on gold medals won were Iloilo province and the province of Leyte, with 8 gold each LGU. Iloilo province, how-ever, got off with 20 more silver and 9 bronze for a total of 37 medals -- making it 4th in overall medal standing -- while Leyte province had 8 silver and 7 bronze for a total of 23 overall, a tie with Bacolod City. As of Saturday, September 28, the last day of the

Page 3

Vol. I, No.6

Page 4 September 16-30, 2013

Bong Pedalino

Aida MorsenMaryrose Asis

Vincent Ralph Dag-umanRenan Fernandez

Tereso Espere III Louie L. Sandoval

Jocelyn B. Pasaylo

Rebecca G. Cadavos Erna Sy GorneDiego Credo Willy Justimbaste

Editor

Circulation

Photographer Video Editor

Layout Artist

Writers

planning. Resource speakers during the week-long activity include PHN Azucenas Garcia from Maasin City Health Unit, Gen-der Health Program Coordi-nator for Visayas Dr.Feliciano John Matibag from USAID, RO8-Center for Health De-velopment Nurse Fe Modesto and Generan herself.

SL ranks...... (from page 1)

Nurses, midwives, trained...... (from page 2)

Generan said that the Philippine Family Plan-ning Program (PFPP) is an intervention to improve the health of all Filipinos with special attention to women and children. “The PFP program relate to the reduction of Maternal and Child Mortality program,” she said.

She further said that MNCHN’s goal is to im-prove financial risk pro-tection particularly among the poor, ensure access to quality health and to imple-ment key interventions to achieve health-related con-cerns, particularly that of reducing maternal mortality and infant mortality.

Among the DILG activities were the prov-ince-wide Executive Legislative Agenda (ELA) and Capability Development (CAP-DEV) training and orientations of newly elected and reelected local officials of the province, city and municipalities in South-ern Leyte where the participants discussed plans and programs for the next three years of their new mandates. These would foster closer cooperation,

DILG Bats..... (from page 2)

has been handled by

coordination and camaraderie between LGU officials for efficient and effec-tive results in local government among others. The other DILG guests included LGOO V Ma. Cristina B. Tiu who ex-panded on the Kasambahay Law, LGOO V Geraldine C. Maquelabit on ELA and CAPDEV and LGOOV Loren A. Aneciete on performance awards and incentives given by DILG to LGUs. (Willy J.)

transfer, saying how he wished he were still be here the moment the new BIR permanent building of its own will be erected in a lot granted by the city government. In February, 2011, Laroza came to the province, swapping places with a native-born Southern Leyteno, Noemi Abiera Pizon, who was assigned to Virac, Catanduanes.

BIR So. Leyte... (from page 1)

PSC Official... (from page 1)

Cebu City rules...(from page 3)

all, for the top five winners. At least 36 local government units in the entire Visayas composed of Regions 6, 7, and 8 actively participated, and 1,306 young athletes, boys and girls aged 15 below, played in various games. Expectedly, the most number of players came from the host city with 276, followed by the victorious Cebu City delegation, 159, and third was the province of Southern Leyte, 106. Most of the medals won by Cebu City were in swimming, karatedo, and athletics, while Maasin city won one gold each in wrestling, swimming, cheerleading, futsal, and 4 gold in soft tennis, as of this writing. Southern Leyte province had three gold, three silver, and five bronze, all in athletics.

the Philippine Sports Commission and the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), and out-of-school players who showed potentials can also be accepted, Gomez said. Both sports competition, however, are being heavily supported by the local government units, he added. Another difference was that in Batang Pinoy "mas maraming pag-pipiliang sports" as cheerdancing and sportsdance have been included, Gomez also said. He said the first, second, and third place winners of the games in the city represent the top three placers for the Visayas, and they will be sent to the Batang Pinoy National Championships scheduled in Bacolod City November 19-23 to compete with winners from Mindan-ao and Luzon. The other guest who was around to witness the launching rites was Romeo Maga, POC representative.

Officer (APNAO) Nilda Rich in a meeting conducted by the Provincial Nutrition Committee at Maasin City Sept. 14, “the malnutrition rate in the province from among the 41,298 preschool children with ages ranging from 0-71 months old weighed in 18 municipalities of Southern Leyte got an average rate of 7.11% in 2012.” “Out of the total preschool children, 450 of them were severely underweight while the 2,490 were underweight, “ she reported. Rich further reported that Southern Leyte got the lowest malnutrition rate for the provincial category throughout the Eastern Visayas region in 2012. She noted that the National Nutrition Council has set the 10% malnutrition rate of the total weighed preschool children as benchmark for not alarming malnutri-tion incidence, while the same indicator was also observed by the DepEd SoLeyte Schools Division as they gathered the nutritional status of the elementary children from Kindergarten to Grade VI, according to DepEd Nurse -In-Charge Teresita Marquez. The DepEd-Southern Leyte Division also reported that out of 53,892 school-children weighed, it was found out that 316 schoolchildren were severely wasted and 2,118 of them were wasted, with the overall malnutrition rate pegged at 4.6% in the SY 2013- 2014 as of July 2013, Schools Medical Officer IV Dr. Consolacion Ruflo of DepEd Southern Leyte Schools Divison reported in the same meeting.

“Do not spoil what you have by thinking on what you have not. Re-

member: what you now have were once part of the things you only hoped for.”

-EpicurusGreek Philosopher

EditorialStaff