P10M fire hits Bacolod store
BY ADRIAN NEMES III

Ten million pesos worth of ready-to-wear clothes and other merchandise were turned to ashes when a five-hour fire hit a two-storey establishment at Luzuriaga Street, Bacolod City at about 5:40 a.m. yesterday.

Bacolod City fire marshal, Chief Insp. Pamela Rojane Candido, said the security guard of the Gaisano Department Store saw thick smoke coming from the window at the second floor of the Sun Ves Marketing, and immediately informed Patrol 117, who called the BFP.

Candido said they sent the six fire trucks of the BFP and they were assisted by those of the Amity and the Chinese Chamber fire volunteer brigades. The fire easily spread at the store as it contained garments and other combustible materials, she  said.

PhilHealth paid P135,252,251 in benefit claims to Negros Occidental government sponsored program members and their dependents from January to October 2011, allowing the province to gain P88,617,093, its vice president Dennis Mas said yesterday.

It is not true that the provincial government, and the town and city governments are getting less benefits compared to the premiums they paid, he said.

Mas said the Negros Occidental provincial government paid premiums of P13,426,720 for 45,433 indigent PhilHealth members, while the towns and cities of the province paid P47,390,290 for 100,828 more members for a total of P60,817,010 in 2011.

Water had subsided yesterday in the five cities and three towns of Negros Occidental hit Tuesday by floods, which affected 4,061 families, the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office reported.

Most of the evacuees had returned to their homes yesterday, the PSWDO added.

The floods destroyed 49 houses and damaged 620 in Barangay Paraiso, Sagay, when the Himogaan River overflowed, and caused 1,140 families to evacuate, Mayor Rafael Leo Cueva said.