Voter registrants faint in
Bacolod stampede
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Eight registrants for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections fainted during a stampede at the BAYS Center in Bacolod City Sunday when others who were issued priority numbers and were queuing outside the gym destroyed the gates and fences to get in.

Bacolod Councilor Caesar Distrito disclosed this during a joint public hearing yesterday at the Bacolod Government Center.

Distrito said the police reported that there were applicants who had bought tickets for the concert at the BAYS Center Saturday, so they were already inside the gym when the others, who had been issued priority numbers, arrived the next day.

Sugar group wants
action on fuel prices
BY CARLA GOMEZ

National Federation of Sugarcane Planters president Enrique Rojas yesterday called on Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla to act on the fuel prices in Bacolod City that are much higher than in Manila and Cebu.

“The sugar industry needs all the help it can get so that it can be globally competitive in the post-2015 scenario. The lowering of fuel prices in Bacolod to within the level of Manila and Cebu will help protect the livelihood of the several millions who directly and indirectly depend on the sugar industry,” Rojas wrote Petilla.

It has been observed that fuel prices in Bacolod are higher by more than P8 per liter compared to Manila, and more than P10 per liter compared to Cebu, Rojas said.

Toboso, Moises Padilla top
pre-school undernutrition list
BY CARLA GOMEZ

The prevalence of undernutrition among pre-school children in Negros Occidental was 7.09 percent in 2012, with the highest number of cases recorded in Toboso and Moises Padilla towns, Nona Tad-y, Region VI Nutrition Program Coordinator of the National Nutrition Council, said yesterday.

Tad-y joined the Negros Occidental provincial government Provincial Nutrition Committee in celebrating Nutrition Month with the theme, “Gutom at malnutrisyon, sama-sama nating wakasan (Hunger, malnutrition united we will eliminate)”, at the Negros Occidental Multi-Purpose Activity Center, yesterday.

This year’s celebration is aimed at lowering the rate of hunger and malnutrition which is prevalent among children in the far flung areas of the province.