Dads ratify contract for
gov’t center power
BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO

The Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod ratified in a special session yesterday the electric service contract entered into by the Bacolod City government and Central Negros Electric Cooperative for the installation of electrical connection at the new government center.

Mayor Evelio Leonardia expressed his gratitude to Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson and the city councilors for their immediate and speedy action on the ratification of the contract, a press release from City Hall said.

He expressed hopes that electrical connection to the new government center will be completed at the soonest possible time.

The Provincial Agrarian Reform Office will clarify with landowners in Negros Occidental who offered their property under the Voluntary Offer to Sell scheme whether they still wish to proceed, PARO Teresita Depeñoso said yesterday.

That is because, with the expiration of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law at the end of 2008, a joint resolution passed by the House and the Senate only allows the Department of Agrarian Reform to proceed with the distribution of land offered under VOS, she said.

“When the law was in effect, if land was offered under VOS and the landowner changed his mind about subjecting his property to land reform, we could always acquire it under compulsory acquisition,” she said.

An alleged faith healer and her companion were nabbed by the police for swindling in an entrapment operation at her house in Bacolod City, yesterday.

Maribeth Villasor and Ramona Escayo, both 50, were arrested by members of the Negros Occidental and Bacolod City police offices Intelligence and Investigation branches in Villasor’s house in Brgy. 18, Bacolod, at about 1 p.m. yesterday.

Chief Insp. Leonardo Angcon and PO3 Junjie Liba of the BCPO-IIB and NOPPO-IIB, respectively, led the operation that was also witnessed by a television crew.