No plunder committed
in sheep purchase: vet
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Negros Occidental Provincial Veterinarian Renante Decena yesterday said he and Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. did not commit plunder in the importation of 5,760 sheep from Australia as alleged by a Bacolod lawyer.

Proper canvass was conducted in the purchase of the sheep, they were not overpriced, and the payment of the more than P70 million for them was made by the Land Bank of the Philippines under very stringent Austalian government trade rules on freign trasactions, he said.

Lawyer Roger Reyes, in administrative and criminal complaints against Marañon and Decena filed before the Office of the Ombudsman for the Visayas, claimed that the Negros Occidental provincial government lost at least P50 million plus from the sheep importation, in violation of the Anti Plunder Law.

NHA offers to
build 5,000 houses
LAKAWON WORLD CLASS RESORT EYED
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Representatives of the National Housing Authority, sent through the Office of the President, went to the second district of Negros Occidental that was badly hit by super typhoon Yolanda, to offer to build 5,000 houses there, Acting Governor Salvador Escalante said yesterday.

Escalante, who is acting governor while Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. and Vice Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson are out of the country, said badly hit in the second district were Cadiz and Sagay cities and Manapla town.

A massive relocation project is being undertaken in Cadiz City, which includes the relocation of 200 families from Lakawon Island that was devastated by the typhoon, to the mainland barangay of Cadiz Viejo, he said.

Teenaged girl found dead
BY SHIELA GELERA

A 14-year-old girl, who attended mass on Christmas eve, was found dead at about 9 a.m. Wednesday, in a canal near a sugarcane plantation in Brgy. 8, Isabela town, Negros Occidental.

Senior Police Officer 3 Leonel Adolacion, Isabela Police deputy chief, yesterday identified the fatality as Girlie Panaguiton of Brgy. Mansalabay in the town.

Panaguiton, who sustained a stab wound on her head, was seen lying on the ground and lifeless by a bystander, Adolacion said.