JV joins opposition to
VAT on raw sugar
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito-Estrada yesterday said he is opposing the Bureau of Internal Revenue's imposition of Value Added Tax on raw sugar, pointing out that it will further jeopardize the country's sugar industry.

Ejercito-Estrada, who was in Silay City last night to induct the Negros Occidental and Western Visayas officers of the Vice Mayors' League of the Philippines, said he will study the BIR's revised revenue regulation and take the matter up in the Senate.

He said the sugar industry needs all the help it can get to survive 2015 when tariffs on cheap imports drop to a nominal five percent, as part of the ASEAN Free Trade Area agreement..

‘We'll follow clamor
for pork abolition'
BY CARLA GOMEZ

“The abolition of the pork barrel fund is the clamor of the people, we have to follow it,” Senator Joseph Victor Ejercito-Estrada said yesterday.

Ejercito-Estrada, who was in Silay City for the induction of the officers of the Vice Mayors' League of the Philippines - Negros Occidental and Western Visayas chapters, however, refused to comment on allegations that his half-brother, Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, funneled his Priority Development Assistance Fund, or pork, to questionable non-government organizations.

“I think he can defend himself,” Ejercito-Estrada said.

Woman at city hall ‘ukay-ukay'
hit by policeman's stray bullet
BY SHIELA GELERA

A woman, who was sitting with her minor daughter at the “ukay-ukay” bazaar in front of the Bacolod City Hall, was injured when the bullet fired by a policeman ricocheted off the ground and hit her at about 4p.m. yesterday.

Senior Insp. Lester Leada, Station 1 chief, identified the victim as Jasmin Villacruel, 35, of Brgy. Tangub in Bacolod.

The bullet hit the right side of Villacruel's stomach and she was rushed to the Bacolod Adventist Medical Center, Leada said.