Celso de los Angeles has stage 4 throat cancer, doctor says*

Small farmers who are members of a sugar mill cooperative in a remote hinterland valley in southern Negros Occidental are asking the government to save it from beleaguered Legacy owner Celso de los Angeles.

They are asking President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to help save the Dacongcogon Producers Cooperative Marketing Association sugar mill in Barangay Dacongcogon, Kabankalan City whose majority shares were taken over by De los Angeles in November 2006.

The appeal is being made by the mill workers and members of the DPCMA, Rolando Parpa, cooperative member and counsel for the petitioners, said yesterday..

Eleven Bacolod residents have filed petitions for intervention in cases filed against Legacy Consolidated Plans Inc. headed by Celso de los Angeles before the Regional Trial Court of Makati City and notices of claims  representing P117 million worth of investments in a double your money scheme, their lawyer Cesar Distrito said.

The latest development is that the court has already appointed an assignee who will collate all the assets of the corporation and manage its distribution to the claimants, the lawyer said.

De los Angeles has asked for an extension of 20 days to comply with the order of the court to submit a list of assets which will be due on July 22, Distrito added.

A Toboso barangay chairman who claimed to be marked for liquidation by the New People’s Army, yesterday dared the rebels to come and get him, but appealed to them to spare the lives of innocent civilians.

“If they want me, I am just around. If they want war, so be it,” Eriberto Baynosa, barangay captain of Salamanca in Toboso, Negros Occidental, said.

Three civilians, including a 14-year-old, died, and three others were injured, in an ambush by about 30 NPA rebels Monday in Sitio Toril, Brgy. Salamanca, Toboso.