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MAYOR ERIC CODILLA AND TOURISM REG’L DIRECTOR KARINA ROSA TIOPES are seen here during the 1st Eastern Visayas Tourism Officers Convention held at the New Ormoc City Hall.

• Says no political motivation in booting out Sacay

MAYOR ERIC Codilla, city administrator Dennis Capuyan and Superdome manager Simon Albino Racaza, who are facing a complaint for graft and corruption filed against them by a Superdome tenant, have filed their counter-affidavits already and are asking that the case against them be “ordered dismissed for utter lack of merit”.
To recall, one Roberto “Bobby” Sacay, proprietor of Chiebob’s Corner, a restobar joint operating at the Ormoc Superdome, filed the complaint against the three, claiming his business operations were unreasonably stopped by the three allegedly for political reasons. Sacay’s mother ran in the mayor’s opposition ticket last May 10 polls.
His business permit was not renewed and then his contract to lease was cancelled, he said in his complaint.  He was ordered to vacate the Superdome premises immediately after the elections.
Sanitary reasons were raised but he said he did not get any notice from the city health, and even had certifications from neighboring establishments that they did not have a complaint for sanitation against his business. Furthermore, he said it was the norm for Superdome tenants to use the Dome’s comfort rooms, a concern of Racaza and not his.
In their counter-affidavits, Mayor Codilla, Capuyan and Racaza admitted the existence of a contract between them and the complainant.
However, they pointed out that the contract specifically states that it “may be renewed on a yearly basis… over a three year period” but the “actual period or duration of the subject lease was clearly and fully specified to “commence on April 7, 2009 and will end on April 6, 2010”.
They said Sacay was misleading the Ombudsman to make it appear that the contract was for a period of three years.
They also denied that due process was denied to Sacay. Superdome manager Racaza said that as early as February 22, he had been advising Sacay that his lease contract was not going to be renewed already because of complaints on sanitation.
Sacay’s business permit was earlier denied, even with his payment of business license fees.  The renewal period for business licenses in Ormoc City is from January 1-21.
Mayor Eric Codilla, with regards to this allegation, said that the “payment was not proper or lawful and made with utmost bad faith on the part of the Complainant who had already been previously and repeatedly advised that his lease contract was not going to be renewed even as early as February 22.
He added that even as Sacay was not given a business permit, he “continued to operate his buisness even without the requisite business permit” which he pointed out was a “direct and willful violation of pertinent and existing city ordinances regulating the conduct of business in the city of Ormoc”.
As for political motives, Mayor Codilla added that the non-renewal of Sacay’s contract was made on the strength of the Ormoc Superdome Manager Racaza, whom he pointed out is the uncle of the complainant. Racaza’s wife Johan, is the sister of Sacay’s late father.
The mayor also said that Gaspar Sacay, another uncle, is the head security officer of former Cong. Eufrocino Codilla Sr. “even up to the present time”.
The mayor turned the tables on complainant Sacay, saying that the complainant “abused his rights and reneged on his responsibilities under the lease contract because he was banking on being shielded from any adverse consequences because of his familial ties and connections”.
City administrator Dennis Capuyan, as head of the city’s economic enterprises, also asserted everything they did was above board. By Lalaine M. Jimenea

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ORMOC CITY – Mayor Eric Codilla of this city, during a convention of tourism officers at the multi-purpose hall of the New Ormoc City Hall here, said media who report “bad news” are one of the “human threats” to tourism development.
He enumerated the other threats as peace and order and financial crisis or recession.
In scoring media, the mayor recounted his travels abroad to countries where “bad news” are not allowed to land in the front pages. He said this is one good way to promote a particular country or area, alluding that media that report bad news or were critical were counterproductive.  
As for Ormoc’s efforts to promote tourism, he said that he prioritized first putting the city’s finances in the pink of health. He said he raised tax collection without introducing new taxes and despite the fact that the latest tax ordinance was passed in 1991 yet.
Because of this, he added, the New City Hall where the 2-day convention was being held, was constructed to the tune of P383-million “without any loan”. He said that the total floor area of the New City Hall is 14,800 square meters, almost 1.5 hectares and everything is new – from airconditioning to furniture.
He also quickly defended a P50-million loan that appears in the 2008 audit report, saying it was a loan that was not a loan.
He said they merely monetized the city’s IRA which was withheld by the Erap administration as part of its austerity measures, a move which was later struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. To monetize the funds, they chose between “rediscounting” it at the LandBank and “loaning” it for a lesser interest rate. So, it is not actually a loan, he said.
He also said that Ormoc has a variety of tourism offerings to a wide swathe of visitors. It has governance tourism, agricultural tourism, eco-destinations, even educational tourism like the city’s E-centers which are now generating visitors from other LGU’s.
The mayor also underscored developing local tourism is expensive and the government, to jump start in their localities, will have to spend on it without hope of ROI or return of investment. Taking the example of Disneyland, he said it might be a popular destination but its financial record show it is “losing”.
Throw in the Pinoy’s “crab mentality”, he alluded, this is also what is wrong in the country. He pointed out that when a tourist destination puts up a zipline, every other part of the country also wants to put up one. “Lugaw karon, lugaw tanan ugma”, he said.
On the other hand, the mayor also lauded the tourism officers for convening together and “planning” for the future of the industry in Eastern Visayas. He said that planning should take seventy percent of their efforts and implementation only 30 percent, because with such a huge preparation, implementation should go smoothly.
He said it was important to know the capabilities and limitations of a particular place, like during the time when Ormoc wanted to host the annual convention of Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
However, he said, they backed out from aspiring to host 4,000 people when reality showed the city cannot yet host a large gathering. Right now, he said, Ormoc can accommodate around 2,000 visitors.
For her part, DOT regional director Karina Rosa Tiopes thanked Mayor Codilla for hosting them a welcome dinner at the Sabin Resort Hotel the night before. She also thanked the mayor for the use of the convention center, which brought down the registration fees of the participants.
As to the tourism officers present, she said that the convention was an avenue for them to coalesce and put their heads together to adopt a comprehensive approach to tourism development in the region.  “We cannot just develop tourism by cooking chopsuey”, she said, and urged them to “prioritize, cooperate and show active participation” and be determined, committed and have the political will to do what it plans to do with its directions in tourism.  By Lalaine M. Jimenea

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NEOPHYTE CONGRESSMAN Jose Carlos “Boying” Cari hands over Dr. Jose Bacusmo, president of the Visayas State University, a check of P650,000 representing his and his mother’s, the former congresswoman and now Baybay Mayor Carmen L. Cari, financial assistance to some 260 scholars that they are helping through school in the university. Cong. Cari said he had just come from an earlier engagement in Abuyog where he also released financial assistance to another more than 200 scholars.

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ORMOC CITY – The Regional Trial Court judge here who has ordered the arrest of the controversial Celso delos Angeles of the Legacy Group of Companies, who is facing several counts of syndicated estafa alongside other company executives, has allowed his hospital detention for “humanitarian reasons”.
Delos Angeles is now at the OSPA-Farmer’s Medical Center. He had been diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer, the tracheal tubes of which are feared as having been infected. Delos Angeles was arrested by Quezon City policeman at the St. Luke’s Hospital where he was confined and brought here to Ormoc City last Thursday in the morning.
Atty. Carl Magsoling, RTC Branch 12 Clerk of Court, said that Judge Clinton C. Nuevo has agreed to delos Angeles’ hospital detention after a meeting with jail officers on the afternoon of Friday, August 20, “provided he shoulders the expenses”.  Judge Nuevo has assigned Magsoling to be his official spokesperson on the delos Angeles case.
Delos Angeles, one of the country’s richest men in the past with a lifestyle to envy by most Filipinos, arrived here in Ormoc City at around 9:30 in the morning of Thursday, August 19. Thin, weak and visibly ailing, he was a far cry from the confident man and politician the public knew and saw on TV in the past. He also claims to be penniless.
He will be confined at the OSPA-Farmer’s Medical Center or until his request to be returned to St. Luke’s Hospital in Manila is granted. The Court will be hearing his motion to be returned to the hospital on Tuesday, August 24.
Delos Angeles was arrested for grand estafa as president of the First Interstate Bank that had its head office in Kananga town, this province. Kananga is under the territorial jurisdiction of the Ormoc RTC.
He also has other cases in places like Davao, General Santos City and Manila, also for grand estafa after the pre-need company and First Interstate Bank that Legacy owned, collapsed.
He was initially brought to the Leyte sub-provincial jail in this city. Domingo Plimaco, sub-provincial jail warden, admitted he had a problem with delos Angeles. His health condition, he said, necessitates that he is confined separately.
The sub-provincial jail, he said, originally built to accommodate 40 inmates, now has 100 inmates. All quarters are cramped and sanitation not so ideal that they had to let delos Angeles occupy the lobby when he arrived.
He added it does not take a doctor to see that delos Angeles is very sick, saying he agrees to his hospital detention. In fact, he added, he had to bring him to the Gatchalian Clinic on the afternoon of the day he arrived to have his tracheal tubes cleaned and declogged.
Plimaco said delos Angeles stinks when he speaks, indicated infection.
On the other hand, Atty. Magsoling said that shortly before delos Angeles arrived, he sent a personal letter to Judge Clinton Nuevo to let him remain in Manila and to release him from police custody, and return him to the St. Luke’s Hospital where he was arrested.
Delos Angeles said that he was already in hospital detention at St. Luke’s and the law enforcers disregarded the previous orders of three judges who have allowed him to remain at the hospital for his confinement, considering he is seriously ill.
However, despite the orders from the three judges, the Quezon City Police District insisted on arresting him on the strength of the warrant from Ormoc City.
Magsoling said that the Court couldn’t act on delos Angeles’ letter, saying they needed a proper motion for the Court to act. Surprisingly, he added, of all the Courts in the land where delos Angeles has been charged, it was only in Ormoc that he had no lawyer.
In his letter, delos Angeles said he did not have money to pay for what the lawyers were asking from him for the Ormoc case.
As no lawyer contested the complaint filed against him at the prosecutor’s level in mid-June yet, Magsoling said an information was subsequently filed at the RTC and the warrant of arrest issued. The crime of grand estafa is not bailable.
It was also learned that except two of Celos delos Angeles’ co-accused, all sent their lawyers to contest the legal action filed against them by a special panel of the Department of Justice in Ormoc.
Some filed motions for reconsideration but the latest on that, Magsoling added, is that the DOJ has denied the recon. The denial was issued recently, only on August 6, but the aggrieved parties have filed for another relief or “petitions to review”.
Co-respondents to delos Angeles are Alexis S. Petralba of Echavez Street in Cebu City; Namnama Pasetes of Project 6, Quezon City; Carolina Hiñola of Goodwill Homes in Quezon City; Roy Hilario of Makati City; Virgilio Odejar of Quezon City; Atty. Christine Antenor Cruz-Limpin of Mandaluyong City; Arnel Sulquiano of Quezon City and several John and Jane Does. By Lalaine M. Jimenea

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TACLOBAN CITY-  Eight members of the Philippine National Police, including a junior officer, were killed in an ambush around 7:45 of Saturday, August 21, in an interior village in Catarman, capital town of Northern Samar.
Northern Samar PNP provincial director Sr. Supt. Brigido Unay, in a phone interview, said that the police troops coming from the Catarman police station led by Sr. Insp. Nicasio San Antonio were aboard a patrol car on their way to Barangay Imelda, some 10 kilometers away from the town proper, when two suspected land mines detonated, hitting the patrol car.
The policemen were on their way to investigate the killion of a barangay councilor the night before. One barangay kagawad Rolando de Guia was reportedly the victim of a summary execution of the NPA, and the police troopers were going to the barangay to investigate the matter.
The troopers were subsequently sprayed with heavy fire and after killing all eight PNP members, their attackers took away their weapons, uniforms and other valuable items. The ambushers, suspected to be members of the New People’s Army operating in the area, were estimated to be 40-men strong.
“All of the policemen inside the patrol car were actually killed  and their firearms seized. They (the NPA) planted at least two explosive landmines and took up ambush on a road into the barangay and fired on the police troops in the burning vehicle”, Col.Unay said.
The 40 armed rebels, added Unay, took away with them seven pistols and four assault rifles from the slain officers, who were also stripped of their uniforms.
The fatalities were identified as PO2 Rey Estarun,  SPO1 Julio, PO2 Tabuhay, PO3 Simon Saludario, PO3 Estoneria , SPO2 Michael Velarde and one PO2 Catunjay. They were immediately rushed to Northern Samar provincial hospital but all were declared dead on arrival.
On the other hand, in a statement from the National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas sent to various media outlets this Sunday, August 22, the NDF said that the offensive was the handiwork of the Efren Martires Command.
The statement proceeds to gloat about the “NPA’s successful tactical offensive against the Philippine National Police within the provincial capital of Catarman”.
The statement also explains that the death of village councilor Rolando de Guia was a punishment for “espionage”.
The statement said the “expected enemy reinforcements were then ambushed by the people’s army, who used command-detonated explosives (which are manually set off) to disable their vehicle.” The statement confirms confiscating “at least seven pistols and four M16 rifles.”
Meanwhile, the statement adds that “Ka Karlos Manuel”, reportedly the spokesman of the Efren Martires Command, “belies the claims by Sr. Supt. Vicente Loot, PNP deputy regional director for operations, that the policemen were not on combat operations and that the NPA captured and then executed them”.
“Regular forces of the police and military are clearly legitimate targets for NPA tactical offensives. As can also be seen from the weapons taken from them, the policemen were heavily-armed and battle-ready and were accordingly killed in action. Moreover, the NPA always gives enemy combatants the chance to surrender if they could no longer fight. The NPA abides by international humanitarian law in respecting the rights of captured enemy combatants as well the hors d’ combat. Wounded enemy personnel are also taken care of by NPA medics. The PNP seems to be covering up its embarrassment because the NPA could carry out a tactical offensive within the provincial capital and close to the town proper at that”, the statement adds.
The NPA in Eastern Visayas adds that the tactical offensive was just a beginning and there are “more to come” as the NPA’s answer to the Aquino regime’s extension of Oplan Bantay Laya.
The statement then continues to slam the Aquino administration saying, instead of discussing socio-economic reforms, it is extending Oplan Bantay Laya “which has been widely condemned for political killings and other attacks on innocent civilians”.
“Thus”, the statement continues, “the NPA is defending the people and delivering the message to the Aquino regime that Oplan Bantay Laya and any other plan of fascist state terrorism will be defeated” and that it will be launching even more tactical offensives. With a report from Lalaine M. Jimenea

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USEC SIMEON MARFORI III (seated in the middle) in a souvenir pose with personnel of the Department of Tourism 8 headed by regional director Karina Rosa Tiopes (seated, 4th from the left).

ORMOC CITY – Tourism undersecretary Simeon P. Marfori II, who was here recently in the city to guest the 1st Eastern Visayas Tourism Officers Convention held at the New Ormoc City Hall, said he is batting for “fruit salad tourism”- his way of describing developing a tourism package that would include a little bit of everything in its array.
Marfori, who said he graduated in the ‘70’s with the big dreams of being the “it” generation that would bring the nation to greatness, said that unfortunately other Asian neighbors have overtaken the Philippines, especially in tourism.
He said the country’s latest statistic shows that it got just around three million visitors in 2009 compared to 22 million in Malaysia and 16 million in Thailand.
This is because Filipinos see tourism through their eyes and not through the eyes of their visitors. He said they would want to see a change in this culture with the so-called “fruit salad” tourism.
Taking Vietnam as an example, he said that a river there attracts about one thousand visitors per day. The river, he added, was not phenomenal but what brings Westerners there is to see two papaya trees growing on its bank. “Two papaya trees only”, he emphasized, and it brings in a thousand visitors.
To the laughter of the tourism officers gathered and some councilors in charge of tourism, he said that Pinoys may laugh at the thought but they should give it a second look.
In the West, he said, people eat papaya for breakfast yet they don’t have these trees growing in their backgrounds. That is the reason why they go in droves to that river in Vietnam “just to see two papaya trees”.
In the Philippines, he said, these visitors will not only see papayas, but mangoes, mangosteen, lanzones and other kinds of fruits. All tourism officers have to do, he said, is “tell a story” and package the destination.
He also urged those present to “get out of the box” and think out of the box. He said the complaints they often hear about tourism from local government units is that they don’t have international airports, they don’t have destinations like other places and they don’t have funds.
He said that if every town in the country would have its own international airports, then there would be more airports that there would be visitors. With regards to “having a destination or a tourist spot”, he reverted to the papaya story saying all they have to do is weave a story. As for lack of funds, he said this is one perennial problem and there will never be enough unless LGU’s take the bull by the horn and exercise political will.
He also congratulated the tourism officers of Eastern Visayas for the effort of bonding together and coordinating with each other. He said this was important to be able to come up with a comprehensive tourism package for tourists which will benefit not only one particular LGU but others as well.
He added that the creation of such regional bodies is mandated under the Tourism Law of 2009, which was not implemented in the last administration but is only beginning to see the light of day during the fledgling Aquino administration.
He reminded all present that Pres. Aquino has made tourism as his centerpiece, hoping that with a focused effort to develop the country’s 7,100 island, it could bring in more visitors and create jobs and livelihood for the people. By Lalaine M. Jimenea

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