Gov’t moves to avert
‘dead season’ crisis
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Board Member Enrique Miguel Lacson, Sanggunian Committee on Food Security chairman, is convening a consultative meeting with sugar industry leaders Monday morning to avert a possible crisis in Negros Occidental.

Lacson said he is calling the meeting because indications from experts are that the “Tiempos Muertos (dead season)” or the off-milling period in the sugar industry will start unusually early and last longer this year.

The dead season refers to the time when there is no work on sugar farms. It usually starts in June and lasts for three months, but Sugar Regulatory Administrator Rafael Coscolluela said Tuesday that this year, it could last five months..

The police reported yesterday that 103 persons have been killed in various vehicular and road accidents in Negros Occidental last year, which is less than the more than 150 deaths recorded in 2007.

Police investigations show that the failure of some drivers to follow traffic rules and regulations, mechanical trouble of vehicles, sugarcane spillage along the highway, and road conditions contributed a lot to the occurrence of vehicular accidents,

Records of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office also indicated that 2,255 persons were injured in 2,251 vehicular accidents last year.

A Regional Trial Court judge has acquitted a Bacolod City employee accused of malversation of public funds by the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for Visayas for failure of the prosecution to prove her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

RTC Bacolod Judge Anita Chua acquitted Merle M. Eyoy in a decision penned Dec. 22 and furnished the DAILY STAR yesterday.

“I am very thankful that justice has finally been served,” Eyoy said yesterday.