PNoy promises roads
to boost sugar industry
DA SECRETARY LISTENS
TO INDUSTRY CONCERNS
BY CARLA GOMEZ

President Benigno Aquino III yesterday said the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Public Works and Highways plan to construct 1,000 kilometers of farm to market roads to aid the sugarcane industry in 2014.

Aquino announced this in a speech delivered for him by Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala at the opening of the 60th Philippine Sugar Technologists Association annual national convention at the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City yesterday.

“We remain aware that all our efforts to maximize this industry would go to waste if we lack the infrastructure needed,” the President said.

Smuggling linked to
fuel price discrepancy
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Stiff competition, higher consumption, the presence of an economic zone and smuggling were  the reasons given by representatives of oil firms yesterday  why the price of fuel in Cebu City has plummeted, and is about P8 per liter  cheaper than in Bacolod City.

The fuel firm representatives appeared before the Negros Occidental Sangguniang Panlalawigan led by Vice Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson at a hearing conducted by the SP Committee on Energy at the Capitol in Bacolod City, on complaints that gas prices in Negros Occidental are much higher than in Metro Manila and Cebu.

While some fuel smuggling was insinuated to also be happening in Bacolod City, the oil firm representatives said they could not assure that prices of fuel could be brought down in Negros Occidental.

Negros SP ok’s
P148M add’l budget
BY GILBERT BAYORAN

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Negros Occidental yesterday approved two supplemental budgets with a total amount of P148,103,481, as requested by Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr., without any comment or objections from its members.

Marañon said Tuesday that politics is no longer hampering development in the province, as he described the SP as “very cooperative”.

On motion of Board Member Salvador Escalante, chairperson of the SP committee on Finance, the SP approved the supplemental budgets number 2 of the province of Negros Occidental in the amount of P114,384,651.09, and that of the Economic Enterprise Development Department in the amount of P33,718,830.