Negros getting P1.1B
in PhilHealth coverage
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. yesterday said the national government has committed to pay for the PhilHealth premiums of 491,000 indigent families in Negros Occidental this year.

Provincial government consultant Roy Balicas, who met with PhilHealth president Alexander Padilla at his office in Manila Thursday, as facilitated by Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Benitez (Neg. Occ., 3 rd District), said the coverage of 491,000 Negrense families at P2,400 each annually will cost the national government P1,178,400,000, that will be funded by sin taxes.

Last year, the PhilHealth had covered 130,000 Negrense families, so this is a big increase, Balicas said.

Security up for plebiscite today
BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO & SHIELA GELERA

Sixty policemen will be deployed in Brgy. Mansilingan in Bacolod City for today's plebiscite on whether to create a Barangay Paglaum in the city, Senior Supt. Edgardo Ordaniel, acting police director, said yesterday.

He said personnel from the central office of the Commission on Elections, who met with him Thursday, inquired about the security preparations for the plebiscite.

Policemen who will help transport election paraphernalia, and those who will secure the COMELEC personnel, voting centers and the Bacolod Government Center, where the canvassing will be held, are all set, Ordaniel said.

P10 pay hike still in effect
BY ADRIAN NEMES III

The P10 wage hike will take effect in the Western Visayas as the Office of Civil Defense and local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Councils have failed to submit the list of the areas badly hit by super typhoon Yolanda.

Regional Director Ponciano Ligutom of the Department of Labor and Employment said the members of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board have agreed that the wage order will be implemented.

Ligutom said they will only implement the six-month moratorium on the wage order when the OCD has submitted the list of areas affected by the storm to be covered by the moratorium.