January 2, 2002, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Heightened insurgency amid peace talks,

 

MILITARY officials in Southern Luzon said insurgency is still the number one peace and order problem the area.

 

The communist insurgents operate in Southern Luzon continue to rise in number.

 

They placed the total rebel strength in the area in 2001 at 3,189 members. At least 1,715 of them were armed with 1,237 assorted high-powered firearms and 478 low-caliber weapons.

 

But the Southern Luzon Command officials stressed that the military is still in full control of the situation in the Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions.

 

The arena has now shifted from Quezon and Laguna to the island-provinces of Oriental and Occidental Mindoro.

 

For the first time, the communist rebels restrained themselves from staging offensive military operations against government forces during the NPA founding anniversary celebration on Dec. 26, in observance of the communist-declared unilateral Christmas ceasefire.

 

The military also revealed that the NPA collects at least P28 million a year from "revolutionary taxation" activities in the Calabarzon area alone.

 

As a result of increased revolutionary tax collections, military officials in the Bicol region have classified the NPA as a syndicated crime group as "they are more preoccupied with their extortion activities rather than facing government forces."

 

With the continuous rise of insurgency, charges of military human rights abuses from leftist activists also reverberated, especially in Southern Tagalog.

 

The communist insurgents owned the killings of the late Quezon Rep. Marcial Punzalan Jr. and Tanauan Mayor Cesar Platon several days before the May elections.

 

Illegal drug smuggling

 

The past year brought into limelight the extensive and daring operation in the Southern Tagalog Region of international drug syndicates mainly in the production and distribution of high-grade methamphetamine hydrochoride, more popularly known as shabu.

 

On April 29, a team of police operatives raided a suspected shabu laboratory in Barangay Sto. Nino, Lipa City.

 

The raid reportedly yielded 1,000 kg of high-grade shabu worth P2 billion, which the police described as the biggest drug haul in the country in 2001.

 

On Oct. 13, the police arrested Panukulan mayor Ronnie Mitra for his involvement in the drug trade. He was driving an ambulance that yielded 498 kilos of shabu worth about P1 billion.

 

Masbate Vice Gov. Mario Espinosa said the illegal drug problem had grown so rapidly that he feared drug money might be used by some politicians to win in the May 14 elections.

 

Bleakest in Palawan

 

The year 2001 was the bleakest yet challenging year for Palawan.

 

The once safest and most peaceful province in the Philippines woke up on May 27 with a news that the Abu Sayyaf took hostage 20 of the guests and staff of Dos Palmas resort in Honda Bay.

 

Seven months after, the province still suffers from the effect of that incident. Tourism, the second largest industry in the province, got most of it.

 

This also led to the closure of some establishments, including the once-thriving Dos Palmas.

 

But local governments and the Palawan and Puerto Princesa City tourism councils never showed any signs of retreat nor surrender. The incident has sparked them to move a hundred times better and smarter to promote Palawan.

 

Last year also marked a tension-filled election in the province. The race for the gubernatorial post was tight between incumbent Reyes and former Puerto Princesa mayor Edward Hagedorn.

 

The former mayor became more popular after being seen with deposed President Joseph Estrada until his last minute in Malacanang.

 

The May elections were memorable and painful to Reyes.

 

Although the counting of ballots showed signs that he was leading the race, a tragedy struck the province. The helicopter ferrying his mother, Lualhati, from a town fell in the mountains.

 

Another tragedy happened when the rescue helicopter from the 570th composite tactical wing fell while carrying dead bodies in the first crash. Both accidents are still being investigated until now.

 

Last year was also the year when local and national politicians squabbled over the supposed share from the Camago-Malampaya Natural Gas-to-Power Project.

 

Even when President Macapagal-Arroyo promised to give Palawan its just share during her last visit in June, some cabinet members argued that Palawan has no right over the share because Malampaya does not belong to the 15-kilometer municipal water as mandated in the Local Government Code.

 

Promising industry

 

Non-government groups were also agitated with the newest threat facing Palawan's environment with the approval of the controversial nickel refinery complex in Bataraza town.

 

The trade and industry sector in the Southern Tagalog Region shows promising indications.

 

The Department of Trade and Industry said investment opportunities are encouraging as shown by the increased number of investments being generated even at the municipal level.

 

DTI statistics showed that as of November, 133,754 business permits issued were issued to groups or individuals.

 

Last year, only 125,986 permits were issued in the 11 provinces of the region.

 

The Department of Labor and Employment Region IV office, however, had a discouraging report.

 

Dole Region IV records showed a significant total number of retrenchments, both temporary and permanent, in factories and establishments as of Oct. 31.

 

The records showed that 18,783 workers were retrenched throughout the region as of that date.

 

Of this, about one-half or 9,042 employees were separated permanently.

 

Clarin's report also showed that of the 227 firms, 32 had already permanently closed while 46 firms are still temporarily non-operational.

 

The National Statistical Coordination Board-Region 4 said that in July, it had calculated the employment rate in the whole region at 88.7 percent.

 

Mayon eruption

 

The Mayon Volcano exploded on June 24, hurling superheated, chocolate-colored and cauliflower-shaped ash columns about five kilometers high.

 

Immediately, authorities evacuated 11,156 persons from Barangays Mabinit, Bonga, Matanag, Buyuan and Padang in Legazpi City.

 

Although it brought destruction and untold miseries to victims, the June 24 explosion, as in the previous Mayon eruptions, brought out the best in the Bicolanos-from the lowly farmer to the highest official-in terms of cooperation, sacrifice, perseverance, determination and hard work.

 

When President Macapagal-Arroyo visited Bicol on Dec. 15 last year, she mused about the slow economic development in the region which made it second to the poorest Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in the country even as the cities of Naga and Legazpi were experiencing growths.

 

Ms Macapagal observed that despite some developments in the "Legazpi-Iriga-Naga-Daet growth corridors," the urban centers assigned with increased development that would trigger trickle-down effect to other localities, the rest of the Bicol towns remained poor.

 

She recommended a comprehensive tourism plan that would not be dependent on the periodic eruption of Mayon Volcano and advocated "economic holiday" to spur economic growth in Bicol.

 

Hope

 

But a light at the end of the tunnel has emerged with the increasing demand for abaca in the world market, the Fiber Industry Development Authority said.

 

The Bicol regional economy has been beefed up with the production of abaca pulp that constitutes the bulk of the export earnings for the past five years while the erratic price of copra in the world market continues to dive.

 

In addition, in the third quarter of 2001, the Department of Agriculture has announced a better performance in rice production and assured of a 100-percent rice sufficiency for the rest of the months last year.

 

But the continuous inflow of cheap imported rice has set back the farmgate prices of palay to as low as P5.25 a kilo during harvest season.

 

The restiveness of the farmers on the deteriorating situation in the rice industry was further fueled by several reported incidents of rice smuggling. --Floreno G. Solmirano, Juan Escandor Jr., Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Romulo P. Ponte and Jofelle P. Tesorio, PDI Southern Luzon Bureau