60 workers rescued from
‘illegal recruiters’
BY ADRIAN NEMES & LISA GAPAC

Sixty sugarcane workers, seven of them minors, were rescued from three alleged illegal recruiters by the Department of Labor and Employment-Negros Occidental and joint operatives of the maritime and Station 3 policemen at the Banago wharf in Bacolod City, Friday.

DOLE OIC regional director Crispin Dannug, Jr., said yesterday that the sugarcane workers were rescued from Alicia Deocampo, 55, of Brgy. Malibo, Batangas City, and Teotimo Apolo, 54 and Rolando Somibig, 41, both of Brgy. Lineo, Escalante City.

The three failed to present permits signed by DOLE permitting them to recruit the sugarcane workers and are now detained at Police Station 3.

Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said Saturday that he is pushing for a fixed price on sugar under the proposed Philippine Sugar Act, in order to sustain and preserve the industry, which is facing a tough challenge in 2015.

Under the free trade scheme among ASEAN countries, there will be a zero tariff rate on imported sugar by 2015.

Benitez, who attended the two days job fair he sponsored in the cities of Victorias and Silay during the weekend, said he is now consulting and getting suggestions from various stakeholders in the sugar industry, by providing them copies of the proposed sugar act, before he files it before the House of Representatives.

President Benigno Aquino should take advantage of his high  trust reservoir among the people  and pull out all the stops in prosecuting former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Andres Hagad, honorary chairman of the Liberal Party in Bacolod, said yesterday.

“We lost a golden opportunity to strike fear into the   hearts of the corrupt  when Erap (former president Joseph Estrada) was pardoned after his conviction. We must not lose this one, too,” Hagad said.

Arroyo was arrested at her hospital bed at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City, Manila, on Friday on non-bailable charges of tampering with senatorial elections in 2007 to help a political ally. If convicted, she could face life in jail.