Bilibid or not!

Bilibid or not, justice must apply to all. It seems that while DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima has worked up a sweat clamping down on abuses at the state penitentiary in Muntinlupa, and while critics of the 3 Senators in detention have made life difficult for their “caretakers” at the Crame Hilton, it seems that a certain female detainee who has been kept from the media limelight has also been enjoying the same perks that the drug lords in Bilibid were enjoying such as air conditioning, TV and catering.  The detainee also has a mini garden and an altar in the making.

The question is whether the detention center is subject to inspection by the DOJ or not because the facility is within a PNP Camp? I suppose “special treatment based on capacity to pay” is not a topic for “Believe it Or Not” but about “Bilibid Or Not.”

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 If Kermit the frog sings “It’s not easy being green,” senior citizen Bobby Formoso moans “It’s not easy being old” especially when property managers or maintenance people do not consider the risks and disadvantage that older people have in terms of moving around.

As Bobby tells his story, he was walking along the curb or pathway in front of Landmark in Makati several weeks ago and did not see that a brass fitting used as a clean-out port was slightly protruded above the concrete surface. He tripped over the brass cap, fell face first into the sidewalk, had a nasty cut above the eye, broke his precious eyeglasses and looked like he was beat up by a jealous girlfriend. In a country where we take pride in caring for the elderly it seems that Bobby still has to hear or get some decent response from developers of the Makati business district.

If all else fails, architect Formoso can ask his grandchildren and younger friends to post images of his bashed face and the guilty brass fitting on the Ayala center sidewalk on social media. Maybe that will get some people’s attention and action. Many developers take pride in being handicap friendly by providing ramps and access areas for the handicap but there are many places where they overlook uneven steps, deadly protrusions such as the brass cap, that elderly patrons don’t see or notice, resulting in accidents. Instead of dodging or ignoring the elderly, take it as a challenge to have friendly environments because one day, you will also be senior citizens! 

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Reacting to my agriculture related articles, “Claire,” a young lady who graduated with a degree in Animal Husbandry, lamented how there are fewer and fewer students enrolling in the course or in veterinary Medicines. She even pointed out that most children don’t know much about animals, agriculture or where and how their food is produced.

Instead of bringing students exclusively to Museums, TV Studios, and Campsites, the Department of Agriculture and Department of Education should work together for field trips to “real fields”, real farms, and Agri-training facilities. At the very least they would have exposure to living things and not static displays or electronically generated models. The problem with many schools is that the planning and selection of field trip destinations are done by city slickers who default to “near and easy” choices. If the DA and DepEd worked out a program of destinations the decision makers would at least have something to start with.

Because of several toll roads people now have access to many places that specialize on agricultural training and research and most of them are within 1 to 2 hours driving distance. Some of these are: UP Los Baños (University of the Philippines) where they have a dairy and veterinary learning institution, IRRI or International Rice Research Institute where research on Rice for the world takes place, ITCPH the only pig husbandry training facility and working farm in the country, Phil Coconut Authority research facilities, as well as over a dozen horse and cattle breeding farms around Batangas province. The exposure could open possibilities or encourage young minds to go from Farmville to Farm Life!

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After years of working hard and saving enough money, a retiree decided to “go for it” and invested nearly P2 million or almost all his savings on a piggery. He went about with the plans, hired local people from the barangay and just when he was stocking up with sows and piglets, the local officials show up and shut him down.

This week I learned of a similar but “gigantic version” in Pampanga where a businessman had established a farm many years back and had grown to the point of having 1,200 sows for breeding. If you cost out the sows at P30,000 each plus facilities, land development cost the minimum value would be P75 to P100 million on the ground not to mention the direct contribution to the economy in terms of taxes, wages, and farm products. When the farmland was purchased the title stated that the area was classified as “Agricultural Land.”

 But now the businessman is experiencing sleepless nights because adjacent properties were bought up by a property developer who builds residential homes and could corrupt local officials to reclassify or eject the farm through “zoning ordinance.” Logically, the farm was pre-existing and in an area declared as agricultural land. But unless Senator Cynthia Villar and Congressman Dong Mendoza pass a law to protect pre-existing farms and agricultural lands, many food and livestock producers will keep getting pushed out of their areas or out of the business. Villar and Mendoza should also investigate how and why agricultural lands are allowed to be turned into golf courses. They should also push for a registry of large and backyard farms that need to be protected from rezoning and corrupt commercialization by LGUs.

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